Are you looking for an easy way to make extra money? Affiliate marketing is a mainstream side hustle. People form partnerships with businesses, get a unique affiliate link, and receive a commission on any products they sell. Today we talk about affiliate marketing tips and strategies to help you make more money online.
How do you become a professional affiliate marketer, the type of person who starts an affiliate website as a side gig but eventually makes enough money online to run their own company full-time?
Experts predict that affiliate marketing content is poised to generate $8.2 billion in sales by 2022. This guide will provide you with 16 helpful affiliate marketing tips that you can use to increase your share of the overall pie.
16 Ways To Make Your Money Through Affiliate Marketing.
The following is a list of 16 affiliate marketing tips that will make customers click on your affiliate links.
- Make use of existing content to get your affiliate site up and running.
- Make sure you have a diverse set of affiliate partners.
- Take responsibility for how you interact with your audience.
- Become an affiliate for products recommended by your audience.
- You should know everything there is to know about the products you recommend.
- Allow people to make their own decisions about your affiliate links.
- make coupons for others
- Create an Instagram affiliate shop to sell products.
- Create products and how-to guides.
- Make comparison pages public.
- New product summaries
- Consider what the user is looking for.
- Keep up with current trends.
- Include links to landing pages that have been modified to work in your country.
- Schedule your advertising around the times when people are most likely to buy.
- Provide a report on the number of conversions from affiliate links.
1. Use existing content to get your affiliate site up and running.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to start making money online, but it would not be brilliant to launch a brand-new website and expect commission checks to start arriving as soon as the site goes live. However, if you want people to follow your advice, they must believe that the high-quality products you recommend are genuine.
No matter how tempting it may be, it would be best if you did not tell people about your new affiliate website until it is complete. Affiliate marketing expert Stacey MacNaught claims that over the last two years, the websites that have performed the best for her company have been those for which she and her team created at least 20 different pieces of content before making the website public.
“It’s so easy to worry about how something looks,” Stacey says, “but we know that nobody will see the site anyway until we have a certain amount of good content live.” “It’s easy to get stressed out about how something looks.”
According to Chris Brogan, an author, and blogger, “my golden rule involves having a whole list of content pieces researched in advance & a good number written up so that the site launches with content in place.”
2. Make sure you have a diverse set of affiliate partners.
It would help if you did not put all of your affiliate marketing eggs in the same basket for diversification. Although it rarely exercises it, a company always has the right to terminate its affiliate program, refuse payouts, or lower commission rates.
(For example, Amazon Associates is notorious for slashing commissions on all products.) Amazon affiliates who promoted home improvement products were only given a week’s notice before their commissions were cut from 8% to 3%.
Never allow a single affiliate partner to generate more than 50% of your total revenue. This is a good rule of thumb. Even if the worst-case scenario occurs, you will not lose all your money. It is much easier to replace half of your income than to replace all of it.
3. Take responsibility for how you interact with your audience.
Your audience’s size, loyalty, and interest in what you have to say are the most exciting factors determining how much money you can make as an affiliate marketer. If your content marketing campaigns do not reach your target audience, this will be hard.
Affiliate marketers who want to share their product recommendations typically start by posting on social media and uploading videos to their own YouTube channels. However, relying solely on these online channels is risky for several reasons:
- Many algorithms give marketers less weight to organic social media posts to get marketers to pay for ads.
- If your account is hacked, deleted, or reported, you will lose access to your entire audience.
Having people sign up for an email list can reduce the likelihood of this happening and provide them with a direct audience to speak to. You have complete control over how and when your audience receives your affiliate content. Still, you also reach them where they aren’t already bombarded with similar messages: their inbox.
This affiliate marketing advice does not have to be hard to grasp.
Add a pop-up box to your website offering something in exchange for signing up for your newsletters, such as a free checklist or a discount code (more on those later).
4. Become an affiliate for products your audience likes and recommends to you.
Affiliate marketers’ success is inextricably linked to their audience, which is unavoidable. Becoming an affiliate for a company that sells products that your audience recommends is a terrific and underutilized way to build an audience while also making money on the side.
Michael Keenan, a freelance writer who helped found Peak Freelance, did this with other freelance writers. He was aware that the members were looking for a new customer relationship management (CRM) tool, so he investigated some of the most common alternatives. Michael joined Bonsai’s affiliate marketing program, which compensated him for recommending a tool he already liked and that his audience was looking for. Michael followed in the footsteps of Bonsai.
