How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Canada [WITH NO EXPERIENCE]

Intro.

Canada is home to the best affiliate marketing training platform on the internet, and I’ll explain who they are shortly. For now though, I’ll explain how to start affiliate marketing in Canada and why it’s one of the best opportunities to get started to make money online.

With a plethora of opportunities to earn commissions online, it allows you to become a small time entrepreneur. How awesome is this, working from your laptop from any remote destination to earn money.

So, here’s how it’s done.

Where to Begin

The first port of call is to get educated in affiliate marketing. Is this a necessity? No, but it’s highly advised. I created a website many years ago when I was starting out, and it went nowhere fast because I didn’t understand the process well enough.

I knew to sign up to affiliate programs and promote their products, but there’s so much more to it than that.

Getting the correct information to be a successful affiliate marketer is important, or you could be going around in circles, chasing your tail, wondering why things aren’t working the way you expect.

I have several places that I recommend where to get this education. The best platform is Wealthy Affiliate, which is a Canada based owned and operated organization. You can sign up to WA for free and test it out for a week.

What I really like about Wealthy Affiliate are the internal features that are available. You’re given a hosted website, keyword research tool, blog writing platform, awesome fast support and an enormous community of like minded people.

Another great affiliate marketing course that you can start is Spencer Mecham’s Affiliate Secrets 2.0. He also has free training to start with here.

Another brilliant program is Legendary Marketer. They will teach you how to sell high ticket offers, meaning you’ll be making larger commissions. It’s possible to start with a small investment, but to get their best training, it does cost quite a bit of money.

These education platforms and courses can set you on the road to success, and is known as investing in yourself. At the same time as learning, you need to be working on what they teach you.

Do You Need a Website

It’s possible to become an affiliate marketer without the requirement for a website, but it’s strongly advised.

Some people have made a great living promoting products on YouTube, or other social media channels that allow affiliate links. If you’re clever enough to create high quality videos that include the products you want to promote, then by all means go for it.

I still believe, like many others, that your own website is also beneficial. For those leveraging YouTube for instance, what happens if one day, YouTube ceases to exist. I doubt that will happen, but it’s more likely their site may go offline for some reason. Those that are reliant on one social platform can lose their income stream immediately.

I’d recommend you diversify your online business by owning your own asset, as in your own website. You can also use social platforms to promote, but you’ll also have your website as a backup.

Creating a Website

You may think that building a website is difficult, but this is not true. It used to be, but with the implementation of website builders and hosting provider applications, this process is made so much easier.

The traditional way of creating a website is to purchase a domain name, and buy website hosting, a place to store your website. You link the domain to the website by pointing a ‘domain name server’ to the correct location.

This process has been made much easier today, and if you join a platform like Wealthy Affiliate, you can use their website builder to create a website in 5 clicks of a button.

All you need to do is give the name of your site, pick the domain name, choose a theme (for the look of your website), and you’re all set to go. Here’s a video explanation of how this is done:

Canadian Affiliate Programs

Many Canadians want to target specifically to other Canadians. Universally, most affiliate marketers will promote to anyone that is willing to take up their offers, which gives them more opportunity for commissions. In other words, they promote worldwide.

If you are in the situation where you only want to target Canadians, you’ll want to sign up to Canadian affiliate programs. But, how easy is it to find these affiliate programs in specific countries?

The easiest way to do this is to sign up to affiliate networks. The reason this makes it easier, is because you can usually filter by country. This is not always the case, so you have to choose your affiliate network wisely.

Rakuten Linkshare in one such affiliate network that does allow you to choose by country, as you can see below.

It’s easy to get caught up with just selling to everyone with access to your website, but sometimes it just makes sense to promote specifically to your local audience.

I haven’t detailed all the ins and outs of affiliate marketing in this article, so here’s how to get a more detailed look at starting your own affiliate marketing website from scratch.

Final Thoughts

Obviously it’s possible to become an affiliate marketer from anywhere in the world, due to the advancement in websites, affiliate programs and wifi technology. Canadians have just as much opportunity to join this growing enterprise, as anyone else.

As a Canadian, this is your opportunity for the taking.