Affiliate Marketing For Beginners in Nigeria In 2024
If you are reading this short article, then you are most likely in one of these two categories of people…,
category 1: you have been into affiliate marketing or you heard about it from someone or somewhere and you’re wondering if affiliate marketing is still a legit way to make money
category 2: you are one of those who have no idea what affiliate marketing is, but you’re very interested in finding out for the first how to start affiliate marketing in Nigeria for the first time.
In this article, we are going to explore all of these in detail.
BUT the first question we should start with is,
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a fancy term for something you and I already do, which is to refer a friend, family or people who trust you, to specific products or services and get paid a commission every single time for the referral.
You may have referred a product to someone before and not get paid for it, however the focus of affiliate marketing, is that you get paid for all of your referrals
The best part of being an affiliate marketer in Nigeria is that it opens you to some awesome benefits.
As an affiliate marketer, you don’t have to go through the trouble of brainstorming and creating a product by yourself or worrying about shipping products to customers.
Instead, you get to focus solely on the marketing & selling aspects of a business.
Some people might see this as something hard to do
But as long as you can convince people to purchase a product using your unique affiliate link, you get paid a commission for your efforts.
It’s that simple!
Now, I’m guessing you can think of one or two different times in the past when you’ve referred a product or service to someone. But like most people, you probably didn’t get paid any commission for it.
Now, let’s discuss the various types of affiliate marketing models and products that are currently available to you as a Nigerian looking to get into affiliate marketing.
Don’t forget, the idea of affiliate marketing is to make sure you’re referring helpful products to people, which means you have provided value upfront and it’s only right that you get paid for it.
So what do you think?
Would you like to find out how to do affiliate marketing?
If you answered Yes, then keep reading!
However, for the sake of this writing, I will need to educate you first on the three models of affiliate marketing
AFFILIATE MARKETING MODEL 1- COST PER LEAD (CPL)
The COST PER LEAD (or commission per lead) is an affiliate marketing model where an affiliate marketer (you) is paid commissions based on the number of leads he can generate for a company or a business.
You might ask, “What is a lead?’
A lead or lead(s) simply means the potential buyers of a certain product or service.
For example; if you are looking to buy a car in Nigeria; but are not sure of which type of car you want to buy or what model to buy,
That means you are a potential buyer or ‘lead’ for every car dealer in Nigeria.
If I, as an affiliate to a car company, with a CPL deal between me and the car company, introduced you to such a company,
I automatically get paid for introducing you to that company.
It’s that simple!!.
Real-life examples of CPL deals often require that an affiliate marketer gets people (or leads) to do any of these activities:
- Submit their contact information such as their name, home address, email etc
- Create an account on a platform or sign up for a newsletter
- Downloading or installing an app
- Ordering a bank card e.g. prepaid card, debit or credit card (Opay does something like this)
- Complete a survey, or a poll or fill out a form
- Register for a webinar or event and many more!
What Are The Common Disadvantages of CPL Affiliate Marketing Model?
The shortcoming of this model in Nigeria often includes the fact that; most local affiliate marketing businesses in Nigeria offer low-paying deals for Nigerian affiliate marketers such as deals that pay only about N0.50– N200 per lead.
However, there are a few foreign companies, that you can sign up for that offer CPL deals that pay up to $120 per lead!!
What Are The Common Advantages of CPL Affiliate Marketing Model?
Do you know what the good thing about CPL is?
Most of the time, the customers don’t even have to buy anything.
You get paid simply for bringing the customer to the business.
Nothing else.
Businesses like Skillshare, Linkedin Learning, Email Services like Hubspot, Mailchimp, Getresponse etcetera, all have a commission-per-lead model.
However, as they are non-Nigerian deals, it means you have to find ways to set up yourself as a foreign affiliate marketer.
To learn more about how to do this: You can access this resource.
AFFILIATES MARKETING MODEL 2- REVENUE SHARE (RS)
This is an affiliate marketing business model where the company shares the overall revenue it generates from a customer with its affiliates.
