Affiliate marketing, at its core, involves promoting products or services that do not belong to you. Initially, you create a website, blog, or social media outlet and enroll in affiliate programs. By presenting a link on your platforms provided by the program, you will earn a commission whenever a person clicks on the link and purchases the affiliate’s product.
The global affiliate marketing industry is worth billions of dollars. It is projected to reach a value of $12 billion by 2022, which is three times the value it had in 2015.
Given these statistics, it’s not surprising that numerous individuals leverage affiliate marketing to boost their earnings or kickstart a fresh career. Nevertheless, in the current dynamic and constantly evolving digital realm, being perceptive is key to thriving as an affiliate marketer.
1. Choose a niche
In order to become an affiliate, it is necessary to possess adequate influence, and establishing a website with a specific focus is a highly effective approach to building a loyal audience.
Identify a subject that captivates your attention and holds promise for creating a significant supplementary income. Analyze the market trends and determine the requirements of your desired audience. By utilizing research resources such as Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and SEMrush, you can enhance your research.
After selecting a niche, produce top-notch content for your viewers. As your content becomes more unique and meaningful, it becomes simpler to establish yourself as an expert in your industry.
2. Understand your target audience
Comprehending the necessities of your audience and fulfilling them is crucial in affiliate marketing. To gain better insight into your desired consumer base, it is advisable to design buyer personas that depict imaginary versions of their life, issues, obstacles, and choices. You can either formulate these yourself or obtain them from your affiliate network.
After identifying your intended audience, you may commence developing a customized affiliate marketing plan to cater to their needs.
3. Disclose affiliate links
Building trust with your audience can either make or break your affiliate marketing attempts, and the initial step to establishing this trust is disclosing your affiliate links.
Your credibility will suffer if it is discovered elsewhere that you haven’t disclosed you’re being compensated for promoting a product. It becomes difficult to persuade customers to engage in business with you once they have reason to question your honesty.
Affiliate marketers are required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to include a disclosure.
On Twitter, the use of #affiliate or #affiliatelink is prohibited by the FTC due to their lack of clarity. #ad is a suitable replacement. With Instagram’s built-in affiliate tool, the tag “Eligible for Commission” is automatically added. Additionally, sponsored posts are accompanied by a “Paid Partnership” notification.
Ensure that your disclaimer is both concise and easily understandable if you decide to write it yourself. Additionally, make sure that it appears on all content pages.
4. Leverage on multichannel strategy
Having a strategy that utilizes multiple channels yields better results than relying on a single platform. Your website, blog, and email lists are considered “owned” platforms, while social media channels like Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest are classified as “rented” platforms.
Not incorporating social media into your business model is considered a grave mistake. This is due, in part, to the fact that YouTube ranks as the second most frequently used search engine on the planet, in addition to having 500 million individuals using Instagram on a daily basis. Effective content that is shared across different social media platforms increases the likelihood that your intended audience will visit your owned pages, such as your website and blog.
While rented platforms can aid in expanding your audience, it is still important to drive traffic to your own websites to ensure your marketing efforts are not solely reliant on ever-changing social media updates.
5. Use Key Performance Indicators to track your progress
Your affiliate links may be clicked on numerous times by visitors, yet your efforts are only partially successful until they make a purchase.
Metrics referred to as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are utilized in evaluating the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. They determine the most productive and highly-profitable aspects of your marketing plan, as well as expose any components that do not result in valuable returns.
There are several metrics available but pay close attention to:
- Click-through rate. This is the number of clicks compared to the number of views. You can use it to track digital ads, call-to-actions, and links.
- Conversion rate. This is the number of conversions compared to the number of clicks. This also applies to any desired action taken by the audience, like subscribing to a newsletter or downloading an eBook.
6. Create a carousel of ads
By enrolling in an affiliate program, you will usually be granted advertisements that can be posted on your website, blog, social media channels, and electronic mail. You have the option to produce your own ads, even if your network offers standard ones, to differentiate yourself from the competitors.
Once you have a satisfactory assortment of pre-made and unique advertisements, try them out to determine which ones are most effective in reaching your intended audience. It could take some time to discover the perfect mix, and you may have to rotate your ads frequently to increase visibility.
Making the rotation process easier can be achieved by using an ad rotator plugin. This plugin automates the rotation of ads and monitors clicks to determine their effectiveness, indicating which ads should be replaced.
7. Repurpose or edit old content
Reusing your content enables you to widen your marketing horizon by drawing in individuals that you may have overlooked before. Additionally, it’s a great approach for new followers to gain knowledge from you. Take a look at these instances of how you can recycle and revamp your current content:
- Make a YouTube video on an earlier post to expand on the topic
- Create an infographic using key takeaways from a long article
- Use Reels or TikTok to highlight YouTube videos
- Make a mini-series out of long Facebook videos
- Tweet a relevant line from an old article
- Use a powerful sentence from an old blog to caption an Instagram post
- Create an eBook from interconnected blog posts
Here are some suggestions you can experiment with to optimize the traffic of your popular affiliate content and obtain fresh relevant information.
- Replace non-converting links
- Change the color, size, and position of the Call-to-Action button
- Add new photos or replace the old ones
- Use relevant or powerful words around affiliate links
- Add pop-ups to pages with higher traffic
8. Use TikTok to create a bigger audience
The potential of TikTok is being recognized by an increasing number of brands, influencers, and affiliate marketers. Despite having almost as many users as Instagram, most marketers are still unaware of the possibilities TikTok holds. As a result, the affiliate market on TikTok remains largely untapped.
