May 26, 2020

How to Make Money From Affiliate Marketing

Nick Making Money sponsored post 4 Comments

Today I’m looking at a method for making money online I have used for many years, including (of course) on this blog.

Affiliate marketing entails promoting other people’s products and getting a proportion of the sales generated as commission.

In a way affiliate marketers are like freelance salespeople, but rather than visiting potential buyers in person, they simply have to get them to click through to their merchant partners’ websites via their affiliate links.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

For home-based entrepreneurs, affiliate marketing offers a great opportunity to make money online with a minimum of hassle. One beauty of the method is that you don’t actually have to supply the product or service you are promoting. Once you have delivered your prospect to the merchant’s sales page, the rest is up to them. You can simply sit back and await your commission!

A further benefit is that when someone clicks on your affiliate link, in many cases a tracking cookie is applied to them. These vary in duration from 24 hours to six months or more. If the prospect returns to the merchant’s website at any time during this period, as the referring affiliate you will still be credited with any commission generated.

Affiliate marketing can be great for earning a sideline income, but if you’re prepared to put a bit more work in, the returns can be substantial. Some so-called ‘superaffiliates’ allegedly make six-figure incomes this way. Of course, when first starting out your earnings are likely to be more modest than that, but there is no reason why in time you could not emulate their success.

There are lots of ways you can apply the affiliate marketing method. They include blogging, email newsletters, social media, and more. In fact, if you have any sort of online presence, the chances are you could boost your income through affiliate marketing. In this article I will look at some of the most popular (and effective) approaches. But before we get to that, let’s look at how it works in a bit more detail…

Getting Started

To become an affiliate marketer you will first need to be an online publisher. If that sounds daunting, don’t worry. It could simply mean setting up a free blog using Blogger.com, which you can do in 10 minutes or less. Or you could use social media and/or build a mailing list (all discussed in more detail below)

You can then apply to become an affiliate with one or more merchants. Affiliates are supplied by the merchants with special links and other advertising tools, and can place them on their websites. No particular technical expertise is required, just the ability to copy and paste a bit of code.

If someone visits your site and follows your affiliate link to the merchant’s site and buys something there, you will get a proportion of the money they pay as commission. Special tracking systems are used so that merchants know where customers have been referred from and pay affiliates their due.

Commissions vary widely. The biggest are typically paid in respect of downloadable products, such as e-books and software. Commissions of 50% or more are routinely paid for such products. By contrast, with physical products, where the merchant’s profit margins are typically much lower, your commission may be just a few percent. Of course, with an expensive item, even a commission of a few percent can be a significant amount.

Large companies such as Amazon run their own affiliate programmes. Many smaller companies, however, use the services of affiliate marketing platforms to run affiliate operations on their behalf. Some well-known affiliate marketing platforms include ClickBank, Commission Junction and Awin. As a publisher you can apply to join any of these platforms and will then be able to promote any of the merchants listed on them (though sometimes the merchant will need to give their approval as well).

I will now look at the platforms mentioned in a little more detail…

Affiliate Marketing Platforms

1. Amazon

Amazon is of course the world’s favourite online store. They sell a huge range of products, from books to clothing, cameras to garden equipment, computers to groceries.

Their affiliate programme is called Amazon Associates and any online publisher can apply to join. As long as your site looks reputable and has some relevant content, you are likely to be accepted.

Amazon does not offer especially generous commission to affiliates, currently starting at around 1% and going as high as 12% in limited cases. There are various good reasons for choosing to promote them, though. As well as the huge range of products on offer, Amazon have an excellent reputation for value and customer service. If you can get customers to the store, there is every chance they will buy something there.

A further consideration is that if a customer makes other purchases at the same time, you will also receive commission for these. In the run-up to Christmas in particular, when people often make multiple purchases, this can give your affiliate income a real boost.

2. ClickBank

 ClickBank is an affiliate marketing platform. They list downloadable manuals and software in a wide range of categories, with commission of up to 80 percent paid by vendors. If you sign up as an affiliate with them you can immediately start promoting any of the thousands of products in their marketplace.

• My top tip for new ClickBank affiliates is to focus on products with a “gravity” between 20 and 100. Gravity is a score given by ClickBank that shows how many affiliates have earned a commission by promoting that product during the last three months. Lower than 20, and it’s probably not selling very well. Over 100, and the competition from other affiliates will be intense.

3. Commission Junction

While ClickBank focuses solely on downloadable products, Commission Junction is an affiliate marketing platform covering a huge range of products and services. They list thousands of merchants, in categories from travel to legal services, beauty to sports and fitness.

