The creator economy continues to take shape, especially in Africa, thanks to social commerce adoption. In this tutorial, you will learn how to start affiliate marketing in Kenya with Slyzed.
Slyzed affiliate marketing is an excellent way to start earning money online. It does not matter whether you are looking for a side hustle or want to start an online shop with the hope to quit your job in the future, this is the time.
Let’s dive in!
I’m sure you’ve encountered an influencer or digital creator talking about a brand, service, or product. Often, they are compensated for:
- Increased visibility and brand awareness
- Increased sales
Affiliate marketing is a popular method to earn money in the creator economy. It is a win-win strategy for both the digital creator and companies. Unlike influencer marketing, affiliates get paid for conversion – in most cases, a sale.
This article will help you start a successful affiliate marketing business for a passive income. You can start affiliate marketing without upfront costs, but you’ll need to understand how it works.
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing is when you promote a product and get paid every time someone clicks on the affiliate link and purchases an item. It can be a physical or digital product.
Affiliate marketers get their commission in the form of a fixed rate or a percentage of the sale. It is a great side hustle; with time, you can turn it into your full-time job.
However, unlike influencer marketing, affiliates need to be accountable. Companies use unique links to track sales to the respective affiliates for payments. Therefore, sharing the link with your audience might be a great step, but it takes a bit more to turn affiliate marketing into a business.
Why you should do affiliate marketing in 2024
The recent economic recession and inflation have at least made you think about a side hustle you can engage in and generate passive income. There are various side hustles you can engage in to generate money online, one of which is through affiliate marketing.
Before we dive deep into how to start and succeed in affiliate marketing, here are a few benefits to consider:
Benefits of affiliate marketing
Are you still looking for a side hustle you can engage in while you have a full-time job? Well, affiliate marketing might be it for you. Here are some of the benefits of affiliate marketing;
Low-risk and low-capital investment
You can start affiliate marketing with no investment, especially if you have an audience. For instance, you could start by sharing your affiliate links with your social media audience.
At the same time, there is little to lose when starting your affiliate marketing business. All you need is to find an affiliate marketing program, and start marketing.
However, affiliate marketing might not take money from your pocket but it takes effort and hard work to make a sale. It takes time and constant learning to create a sustainable affiliate marketing business.
Targeted traffic = More sales/conversion
As an affiliate marketer, you will be driving traffic to your website or any other content distribution channel. Choosing and targeting a specific audience is a critical step when starting an affiliate marketing business. It is a topic we are going to look into later in this article.
Having targeted traffic also means increased conversion, which translates to more income. Keep reading and we will be talking about your audience in the next section.
Easily scalable
Affiliate marketing is a scalable venture in that you can sell products from multiple sellers or companies. Unlike a salesperson, you are not restricted to selling the products that you like.
However, because affiliate marketing depends on customer trust, you will need to be conversant with each product you sell. We shall go over this in the tutorial.
No expertise required
You do not need to specialize in something to become an affiliate marketer. However, this is a learn-as-you-go business as you will need to create a marketing plan.
However, there are plenty of free materials you can use to generate affiliate sales and scale your income.
How much money can you make with affiliate marketing?
There is no limit to how much you can earn with affiliate marketing. It all depends on the affiliate programs you choose and your efforts in selling products. Additionally, your distribution channels will highly determine how quickly you scale your affiliate business.
Professional affiliate marketers go a step further and create websites. They then use blog posts, videos, and other forms of content to promote their affiliate links.
In essence, your affiliate earnings depend on the products you choose to promote. For instance, promoting a fridge would have a higher margin compared to promoting a pair of headphones.
How to start affiliate marketing in Kenya
Affiliate marketing can be a lucrative venture if you put your efforts into it. One of the advantages of affiliate marketing is that you can do it from anywhere in the world. And, do you require money to invest in affiliate marketing?
The answer is no. However, to fully engage in affiliate marketing, I would encourage you to create a website. It will cost you less than Sh. 15,000 to get a domain name and hosting to start your first website. If you are conversant with WordPress, then it will be easier for you to design and publish your website.
