Make Money With Affiliate Marketing (Complete Guide)

Adaeze UC
Adaeze UC
53 Min Read
Make Money With Affiliate Marketing - Complete Guide

Make Money With Affiliate Marketing - Complete Guide
Make Money With Affiliate Marketing – Complete Guide. Making Money With Affiliate Marketing – Complete Guide. Do you know you can make money simply by promoting a company’s products or services?

Affiliate marketers use their own blog, youtube channel, websites, Facebook groups and pages, email marketing, or similar online presences to run their affiliate marketing program.

 

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting another person’s (or company’s) product. You find a product you like, promote it to your audience, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make.

It’s similar to a salesperson earning a commission, except you don’t work for the company. Instead, it’s like earning a reward for sending a new customer to the company.

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This complete guide will walk you through how to start an affiliate marketing business, and gives you online marketing tips and tricks to help you earn more money.

Smart entrepreneurs running a thriving business know there’s always more they can do to make that business grow. One way of taking things to the next level is by finding an alternate stream of income.

In other words, when you help another company generate sales, you get a percentage!

The best part is that you don’t have to spend the time and money to create your own products, because someone else has already done the hard work.

You can begin making money as an affiliate as soon as you have a place to recommend products, whether that’s a website you have, a podcast you’ve started, or even on social media. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so you don’t have to worry about high startup costs.  

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How affiliate marketing works. 

Affiliate marketing has to do with referring to a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platform, podcast, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation. 

For instance:

You show an ad or a link for Company A on your website, blog, or social network. A user/follower/customer clicks your unique link.

The user/follower/customer makes a purchase in Company A. The affiliate network records the transaction. The purchase is confirmed by Company A. You get paid a monetary commission.

NOTE: Commission rates vary depending on the company and the offer. On the low end, you’ll earn about 5% of the sale but, with some arrangements, you can earn as much as 50%, usually when promoting a class or event. There are also affiliate marketing programs that provide a flat rate per sale instead of a percentage.

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The Process of Affiliate Marketing. 

For an instance, 

If you want to sell an iPhone, you will list it on an affiliate network in the hopes of finding an affiliate marketer who will sell it on my behalf for a percentage agreed upon by both myself and the web, which will act as the affiliate marketer. If you are an affiliate marketer, you can choose to market the iPhone and have it sold using your affiliate link.

A commission will be paid to the affiliate marketer based on the agreement you  reached with the network. You will still receive your money if you join the affiliate network and market the iPhone directly. You will receive it based on the percentage of sales that you generate that you have mentioned on the iPhone.

SEE: Make Money On Amazon

Components that make up successful affiliate marketing. 

 

The Merchant: (seller)

A manufacturer is a company in charge of the production of a particular product. Anyone can set up and run an affiliate marketing in Nigeria network, regardless of their background. All that is required to allow affiliates to sign up and promote items is the availability of a product to offer and the product’s availability to affiliate networks.

The Affiliate: (You)

The publisher is another term for this party. Aside from that, affiliates might range from a single individual to a large organisation. This is where the marketing takes place. It is the responsibility of a companion to promote one or more affiliate products to attract and persuade potential customers to purchase the product in question.

The Consumer: (Buyer)

Customers, often known as consumers, are at the centre of the affiliate system. Without sales, there will be no commissions or revenues to be distributed; hence the situation is reversed. To reach the customer, the affiliate will utilise any means at their disposal, such as social media, digital billboards, or content marketing on a blog published on a search engine, among other methods of communication.

The Network: (Escrow)

A tiny fraction of affiliate marketers is concerned with the network. However, affiliate marketing in Nigeria networks, on the other hand, are essential to the success of any affiliate marketing strategy since they act as a link between affiliates and merchants. When it comes to marketing a product for safety reasons, companions may be forced to work through an affiliate network alternatively if a merchant (Seller) distributes their product through a single affiliate network.

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Types Of Affiliate Marketing. 

Affiliates have a bit of mystery which is you never know if the person has ever really used the product or service, or if they are just promoting it for the money. Both cases still exist today. 

The renowned affiliate marketer, Pat Flynn broke down the different types of affiliate marketers into three groups. 

Understanding these types of affiliate marketing can show you the different ways people make money online. 

 

1. Unattached Affiliate Marketing

The first type of affiliate marketing is referred to as “unattached,” or when you have no authority in the niche of the product you’re advertising. There is no connection between you and the customer. Often you are running pay-per-click advertising campaigns with your affiliate link and hoping people will click it, buy the product, and earn a commission. 