This differs from most models, such that; an affiliate can keep earning for every repeated business that a customer does with the company he referred them to, for a specific period.
What does that mean?
It means if you refer a customer to a company,
every time the customer buys,
Sometimes for as long as 3 months to a year,
The company will keep paying you a commission!
Every single time!
This is usually up to a year for some types of businesses, while some last for only a few months (often between 3–6 months).
Businesses with up to a year affiliate deal include Hubspot, Mailchimp, Getresponse etc
However, some local/Nigerian businesses with the Revenue Share affiliates marketing model, include sports betting affiliates companies like NairaBet, 1xBet etcetera.
This model is the easiest way to generate passive income over an extended period of time through affiliate marketing.
You could earn upwards of $3000+ a month passively if you understand and get this model right.
If you want to learn more about how to set up this model, you can access this resource:
AFFILIATES MARKETING MODEL 3- COST PER SALE (CPS)
Cost per sale — is the type of affiliate program run by sites like Amazon, Expertnaire, Clickbank, Stakeout etc
It is the most popular type of affiliate marketing that most people know and understand in Nigeria & most West African countries like Ghana, Togo etc.
When you see affiliate marketers on Twitter, talking about affiliate marketing!
This model is their main aim and focus!
With the cost-per-sale model, affiliates and affiliate marketers are paid a certain amount of commission based on each product sale they can generate.
For every sale of a product which could be a physical product or a digital course,
affiliates often earn up to 20% to 80% per product sold,
which means for products ranging between $50-$125 upwards, an affiliate can earn between $25-$100 per sale.
Thus, an affiliate with a target of ten sales a week will be earning north of $250 weekly, which then sums up to $1000 (or N600,000+) or more every single month.
Hence, you will find that most Nigerian affiliate marketers prefer this type of affiliate marketing model.
What Are The Advantages of The CPS Affiliate Marketing Model?
This model provides you income almost instantly and affiliates often have full control of their sale,
Also, the CPS deals are very available locally in Nigeria and can even be accessed on some platforms for free.
What Are The Disadvantages of The CPS Affiliate Marketing Model?
Most affiliate marketers in Nigeria are identifying with only video courses,
and are not selling other digital & physical products, thus public sentiments assume that they are selling fraudulent courses.
So if you’re someone who’s not interested in selling courses, the questions stands that..
what are the products you can sell as an affiliate marketer in Nigeria?
PRODUCTS YOU CAN SELL WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING.
With the rise of e-commerce businesses, there are no limits to the types of products you can sell online as an affiliate marketer.
For this reason, we have divided the products you can sell into two:
- Physical Products and
- Digital Products
1. Physical products
These are items on stores and marketplaces that have affiliate deals attached to them, for example, the Jumia store in Nigeria offers affiliate deals on many electronic products such as Noise cancelling headphones, Vlogging kits & vlogging sets, Ring-lights, as well as on their grocery items.
Any form of large e-commerce store, or e-Commerce marketplace will most likely have an affiliate deal that you can take advantage of.
2. Digital products
These are digital items on stores and marketplaces that have affiliate deals attached to them, and digital products that you can sell as an affiliate marketer include;
1. Software applications: This can include a wide range of products, such as productivity tools, graphic design software like Canva, video editing software, gaming software, and much more.
2. E-books: Digital books that can be downloaded and read on smartphones, tablets, or computers.
3. Music and audio files: Digital music tracks and audio files, including MP3s, podcasts, audiobooks, and more.
4. Video content: Digital videos, including movies, TV shows, web series, and video courses.
5. Mobile applications.
6. Online courses: that can be taken online, covering a variety of topics and subjects like freelancing, Amazon KDP, or even “how to bake a cake”.
7. Digital art and design assets: Digital graphics, fonts, templates, and other design assets used by graphic designers, web designers, and other creative professionals.
5. Cloud-based storage services: Services that allow users to store and access their files and data online, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud.
6. Virtual reality products: Digital products that create virtual reality environments or experiences, such as VR headsets and games.
