What is an affiliate marketing funnel and how does it work

affiliate marketing sales funnel

Affiliate Marketing Funnels allow you build a massive list fast, and make sales over and over.


It's very easy to put an affiliate marketing funnel together, and also very easy to set it up wrong, so that it doesn't work, and you waste time and money instead of making it.


Read on to find out how to get it all right, and start making money right away.


Buyers Journey

Following principles of buyer journeys, the affiliate marketing sales funnel must resemble this:

  1. The 'first' phase is to drive visitors to a site by creating a website with SEO in mind and promoting paid advertisements to free offers.
  2. The second stage is to convert traffic to free offers. You need to get your customers into your email list where they will be informed about your journey and can continue to buy.
  3. It is the third stage that lets you warm up the audience to increase the conversion rates before submitting your offer.

What is affiliate marketing?

what is affiliate marketing

Affiliate advertising is a form of marketing that means that companies pay someone like you to promote their product. You recommend it as if it is yours, but really it's someone else's product.

These third parties are called affiliates and get commissions from promoting their brands, so you need an affiliate link if want rewarded with money!

How much do they get paid? It depends on how many sales or leads they generate, and the percentage commission on offer.

For example, in the internet marketing niche, looking at business opportunities, it is common to get a 50% commission.

That means if you have a product that costs $12, you will receive $6.

Six bucks doesn't seem like a lot of money. How are you going to become a millionaire doing this?

If you get 100 visitors to your affiliate marketing funnel, and it converts at 3%.

This means that 3 of those visitors will purchase. If those 3 visitors only purchase the front end or initial product, the revenue would be 3*$6 = $18.


Affiliate Funnel Sales

If you got this traffic for free from organic search results of a social media post, it probably took you a long time to start generating traffic. It will probably take you a long time to scale and pull traffic to increase sales.

But that's $18 profit.

Free traffic is great because it's all profit, but it takes a lot longer.

This is why I recommend you push traffic to your landing page in your affiliate funnel through paid ads.

Now with this example to start making money, one of a few things need to happen:

  • You need to pull more traffic into your affiliate sales funnel
  • You need to make a more effective sales funnel:
  • improve your squeeze page (or opt-in page)
  • make your email subscribers click more
  • provide more valuable training
  • more successfully target your audience's interest (perhaps with social proof, or create awareness of the problem and solution) You need to be promoting products to the right target market
  • Improve brand recognition (make yourself an influencer for making money online through an online business)
  • You need repeat customers (you don't have to drive traffic for these customers, customer satisfaction means that they want what you recommend)
  • A good affiliate offer (if its not very good quality, and isn't well written, it won't sell no matter how good anything else is)

Do you need an affiliate marketing sales funnel?

To earn money with affiliate links you have to build traffic through sales funnels. Why are people not using sales funnels?

The answer to this question is that it seems like a very complex thing to put together. But with the right funnel software, it isn't that difficult.

Funnel Software Types


Funnel Software Types

There are three sorts of approaches to funnel software:

  • Free plugins - work as website content builder, but you spend a lot more time manually doing things for every funnel you make (I tried to make one of these work, and it very quickly became too hard)
  • Paid plugins - specifically focused on funnels, and work well and creating new funnels is quick but you have to have a domain name, and hosting set up the first time you use it (I use OptimizePress)
  • Cloud-based solutions - specifically focused on funnel building - same ability to set up funnels quickly, but avoid the need for hosting as it is included (I have Groove and ClickFunnels - Over $8,000 of free funnel build stuff availabe at time of writing to try this for free)

Funnel Software Price points

Funnel Software Price Points


These different options range from $0 and a lot more work, up to hundreds of dollars per month.

If you have the money for the cloud-based solutions, you spend less time updating things and configuring, but you pay for it.

If you go the free option, you have to do a lot more to connect your auto-responder to the funnel, track your visitors, to add in other functionality like split testing or more advanced things that you might need.

You get quicker at it, but I found that I didn't last very long until I stopped trying to make free work, and moved to the other two options (both of which don't require much effort)

The cloud-based solution has one benefit that you won't get with hosting unless you have very expensive hosting, and that is that it can cope better with big traffic spikes.

By this I mean, that when you send 1000s of visitors from a traffic source in the space of a few minutes to a few hours.

Traditional shared hosting may go slow, or crash, whereas the cloud solution should be able to deal with it (within reason).

I know plenty of marketers who have the paid plugin and hosting option and make in some cases millions. So you don't need cloud-based funnel software.

