Affiliate Ghost is a blogging site created by Zidan, designed for all those people wanting to break into the world of affiliate marketing. Have no idea what affiliate marketing is? Well, it’s quite simple. It’s basically where you agree to promote a company or person’s products/services in return for a commission or fee. Put simply, you’re getting paid to promote or market another company’s offerings.

Fortunately for us, Zidan was able to answer some questions about affiliate marketing and AffiliateGhost.

What gave you the idea to start AffiliateGhost?

I started AffiliateGhost out of my frustration about resources for affiliate marketing. There are honestly thousands comprehensive blogs out there, yet somehow barely any of them could write effective content about the industry. Often, I found the writing quality was poor and the theories were often outdated.  In contrast, the good bloggers are sharing too little about what is working, so we’re left with a vacuum of useless information dominating the internet and keyword searches in that field.

In addition, very few bloggers out there are sharing step-by-step guides for beginners, which I find is quite unfair. I recall having to take many online courses and attend many conferences to be able to understand how on earth people could make money and build a strong income stream with a thing called “affiliate marketing.”

Can anyone become an affiliate marketer?

Theoretically yes, however, you will need to put a lot of work into the process. It’s also just as important to be patient. The days of quick bucks are gone. If you learn the right way, you can build your database and constantly monetise them. The world will be heaven to you.

However, not many marketers are interested in this. Try to Google “affiliate marketing for beginners” and you will find tons of so-called gurus asking you to buy their course to be millionaire.

Is it essential to undertake a course in order to succeed at this work?

I think some courses out there can teach you the fundamentals of affiliate marketing. And don’t get me wrong, learning the fundamentals of affiliate marketing is incredibly important. However, I’ve found a lot of these guides often include shortcuts, designed to help the person kickstart their journey. This is great for the short-term, but ultimately bad for the long-term. Why? Well, this is because this type of learning doesn’t help a person strengthen their financial position in the long-run, nor does it help them learn the basics of affiliate marketing and how to apply it to different situations.

Can you recommend any good online affiliate marketing communities or networks?

Without any doubt, STM Forum is the best affiliate marketing community I have ever come across. I wrote a whole post about it before as I really wanted people to know about it!

They discuss anything and everything you need to know about affiliate marketing, ranging from traffic sources to how to get accepted into a giant affiliate network. In my experience, even the most specific and complex questions have been posed and answered in the STM forum. It’s always a good place to start.

What are the major trends in affiliate marketing to watch out for in 2020?

I think Push notifications will remain strong, however, there is no doubt that black hat techniques are becoming more difficult. As a result, I think more people will move towards white hat. Recently, I have also seen that many affiliates including myself have moved away from Facebook because the consistent accounts ban. In fact, I’ve found that a lot of people are gravitating towards other mediums and platforms, like TikTok, Snapchat and PPC (mainly Google).

What is an affiliate marketing tool you couldn’t survive without?

My team and I use tons of tools, so it’s hard to pick just a few. Nonetheless, to make our job the most simple and straightforward it can possibly be, there are two tools that I cannot live without:

1 – Voluum is my everyday tool. I track all my campaigns through it; it’s quite addictive.

2 – Spy tools like Adplexity are useful, especially if you need to see the current trend in the market.

Zidan’s website AffiliateGhost consists of high-quality, reliable information about affiliate marketing. If you are ever in need of further information about affiliate marketing and its benefits, make sure you check out Zidan’s website for more information. We would like to thank Zidan for taking some time to do this interview and help educate our readers about affiliate marketing.