Affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular ways to make money online in recent times. Experienced marketers, content creators, and entrepreneurs can vouch for its profitability, but what if you have next to no knowledge about affiliate marketing? Can you spread your affiliate links to forums, whatsapp groups, subreddits, and other online communities expecting to make a profit? No. 

It may be a hard pill to swallow, but swinging blindly into the field will most likely not give you your desired results. You can manage, through sheer luck, to sell a few products, but people are more likely to ignore your efforts unless they show some level of knowledge and expertise. 

So if you’re a Nigerian looking to get into affiliate marketing, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to start affiliate marketing in Nigeria. We will cover the foundational knowledge, strategies, and little nuances here and there that will ultimately prove beneficial to you, as affiliate marketing for Nigerians can be different in some ways from other countries. So, without further ado, here is how to start affiliate marketing in Nigeria!

Things to consider before starting

As with other ventures, you should know certain things about the field or industry you’re interested in before fully jumping into it. The importance of conducting due diligence cannot be overstated, as it will save you from potential stress. We’ll chiefly discuss three things to consider in this article, but you can look up more yourself and read up on them: 

1. The Affiliate Marketing System
2. Supported Payment Methods
3. Location 

1. The affiliate marketing system

You’ll need to have a good grasp on the affiliate marketing system to start as a beginner. While this may sound daunting, it’s relatively easy to understand compared to some of the other income-generating opportunities found online. For one, only three parties comprise the whole system: the merchant, the affiliate marketer, and the buyer.

The merchant is the individual or brand with ownership over the product. They could be a creator, vendor, retailer, or marketing platform. As an affiliate, you can strike a deal with them, where you promote their services in exchange for a commission. 

The affiliate marketer is the person who promotes another’s product in exchange for a commission. Think of them as the link between the merchant and the buyer. They use their preferred method to drive traffic to the affiliate links they receive from merchants. When a customer purchases a product through this link, they earn a commission from it. 

For example, a YouTuber may run a sponsored ad segment for an affordable Airpod brand. Midway through their video, he or she may show the link and put it in the description for potentially interested subscribers to buy the Airpods. This is an affiliate link, and if there was a 15% commission per sale, and the AirPods cost N20,000, then the YouTuber would earn N3000 from every sale resulting from the video. 

2. Supported payment methods

Most marketing platforms have a supported payment method through which affiliates can receive their earnings. This could be a direct transfer, through PayPal, Swipe, the blockchain, or some other other payment processing app. 

As an affiliate marketer, it is your job to meticulously research your platform of choice to find these things out. This is because a currency or payment method may not be available in your country, so you won’t have to deal with the hassle of requesting payments or withdrawing funds online. 

With Selar, there’s no hassle. Selar is an affiliate marketing platform with an inbuilt wallet feature that affiliates on Selar can use to collect and recover their earnings. With Selar, you don’t have to worry about your currency not being supported by the platform, as Selar currently supports 18 currencies and you can earn from them all as an affiliate. 

3. Location

Location plays a huge role in choosing the affiliate marketing platform you’ll use to find products to promote. For one, your location may dictate the available products you could drive traffic to. International platforms like Selar freely allow anyone from anywhere in the world to market, sell, and earn commissions from their sales, while region-locked platforms won’t allow anyone outside their accepted regions to work with them as affiliates. As an affiliate, finding this out beforehand will prevent you from wasting your time. 

Earlier, we briefly touched upon how affiliate marketing for Nigerians can be different. Few payment methods and platforms support Nigeria and other African nations, which is why the Selar affiliate network truly stands out. It’s one of the few platforms that support Africans at large and gives affiliates the chance to start earning from their commissions. All you have to do is pay N3000 per year. With that, you gain access to Selar’s affiliate marketplace for free! 