Unattached affiliate marketing is attractive because you don’t need to do any legwork. Affiliate marketing businesses rely on reputation and trust with a target audience online. Some don’t have the time or desire to build those relationships, so this type of marketing is their best option.

“Unattached affiliate marketing isn’t a genuine business model, it’s for people who just want to generate income,” explains Elise Dopson, founder of Sprocker Lovers. 

“Our focus for Sprocker Lovers is building community and providing free education around a particular niche first, which in our case is the sprocker spaniel dog breed, and selling second.” 

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2. Related Affiliate Marketing 

Related affiliate marketing is where you promote products and services you don’t use, but that are related to your niche. Affiliates in this case have an audience, whether it’s through blogging, YouTube, TikTok, or another channel. They have influence, which makes them a trusted source for recommending products, even if they’ve never used it before.

The problem with related affiliate marketing is, do you want to promote something you’ve never tried before? It could be the worst product or service ever and you wouldn’t even know. It only takes one bad recommendation to lose the trust of your audience. If you don’t have trust and transparency, it’ll be hard to build a sustainable affiliate marketing business. 

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3. Involved Affiliate Marketing 

Involved affiliate marketing refers to only recommending products and services you’ve used and truly believe in. “Involved affiliate marketing is the way forward,” says Elise. “It’s rooted in trust and authenticity, which is best for your audience and business.” 

In this type of marketing, you use your influence to promote products and services that followers may actually need, instead of paying to get clicks on a banner ad. It takes more time to build this type of credibility with an audience, but it’s necessary to build a sustainable business. 

Elise explains that advertising also becomes much easier. “You don’t have to hide behind expensive PPC ads and hope for clicks and sales. An organic Instagram Story or blog post about your experience with a product will go a long way.” Elise prefers this method because it’s honest and is “the only genuine way to become a trusted source on any topic.” 

Involved affiliate marketing is the only genuine way to become a trusted source on any topic.

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Pros and Cons Of Affiliate Marketing. 

 

Pros

There’s no doubt affiliate marketing is worth it, given its growth in popularity. Statista estimates the affiliate marketing industry will be worth $8.2 billion by 2022, up from $5.4 billion in 2017. It’s also a low- to no-cost business venture you can profit from immensely. 

While industry growth is a good indication of success, entrepreneurs also take this referral marketing route for a few other reasons.

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1. Easy to execute

Your side of the equation simply involves handling the digital marketing side of building and selling a product. You don’t have to worry about the harder tasks, like developing, supporting, or fulfilling the offer.

 

2. Low risk

Since there’s no cost to join affiliate programs, you can start making money with an established affiliate product or service without any upfront investment. Affiliate marketing also can generate relatively passive income through commission—the ideal money-making scenario. Though initially you’ll have to invest time creating traffic sources, your affiliate links can continue to deliver a steady pay check.

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3. Easy to scale

Successful affiliate marketing offers the potential to significantly scale your earnings without hiring extra help. You can introduce new products to your current audience and build campaigns for additional products while your existing work continues to generate revenue in the background.

Before you get too excited, know that great affiliate marketing is built on trust. While seemingly there is an endless number of products or services to promote, it’s best to only highlight those you personally use or would recommend. Even when a product interests you or fits within an existing hobby, becoming a great marketer for that product takes a lot of work.

 

Cons

Affiliate marketing also has a few disadvantages compared to other platforms. Before jumping in, let’s look at a few challenges you’ll face on your journey to success.

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1. Requires patience

Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It requires time and patience to grow an audience and gain influence. 

You’ll want to test different channels to see which connect best with your audience. Research the most relevant and credible products to promote. And spend time blogging, publishing free content on social media, hosting virtual events, and doing other lead-generating activities. 

 

2. Commission-based

There’s no boss handing you a weekly paycheck as an affiliate marketer. Affiliate programs work on a commission basis, whether you’re paid by lead, click, or sale. 

Companies use a temporary browser cookie to track peoples’ actions from your content. When a desired action is taken by someone, you receive the payout. 

SEE: How To Start An Ecommerce Business From Home

3. No control over program

Affiliates must obey the rules set by a company for their program. You need to follow their guidelines for what you say and how you present their product or service. Competitors must follow the same recommendations, so you have to get creative to differentiate yourself from the crowd.