It should be noted that TikTok users are not solely from the younger generation, as Millennials and Gen X are also significant portions of the platform’s demographic. Nevertheless, it is crucial to evaluate your audience’s demographics. If the majority of your followers are in their twenties, focus on products that cater to this age group.
TikTok users enjoy authentic, humorous, and highly innovative content that both entertains them and provides useful knowledge. They engage enthusiastically with captivating content.
Brands and affiliate marketers typically adopt the latest trends in advertising and personalize them to promote their products. Take cues from TikTok content creators who have gained popularity through advertising comparable items.
One easy method to drive organic traffic to your brand’s product website through TikTok is by incorporating an affiliate link into your bio. Moreover, as TikTok permits the addition of links to other social media platforms, you can attract traffic to not just affiliate products but also your other profiles.
In order to achieve this, you must convert to a Business Account and keep in mind that you must have a minimum of 1000 followers.
- In TikTok, tap the Profile tab
- Tap the Menu button in the top-right corner
- Tap Manage Account > Switch to Business Account > Next
- Select what category your business falls under and hit Next to finish
If you do not have a considerable number of followers yet, you may opt to insert a link that cannot be clicked.
9. Create an Instagram affiliate storefront
Even in 2023, affiliates from various niches still consider Instagram as their go-to social media platform.
Just like TikTok, the aim on Instagram is to establish yourself as an influencer within your intended audience. The most successful approach to achieve this (aside from developing a successful hashtag strategy) is by sharing carefully designed content.
Instagram launched an affiliate marketing program in June 2021, providing an easy and efficient way for content creators to earn money from their high-quality content.
Instagram affiliate creators are now eligible to receive a commission on sales generated from product tags in feed posts, Stories, and products listed in their shops. In order to set up an affiliate marketing program on Instagram, a Creator account must be created. The steps to do so are as follows:
- Open your Instagram account
- Select Settings
- Go to Account
- Tap Switch to a professional account and choose Creator
- Choose the category that best describes your affiliate niche
- Enter your contact information
On Instagram’s support page, you can learn how to establish an affiliate Instagram storefront. You must satisfy Instagram’s affiliate eligibility criteria and form an affiliate on the professional dashboard.
10. Use Facebook ads for a more targeted audience
Despite the existence of other social networks, Facebook remains the largest platform globally with billions of monthly active users. Therefore, it’s highly recommended to familiarize oneself with Facebook advertising. If you’re an affiliate, utilizing Facebook ads is an excellent means of reaching out to potential customers who are likely to have an interest in the product you’re promoting.
The four primary types of Facebook ads are:
- Single image
- Single video
- Slideshow
- Carousel
Facebook dark posts are included in the single image category and serve as a highly effective means of reaching potential customers who may have an interest in your affiliate items. Specifically, a Facebook dark post is a paid advertisement that is targeted to a particular audience.
This advertising method provides a compromise between paid advertising and organic content, as the advertisement is presented as a natural post. This implies that the ad does not emerge immediately on the affiliate’s Business Page or feed upon publication, but rather solely materializes on the feeds of identified clientele.
In Ad Manager, it is possible to generate dark posts and determine their distribution. A noteworthy feature of dark posts is the ability to incorporate a call-to-action button (text containing a product link like Buy Now). Furthermore, dark posts offer ample space for text and sizable visuals.
Additional suggestions:
- Always use an affiliate disclaimer
- Interact with your audience
- Include relevant hashtags
- Post to relevant Facebook Groups
- Check your Facebook Page insights
11. Collect emails with lead magnets
To obtain visitor email addresses, a lead magnet must be provided on your affiliate marketing website at no cost. Typically, individuals do not disclose their details without receiving something in exchange, thus there must be a motivation that drives them to take action.
Consider what kind of content your audience would be willing to pay for, whether it be material that raises awareness or offers enough insights to pique their interest in the product. Ensure that the content you produce stays pertinent and delivers the perceived worth.
You may provide different types of incentives based on the product you are marketing.
- Ebooks and whitepapers
- Free courses
- Assessments or tests
- Free coupons
- Free shipping
- Templates
- Gifts with the first order
Extra pointer: After building an email list, create email sequences and provide a bonus relating to the product you are marketing. To illustrate, if you are an affiliate for Printful’s printed phone cases, you could email discount codes for those products.
12. Create a learning course on YouTube
If you are comfortable in front of the camera, utilizing the most widely used video platform to share your expertise in affiliate marketing could be a lucrative opportunity. This approach is a smart means of not only offering added benefit to your viewers but also generating income.
One option is to follow in the footsteps of YouTuber Miles Beckler and produce a detailed affiliate marketing manual, bolstered by additional advice and tutorials. Alternatively, craft video content that relates to your unique business niche, whether that be ecommerce or some other arena.
Share your knowledge regarding successful strategies, and encourage your audience to attempt them. Research what other YouTubers converse about, and construct videos utilizing your own encounters titled:
- “How to earn money with affiliate marketing in 2023”
- “Step-by-step guide to start an online business in 2023”
- “Start your dropshipping business in 2023”
- “A beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing”
- “Earn your first $X with affiliate marketing today”
