Your objective as an affiliate marketer is to persuade individuals into buying products that you will receive a commission for. YouTube provides an excellent opportunity to accomplish this task. By 2025, it is projected that there will be 2.8 billion YouTube users, positioning it as the second most widely used social media network globally.
YouTube’s users are not using the site exclusively for entertainment, as evidenced by their worldwide consumer spending which has recently surpassed $3 billion. As an affiliate marketing enterprise, you have the opportunity to capitalize on this revenue by advertising products to potential buyers.
Starting an affiliate marketing business on YouTube
Affiliate marketing is the act of receiving payment for promoting and selling products or services from another company. While some ecommerce companies run their own affiliate marketing initiatives, you may also opt to enroll in affiliate networks such as ShareASale or ClickBank to collaborate with multiple affiliate partners through a single platform.
Generating content on YouTube presents profitable opportunities for affiliate marketers to earn money passively. A sizeable 68% of consumers have viewed a YouTube video when deciding to make a purchase. When paired with a recommendation from a beloved content creator, affiliate YouTube videos may have a conversion rate higher than standard content.
The greatest aspect is that you receive compensation when your viewers make purchases as a result of the video content. This is advantageous for all parties, including your brand collaborators.
YouTube Affiliate Marketing Tips
1. Create Engaging Content
To draw in your desired viewers for your videos, it is crucial to produce compelling material. Arrange and manufacture first-rate videos that motivate individuals to view and engage with them. In case your content captivates them, they will most likely click on your hyperlinks.
To begin, discover your specialized area and recognize the current trends within it. Look for prevailing subjects and the kind of videos that attract viewers, and determine what your audience desires to see. Conduct your search by exploring the latest topics on YouTube, examining the content of other creators, and soliciting feedback from your current viewers.
Commence creating high-quality videos with appropriate equipment and suggest products and services that you truly admire. Encourage engagement from your audience throughout the video by requesting comments and likes, and conclude with a call to action to prompt them to subscribe or explore the links in the description.
Content Creator Tip
In case you make cooking videos and have a set of preferred cooking tools, you can incorporate product review segments in your videos and provide links for purchasing them in the description. To increase viewer interaction, encourage them to share their preferred kitchen gadgets or suggest dishes they’d like to see you cook in your videos.
2. Optimize Videos With Keywords
To draw in a larger audience for your videos, it’s important to aim for the appropriate keywords. Given that many individuals use YouTube as a means of finding solutions to their inquiries, emphasizing the topics that are being searched for will pique their interest in your content.
One can utilize resources like Google Trends, Ahrefs, and Keywords Everywhere to identify the popular search queries in your area of interest. Next, incorporate these keywords into your video titles, descriptions, and content to optimize your videos.
By doing so, there is a greater likelihood that your video will appear as the top search result when individuals look for specific keywords.
3. Create Thumbnails That Get Clicks
If you have ever clicked on a video without first reading its title, the thumbnail probably had some influence on your decision. Generating visually appealing thumbnails can increase the likelihood of people clicking on your video because it will capture their attention.
Consider YouTube thumbnails to be like book covers. If the cover isn’t eye-catching enough, nobody will bother to read the story inside even if it’s excellent. However, if you create a cover that stands out on a shelf full of books, you’re on your way to becoming a bestseller.
Conduct competitive research to identify the thumbnails that are vying for your target audience’s attention.
The creation of an effective thumbnail will differ depending on the niche. It may incorporate vibrant colors, a prominent photograph, or bold lettering. Conducting research can aid in determining the optimal thumbnail design. However, it is likely to involve certain characteristics.
- Strong colors.
- Descriptive text.
- Arrows and circles.
- Branding.
Although Canva and Fotor provide excellent templates for YouTube thumbnails, certain affiliate marketers discover that the cost of hiring a graphic designer proves beneficial.
Alex Tucker, a digital marketer, states that he has consistently prioritized quality and search optimization in his content creation. However, during his initial focus on YouTube, his click-through rates remained low (below 2%) due to his lack of design skills in creating his own thumbnails.
After teaming up with a professional designer, my video’s click-through rate increased to above 5%, resulting in double the number of people viewing them.
Creating YouTube thumbnails is possible with free tools like Canva. It’s recommended to maintain a consistent style by using the same fonts, colors, and design. This will help viewers instantly recognize your videos on the page.
4. Add Chapters to Your Videos
YouTube’s Chapters are one of the latest features that can spark people’s interest in your videos. As previously mentioned, lots of individuals utilize YouTube as a search tool, implying that they prefer quick results.
If you make it easy for people to find the answer they seek in your video, they will probably click on your affiliate link and be more engaged, even if they just click through.
Chapters prove beneficial in this regard. When you segment your video content into chapters, it provides a clear understanding to the audience about the specific topic covered in each section of the video.