 

How Affiliate Marketers Make Money. 

Five common ways affiliates get paid include:

 

1. Pay Per Sale 

Pay per sale is when you earn a commission for each sale you make. It’s a common payout model for ecommerce offers.

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2. Pay Per Action 

Pay per action is when you earn a commission for a specific action. Many affiliate programs use this payout model because it’s broad and can be applied to different offers: a newsletter signup, a click, contact request, form submission, etc. 

3. Pay per install

Pay per install is when you are paid for every install generated from your website traffic. The goal of your content would be to promote mobile apps and software so that people download or install them.

4. Pay per lead

Pay per lead is when you are paid every time someone signs up for something. It’s a popular payout method because companies use it for sweepstakes, lead generation, and other types of offers. Cost per lead offers are common for beginners because it’s easier to generate leads than to sell products to an audience. 

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5. Pay Per Click

Pay per click is a rare payout system where you earn commission on every click on your affiliate link. Pay per click programs are used by big merchants with a goal to build brand awareness. Customers don’t need to sign up or buy anything, just to visit the merchant’s website. 

 

How To Start Affiliate Marketing.

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In affiliate marketing, there are several ways to get started. Here is how to start affiliate marketing:

If you wish to go into affiliate marketing but aren’t sure where to start, you will find this guide to be of assistance. You can read it again and again if you so desire. That’s the only way to ensure that it stays in your memory.

 

To get started with affiliate marketing online, follow these steps:

  • Pick your platform and method
  • Decide your niche and audience
  • Find your products
  • Choose your first affiliate program

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Step 1:

Pick your platform and method

The first step is figuring out the platform you want to build your audience around. Every affiliate marketer has a different approach and platform. 

There are many affiliate marketing ideas you can choose from based on different methods:

  • Niche topic and review sites. 

These are sites that review products for a specific audience or compare a line of products against their competitors. This method requires you to create content related to the review space and post regularly to draw in an audience.

  • Digital content. 

Digital content creators include bloggers, YouTubers, or social media influencers. They create niche content that resonates with a target audience. The goal is to organically introduce niche products their audience will enjoy. This increases the chances they’ll buy and you’ll earn an affiliate commission.

Courses, events, workshops. If you’re an educator, you can integrate affiliate partnership offers into your events. 

No matter which route you take, authenticity and audience building are the two most crucial elements for affiliate marketing. 

If you cannot authentically connect with your audience, chances are you won’t have success in converting them into affiliate sales.

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To pick a social platform and method, ask yourself:

  • What social platforms do you use the most? 
  • Which social platforms do you understand best? 

Common social platforms affiliate marketers use are:

  • Blog
  • Instagram 
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • TikTok
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest 

SEE: Tips For Increasing Your Social Media Engagement

Start with a marketing platform you’re comfortable with, that will help you create high-quality content. This can result in a stronger, more engaged audience you can turn into sales. 

 

Step 2:

Decide your niche and audience. 

When it comes to choosing a niche, aim for something you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. This helps you come across as authentic and as a trusted source of information for potential customers. It also helps you evaluate which products and brands you want to promote. 

Say, for example, you started a blog about clothing. You own a store and you’re passionate about fashion. 

You create a blog like NK FASHION, and you regularly post and encourage people to subscribe to an email list and share your content. NK FASHION is your niche, and you’re going to invest in content marketing and optimization to grow your audience of owners.

“The niche you choose for your affiliate site guides how much time or effort you’ll need to put into building it to a point where you begin to see SEO results,” says Elise.

“SERPs for software, marketing, and health care, for example, are all dominated by huge blogging sites with even bigger marketing budgets. The secret is finding untapped areas where competition isn’t as fierce—and getting in there before other people recognize it.”

As you post more, you can use affiliate marketing devices like social listening tools, website analytics, and social media insights to discover who your audience is and what they like. 

It’s important you know your audience so well, that you understand why they follow you in the first place.

Remember, you’re not paid to post. Affiliate marketing is a performance-based online business. If you know what your audience likes, you can then refer the best products to them and earn more affiliate income.

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Step 3:

Find your products

To earn revenue as an affiliate marketer, your audience needs to connect with what you’re saying. The items or services you promote need to be products they genuinely want. Getting this wrong can hinder your success and diminish your credibility—as well as your audience. 