Keeping your ear to the ground is particularly important if you are an affiliate marketer. Start a natural conversation with your audience. If you try out different options for yourself first, you can help them overcome their objections. Then, sign up for the most trustworthy affiliate success program you can find, and you’ll start getting paid to help your audience succeed.
Peak Freelance co-founder Michael Keenan
5. You should know everything there is to know about the products you recommend.
Affiliate marketing is one of those bad ideas that creep into almost every “make money quickly!” scheme. Unfortunately, this brings many people who are only interested in making a quick buck at the expense of their audience and are not making them. People like that usually fail quickly.
According to Mark Valderrama, CEO, and co-founder of Aquarium Store Depot, having more knowledge than your competitors is the best way to stand yourself from them. “By knowing more than your competitors, you can set yourself apart.” “If you want to stand out as an affiliate, you need to be known as an expert, or at the very least have a site where people can learn more about the things you’re promoting.”
“It’s widespread for affiliates to pick a few providers they believe their visitors will be interested in without researching them.” This is one of the most detrimental things in the affiliate marketing industry. Even if you’re only interested in learning about these things, you’re curious about how and why others use them.
If you want to do this, Mark recommends that you “do your research before signing up with a new service provider.” Consider what other people think about it before trying it yourself, even if it’s just the demo version. People will be more likely to trust the products you recommend when you finally make sales for your affiliate products because it will take longer.
6. Affiliate Links Disclosure.
When recommending products in exchange for a commission, you must be honest, but that is not always an affiliate marketing tip.
Customers will not buy products from people whose opinions or suggestions they do not trust or whose advice they disregard. If you don’t tell them you’re being paid to talk about a product and find out about it elsewhere, they won’t trust you anymore.
“I’ve worked with many affiliates in various niches, and the most crucial piece of advice I can give is to be trustworthy. If something does not look (or feel!) right, your audience will notice. If something doesn’t look or feel right, they won’t click on a link and may never return to your site.
Having a good reputation for trustworthiness can lead to various positive outcomes, including increased traffic to your website, positive word-of-mouth, referrals, and overall company growth.
You are establishing a connection with your readers. If you don’t tell them the truth, they won’t return to your site.
You risk losing more than your audience’s trust. Customers are protected from being misled by affiliate marketers because the Federal Trade Commission has strict rules regarding product endorsements (FTC). However, you must be honest about any business relationships with a retailer, including any products you may be paid to sell.
For example, the affiliate content on Wirecutter includes a disclaimer near the top of the page. Everyone who reads the article understands that if they buy something through one of the links on the page, the site will receive a commission.
7. Share Sales Discount Codes.
As part of their affiliate marketing program, merchants frequently provide their affiliates with a list of online marketing materials. Banner graphics and email marketing copy are commonly included on the shortlist. However, it never hurts to ask your affiliate partners if they have any discount codes that can be used on the products you’re promoting. If they do, your time will not be wasted.
Because you’re giving out coupon codes, people who haven’t tried the products you’re recommending are much more likely to buy them. Almost 90% of shoppers in their twenties and thirties are willing to try a new brand if they can get a discount.
When you have a discount code that you want to share with your audience, you can do the following to spread the word:
- Sharing it on social media and including affiliate links that go directly to stores
- Communicating with your target audience via email and directing them to the sale
- Adding a discount coupon code to any affiliate-related website’s content.
- Include the word “discount” in the meta description of your review pages to encourage more users to visit those pages.
Sprocker Lovers, for example, has written a product review that appears on the first page of search results for “Bella and Duke review.” The website’s meta title makes it abundantly clear that a discount code is available. This is done to entice people to click on the affiliate link and complete their purchases.
8. Create An Online Store With The Instagram Affiliate Programme.
Affiliates do not need their website to begin making money. Instead, new features are being added to Instagram and other social media platforms to make it easier for affiliate marketers to get paid.
“We’ll start testing a native affiliate tool that will allow creators to find new products available on checkout, share them with their followers, & earn commissions for the purchases they drive—all within the Instagram app,” Instagram announced in June 2021.
The Instagram affiliate shops feature is still in development, but creators in the United States who meet the requirements should be able to use it by the end of the year. It would be best if you worked on expanding your audience before that time comes. When the time comes for your affiliate shops to open, you’ll already have an audience of people to test out the first steps.
9. Write Product Reviews And How-To Articles.
Did you know that nearly nine out of ten people read product reviews before purchasing something? When you write affiliate product reviews and optimize them for search engines, you will reach people who are already in the process of buying the item you are reviewing.