Suppose you are compiling a list of the most suitable cameras for content creators. You can create a separate section for each camera covered, which enables individuals searching for a particular camera to directly jump to that section.
If your video effectively persuades viewers to purchase a recommended product or service, they will immediately look for the link in the description. Including time stamps for each chapter in the description and adding respective YouTube affiliate links for each one can also be helpful.
5. Organize Playlists
To increase your chances of earning a commission from your YouTube affiliate links, it’s important to attract traffic to the rest of the videos on your channel. A playlist consisting of videos that are similar to each other can help you achieve this goal. When someone watches one of your videos, they will automatically be recommended to watch another video that could pique their interest.
Creating a playlist on YouTube is beneficial when individuals search for a particular item, as they can refer to your playlist consisting of related videos that will provide a solution to their problem. To compose a playlist on YouTube, simply execute the following steps:
- Make a list of videos that are related and open them.
- Click “Save” on each of them.
- Select “Create a new playlist” or add to an existing one.
You can categorize your product review channel by creating playlists based on the type or brand of products being reviewed.
6. Try Out YouTube Shorts
The trend of short videos is gaining more and more popularity and they can be spotted almost everywhere on social media platforms nowadays. To hop on to this trend, YouTube has introduced YouTube Shorts feature where creators can upload brief videos or excerpts of their own content on their channel.
As many individuals are earning profits through YouTube Shorts, incorporating it into your YouTube affiliate marketing plan is also a viable option. Produce brief video clips in which you endorse a product or extract highlights from your lengthier videos, then post them on YouTube Shorts along with a product link.
7. Share on Different Platforms
Boost the visibility of your videos by promoting them on multiple platforms. Utilize your existing follower base on other social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram by advertising your new video or providing brief teasers to encourage them to watch the full video on your YouTube channel.
Ensure to maintain engagement with your followers and frequently post content to increase the chances of them viewing your videos during promotions. Embedding your videos on your website or blog is also an effective method to drive traffic to your YouTube channel and encourage clicks on your affiliate links.
Enhance the worth of your content by composing a blog article regarding the subject matter covered in your video, incorporating supplementary information and hyperlinks within the post.
8. Optimize for YouTube Search
Second only to Google, YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine. Individuals utilize the platform to acquire new knowledge, get amused, or investigate goods they intend to purchase.
Affiliate marketers can rejoice as there is good news for them. Simply identify the keywords that your intended audience is using to search, and create corresponding YouTube videos – without the need for unrealistic requests like, “Please make this viral!”. By focusing on upfront search engine optimization, you can attract organic traffic that increases over time.
Begin by identifying YouTube channels that promote products similar to those you are affiliated with. Utilize the Keywords Everywhere browser extension to explore related terms, while tracking the search volume and trend of each phrase.
After conducting keyword research to reveal the terms that your intended audience is searching, enhance the video to boost the likelihood of its appearance in search outcomes.
- Put the keyword in the video title. Try to make it as catchy as possible; click-through rate is a factor in how well your video will rank.
- Include keywords in the video description. If you’re reviewing a Canon camera, for example, naturally weave related phrases like “Canon camera review” and “reviewing the Canon camera” into the description.
- Increase watch time. The YouTube algorithm prefers videos with high watch time, since the content is proven to keep them on the platform.
9. Embed YouTube Videos in Blog Content
When combined, a blog and YouTube channel can be highly effective marketing tools for promoting your affiliate links.
- Appeal to different audiences. Your target market likely has a variety of different learning styles. Some prefer reading blog posts, others are more interested in videos. Combine the two to avoid alienating people who’d purchase your recommended products.
- Increase video views. Show your affiliate videos to people looking for recommendations outside of the YouTube sphere. For some keywords, Google’s algorithm pulls YouTube videos to display in Google search results.
- Improve SEO.Dwell time, time on page, and bounce rate are all metrics taken into account when search engine algorithms determine where a page should rank. Improve them by embedding relevant videos on your website.
10. Always Be Transparent
It is crucial to always disclose any affiliate links shared on YouTube as our final recommendation for affiliate marketing on this platform.
To build trust with your audience and encourage them to rely on your future product recommendations, it is important to provide genuine feedback about any products you recommend and only suggest items that you would use personally.
It is important to inform your audience that you will receive a slight commission from the links they click and buy from. State in your video that the links in the description are affiliated and include a disclaimer indicating that it will aid in funding your content.
By doing so, you establish greater credibility with your audience as it shows that you prioritize their interests rather than deceiving them into clicking on URLs.
Use YouTube in your affiliate marketing strategy
YouTube is the covert tool that fuels triumphant affiliate marketing campaigns for numerous marketers.
Utilize the suggestions provided in this guide to begin generating revenue on the platform. Create content that appeals to your desired audience, maximize its appeal for YouTube searches, and steer clear of clickbait solely for the purpose of video monetization.
As an affiliate marketer, maintaining honesty is crucial as it affects the trust of your audience.