If you’re curious where to look for products or brands to work with, don’t worry. There are tons of affiliate marketplaces, including:

  • Amazon Associates Affiliate Program.
  • Affiliate Future Affiliate Program.
  • AvantLink Affiliate Program.
  • CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) Program. 
  • ClickBank Affiliate Program.
  • FlexOffersAffiliate Program.
  • LinkConnector Affiliate Program.
  • ShareASale Affiliate Program.
  • Rakuten Advertising Affiliate Program.
  • Impact Affiliate Program.
  • eBay Partner Network Affiliate Program.
  • Fiverr Affiliate Program.
  • Refersion Marketplace.
  • PepperJam Network.
  • Avangate Affiliate Program.
  • MaxBounty Affiliate Program.
  • LinkConnector Affiliate Program.

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You can go to Google and search for these affiliate marketing programs. 

Another option is to visit the websites of the products and services you use and like to see if they have an affiliate program. Large companies often have programs they promote on their site, such as Amazon Associates or the Shopify Affiliate Program.

You also can take a more direct approach. Reach out to the owner of a great product you come across and see if they offer an affiliate marketing program. If they don’t, they might be happy to set up an arrangement with you, such as offering you a special coupon code to share with your followers. 

 

Step 4

Choose your first affiliate program. 

As you brainstorm products or browse through affiliate platforms, the most important criteria to keep in mind is that the product should be aligned with your audience, or the audience you hope to build. Ask yourself, is it something your target audience would find valuable? Does it fit with your area of expertise?

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A food blogger probably wouldn’t promote beauty products, for example. A wide range of other products, such as cookware, meal kits, gourmet ingredients, or even aprons would make more sense.

Also make sure the product or service you’re promoting is a fit for the platform you’re promoting it on. For example, home décor and clothing are well suited to image-heavy platforms like Instagram. However, if you’re promoting more in-depth purchases, like software, your conversion rates may be higher on longer-form platforms, like a blog or YouTube.

 

How to Promote Their Products or Services

 

The affiliate network serves as a repository for many different affiliate programmes from which an affiliate marketer can choose to promote their products. 

  • Decide on a specific affiliate market. 
  • Create a blog and post it on it
  • Develop original material. 

 

Affiliate programmers are a fantastic method to monetize your website’s traffic.

Make use of social media to get the word out about what you’ve written and published.

SEE: 31 Top Manufacturing Business Ideas

 

Step 1:

Choose a topic for your affiliate marketing campaign.

When there is a lack of enthusiasm and passion in a business, a sense of fear prevails. Apart from that, affiliate marketing is a lucrative method of earning income. Selecting a specialisation for your affiliate marketing in Nigeria or any other region of the world is critical to its success. In any case, it is dedicated to.

Understand that it can be challenging to choose a particular area of interest that you are interested in or that you are enthusiastic about. The good news is that there are a few strategies by which you might learn this information far more quickly than you might imagine. But first, let’s identify a market segment.

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So, what exactly is a niche in this context?

For example, health and fitness products could be considered a niche market in their own right. The health-related goods category has a significantly larger market share than other categories.

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Before committing to a specific niche, determine whether or not you will be able to monetize the market you are interested in economically.

 

What are some of your passions?

This is a straightforward way of determining your target audience. “What is the subject area that I am most interested in?” you should ask yourself. This could be a sporting event or something else entirely.

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Is the niche well-served by affiliates in terms of traffic and sales?

Beauty is a well-known and well-known niche, to name a few examples. It’s possible that you won’t be able to perform as well as you should because you’re new and don’t have much prior experience. So, if at all possible, seek out a less competitive alternative.  

 

Step 2:

Start a blog

The second step is to establish affiliate marketing in a blog to aid in disseminating information about your products. Creating a blog for your affiliate business makes it possible to generate recurring money from it. Even if you aren’t actively employed, a blog allows you to earn money from earlier work you have completed.

In comparison to previous generations, creating a blog is now simpler. You don’t even need to be familiar with coding to get started. Just make sure you’re dealing with WordPress instead of something else.

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Selecting a Web Address for Your Organisation

To get started, you first register a domain name for yourself. In most cases, the domain name you choose will serve as the basis for the name of your website.

 

Get your website’s web hosting and set it up properly.

In the same way that a domain name serves as your website’s address, hosting serves as the physical location where your website resides. The quality of your web hosting directly impacts the response time of your website when it is accessed via the internet. Because a subpar hosting company has the potential to cause downtime at any time, your website should always be hosted by a respected organisation.

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You can also create an account on Blogger to begin posting on your blog.