Let’s put that into practice by pretending you will write a review of Allbirds’ running shoes. You use the target keyword “Allbirds shoe review,” which 1,500 people look up every month.
If you can get people to click on your affiliate link, you’ll get a percentage of the sale, even if they considered buying the product before they found your site or saw it there.
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10. Create And Publish Comparison Pages.
Standard product reviews differ from comparison pages in several key ways. First, they compare two options and assist customers in deciding which one best meets their requirements.
By including comparison pages on your website, you can increase the number of people who click on your affiliate links. In addition, you should optimize the page for the keyword “comparison” and then encourage people to click on your links by making them make a purchase decision.
Khris Digital’s comparison of ClickFunnels and ConvertKit is a great example. The links to both of these tools can be used to make a commission, and when a reader purchases either of them, the publisher receives a cut. It is a win-win situation for both Khris Digital and the reader of the article.
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Ryan Robinson, an affiliate marketer, also takes this approach when writing content for affiliate marketing. “I recently started posting a series of comparison articles that do objective, comparative analyses of popular hosting brands,” he explained. The goal is to assist readers in determining which option is best for them based on their needs and budget.”
“Even though many of these hosting comparison articles don’t get a lot of searches (think less than 1,000 searches per month), I decided to write a lot of them after putting myself in the shoes of someone new to blogging and searching for this kind of information.”
This line of thought concludes with the resulting article between Bluehost and HostGator. According to Ryan, anyone who reads this article will be “perfectly ready to buy as soon as they get the answer they’ve been looking for.”
“On the back end, I automatically get an affiliate commission whenever someone reads my comparison article, clicks a link, and signs up with a provider I’m talking about,” Ryan says. This occurs whenever one of those three things happens.
“The best part is that I double down as an affiliate for both of the hosting companies I’m comparing,” she added. “So, regardless of which conclusion I recommend in one of these articles, I have a chance to make a sale even if a reader agrees with something about the company I’m less excited about recommending.” It works out well for everyone.
11. Collections Of Recently Purchased Items
How can you tell if the product review you’re working on will be worth the time and effort you’re putting into it? For example, your product review could fail, resulting in few affiliate sales and wishing you had focused on a different product instead. This is a possibility.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen new affiliate marketers make is writing long, in-depth product reviews for products that simply don’t convert.There isn’t much to show for the enormous effort.
“Instead, affiliates should create the content they share with their audiences in the inverse order.” Instead, create product roundups (such as “the best camera for travel”) to see which products readers are most interested in.
“Once you know which products are selling, break them out into separate reviews and link to them as supporting content,” Monica advises. “Sales will skyrocket.” “This strategy will help you make affiliate content more effectively, but it’s also great for SEO.”
This is an excellent example of how this works in practice.
It’s the Why I’m Broke publishes gift guides for literally everyone, including coworkers, parents, and even sisters-in-law. The publisher receives a commission if someone purchases something based on the suggestions in the gift guide.
12. Determine Your Search Objectives.
Keyword research can help you decide what to write about on your affiliate website.
Consider why someone would search for that keyword, the number of monthly searches, and the level of competition for that keyword. For example, do they want to be entertained at all? Do you want to find out something? Are you ready to buy a purchase?
Suppose one of your primary goals is to increase traffic and, as a result, affiliate income. In that case, you should do everything possible to make that the content of your affiliate links matches what users are searching for.
“Should they found the page by searching for “best TVs” on Google, they’re probably close to buying, and they expect to be bombarded with good offers and recommendations so that you can be very aggressive with your affiliate links,” says Ted French, a search marketing expert.
“But when they searched for “Samsung vs. LG TVs,” it’s possible that they aren’t quite ready to buy a purchase yet. However, you can still use a few affiliate links within the content. Still, your main focus should be on providing them with the information they were looking for and, if appropriate, sending them to one of your sales pages with affiliate links and recommendations.
This approach was used with Jake Thomas, the founder of Golden Hearts, and his affiliate content. By typing “best for golden retriever” into Google’s search bar, he made the autosuggest feature to find new content ideas for him.
The phrase “best brushes for golden retrievers” was suggested first:
“When I looked at the posts on the first page of Google, I saw that they were all list posts, so I made one as well,” Jake says. “When I looked at the posts on Google’s first page, I noticed that they were all about food.” “I added “fear” at the end because people like to know what to avoid, and I thought it would help my title stand out a little more.” The article is titled “Best Brushes for Golden Retrievers (and Which to Avoid).”
