Affiliate marketing is a way to monetize your website or online business in which a marketer promotes products owned by someone else (i.e. another business or brand) and earns a commission (a percentage of the product price) on every sale.
We’ve already talked about how to get subscribers for your email list, but what are the best strategies for making money with affiliate marketing?
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To those on the outside, the inner workings of affiliate marketing programs can be mysterious and confusing. Some marketers even think it’s a channel that you can turn on and turn off like you can with paid search or paid social (spoiler: it’s not).
You need to do steps 1 and 2 above before you can start your affiliate marketing career.
You don't need to be an expert, you don't need to invest thousands of dollars, you don't need a degree, you don't need any endorsements.
One of the things that you will need to determine is the type of products that will come through your site and how you will go about marketing them.
Before finding any affiliate product to promote, here are a couple of things to remember: Cookie length (what’s the cookie duration?) Refunds (what is their refund rate?) Payment method (how will you be paid, and how often do they make payments?) Affiliate tools (do they offer promo materials such as banners?) Promotion (can you promote a product on social media, email lists?) Commission (how much commission do they pay per sale?)
Last Updated November 4, 2020. Disclosure: We may receive compensation if you sign up for or purchase products linked below. Details on offers may change, and you should confirm them with the company prior to taking action.
That’s because there’s less trust and prior knowledge involved from the outset. You have to do your due diligence to protect your reputation and the credibility you’ve built with your readers.
To make the process of affiliate marketing easier, I suggest you list down the products that you really use. And I don’t mean products that you’ve used only once. List down the products that you often use on a regular basis and the products that you have experience with.
To enhance the post, use the description box to tell your audience about the product and its use, and how it will benefit the buyer. Remember to add the referral links so the customers know where they can purchase the product.
If you are reasonably techy, you can use an online website builder. There are lots of these around, but places like Squarespace or Weebly are very reputable.
Now, that you have chosen your niche and want to promote products, we move on to the next step.
Maybe 720 monthly searches don’t seem to be much but imagine you are on page one, and you are getting all those eyes on your affiliate links. You’ll be earning some decent commissions for sure, don’t you think so?
Remember that people won’t click on your affiliate links if you don’t encourage them to. This means you should create high-quality content that increases your conversion rate. How you do this is up to you, but here are a few suggestions: Show your audience how the affiliate product or service will directly improve their lives. Include prominent, carefully-designed Calls to Action (CTAs) that encourage clicks. Consider creating full reviews for each affiliate item, with lots of images and detailed information.
So, why go for affiliate marketing, exactly? And is it the right choice for you?
“The biggest mistake business owners make is thinking that Pinterest is social media, and it’s not. The two words that I use to describe Pinterest are ‘visual search engine’, and ‘referral traffic source,’” explains Laura Rike, Pinterest Strategist. “If people start to think about it more as a search engine, they’re going to start to focus more on the phrases and the keywords that they’re using. That’s really what the algorithm picks up on.”