Following that, you’ll need to start producing content for your blog, which you’ll do when you’ve completed the first setup. Guarantee you that the prospect of writing your first post can be scary but that it is always the most challenging step. Maintain a constant tone in your writing style throughout the document. When you write, you develop your writing abilities.

Conducting extensive studies will be necessary to develop high-quality material. If you want to be a successful blogger, you must be on the lookout for blogs related to your field. However, this does not indicate that you should copy and paste their content verbatim or risk receiving a Google penalty as a result. Even though you may not consider yourself a competent writer, you can hire a professional to complete your project. A well-written article can be purchased for as little as three to five bucks.

In this particular instance, it could look something like this:

First and foremost, there are the reviews.

In general, reviews should not be fewer than a thousand words in length, and they should cover both the positive and negative aspects of the product or service under consideration. The product will benefit from your credibility as a reviewer, and your audience will be more informed about the product as a result of your review. The fact that you did not display any bias in your thinking will encourage people to return to your blog in the future.

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Articles that teach “how-to, Way to, Easy, Best, Simple” methods are number two.

It’s typical for “how-to or way to” articles to detail how to complete or begin a specific task in a particular situation. For instance, the image you’re currently viewing is one such example. If you are well-versed in the subject area of your chosen expertise, you should find these to be valuable. In general, the greater the amount of visitors your blog receives, the more money you can generate from it, given that you have correctly monetized it.

 

The third category consists of articles with “Tips and Lists.”

Along with increasing traffic, you can write this piece even if you are a rookie at writing a blog. There is no need to be concerned if you are not a good writer or do not have sufficient knowledge of the topic you are interested in. Subscribe to blogs in your chosen field of expertise, and use the content of their posts as inspiration for your writing. Once again, resist the temptation to copy and paste a document. You will be tempted, but resist the urge to give in to the temptation.

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Ways to Take Your Marketing Strategy to a New Level

 

Make Money from Your Content by Participating in Affiliate Programs.

On the other hand, a rushed project will arise if you skip phases 1–3 and jump straight to step 4. Because it will distinguish your organisation from the competition, you must adhere to every procedure step.

 

Ads that appear within the text

Banner advertisements for the items and services you’re attempting to sell can be shown on your website. The majority of affiliate programmers provide their own set of banners for their affiliates to use to promote their products.

 

Contextual navigation relies on links to relevant content as a fundamental component.

Contextual links are frequently used for advertising affiliate offers by many people. Almost certainly, you came across a blog post that included a link to another website that provides items or services of interest to you. If a reader clicks on the link and makes a purchase, the blog owner who provided the affiliate link will receive a commission from the retailer.

 

Email marketing is a form of promotion.

A significant advantage will be gained if you have a mailing list of email subscribers. Consequently, you will quickly and easily create emails that incorporate links to affiliate deals. The amount of money you can make from their purchases is virtually limitless, provided they click on your affiliate links and complete the transaction on the merchant’s website.

 

Product Reviews and Evaluations

You can promote affiliate products on your website and increase traffic by publishing product reviews. Don’t create a biassed assessment of a product or service because you want to earn a commission; instead, concentrate solely on the positive features of the product or service. Your readers will reduce your goals far more quickly if you write in this manner. People will not be discouraged from acquiring the product or service, though.

 

Get Your Site Noticed. 

No matter how new your blog is, you will not receive much traffic until you put forth some effort. The greater the number of visitors you receive, the more money you will earn. Keep this in mind while you’re advertising or promoting your website.

You can write a guest article with the assistance of other people.Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)Creating and sending out newsletters to subscribers.

 

Affiliate Marketing Tips To 10X Your Profits

 

#1: Be Authentic

Being authentic is what sets apart many of the business owners who experience the greatest success with affiliate marketing. Your subscribers and customers want to know your honest opinion. They want to know the tools and services you’re using to build your business.

So share what you truly like, dislike, and what’s currently working for you. By focusing on being authentic, your affiliate marketing becomes more like you telling a friend to go see a movie. When it becomes more about serving your audience than it is about getting a commission, your affiliate efforts will instantly take off. 

 

#2: Create Valuable Content

One great way to get started or amplify your affiliate marketing is by creating valuable content! By creating walkthroughs, guides, YouTube tutorials, or other content helping people better understand how to use what you’re promoting, you’ll more effectively generate new opt-ins, build trust, and ultimately create sales.