“Finally,” Jake says, “I thought what question the reader might have next to make my article more helpful and, in order, rank higher.” This resulted in creating a comprehensive guide that explained how to brush your dog, how often to do it, and when a puppy should begin the routine.
What happens as a result? Golden Hearts is currently ranked first for the niche keyword “best brushes for golden retrievers,” which Jake believes is “more likely to convert” than other keywords. So you rank well for a very specific search and provide a precise solution.
13. Be Aware Of Current Events And Popular Culture.
Buzzfeed has built a media empire that relies heavily on affiliate marketing for revenue. Seven out of ten people who read Buzzfeed do so to use the site’s content to inspire or help them decide what to buy. The publisher’s affiliate content generated $500 million in revenue in 2019.
“We earn an affiliate commission on all of that money, which gives us a commission of about 10% of that money.” It’s a fantastic business with a very high margin. We accomplished our goals because we have an extensive network, and many people enjoy BuzzFeed’s content. We considered the various ways people could respond because creating content that was easy to share was important to us.
Jonah Peretti, Buzzfeed’s CEO.
Buzzfeed has had a lot of success with affiliate marketing, partly because it works hard to post popular content at the time. On its Facebook page, the company constantly promotes product roundups relevant to what its audience is talking about, such as this roundup of cheap, last-minute gifts.
“Keep up with new trends and be willing to take risks.” Replace that content with something that is both popular and in-demand to demonstrate your relevance.”
Adam Wood is a RevenueGeeks co-founder.
14. Provide A Link To Landing Pages Made Specifically For Your Region.
One of the benefits of running a successful affiliate marketing business is that you can reach customers in almost any part of the world as long as your partners ship inventory to those locations. (This is likely, primarily if you work with Shopify shops.) People from other countries account for more than a third of Shopify’s traffic.
For international customers, various criteria must be met at each stage of the buying process. Which is the most important? Before buying from a multinational online retailer, 92 percent of international customers want to see prices in their home currency.
You can get around this by linking to landing pages specific to your region. Many affiliate networks will create them automatically for you within the dashboard.
15. Schedule Ads For Times When People Are Likely To Be Shopping.
Even if you do not make revenue from your affiliate marketing business by selling your products to end-users, you are still considered an online business. Your goal is to earn revenue by selling the products of another retailer in exchange for a commission, which is how you make money.
Take inspiration from successful ecommerce marketing strategies in the past and the time your affiliate promotions for peak shopping seasons, such as:
• Valentine’s Day
• Mother’s and father’s day
• On July 4 celebration.
• Cyber Monday and Thanksgiving Day sales Affiliates who used Awin and ShareASale over a weekend made $12 million in commission.
• Christmas and New Year’s holidays
If you have the resources, you should spend some of your money on A/B testing, pay-per-click (PPC), or social media advertising during this time.
Even though getting new customers is more expensive when there is a lot of competition, it is a great way to grow your audience and email list when people are actively looking for products to buy.
(This brings us back to what we discussed earlier about promo codes: many stores give discounts and coupons in honor of these holidays.) Use them in your holiday affiliate marketing campaigns.
16. Provide A Report On The Number Of Conversions From Affiliate Links.
How do you know the products you’re promoting through affiliate marketing are selling?
As with any other digital marketing campaign, you should set up regular reminders to go over your most important metrics, which include:
- Earned income: The money earned. The amount of money you’ve made from promoting a specific product.
- Conversion rate: The amount of change The number of people who clicked on your affiliate link and then purchased some kind. The number should be as high as possible.
- Clicks: Presses If there aren’t many clicks on the content you’re sharing, even though you’ve heavily promoted the product, it could be because your audience isn’t interested.
The majority of this information should be available through Google Analytics. Affiliate networks and partners will each have their dashboard with this information.
The goal of reporting is to determine which products are the most popular and profitable so that you can continue to promote those products while discontinuing the promotion of those that are not selling.
Find which of your products is the most popular, and then approach the brand about giving your commission. Here’s another affiliate marketing tip. Show them what you bring to the table as an affiliate. If they can get your audience a very special coupon code, you’ll be able to keep up the good work you’ve been doing while also making more money.
You can increase your earnings by becoming a Shopify affiliate.
The Shopify affiliate program is made to help online marketers make revenue by directing people to useful business tools.
Shopify is an all-in-one platform for launching an online business. It is most effective for entrepreneurs, educators, and influencers who want to encourage their audiences to start online businesses. In addition, if you become a Shopify affiliate, you could earn a large commission for each paying customer you bring to Shopify’s suite of commerce products.
To put it another way, you only succeed if your audience does.
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