In modern Affiliate Marketing there are 3 major ways to get commission income. Two are active, i.e. you need to take some form of action to get paid such as sending an email, making a phone call or posting something on TikTok or Instagram et cetera, and one is passive, in other words you get paid for doing nothing - or very little at least.
All three types of commission income are paid by a merchant due to a current, recent or historical activity. So what are they and how do they work?
1. Direct Action Commission
This results from your direct action towards the end customer. In this case you know who the end customer is and you have specifically and deliberately made contact with this potential customer to promote one of Union Commercial's affiliated merchants. We will use the example of a Web Design merchant for this.
Let's say we have a deal with a Web Designer who will pay 10% of the total cost of a client website to the affiliate who introduced the client. In order to get the client you have decided to target horse riding schools (how you do this is very easy and we will show you exactly how to do it in the online training sessions) and you have found a suitable potential client. This lead is passed to the Web Designer who contacts the client, agrees terms, makes the website and gets paid.
The total cost of the website is £750, so you get paid 10% which is £75. All you have done for this is a bit of research and made a few phone calls from home BUT you did make an effort and you did do some work which took up some time so this is an example of a DIRECT ACTION.
2. Indirect Action Commission
As the name suggests, this is quite different to the previous category and the commission income derives from your indirect action towards the end customer. In this case you have no clue who the customer might be and you will never have any dealings with the customer in relation to any sale; all you will do is make a number of social media posts or something of a similar nature to promote the products of one of Union Commercial's affiliated merchants. We will use the example of a Shopify retail merchant for this.
Let's say we have a deal with an online shop on the Shopify Platform who will pay 10% of the gross profit on any sale which comes via an affiliate tracking link (you will not initially need to know how to set this up as we will explain everything to you and give you the link ready made in the online training sessions).
On a regular basis we will post adverts on our own TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook without any affiliate tracking link. All you will need to do is add your own affiliate link and repost to your own followers or any other groups using hashtags. You may also post the same advert anywhere else you like, e.g. Pinterest or Reddit.
If anyone who sees your post, clicks the link and buys an item then you will get paid the relevant commission amount via the tracking link. For example, if someone bought a side-table and the gross profit was say £44 then you would get £4.40 - that's just for reposting something - no emails, no calls, no major time spent - 15 minutes a day should be more than enough.
Typically Indirect commissions are less than direct commissions, but as you can see from this example, you haven't actually done anything other than repost an ad that someone else made for you. As you will see on the Examples page, we will endeavour to make affiliate deals with shops that sell popular goods, e.g. scented candles, so they will appeal to a wide audience including many of your own followers or friends. As many of your followers/friends will like the products being sold, you will be effectively monetising your own contact list in a non-pushy and friendly manner.
3. Passive Commission
Passive income refers to earning money continuously with minimal (or even zero) ongoing effort after the initial setup. It occurs when an affiliate marketer promotes a product or service, and, once the promotional content (like blog posts, videos, or social media links) is created and shared, it continues generating commissions without the need for constant involvement. Passive income doesn't come with zero initial effort (although it can come with zero additional effort, see below) - it's the result of strategic work upfront, in other words, of a previous DIRECT or INDIRECT ACTION. But once the affiliate system is set in motion, the income can be relatively hands-off compared to active forms of income. Examples of creating passive income in affiliate marketing include:
Writing a product review blog post that ranks well in search engines and generates traffic for years.
Creating a tutorial video featuring an affiliate product, which continues getting views and affiliate clicks over time.
Building email marketing campaigns with affiliate links that send automated emails to subscribers over a period.
Here’s how it generally works:
Initial Effort: You create content, such as a blog post, YouTube video, social media post or website, where you include affiliate links to products or services. This is an INDIRECT ACTION as set out in the section above.
Traffic Generation: The content drives traffic (visitors) to your affiliate links. This could come from search engines, social media, or other online sources.
Purchases via Affiliate Link: When someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission.
Ongoing Earnings: As long as the content remains accessible (e.g., on a website or a video platform) and people continue to click and buy, you can keep earning commissions without any further action on your part.
HOWEVER...
For Union Commercial Affiliates there is another element, not normally available through many other affiliate networks, and that is Passive Commission through repeat customer orders.
Using the same example as above, of the side-table with a gross profit of £44, that would amount to a commission of £2.25 for a Gold Member as a repeat order.
That means no link has been clicked, it's just repeat order commission - it could be for a customer that clicked your link 2 years ago! And everything that customer since bought or then buys in future from that store, you get paid for.
THAT IS A GENUINE PASSIVE INCOME - just imagine if over 2 or 3 years you had built up a few hundred customers with that store. Just imagine the passive income for doing absolutely nothing!
The full details of this deal will be sent to you post sign up. And also bear this in mind: our Affiliate Deals Team is looking out everyday for more merchants who will give us this type of deal!
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