Why Is Affiliate Marketing Booming in the 21st Century?

Affiliate marketing is considered one of the simplest business models.

But it is not easy to make money with affiliate marketing as it used to be back in 2017 or 2018.
Nevertheless, it requires almost no budget and one can start making consistent income online within a year.

That’s why affiliate marketing is still a great business model for beginners.

When it comes to earning potential, it depends on the niche. However, it is safe to state that affiliate marketing is booming in the 21st Century.

Why is it so?

There are several aspects and we are going to break down the most significant ones.
You might not agree with every point and therefore, please leave a comment at the very bottom of the post.

Here is what I am going to cover:

• What is Affiliate Marketing?
• Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
• Low Barrier to Entry
• Desktop and Internet Connection
• Location Free
• Scalable Business Model
• More Than One Source of Income
• Uncertain Times ?(2020 2021)

So, Why Is Affiliate Marketing Booming in the 21st Century?

Well, obviously the number one reason is the number of people that are connected to the internet.
You realize that these days, the majority of people have a cell phone with a connection to the internet.

The affiliate marketing industry is vast.
According to Statista, there is 5 billion internet user as of April 2022 (and 4.65 billion Social media users).

And the number won’t drop in the next few years.
In fact, it might even rise.

Clearly, this is the largest market in the world and even if a small portion is interested in your niche, the potential to become financially independent is huge.

On the other hand, not all these people are potential customers of any affiliate marketing program. But quite a big percentage, don’t you agree?

Now let’s focus on affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

I am sure you are familiar with the term affiliate marketing.

It is a model where you sell other’s people products and you earn a commission when they make a purchase.
In other words (and it is my preferred explanation), an affiliate marketer connects potential customers and merchants.

A transparent and honest affiliate marketer is a person that provides genuine, and valuable information and wants to educate his or her reader i.e. the potential customer.

It is in every affiliate marketer’s interest to reveal all the information about the specific products or services. That includes pros and cons.

Be Honest

There is nothing wrong with disclosing the cons of the affiliate product.

In many cases, the cons don’t matter.
I don’t know about you, but for example, when I read reviews about hotels or accommodation and people complain about not having enough channels on TV, I don’t care.

Or in case I want to buy a new headset, I read the cons, but in many cases, they don’t prevent me from buying that thing. Actually, I am glad to learn more about the product and can pass the information on.

The bottom line is that the consumer of your content should be satisfied and should have a good experience. Ideally, he or she will come back to your website for further advice, and/or recommend your website to his/her friends.

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

I have been working as an SEO analyst in a company that sells software.

It is great to have your own product, but it takes a lot of effort and resources to run such a company.
As an owner you would need to have:

• software developers
• accountants
• marketing department
• technical support
• customer support
• office
• and a lot of other stuff

And as an affiliate marketer, you build a website, create content and try to rank well in search engines.
After picking the niche that suits you the best, join an affiliate program or affiliate network.
One of the most famous affiliate networks is the Amazon Associate Program

To mention a few more:

• Rakuten Marketing
• ClickBank
• eBay Partner Network (EPN)
• JVZoo

I have tried (directly or indirectly) several business models and running an affiliate website is by far the simplest one. Let me be clear thought I am not saying that it is easy, but compared to any other models, it is a very simple marketing strategy:

• Write content, for the target audience
• Attract visitors to find and consume your content
• When a purchase is made, you get an affiliate commission

No, storage room, and no customer service – for everything is a responsible merchant.

You don’t even deal with suppliers.
Just make sure to find the proper niche, that you have a genuine interest in and you are basically all set.

It is a great source of passive income.

Low Barrier to Entry

As mentioned above, you don’t need to deal with products, and suppliers; you don’t need to take care of the customers either.

And best of all – you don’t need thousands of dollars to start this business model.

Just compare it with a different business model, like a restaurant or a pub

What might require an initial couple of hundred is an investment in education.
Because proper training might speed things up.

With step-by-step training on how to properly optimize your website, you can get visitors to your website within 5 to 8 weeks.
With Youtube, it is quite similar.
(Concerning Youtube, don’t expect thousands of views until you have about 35 videos uploaded).

A Proper Training?

This might be tricky and it took me a few years until I found what I was looking for.

And I have tried a lot of courses, and websites, even spent money … but in the beginning, I was only struggling.
I remember the frustration of going through the websites, and sales pages that were scammy or misleading… did not lead me anywhere.

Fortunately, I am very skeptical so I was able to spot the scam quite fast. That’s why I did not waste a lot of money.

So, do your proper research and when searching for an educational platform keep in mind the following:

• It must have either a free trial
• or money-back guarantee

2nd of all, do not and I repeat do not trust claims like:

• with this push-button system, you start to generate hundreds of dollars per day

There is no such a thing as loophole or shortcut.