The strategy here is to focus on showing your people an in-depth process of how you’re currently using the specific product or service. The old phrase “show me don’t tell me” is one which should be put to use in the content you create.

 

#3: Don’t Stop!

Remember, just like products, services, and softwares are constantly changing, so too can the affiliate content you create! You want to consistently be updating and evaluating if the product you’re promoting is still a good fit for your audience.

You can also try using additional unique bonuses as part of your affiliate offer to see if doing so makes it a more enticing deal for them to act on. Affiliate marketing is just like any other marketing, it’s all about the offer! By constantly enhancing your offer or repositioning it to better suit your target audience, you’ll find more success.

 

#4: Promote The Product As If It’s Your Own. 

By following this one tip you’ll instantly create more enticing content and offers than your competition. Where most marketers go wrong is they half-heartedly promote their affiliate products. But your people pick up on this and will most likely be drawn to something else.

This is more of a mindshift than anything else. How would you promote this product if it was your very own? How would you teach someone about it if that person was your best friend?

By giving this extra effort, enthusiasm, and level of detail to your affiliate marketing, you’ll be more likely to have your tribe connect with it. Find ways to go above and beyond and reap the rewards of increased passive revenue. This isn’t about slapping #sponsored or #ad on a social media post to get commissions on purchase. Affiliate marketing is about promoting a product you truly love to people who could actually benefit from it.

Finally, make sure that in the webinar and on the post where you embed the replay, you give people multiple opportunities to click on your affiliate link.

 

#5. Give Away A Bonus. 

This is probably one of the more underutilised tips I have to share today—but probably one of the most powerful too.

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In addition to promoting the affiliate product, give away a bonus to all of those who purchase the product through your link as a thank you.

Chances are, you’re not the only one promoting that product, so to get people to buy from you instead of the other guy, throw in a bonus that can only come with a purchase through your link.

Just have your audience members send you their receipt via email and then you can reply with the bonus, or information about how to access it.

 

So what could that bonus be?

Maybe it’s a special webinar that shows people how to use the product with a Q&A session at the end of it. Imagine being able to purchase a product, getting familiar with it, and then a couple of days later having access to a webinar that shows you exactly how to use the product, with an opportunity to ask questions about it. How awesome would that be?

Maybe the bonus is another product or piece of software that you have that complements the affiliate product.

Maybe it’s a discount you work out with the owner of the product, one that provides incentive to purchase from you.

Maybe it’s a coupon code or discount to another product you own or have ties to.

Maybe it’s a PDF quick-start guide with instructions and best practices for that product, or access to a website with videos with the same guidance.

You’re adding value to the purchase, making your buyers feel comfortable, and helping get those on the fence from “I’m not sure if this is right for me” to “This is exactly what I need, and more.”

 

#6. Promote Your Products Indirectly On Social Media

Although your website is the centrepiece of your affiliate marketing strategy, social media—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.—can play an important role in your affiliate marketing strategy too.

The thing about social media—at least in my experience and in the experience of many other people I know—is that if you directly promote on your social media platforms, you’re not going to get a good response.

People on social media are typically there to be social, not to be sold to.

But all is not lost in the affiliate marketing world, because you can do an indirect social media push, which means instead of directly linking to your affiliate links on Facebook or Twitter or any other platform, you’re instead linking to something of value that includes the affiliate link, such as a video, an epic post on your blog, or a link to sign up for a webinar.

You’re not linking directly through your affiliate link, but a resource that will engage people beforehand, earn their trust, and show them what the product is about before clicking on your affiliate link.

Yes, one of the cardinal rules of online marketing has long been that the fewer gateways or clicks people have to go through before they get to the “buy” button, the better.

But I think that’s been changing, and now it’s closer to the less information you give away, the less you’re likely to make a sale.

The more trust you can earn beforehand, the greater the likelihood people will buy from you.

You don’t want someone to have to click 100 times before they get to where you want them to go, but a few clicks is okay, as long as you give them enough information beforehand to help them make their decision.

 

#7: Clear Call To Actions

This is our last tip for a reason. In all of your affiliate promotions, everything should lead to a crystal clear call to action. This is the purpose of all the work you’ve done up until this point. So make sure the call to action is clear, repeated, and easy to see.

Tell them what happens when they sign up. Incentivize them to join your list or purchase the product right then and there. Far too often marketers do everything right but then completely forget to ask for a purchase or even an opt-in!