The best affiliate marketers may have custom servers that act in the same way as the cloud and can handle a large number of visitors at one time (in that case you pay less for almost the same software features).

Tips for building a successful affiliate sales funnel

Tips for building a successful affiliate sales funnel

A sales funnel is an essential tool for any business, and affiliate marketing is no different.

An affiliate marketing funnel can help you to increase your conversion rate and maximize your revenues.

By understanding the different stages of the affiliate marketing funnel, you can create an effective strategy that will help you to earn more commissions.

The first stage of the affiliate marketing funnel is the awareness stage.

This is where you drive traffic to your website or blog.

The second stage is the consideration stage.

This is where you provide potential customers with information about your products or services.

The third stage is the decision stage. This is where customers make a purchase or sign up for your affiliate program.

By understanding the different stages of the affiliate marketing funnel, you can create an effective strategy that will help you to earn more commissions.

An affiliate sales funnel is a process that you can use to gradually introduce people to your products and services.

It typically involves a series of emails or web pages that introduce people to the offer, provides information about it, and then encourage them to take action.


How To Create A Sales Funnel

How To Create a Sales Funnel

One way to create an affiliate sales funnel is to use Optimizepress.

This software makes it easy to create web pages and landing pages that look professional and can be used to effectively market your products and services.

When creating an affiliate marketing sales funnel with Optimizepress, you'll first need to create a page that will serve as the "landing page" for your funnel.

This is the page that people will visit when they click on a link or advertisement for your offer.

The landing page should be designed to encourage people to take action.

It should be short and to the point, and it should have a strong call to action.

Once you've created the landing page, you'll need to create a series of emails or web pages that will provide more information about the offer (email marketing).

Finally, you'll need to create a thank you page.

This page should thank the reader for taking the time to learn more about your offer, and it should include a call to action for them to take the next step.

Or you can automatically redirect them to the offer as another alternative.


Building an affiliate marketing sales funnel with Optimizepress is a great way to increase sales and conversions.

By following the steps above, you can create a funnel that will effectively introduce people to your products and services and encourage them to take action.

OptimizePress has a large amount of training on how to make an affiliate sales funnel

How to get free traffic from YouTube

How To Get Free Traffic From YouTube

You could create a YouTube channel where you post videos that are related to a particular niche, such as email marketing, for example.

If that were the case, then the affiliate products that you would offer would also be related to email marketing or things related to email marketing (such as funnels, traffic, and copywriting).

The YouTube channel means that you are creating a highly congruent traffic source for a particular niche.

That means that those visitors that go from your channel to your funnel are going to be interested in the same topic as your channel.

In the channel you need to give away plenty of good value for free, so you maybe talk about what you do, but not specifically how, then you can drop an affiliate link for training on how.

Or you might give away what to do, and how, but then drop a link for you to coach them on how to become successful.

Or a link to a done-for-you solution, if the visitor would rather pay for a solution than do it themselves.

How to use search engine optimization to create free traffic

How to use search engine optimization to create free traffic

SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website.

By optimizing your website for the search engines, you can ensure that your site will appear near the top of the search results when people search for related terms.

This can result in a significant increase in traffic to your site, as well as increased sales and conversions.

There are several things you can do to optimize your website for search. Here are some tips:


1. Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions.

When people search for terms related to your website, the search engine results are based on websites with titles and descriptions that match those terms.

By including relevant keywords in your titles and descriptions, you can increase the chances that your website will be found by search.


2. Use keyword-rich anchor text.

When you link to other websites or pages on your website, the anchor text (the text that appears underlined) should contain relevant keywords.

This tells search what the page you're linking to is about, and can help to improve your website's search ranking.


3. Use keyword-rich content.

The content on your website should be informative and relevant to the keywords you're targeting.

By including helpful, keyword-rich content on your website, you can increase the chances that your site will be found by search.

Don't overdo it. Include other phrases that explain the concept, and try to answer the sorts of questions that someone might have related to your page or post.


4. Promote your website. One of the best ways to improve your website's search ranking is to promote it through social media, online directories, and other websites.

The more people that know about your site, the more likely it is that search will find it.

By following these tips, you can use SEO to drive traffic to your website and improve your sales and conversions.

How to write blog posts to drive traffic to your funnels

How to write blog posts to drive traffic to your funnels

Then within articles and posts that you write, you can describe common problems that people might have, and general solutions that are needed to solve the problem.

Drop a link at the bottom of the post to explain that this is a solution that works, click to find out how it can overcome your current problems with x, y, and z.

