- Author vs Affiliate. Major Things You Should Know About Affiliate Marketing
- Who's an Author?
- Affiliate vs. Author
We live in an age when everyone can start making money online. How? For example, you can start promoting someone else’s products on social media or your blog (if you have one). If you are interested in web design and have a large community of followers, then you can start making money online. Which role will you choose - author vs affiliate? Let's learn the difference.
Do you create cool web designs on your own? You may gain wider exposure for your works on large digital marketplaces like TemplateMonster. Now, the question is - what is the difference between an author and an affiliate? These two terms are often confused. So, let’s set the record straight in this post.
Author vs Affiliate. Major Things You Should Know About Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to earn money in the digital world. It’s predicted that the US affiliate marketing might reach $6,8 billion by 2020. In fact, affiliate marketing is one of the most cost-effective money-making initiatives. You can start earning from hundreds to thousands of dollars per month without the need to develop your own product.
Affiliate marketing is an agreement between a company and a website/blogger or an active social media user who is eager to promote the products and services of the company by means of custom referral links. The latter makes it possible to keep track of links and sales that people make, thus letting affiliates earn their money. The crucial thing about affiliate marketing is to use the affiliate link wisely and assure people to click on it and buy the things that you promote.
Would you like to start earning a generous commission while promoting high-quality web design stuff? You can become a TemplateMonster affiliate and start making money with ready-made promotional materials. How? Let’s see.
How to Start Earning as TemplateMonster Affiliate
TemplateMonster launched an Affiliate Program that welcomes everyone to roll in. You shouldn’t necessarily be an expert webmaster to start making money through the promotion of ready-made themes and web design assets. You may be a blogger, web design fan, a beginner or experienced webmaster, internet marketing specialist or an avid social media user to start making money with the TemplateMonster Affiliate program.
One of the best things about it is that TemplateMonster provides its affiliates with all the necessary tools and features that are needed to run a successful affiliate campaign absolutely free of charge. This includes:
- simple referral link;
- showcases;
- banners;
- landing pages;
- banners.
As part of the TemplateMonster Affiliate program, you can earn up to 30% commission on the first purchase that’s made with your referral link and a 30% commission on every next order placed with the same link.
The generous reward for your affiliate marketing efforts is not the only reason why it’s worth joining the TemplateMonster Affiliate Program. Some other benefits include:
- Cookies are saved for 60 days and are valid for all products from the marketplace.
- There is a 30-day return policy.
- The Affiliate program is multi-lingual. It’s available in English, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Russian.
- The supported payment methods include PayPal, Bank / Wire Transfer, WebMoney.
- You can use the commission money that you earn in the Affiliate Program to buy digital products from TemplateMonster.
- You can refer a friend as an affiliate and earn a supervisor’s 5% cut.
Who's an Author?
Joining TemplateMonster as an author is one more way that lets you earn money in the digital marketplace. If you are a web designer or have your own web design team, then you can submit them for review and they will be listed at TemplateMonster together with other professional web designs made by expert webmasters.
Unlike an affiliate marketing specialist, an author is a person or company that makes web designs and submits them to the marketplace.
TemplateMonster Authors. Top Reasons to Join the Marketplace
Who can be an author in the TemplateMonster digital marketplace? In fact, this can be everyone who creates web themes and digital assets. You can be a freelancer working on your own or a web design agency. You may be a newbie in the web design field or a well-established player.
It’s easier to become an author and start earning money in the marketplace than you may think.
All that you need to do is:
- Fill in an author’s application where you should specify such things as who you are; where you are from; the types of digital products that you’d like to sell in the marketplace.
- As soon as you complete the form, a manager will get in touch with you with further clarification of all the needed details.
- After the conversation, a manager will add your products to the marketplace. He or she will also let you know when your products become available for download from the digital marketplace.
- As soon as customers start buying your products, you will start getting revenue every month.
In the TemplateMonster digital marketplace, you can be an exclusive and non-exclusive author alike. Author’s commission rate shall start at 50-65% when Author sells an item exclusively on the Company Marketplace of his/her sales revenue and 40-65% for non-exclusive items.
Starting from September 1, 2020, TemplateMonster authors selling graphics can also set their own price on every item they upload. In addition, you earn a set 65% commission from the sale of both exclusive and non-exclusive graphics. The 65% commission is also applied to those items that were added to the marketplace before September 1.
What can you sell in the marketplace? There are 31 types of digital products that you can submit for review:
- WordPress themes;
- website templates;
- eCommerce themes (WooCommerce, OpenCart, Shopify, PrestaShop, and others);
- Joomla themes;
- resume templates;
- PowerPoint templates;
- social media templates;
- and many others.
| Product type | % for exclusive items | % for non-exclusive items |
| WordPress Store | 50-65% | 40% |
| HTML templates | 50-65% | 40% |
| Ecommerce Templates | 50-65% | 40% |
| CMS | 50-65% | 40% |
| Plugins | 50-65% | 40% |
| Presentations | 50-65% | 40% |
| Graphics | 65% | 65% |
| Video | 65% | 65% |
| Audio | 65% | 65% |
The commission that authors of exclusive themes will receive depends on the sales volume:
| Sales volume | Commission |
| $0–500 | 50% |
| $500–1 000 | 51% |
| $1 000–1 500 | 52% |
| $1 500–2 200 | 53% |
| $2 200–3 200 | 54% |
| $3 200–4 800 | 55% |
| $4 800–7 000 | 56% |
| $7 000–10 000 | 57% |
| $10 000–15 000 | 58% |
| $15 000–22 000 | 59% |
| $22 000–30 000 | 60% |
| $30 000–39 000 | 61% |
| $39 000–49 000 | 62% |
| $49 000–59 000 | 63% |
| $59 000–70 000 | 64% |
| $70 000+ | 65% |
Moreover, if you are a TemplateMonster Author who also participates in the affiliate program and promote our items to your audience, you can each up to 95%.
There are more than 3,600 authors selling high-quality web designs in the marketplace already. Even if you are taking your first steps in the niche, you may go ahead and submit your products for review. Isn’t it great to get your items listed among other web designs developed by the true experts?
Affiliate vs. Author
With all that said, let’s highlight the main points that differ an affiliate from an author. An affiliate is a person who promotes products or services sold in the marketplace. Simply put, an affiliate promotes digital items submitted by an author. The number of revenue that an affiliate and an author can earn also differs. It depends on the efforts that one takes to promote digital assets or craft versatile web designs.
Let’s compare.
| Affiliate | Author | |
| Who can join | Everyone | Web designers and web design agencies |
| Commission | 30% from the first sale; 30% from every next sale placed with through a referral link | up to 65% from each sale (for exclusive authors); 40% - for non-exclusive |
| Types of products to promote/ sell | All types of products that are available in the marketplace | TemplateMonster accepts 31 types of digital items |
| Payment | As soon as you earn $100 | Twice per month |
| Professional support | Included | Included |
Have you already decided what party you would like to join - affiliates or authors? Whatever choice you make, we wish you good luck with the things you do!