Affiliate marketing as its names suggests is essentially a program that turns you into a marketer of sorts. The only distinction with affiliate marketing is that it’s done entirely on the internet.
Other than that, the same principle applies: you promote a particular product to potential buyers, and once a successful sale is made, you earn a commission. The more successful sales you make by through these referrals, the more you stand to earn.
Earnings are however not fixed and typically rely on other metrics to determine the amount you can make from any sale. This usually involves two key things: the retail price of the product and the commission rate that varies depending on the affiliate network and product categories.
Take for instance two very different products: women’s clothing and a home appliance such as a home theatre system. The former obviously has two good things going for it: it’s in high demand and costs way lesser compared to the latter.
Nevertheless, while the commission rate for clothing may be higher, to make some worthwhile money you’ll need to make higher volume sales.
In contrast, the home theatre system while in lower demand, it stands to make more money per sale despite its smaller commission rate because of its higher market price.
Affiliate Programs in Kenya
In the context of this article, we’ll be only featuring affiliate networks that are either run by Kenyan companies or that have an active presence in Kenya.
The available affiliate programs can be categorized according to their industry and the market segment they’re targetting.
The main industries in Kenya with affiliate programs are e-commerce, web hosting, payment processing and sports betting.
E-commerce
- Jumia KOL Program (formerly Jumia Affiliate)
- Topserve Affiliate Program
Kilimall Affiliate
Web Hosting
- Kenya Web Experts Affiliate Program
- HostPinnacle Affiliate Program
- HostFiti Affiliate
- Lenasi Affiliate Program
True Host Cloud
Payment Gateway
Travel
Building Your Audience
To be successful in your affiliate marketing, the one thing you need the most is an audience, and preferably one with a solid web presence behind it.
Essentially, you need people to recommend products to, and the more they’re, the more likely that a few of them will see something that meets their needs to make a purchase.
This is certainly the hardest part of the affiliate journey, but if you already have an audience, you can get the ball rolling much quickly for you.
Various ways you can build an audience include:
- A Blog or Website
- Facebook Page/Group
- A sizeable Twitter, Instagram and other social media following
- WhatsApp or Telegram Groups/Channels
- Forums
- YouTube Channel
- Using Pay Per Click search engine ads i.e. advertise on search results when user search particular keywords
If you have none of this already, don’t let it be a deterrent. There are many ways you can start building an audience, and more so while doing something you’re knowledgeable about or just simply enjoy.
From the above list, you can additionally tell most of them require little to no capital other than your time. So if you can spare some time, you can start building an audience, for instance by:
- Creating a blog on either free blogging platforms such as WordPress or Google’s Blogger or better yet by investing in a professional website on a domain you own to build a recognizable brand.
- Creating a relevant Facebook Pages/Groups, WhatsApp groups and Telegram Channels/Groups.
To grow your audience, you’ll need to promote your content by various means, such as on social media networks and search engines.
Patience is however key as your audience will not grow overnight. The initial focus is to ensure that you’re providing value to your target readers. Quality and original content is key here; sometimes that’s enough on its own to grow an audience through organic search.
In the case of the website, you can either blog on a hobby or field you’re knowledgable in or create a review site that focuses on a particular niche of products.
So, let’s say you know a thing or two about women’s fashion. You can create a blog majoring on that topic offering tips and doing reviews of various clothing and accessories.
Within that context, you can easily recommend specific items on an e-commerce site such as Jumia and in the process make a commission on all successful purchases made through your affiliate link.
This can be done with just about anything including electronic home appliances, kitchen appliances, kids’ toys, mobile accessories etc. Hopefully, you get the idea.