All of your affiliate marketing should contain some sort of clearly defined call to action. 

Like we said, affiliate marketing is one of the easiest and most effective ways to generate additional income online. Many times it’s completely passive as well!

And the success of this type of marketing truly comes down to sharing products and services which you believe in and know will help the people you’re sharing it with.

 

#8: Share Your Transformation Story

Stories are one of the most effective and persuasive ways to share your message. And when it comes to affiliate marketing there’s no better way to communicate to your prospects how this specific product or service transformed your business than by using a story.

 

#9. Run A Giveaway To Take Advantage Of “Social Proof”

Social proof is the idea that people will naturally gravitate toward what the masses are doing. As an example, say you’re at the mall, and you see a huge crowd gathering around one store.

You can’t help but want to know what’s going on—everyone else is there for some reason, and you want to know what that reason is.

Online, this translates to having other people do the marketing for you, except in this case it’s through metrics like numbers of subscribers, likes, comments, and things like that.

 

Here’s how this strategy can play out in the real world.

When you plan to promote a product as an affiliate, try to work with the owner to get a few copies to give away to your audience for free.

Maybe you can get a discounted price for a limited time only for your audience as well. This may not always be possible, but it never hurts to ask. 

In a blog post, review this product—maybe it’s your epic post, or maybe you just mention it at the end of one of your regular posts.

Share that you have two or three copies of the product to give away for free, and that in order to be entered to win one of the copies, your audience members have to leave one comment about how they would use the product and why it would help them.

Have them go through an affiliate link of yours to see what the product is all about first, and then come back to your blog to leave their entry as a comment.

What happens here is that you get tons of people leaving comments that become social proof for the greatness of the product.

There’s nothing more powerful than someone else’s recommendation, and in this case, it’s other people’s recommendation for a product you’re promoting as an affiliate.

Plus, you can follow up with the people who leave a comment on the post but don’t win, to share a limited-time deal or an email saying thanks for the entry and giving them your affiliate link one more time.

I’ve used this strategy to great success promoting several products in the past, so I suggest you give it a shot.

 

#10. Promote Products Indirectly Via Your Email List

Your email list is an integral part of any affiliate marketing campaign—and if you don’t have one, you need to get started building one yesterday! Email is extremely powerful for marketing, which is why so many people say, “The money’s in the list.”

As with social media, I recommend indirectly promoting to your email list. I don’t directly promote anything on my email list. If there are any links in my emails they point back to other content, usually on my blog, such as epic posts, videos, webinars, and the like.

Email should be all about giving people as much high-value content as possible, not direct selling. In fact, certain affiliate programs such as Amazon’s don’t even allow you to include affiliate links in emails. For more on Amazon, check out my Amazon affiliate marketing guide here.

You need to take great care of your email list and not be too aggressive with it. Indirect promotion is a much better way to go about things, especially if you’re focused on building trust with your audience (and you should be!).

 

#11. Promote Products Indirectly On Other People’s Sites

This is another instance in which indirect linking is your friend.

If you’re interviewed for another person’s blog, or asked to write a guest post, you can link back to a piece of content on your site that contains your affiliate link.

As with social media and email, you don’t want to hit people over the head with your links—and most of the time, if you try to link directly to an affiliate product through someone else’s site, they won’t allow it anyway.

 

#12. Review And Compare Different Products Of The Same Type

Another strategy is to compare different products of the same type. Compare and contrast, and if you give them your recommendation, make sure that link is an affiliate link.

The reason this works is because people like to shop around, but they also like convenience. So instead of making them carry out their search all over the web, keep them on your site by reviewing each of the different products in one spot.

If you’ve done a good job building up audience trust, then a well-written comparison review of different products of the same type can be a great way to drive affiliate purchases.

This could potentially become an epic post as well, complete with videos and special deals just for your audience.

 

 

SEE MORE:

eBook: Your Purpose – Your Target

3 In 1 Digital Pack: Content Creation, Facebook Marketing and WhatsApp (eBook)

Businesses That Can Make You a Millionaire {E-book} 

Cheapest Way To Write And Publish A Book

How To Sit at home and Make Money Online 

Earn $1000 Online as A Freelancer With No Skills

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Adaeze UC is a Blogger. She is the owner of www.adaezeucblog.com, Adaeze UC Empire, Adaeze UC Foundation, and Online Talk with Adaeze (OTA). She is also a Commercial Model, One of the best faces that can sell a brand and its product.
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