Else, you might consider hiring someone to create a blog website for you. You can use blogs, YouTube, and Social media to increase your income channels.
Well, without further delay, let’s get right into it;
Complete Tutorial: How to start affiliate marketing in Kenya
In this section, I will provide a step-by-step guide on how to start affiliate marketing in Kenya. We will cover from how to choose a niche to how to generate your first affiliate sale. Let’s get started.
Step 1: Choose your niche
Choosing a niche is an important step when starting an affiliate marketing business. Your niche is what you are going to talk about.
Whether you are running a website, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram page, you need to decide on a niche to cover. This is your content topic.
In affiliate marketing, your earnings largely depend on your audience. You want to build a focused and engaged audience that you can monetize.
It is critical to understand your existing audience or identify your ideal client profile. Only then can you choose a niche you can monetize.
Affiliate marketing is a competitive business and thus I would advise you to narrow down your niche. For instance, if you want to promote and sell kitchen appliances, be specific. You could focus on selling fridges or washing machines, rather than focus on the entire topic.
Choosing a niche allows you to focus on one topic and become a credible source of information for your audience.
What makes a good affiliate niche?
According to Ahrefs, a good affiliate niche comes with four qualities:
- Low competition
- High-paying affiliate programs
- High traffic potential
- A topic you love and are knowledgeable about (I cannot emphasize enough)
This might be a vague response to the question. Simultaneously, it can be difficult to find a niche that offers all four qualities. So how do you find a niche to start affiliate marketing in Kenya?
I would like you to take a pen and paper and start writing down your top interests. What is that one topic you are confident and passionate about? This is because you will need to create a lot of content to make your affiliate sales successful.
High-paying affiliate programs
Additionally, you want to pick a niche with high commission rates. This goes a long way when monetizing your content as you will only need a few conversions to start making sustainable income.
Finally, high traffic potential and low competition go without saying. You need to create content around what your target audience is searching for.
BONUS TIP: Here are some of the most purchased products by category
You can use this information when researching your focus niche and products to start reselling on Slyzed.
Before we continue choosing your content distribution channel, it is also helpful to think about these four questions:
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- What topics are you curious to learn about? You could do so as you earn
- Do you have a specific training or specialization on the topic?
- Is it profitable? Check around different affiliate programs and do your research to learn about your selected niche and its profitability.
- Can you start promoting products without upfront capital? While you can start affiliate marketing with no money, some niches like travel or gadgets might require a lot of money before you start earning.
Have you already thought about your niche? Well, let’s now go ahead and talk about where to put out your content. Remember, choosing the right niche allows you to reach the right audience, which increases your chances of conversion.
Step 2: Select your content distribution channel
Your distribution channel largely depends on your selected niche and target audience. For instance, if you choose to promote washing machines, writing about it is fun, but it is much better if you have a YouTube or TikTok account to post video reviews.
There are several channels you can use for affiliate marketing:
- Website
- YouTube
- Social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp Business. e.t.c)
- Email newsletter
- Podcasts
This answers the question of whether you can start affiliate marketing without money. Social media channels, YouTube, and even email marketing are all free accounts. You can make your first affiliate sale and earn money through Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc. without spending any money.
Creating a WhatsApp Business account is an excellent way to get started with affiliate marketing in Kenya. This is because it is the most widely messaging, image-sharing, and social commerce app in Kenya.
However, affiliate marketing involves more than getting the link and sharing it with your audience. It needs you to learn the best platforms to promote your products. Additionally, you need to learn the best marketing tactics that work for you. Remember there is no one-fit for all in how you get your sales.
Must you have a website to start affiliate marketing in Kenya?
Building a website provides you with a foundation for your affiliate marketing business. However, as we have explained above, you can start affiliate marketing without a website.
A website allows you to create SEO content to rank higher on Google and drive more traffic to your affiliate links. This will not only enhance your earnings but also establish you as an expert in your specific niche.
A website lets you be versatile with content distribution but it is not essential, and it costs money I would advise you to start with one or two of your preferred free traffic sources.