The blog reader can then click the link, to go into your funnel, hopefully, opt-in, see your affiliate bridge page (where you pre-sell the affiliate funnel), and finally the affiliate sales page.

If the sales page has good copy and is good at convincing people, you could then make a sale.

Part of your affiliate marketing campaign is to find out where your target audience hangs out.

What is it they are interested in, then provide a blog post that addresses that interest.

Ultimately, the more you help the reader, the better the website will do.

SEO is used to indicate to the search engines what the post is about so that they can give you authority, and rank you for your work.

You won't be able to cheat the system, the AI is far too advanced.

If you're interested in how you can do this easily and quickly, take a look here for a way that AI can be used to generate content.

How to use paid traffic to quickly make sales in your affiliate marketing funnel

How to use paid traffic to quickly make sales in your affiliate marketing funnel

A large amount of the most successful affiliate marketers will do their affiliate marketing with traffic that you pay for.

The simple reason is that, once you know for every $1 you spend to generate traffic, you can get more than a dollar in revenue, that's when you know you have a business.

But to go from 1000 visitors per day organically to 5000 isn't something that generally happens quickly or without a lot of effort. That's why paid traffic is used.

Using solo ads to drive traffic to your funnel

Using solo ads to drive traffic to your funnel

A common and easy-to-use traffic source is solo ads. I was a solo ad vendor for a time.

What you do here is find good solo ad vendors, and purchase some clicks, which amounts to the same number of visitors.

You can get solo ad clicks for prices as low as 30 cents, up to way over a dollar per click.

You'd expect that vendors that can charge over a dollar are doing so because they get results - sales - for the buyer - you.

It might be that you're lucky and find a new vendor that hasn't developed a reputation yet but gets good results.

best solo ad vendor

Generally speaking, I would recommend that you pay for the most expensive vendor that you can afford that has the best results, over a large amount of time.

Developing the best affiliate marketing funnel requires the funnel to be optimized, but it also requires interested, engaged, clicking, and buying visitors to your funnel.

If they don't click and don't buy, they will never become your customers. So make sure that you don't always go for the cheapest you can.

You should get the best deal out of the most successful solo ad vendors, rather than the worst traffic at the cheapest price.

If you want such a vendor that has incredibly good traffic, that has gone through a stringent process before you get the opportunity to buy their traffic, click here.

His traffic works across many different sales funnels, and the quality of his traffic increases conversion rates, which is money in your pocket.

If you want access to a more general platform, which does still have some good vendors, then go here (at the time of writing you will get $5 to spend).

This is a good place to find varied traffic, although if you can afford it, I would go with the vendor above, first.

The reason is that you'd expect better results from him, so you're not wondering if it was poor quality traffic that meant a lower amount of product sales. It removes one thing to worry about.

When do most affiliate marketers move on to their next affiliate marketing campaign?

When do most affiliate marketers move on to their next affiliate marketing campaign?

Regardless of how you pull traffic, you will be tracking your visitors from your traffic source (traffic that you pay for, or blog post for example) through your opt-in page, your bridge page (where you pre-sell the visitor on the affiliate product), to the sales funnel.

You need to look at the metrics for your potential customers, and to make it one of those successful sales funnels, optimize it.

This is where you succeed or fail in this online business. There isn't a magic traffic source for affiliate marketing funnels.

It's all about improving your funnel with:

  • A well-written blog post (if you use organic traffic, it needs to be interesting and make the visitor want to click to find out more)
  • Improvements in how you engage on social media platforms (social media marketing requires that you build a trustworthy brand)
  • An improved landing page (you will more than likely need a custom landing page, or opt-in page, not a standard template)
  • A good affiliate program
  • Maybe some social proof to show that the product works
  • Improving the number of people that opt-in (call to action button, headline, text, layout), and click through your affiliate marketing funnels to the affiliate products (this means you waste fewer clicks, as more people trust you, like you, follow you, and will buy from you)
  • That you are using traffic from the right target audience (sending people who are interested in lipstick to a product on how to train your dog is unlikely to lead to you selling a lot of affiliate products!)
  • As the way to earn is through a referral fee-based commission, the more you sell, and the bigger the commission amount, the more it becomes the best affiliate marketing sales funnel.

With this in mind, if you've been making progress, and sales have been good, then start to reduce, it might be time to look for another campaign, and product to promote.  Keep the current one, and try it again later, it might work again.


Funnel stats: https://blogginglift.com/sales-funnel-statistics/


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