Have you heard of affiliate marketing, but you aren’t exactly sure what it is? This post will give you a full – easy to understand – walk through of affiliate marketing.
Find out whether affiliate marketing is a scam. Spoiler: it’s not. But is it right for you? If your a blogger or a YouTuber, it definitely is. Start monetizing your blog or channel immediately with affiliate marketing.
Note: This post may contain affiliate links. This means if you purchase something through one of those links, I may earn a commission. Please read our disclaimer for more information.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is earning a commission by referring people to their products or services.
Advertisers or Merchants who have an affiliate program will pay you a commission when someone makes a purchase usually through your link.
Is Affiliate Marketing A Scam?
Absolutely not.
Huge an popular companies pay affiliates millions of dollars each year to market their products.
Amazon has an affiliate program. And they aren’t some small company.
How Can You Become An Affiliate Marketer?
Becoming an affiliate marketer is very easy. There aren’t really any requirements for starting out. All you really need is a way to promote these products to people.
Technically, you could be an affiliate with just a Pinterest account or a type of ad account like Google Ads or Facebook Ads.
HOWEVER, this can limit you. There are a lot of affiliate programs that don’t allow this.
Here are a Few Things That Will Help You Be More Successful at Affiliate Marketing:
A Website or Blog
Most affiliate programs or affiliate networks require you to have a website that you own. But you can create a website for as little as $3.95 per month with Bluehost.
You don’t know how to set up a website? It’s a lot easier than it sounds. If you do need help, I check out this walkthrough to get you set up with Bluehost.
A YouTube Channel
While more affiliate programs will accept you with a YouTube Channel versus nothing, an actual website that you own is ALWAYS the best bet. You can easily create a simple website just to list with affiliate marketing networks and promote on your website.
An Email List
These are people who have willingly signed up to receive emails from you. This is not spam emails.
The email that you send out usually go with a blog, website, or a YouTube channel. You can send your readers direct affiliate links or links to a post or video that you created else where.
How Do You Promote Products
Each company has their own policies for how they’d like you to promote their products. Here are a few ways that you can start promoting your affiliate links:
Email Marketing
Do you have an email list? Of people that willing joined your email list? This is important as most companies do NOT want their products and services in spam emails.
An email list is the absolutely best marketing tool an affiliate marketer could have. Unlike social media, email marketing is extremely reliable.
All you have to do is go into your favorite email marketing service (Convertkit is a good marketing service, if you don’t already have one,) and write an email.
Don’t have an email list? Start building one now! Check out this list of freebies that you can make to get an email sign up rapidly!
Blog Posts
With a blog, you can promote products right in your posts. Affiliate links can be placed right in your posts.
The links that you post should be relevant to your blog’s niche or very least post. You wouldn’t want to advertise car cleaners on a fashion site. Not only is it not relevant to your readers, your click through rate will be extremely low.
YouTube Videos
Similar to blog post, you would create your videos (in line with your current videos,) and add your affiliate links in the video description. For example, if you had a cooking channel you could link the products you used in the description. You may have heard YouTubers say things like “you can find links to the products I’ve used in the description below.” A lot of these could be affiliate links.
Social Links
You can share some links onto your social media accounts.
You do have to be careful though, as some affiliate programs don’t allow direct social linking. To get around this, you can create posts or videos with your links and link the videos and posts on your social media sites.
Incentive
Some affiliate links will allow you to provide your users with incentives to purchase through their affiliate links. This is how sites like Swagbucks and Ebates (Rakuten) work.
Make sure you read carefully on the rules for your affiliate programs as some strictly forbid it.
Ads
Certain affiliate programs will allow you to direct link your affiliate links in ads. This is another one that will require you to read the rules carefully as some programs that allow it will forbid you to bid on certain words. These forbidden words are usually the company’s name.
If your program has forbidden direct linking in ads completely you can still get around this the same way you would with social linking. Create an ad linking to a post or video with your affiliate links. Even if you use this technique, avoid using the program’s “forbidden” words in the ad keywords.
How Do You Find Affiliate Programs
There’s a few ways to finding affiliate programs:
- Join Affiliate Networks. Companies outsource their affiliate programs to affiliate networks that handle the programs for them. An affiliate network can have hundreds of companies that they work with. Here is a list of some of the best affiliate networks out there.
- Google. As with most things in the world (except maybe medical diagnoses,) Google is your friend. If you have a product or service that you really enjoy using, simply type into Google “Company Name Affiliate Program.” If they have one it will usually come up in the search result. (They may have a program apart of an affiliate network too, make sure you compare programs for differences.)
Summary
As simple as possible, affiliate marketing is commission-based sales. You earn money when you make a sale for the company.
It’s not a scam. Anyone can become an affiliate marketer. You don’t need to invest any money to start earning.
However, not all program will accept you without a website. That being said, a website doesn’t guarantee approval.
You can promote your affiliate links using:
- Blog posts & YouTube Videos
- Email Lists
- Social Media
- Incentives
- Ads
Is affiliate marketing right for you?
PS: I have this awesome freebie library that you should check out & yes – it’s all free!
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