Get Started for Affiliate and Solo marketers

In this guide we describe how to set up a complete campaign funnel. This means that once you finish, some Internet users will see an advert for an offer that you have selected to promote. Part of them will be interested in it. And a few of them may take this offer. So after completing this guide you will not only have both theoretical and practical knowledge but potentially a profit. Pretty sweet, right?

Right. Let's get to it.

Before you continue with this guide, we would like to invite you to Affiliate Academy - a series of free 3 online courses with videos, PDFs, reading materials and quizzes that cover the topic of affiliate marketing extensively.

• Course 1 is more focused on the industry, explaining how things work and what you need to start. We will show you how to choose your niche, find your first offer, and buy ad traffic.
• Course 2 is more practical, it shows you step-by-step how to create a working campaign funnel. You will learn how to register to the essential affiliate platforms, how to integrate them, and – most importantly – how to create, test & track your campaigns!
• Course 3 is for more advanced users that have launched a campaign but didn't get any significant numbers. You will learn how to optimize your campaign, craft the best ads and write the best headlines!

Affiliate Academy is an alternative to this Get Started guide. You can register for free, and once you finish, you will get a certificate! Or you can continue with this guide that offers the shortest way of getting to know affiliate marketing with Voluum.

In general, you need three things to create a campaign: an offer to promote, a source of traffic, and a tracker to match those two in the best way possible. Each of these things has a dedicated platform.

Offers:	Offers are aggregated in affiliate network platforms. These networks connect people that have offers with people that are looking for offers to promote. The latter refers to you, affiliate marketer. Affiliate network platforms are the ones that will pay you money each time someone takes your offer (in an affiliate language: when a visitor converts). That’s where your revenue will be coming from. Sometimes, you are an offer owner, and you don’t need an affiliate network. In that case, read the Setting up Voluum with Your Own Offer (Not from an Affiliate Network) article.
Traffic:	Traffic is a broad term that describes any source of visitors: ad networks, social media platforms, search engines and more. Typically, traffic is bought in traffic source platforms. They offer a stream of visitors with concrete characteristics to buy. You will have to spend some money there, first to learn what works, later to make money and continue learning (because the learning process never actually ends). Contrary to what some over-optimistic blog posts or articles are trying to tell you, there is no ‘free money’. Even top affiliates spend money to buy traffic. They simply earn X times more. And that’s what you are aiming for.
Tracking:	Tracking is done by Voluum. A tracker acts as an intermediary between platforms described above. It measures, manages and optimizes. In this guide, you will use Voluum not only to track, but also to manage your running campaigns with the help of the Automizer feature.

Automizer is a new feature addition to Voluum. It integrates with traffic sources and affiliate networks using a reliable API connection. This will allow you to control your campaigns without leaving Voluum, set rules and alerts. In this guide, we will use Automizer to make your affiliate work more efficient.

Constant optimization and testing new hypothesis will be your main focus as an affiliate marketer. Voluum will help you with that. It will:

• Show you where you are losing money and what market shares are profitable
• Send it to different, more suitable offers or and better performing landers
• Launch rules you set in the Automizer to save you from losing money or allow you to earn more money, depending on the setup

You will spend most of the time either in Voluum, grooming your running campaigns, or in a traffic source and an affiliate network, planning your next campaigns.

While you browse the Internet, you come across advertisements shown in diverse types. Click any of the ad types below to see an example:

Each ad format works differently. There are certain types of offers and audiences that respond better to particular formats. In this guide, we will find an offer suitable for a pop campaign available in one of the Tier 3 countries. Pop campaigns are cheap, easy to manage, and offer a sizable number of ad views. Perfect for beginners. Do not be alarmed if you do not know some of these terms. We describe everything along the way.

Click the image on the right to proceed to the next step.