7. Cryptocurrencies Platforms: Digital currencies that use cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.
An example of an app that pays you to bring customers is Binance, and in that case, the product you will be selling will be the Binance app as an affiliate.
Got it?
Good.
Most Nigerians prefer to be affiliate marketers for digital products because the customer gets the product immediately after it is bought, and they won’t have to worry about monitoring delivery. They also get their commissions, which are often in very high percentages, almost immediately.
How Do You Find The Best Affiliates Product To Promote?
Imagine when you recommend your favourite health drink that helps you with runny-nose to a friend as an affiliate, if they buy the product and it doesn’t work for them, or it makes things worse,
Will they blame you? Yes, they will.
Will they trust you next time? Maybe not.
SO THIS MEANS ANY PRODUCT YOU RECOMMEND RIDES ON YOUR REPUTATION!
Before promoting any product, make sure that you
A. Research The Product
Before recommending a product to anyone as an affiliate marketer, it is advised that you make sure that you have researched the product well.
If possible, refer to a product that you use yourself.
You can as well refer people to products that you absolutely believe in & you’re quite knowledgeable about.
B. Research The Product Creator:
Find out as much as you can about the product creator, and their authority in the industry they are providing knowledge about.
Once you find them knowledgeable, you can vet their courses & products and then recommend them.
This goes to say,
A practising Nutritionist who has spent 20 years in the industry is better positioned to produce and sell a vitamin product that helps people lose weight, than a 3-year Nutrition student.
However, since most Nigerian affiliate marketers prefer to sell digital products, these are a few marketplaces you can register on..
Marketplaces In Nigeria To Find The Best Affiliate Marketing Deals
1. Expertnaire:
Expertnaire is one of the most popular affiliate marketing platforms in Nigeria, and it has the most robust community of highly skilled affiliate marketers.
Simply following the Expertnaire Twitter page, and following a few of the top affiliates can get you fast on the track to succeed in your affiliates marketing business.
Cons:
The expertnaire marketplace costs N10,000 annually to access.
However, the founder, Toyin Omotoso, allows free access to the marketplace for marketers who buy his video course on how to begin marketing online.
Selar.Co:
is the second most popular affiliate marketplace in Nigeria.
However TrySelar prides itself on being a cross-west African country marketplace, which means accessing products on the platform grants you the liberty to sell to customers from other African countries who can pay for these digital products in their native currency (not USD).
Cons: Tryselar costs N2,000 to access annually.
Marketplaces In Nigeria To Find Products That Earn You Dollars
StakeCut:
Absolutely free marketplace to access digital products to resell.
Stakecut only allows you to sell the affiliate products in USD, which means your focus will be on referring these products to foreign clients only.
However, this means you can also take advantage of the exchange rates while running your affiliates marketing business.
Cons:
You’re limited to only clients that can pay you in USD, which means you may be unable to sell locally.
JVZoo:
Contains majorly foreign programs. If you’re an affiliate marketer who understands positioning yourself or your business in the foreign market, JVZoo is a great marketplace to try.
It is free and gives you access to the sales page of each course after you’ve been approved to promote them.
WarriorPlus:
Just like JVZoo also contains products available to the global marketplace.
This means all products are listed in USD and are thus not locally preferred.
Digistem:
Costs $10 to register with after a free trial period. However, once your trial period ends, you have to renew with a $10 annual fee which is equivalent to N7,000 annually.
Now, let’s assume you have finally chosen one of these platforms to register on, the next stage will be to promote your affiliate links to these products, so how do you do this?
5 Platforms You Can Use For Promoting Your Affiliate Product In Nigeria (Pros & Cons of Each Channel)
1. Social Media:
Your social media can be a powerful tool to sell your affiliates’ products, if you’re someone who has a good amount of followers who like you, they feel like they know you and they trust you, then you can begin promoting your affiliate links to these followers.
If your online friend & follower is interested in a video course that can help him do graphic designs better, and you have a course that could help.