Shopify clarifies the pros and cons of each free traffic source in their article here.
Again, I emphasize paying attention to your target audience and where they spend time the most. For instance, a buyer looking for a washing machine is most likely to spend time on YouTube reviewing washing machines or on washing machine review websites before making a purchase.
Step 3: Select affiliate programs to join
Thinking about how much money you can make through affiliate marketing is often thrilling, especially when going through different affiliate program offers.
Did I mention that you can make money through affiliate marketing by promoting both products and services?
Well, depending on your preference, the affiliate programs you choose should align with your niche and level of expertise. For instance, it would be difficult to sell a washing machine in a video where you speak about laptops.
So, what affiliate programs can you join in Kenya?
E-commerce marketplaces like Jumia and Kilimall provide an opportunity for you to earn through affiliate marketing in Kenya. Unfortunately, there is a lack of knowledge on how to start affiliate marketing in Kenya.
Slyzed is a social commerce platform that provides resellers (drop shippers) and affiliate marketers to earn passive income. Our innovative technology is built to accommodate all the features to track affiliate links and provide swift payments.
Slyzed goes ahead not only to provide an affiliate marketing platform but also provides you with complete training on how to generate your first affiliate sale as a beginner. For instance, this article aims to help you understand affiliate marketing and how to use the social commerce platform to generate sales.
It is easy to use as all you have to do is create an account, upgrade to an affiliate, get approved, and start selling.
However, there are endless opportunities to earn from affiliate marketing programs, depending on your enthusiasm and efforts.
To sign up on Slyzed, this guide should help you.
How to sign up on Slyzed
Step 4: Create helpful content & drive traffic to your site
Your success in affiliate marketing will largely depend on your content quality and quantity. Therefore, you need to come up with an actionable content plan. In this section, we will talk about how to create content that converts into sales.
Bonus tip: It helps to indicate on your distribution channel that you intend to monetize your content through affiliate marketing.
Now, here is the number one reason why most affiliates fail to make a sale:
Selling a product they are not familiar with.
For instance, if you want to promote this pair of headphones, it would be more effective for you to purchase and create a review based on your own product experience.
However, this does not mean you have to buy everything you promote. Other content types like comparison reviews, best-selling products, etc., can also help you make your first sale.
Alternatively, you can collaborate with experts in the niche to create content that promotes your chosen products.
Ideally, affiliate marketing becomes successful when it is intentional and you have a strategy to go by. It all starts with your niche and how engaged you keep your audience within your content.
Pro Tip: Affiliate marketing has a high conversion rate because you are promoting your affiliate link to a specific and engaged audience.
You can promote your affiliate links by placing them naturally within your content, especially when writing a blog post. However, there are limitations to promoting affiliate links on social media, especially TikTok and Instagram: it can only be active in the bio section.
In bio affiliate links for Instagram and TikTok
But, do not let this stop you. You can create your affiliate link hub through tools like LinkTree. We will explore this further when exploring the link placement section within this tutorial.
Well, now you have the content, and your content is linked perfectly, and ready to sell. But to do that, you need people to click on your affiliate links and purchase your products.
Here is an article that will guide you to start promoting affiliate links on Facebook.
Let’s look at how to get clicks on your affiliate links and generate sales.
Step 5: Get clicks and generate sales
You have created your content and it’s time for the sales to kick in. This is where most affiliate marketers give up. Your content could get plenty of views and high traffic and still miss affiliate sales.
Gear up as we talk about how to get more people to engage with your content and buy from you.
There are three major ways to get clicks on your affiliate links:
- Paid traffic
- Email Marketing
- SEO
- Social Media
Let’s talk about each one of these briefly.
Paid traffic
Paying for Ads is the quickest method to get clicks on your affiliate links. You can do this through PPC Ads or even Facebook Ads.
Paying for traffic is advantageous because you get results almost instantly. However, this also means that your traffic also stops once you stop paying. This can be an expensive idea because the ads will be taking all the profits from your pocket. You do not want to lose money before you make it, do you?