Read: Selar Affiliate Network: Everything You Need to Know

The process of affiliate marketing

With the things to consider out of the way, you’re finally ready to embark on your affiliate marketing journey! It may be long and difficult, but you’ll be able to reach your destination by surrendering yourself to the affiliate marketing process and following these steps:

1. Choose a niche
2. Select a product
3. Build an audience
4. Convert traffic to sales

1. Choose a niche

Choosing a niche plays a critical role in the affiliate marketing process, one that can make or break the career of an affiliate marketer if they are not careful. Of course, how lucrative a certain niche can be is an important factor to consider, but one must also consider how they feel about the niche in question. This is because, if you’re looking to do affiliate marketing long term, a love for the products you promote will be the lifeblood of your staying power. You’d have a better ability to persist through difficult circumstances, which translates to a greater likelihood of success in the field.

If you don’t know how to choose a niche, look through popular affiliate marketing categories for ideas. Once you’ve found a niche you’re passionate about, pick and run with it. In the long run, it will be better than promoting something that doesn’t resonate with you. 

Next, you want to start learning as much as possible about your niche. This will be the key to your success as an affiliate marketer because the more you know about the products you are trying to sell, the higher your marketing effectiveness. You’d be able to give good answers to questions people may have about the product, which will make you more persuasive than someone with little to no knowledge about his niche. 

For instance, if copywriting catches your eye, you could choose that as your niche and start learning everything about it. With more than enough knowledge about how to write great copy, you’d be able to find the right products to sell!

2. Select a product

Choosing the right product is crucial to your success in affiliate marketing, especially in a diverse market like Nigeria. Start by identifying products that resonate with your target audience and align with your interests or expertise. Consider trending products in Nigeria, such as mobile gadgets, fashion items, or online courses. These usually have very high demand. 

Ensure the product you select is of high quality and comes from a reputable brand or merchant, as this will help you build trust with your audience. Research the product’s market potential by looking at competition, customer reviews, and the commission structure offered by the affiliate program. A well-chosen product will not only attract more customers but also increase your chances of earning higher commissions!

3. Build an audience

For people to buy products through your link, they must first care about the product, and this is where audience building comes in. There are two ways you can go about doing this, both of which lead to the same result: more eyes on your links. Of course, you can try your hand at the two, but we’d recommend focusing on one, as you could overextend yourself and risk mastering none with divided attention. 

Capitalizing on search traffic is one way to build an audience. Your goal here is to get your content to rank on search results, as many people will get to see your links that way. There are many ways to do this. You could write a blog, upload videos on YouTube, or answer questions on Reddit or Quora. You want to do all these things with the intent of providing value to people and ranking online.

For instance, you could write a blog on the best headphones available in a specific location and place an affiliate link at the bottom of it. If written with SEO in mind, anyone from that region looking for headphones to buy would find your article at the top of search results. With millions of people potentially looking for the same thing comes the chance to earn a respectable income from commissions. Don’t miss out on this!

Alternatively, you could look into the second way to build an audience: social media. This method primarily revolves around content creation, particularly content about your niche. However, the quantity and quality of your content will depend upon the depth of your expertise. You may have to learn the algorithm, put in the work, learn from trial and error and determine what works best from your experiences, but as you put out more and more content, people will come to recognize and follow you, and you’ll start to build an audience for yourself. 

Read: The Difference Between Content Creation and Content Marketing

4. Convert traffic to sales

Finally, you want to look at how you can convert all the organic or paid traffic to clicks and sales. This is the final step of the affiliate marketing process and one with many methods and nuances. 

One of the most popular of such methods is a landing page, which is a website with a call to action to buy your product. The link to your landing page could be placed in video descriptions, social media bios, or at the bottom of your blog. Wherever you put them, ensure that they are visible, and that you’re good.

On the landing page, you may also want to include a free lead magnet, which is a product or resource you give free of charge like an eBook or course. This is usually done in exchange for their emails, which allows you to promote deals to them later on!

Final thoughts

Ultimately, with the growing popularity of affiliate marketing, and more people seeking to venture into it, you must arm yourself with the right knowledge if you want to succeed in the field. 

Beyond these steps, the meat of affiliate marketing is in the hustle. Don’t ever stop pushing yourself forward. There’s still so much more out there and to explore and master, so keep learning. Improve your copywriting skills, your marketing skills, and implement these in your affiliate marketing efforts. Trust us when we say that the results will speak for themselves.