It is easy to recommend one of your affiliated courses & send him the link
Platforms like Facebook shun affiliate links, so you will need to mask your unique affiliate links with link-masking tools such as TinyURL.
Blogs & Vlogging:
Blogging can be an awesome tool to promote your affiliate link.
If you’re a vlogger who already owns a YouTube channel or you registered on sites like Medium & Reddit, you can use these platforms to promote your affiliate links to your audience.
You can also put these links in your Youtube descriptions, or embed these links within your blog.
Emails:
Emails are essentially used as direct-to-customer communication platforms.
If you already have a mass following or you consistently provide very valuable information, many people would provide their email so that they can get updated every time you make a post.
These posts can be a good avenue to promote your affiliate link and sell to the subscribers on your email list.
Also, email newsletters can help you with following up on your clients & subscribers.
Youtube & Tiktok:
TikTok is very famous for short-form videos & viral content, making it the most suitable tool to quickly get a lot of traffic to your affiliate link.
The more people click on your link, the more likely someone buys or purchases the product you’re promoting.
Youtube videos and YouTube shorts are also great for pulling traffic to your offers, which means you can leave your affiliate links in the description or in the comment section.
Influencer Marketing:
Influencer marketing has begun to gain more recognition in 2023 as there’s been a rise of lots of micro-influencers.
These micro-influencers on Tiktok, Twitter, Linkedin etc already built audiences that pay attention to them, making them a good channel to sponsor your affiliate link.
However, this will cost you some amount of money or offer some deal, which is often determined by how great you’re at negotiating with each influencer.
Given all of these discussed, you and I can agree that affiliate marketing in Nigeria is no child’s play and will require a lot of work.
However, if you’re not lazy, and ready to put in the work, it can be a really profitable and passive income-generating source.
Top 10 affiliate marketing programs in Nigeria for 2023
If you’re already very skilled at marketing online, and building an audience and you’re already skilled, and you’re not interested in selling courses at all through the platforms listed above.
You can research more about these affiliate marketing programs.
- Jumia Affiliate Program.
- Konga Affiliate Program.
- GetResponse Affiliate Program.
- Wakanow Affiliate Program.
- WhoGoHost Affiliate Program.
- Piggyvest Affiliate Program.
- Grammarly Affiliate Program.
- Aliexpress Affiliate Program.
If you don’t know how to market products online, then you will need to get an affiliate marketing course that teaches you exactly what steps to take.
But before buying these courses, here are a few things you should expect.
The Structure Of Every Affiliates Marketing Course You Want To Buy
The majority of affiliate marketing courses in Nigeria are often created by top affiliate marketers as well, so if you’re wondering how to do affiliate marketing as a beginner in Nigeria, their courses might be a good place to start.
So, what are the things you should expect to find in an affiliate marketing course?
A. Product Marketplace: The first part of every affiliate marketing course is that it discusses various marketplaces you can try for free or pay for.
Every business thrives with a product or a service that it sells and as such, you must begin with that.
B. Audience Building & Traffic Generation Tool:
C. Audience re-engagement tool:
The skills a robust CPS affiliate marketing course will teach you include,
Basic graphics design,
Copywriting skills,
Basic content creation skills,
How to run ads for traffic, on Facebook, Twitter, Google & Youtube etc, and most importantly,
How to follow up on leads with Whatsapp Marketing, Telegram & Twitter Marketing & Email Marketing.
How To Start Affiliates Marketing in Nigeria With Zero Money.
To begin your affiliate marketing journey for free,
Step 1: Use youtube to get knowledge on all the skills listed above. A good channel to follow is Temitayo Michael’s Marketing Channel,
Step 2: Your next step will be to register as an affiliate on a free marketplace that provides digital courses such as Stakecut. However, if you hope to sell locally, it’s best to register for N2,000 on Selar.
Step 3: If you have no money to put into building an audience through paid advertising. Work hard on building an audience organically. Post a lot of Tiktok videos, Youtube Shorts, etc.