I would advise you to refrain from running ads unless you are selling a high-ticket product to avoid unnecessary loss.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a haven for affiliate marketers. Think about this: your social media pages or YouTube accounts could be taken down, disrupting your traffic, and ultimately earnings.
However, creating your email list allows you to own your audience, and these are people who are truly interested in your content.
You can add your affiliate links to your content. However, creating an email list will require a lead-generation strategy. It can be offering a valuable piece of content, for instance, a video, e-book, or course in exchange for their contact information.
At the same time, having an email newsletter, where your audience can always get updated content regularly is a brilliant idea.
SEO
SEO is the heartbeat of search results right now. Creating content can be productive but people need to find it first. And this is where SEO comes in.
SEO is more than just getting a few keywords and creating content around them. It is more about understanding what your target audience is looking for. SEO begins with understanding the problems your target audience is experiencing concerning your niche.
It also involves going ahead to create helpful and actionable content around topics addressing these problems. Additionally, when thinking about SEO, think about a long-term strategy. Creating content around your niche topics allows Google, and other search engines, to identify what your page is about.
Bonus Tip: creating content around a specific topic will grow your domain authority. It means that more people will trust you and your expertise, and thus they will buy from you.
SEO is a topic we will be talking a lot about in this blog, especially on how we approach affiliate marketing in Kenya.
Essentially, when you provide people with the answers they are looking for, they will feel more inclined to click on your affiliate links, and even purchase your products.
It helps to drive engagement by responding and chatting with your target audience in all your channels.
Lastly, in your endeavors to get a click on your affiliate sales, use the following tips to increase your chances of getting a click:
- Use tables, buttons, and even boxes to attract your customers to click on your affiliate links.
- Ensure that your link is in the right context. For instance:
Don’t link like this: “Today I am going to talk about Freezers” when promoting the refrigerator. Instead, use this link: I loved the 315L LG Top Mount Freezer because it comes with both linear and door cooling.”
Place your affiliate links strategically throughout your content, especially if you use a website as your promotional channel. For instance, instead of placing it in the introduction, or the end, consider the above factors and place your affiliate links accordingly.
So, you are getting a few clicks. Good job. However, for an affiliate sale to happen, your users will need to interact with your channel twice. The affiliate link takes them to the sales page. They still need another conversion (purchase), for you to get your margin.
In the next section, we will look at how to turn these clicks into your first affiliate sale.
Generating your first affiliate sale
If you have followed all the steps above, then you are all set to make your first affiliate sale. However, I will emphasize the following:
- Understand your target audience and the problems they want to solve. Offer helpful content consistently to build trust with your audience.
- Only select high-ticket products with a market demand. Making your first affiliate sale requires you to conduct market research on the most profitable products and affiliate programs to join. Check the potential margins or commissions before committing to an affiliate program.
- Create a marketing strategy for your affiliate marketing business and monitor your performance while keeping up with the industry trends.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to share your affiliate links. It allows you to reach out to your audience and personal networks broadly.
According to the GSMA’s E-commerce in Africa: Unleashing the Opportunity for MSMEs report, micro and small businesses use social media to drive their sales.
You can build an audience on your preferred social media platform is a great way to start affiliate marketing in Kenya. I advise you to start with the platform that you already have an audience on.
For instance, if you have more followers on Facebook or Instagram, this could be your base foundation. However, I strongly advise you to take advantage of the WhatsApp Business features like catalog, WhatsApp ads, communities, updates, and channels. These will help you create an engaged network that will finally become your recurring customers.
Step 6: Finally! Get paid
As an affiliate, you get paid on a performance basis. This means that the more you sell, the more cash you get. Some affiliate programs may offer a percentage of the sale as a commission or offer a fixed value. It depends on the products you promote and also the seller’s offer.
It is critical to choose an affiliate marketing platform that offers seamless payment systems and integrates with local payment platforms.
Slyzed, a social commerce and affiliate marketing platform, ensures a smooth sail with seamless payments for our affiliates. Your hustle deserves instant rewards – make sure your affiliate journey is both lucrative and hassle-free!
Become a Slyzed Reseller today! See our terms and conditions here
Happy selling!