Sure there are some platforms/websites (Called GPT sites) that can make easy money. But it is a few bucks per day. So it is not sustainable .. and worst of all, it is not scalable.

Desktop and Internet Connection

To run a business whether online or offline one must have an office, printer, telephone, car, and other equipment, and I am talking only about small things.

With affiliate marketing?

You don’t need anything fancy to run an affiliate marketing business.

Just have a laptop (or desktop) internet connection (reliable if possible) and you are ready to go.

If you are more into videos, buy a cheap camera with a mic and maybe cheap software for recording and editing.
Heck, you can start even with your mobile phone.

Or short videos i.e. Youtube shorts?
As of this publishing, Youtube pushes Youtube shorts videos more than any other videos. So make sure to record a short up to 1-minute video about anything that is interesting in your niche.

Post it and that’s it.

Do this each day for about 6 weeks and you should have 50 videos I am sure a lot of them will exceed 1,000 views. That is actually great traffic and you can even make some commission.

How?

Become an Amazon Associate, grab something related to your niche (videos) and write some description with the affiliate link in it.

But again you don’t need to record any videos.

Create a simple blog – these days it is extremely easy.
And if you know how to write an email and how to attach an image, you can easily learn how to create articles like this.

There are a few tricks and methods of how to properly optimize the article, but with the right instructions, you can have a sustainable income within a year.

Well, I admit, in reality, it requires effort and time, but once you know what to do it is actually pretty easy.

Location Free

By now you already realized that you can work from any place in the world. You are not obliged to stay in one place or office.

And these days it is very lucrative to work from any place you want. It has a sense of freedom and a lot of people working 9-5 search for location freedom and time freedom.

Also, you can work whenever you feel productive.
Whether in the night or early morning .. feel like having a power nap?

Go for it. You are your own boss.

Scalable Business Model

In the beginning, you work alone.
And maybe you might even feel tired or exhausted.

You know what?

Every person that succeeds at anything had to work hard – even to the point that felt exhausted.

Let me put it this way;
Do you remember playing video games, or computer games?

Well, I know I used to play Tycon Transport and did not think of food, water, or anything.

One day I stopped the game at 4 am and after a few hours of sleep, later I couldn’t wait to continue with the game.

Sure, that was a bit extreme, but sometimes working on your website needs extra hours.
But not forever.

Once you reach a certain income you can hire a guy and let him do the writing. Or whatever work you don’t like doing, outsource it.

When it comes to a freelance copywriter, don’t hire him until you know what you want.

Outsource

Make sure to come up with at least 50 posts that are well-written.
And at least 5 of them rank on the 1st page of Google.

That way you know how to properly optimize the article, so you know what to expect from the content writer.

I said scalable which means once you have a person writing for you, you can either focus on a new business model or just keep on working on your existing website and you get twice as much content as before.

The higher revenue from affiliate marketing you make the more copywriters you can hire.

More Than One Source of Income

Affiliate marketing is just one source of income.
Once you know how to drive traffic, there are a few things you can do with the traffic.

I mean, once you get some traffic and you make a commission you can use that traffic for an additional source of income.

What I have in mind and would like to share with you is the annoying ads, that you see on websites or Youtube videos.

But did you know that at a certain point, you can make even more from showing ads than from affiliate marketing?

Now always and it depends on many factors.

The bottom line is that in the long run, it is very likely to make 4 digits just from the ads.
On top of that, with the income from affiliate marketing, you are on the way to more than middle-class employees in the western world.

Uncertain Times ?(2020, 2021)

The uncertain period that we lived through at the beginning of the 2020s, taught many people to shop online.

Well, you know that saving:

“Nothing is bad without being good for something“

And that is exactly what happened in 2020 and 2021.
It helped a lot of affiliate marketers, and actually still helps. Since people do like their comfort.

And once they learned how to make purchases online, many of them keep on doing that – in most cases at least.

Looking to become an affiliate marketer?
There you go, you have a great opportunity to tap into the largest marketplace in the world – the internet.

Conclusion

Have you started any business yet?

Do you find affiliate marketing a great way to become financially independent?

By now you understand that affiliate marketing is a great business model, available for anyone. There are many free courses, Youtube videos, and websites about how to start.

However, it is not easy as it was in 2017, but with proper education, it is still possible to start making full-time income within a year or two. The future of affiliate marketing looks bright, so take advantage now, and invest in education.

There are also a lot of courses, and platforms that teach how to start an online business. I am sure you have seen some of them.

In case you have questions, let me know in the comment section below.

I truly believe that this is the best business model.
I have tried many of them.

You might say, well the best would be to sell your own product.
Yes and No,
It requires a lot of effort, time, and knowledge, and the low barrier is not so low as with affiliate marketing when it comes to the budget/funds.

But feel free to share your opinion in the comment section below
I will be happy to provide you with feedback, within 24 hours

Thank You For Reading;
Mike