As a publisher you start by applying to join Commission Junction. Once you have been accepted, you can then browse the merchant offers and apply to promote any that catch your eye. Some merchants automatically accept all applications, but others like to approve affiliates themselves. This normally only takes a day or two.

Commission rates on CJ vary considerably, but they are clearly set out on the site. Once you have been approved, you will be able to download affiliate links and advertising banners for the merchant in question. You will be able to monitor sales by logging in to your CJ account. Payments are then made monthly by direct transfer to your bank account.

4. Awin

Awin has lots of well-known consumer brands on board, and is a very popular platform among UK bloggers. It operates in a similar way to Commission Junction (see above). You have to pay a small fee (£5) to register as an affiliate with them, but this is refunded once you have earned enough commission to qualify for your first payout.

Blogging

In my view one of the best ways to make money from affiliate marketing is through blogging. If you don’t have a blog already, you can easily set one up at Blogger.com, the free blogging platform run by Google. Ideally, though, I recommend setting up your blog using a self-hosted WordPress platform (like Pounds and Sense). There is more of a learning curve with WordPress, but you have the freedom to configure your blog exactly as you want it.

The best type of blog for this purpose is a niche blog – that is to say, a blog devoted to a particular interest or activity. That could be anything from gardening to fishing, photography to computers. You can then write about this subject on your blog and include affiliate links to relevant products and services.

One of the best ways of doing this is by publishing reviews, with affiliate links to the product (or service) concerned. If a reader is inspired to buy after reading your blog review, as long as he/she visits the merchant’s site via your link, you will receive a commission.

Of course, if you’re going to do this, you will need to give a balanced review of whatever you are promoting. Emphasize its good qualities, certainly, but don’t be afraid to mention any shortcomings as well. Readers will be more inclined to believe you – and trust you in future – than if you simply hype any product you are selling to the skies.

• Another tactic that can work well is to offer a free, downloadable bonus to anyone buying via your link. This can be especially effective with business opportunities and software products. You could offer a complementary product such as a user guide or case study. Ask people to email you a copy of their receipt and send them your bonus in the same way.

Naturally, for this type of marketing to work, you will need to attract a steady stream of interested visitors to your blog. A full discussion of how to do this is outside the scope of this post, but there is of course plenty of free information on this subject online (see also Taking It Further, below).

List Marketing

Affiliate marketing also works extremely well in conjunction with running a mailing list or online newsletter. If you have a list of people interested in a specific topic, you can email them with a series of affiliate offers relevant to their interest, and potentially make multiple sales to the same buyers.

Running a niche blog, as mentioned above, gives you a great opportunity to start building a list. All you need do is add a sign-up box on the front of your blog.

One thing I strongly recommend, though, is opening an account with a mailing list management service such as GetResponse or Aweber. These services handle subscribe and unsubscribe requests automatically, together with changes of email address. They also ensure that any would-be subscriber must click on a link in a confirmation email before being added. This ‘double opt-in’ method ensures you have proof they did actually subscribe to your list if any accusations to the contrary are made later.

There are many other benefits to using a mailing list service. For example, most such services will monitor how many people are opening your messages, and even let you selectively remail those who didn’t read them first time round.

• As with affiliate reviews, another good tactic is to offer potential subscribers a ‘bribe’ for signing up. A short report or e-book could be a suitable choice. Choose a downloadable bonus if at all possible, as the process of getting it to your subscriber can then be automated.

Social Media

You can also promote affiliate offers through social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

A word of warning is in order, however. The social media platforms all have their own rules about affiliate marketing and what they will and won’t allow. That means affiliate links may be frowned upon and in some cases banned. There are ways around this, e.g. you can convert your affiliate link using a link-shortening service such as the free tinyurl.com. This may work, but it’s not guaranteed! There are also rules to follow about disclosing promotional posts and/or affiliate links (see below).

A better method, in my opinion, is to use social media to help drive traffic to your blog posts, where your money-making affiliate links are located. Another option is to create a dedicated landing page which is designed to get visitors to click on your link (you could also use your landing page to sign people up for your newsletter). You will need your own blog or website to host a landing page, but you can also get basic landing pages for free if you join an autoresponder service such as Aweber.

Once you have a landing page, you can link to it from Facebook or other social media with no fear of being blocked or banned.

Affiliate Disclosure

In the UK (and most other countries) there is a legal requirement to make clear that you are using affiliate links for marketing purposes. This is to avoid consumers being misled.

In the UK this area is overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). They publish guidelines which do not in themselves have the force of law but are based on the relevant laws.The guidelines are not always as clear or specific as one might like, but a guidance document relating to ‘influencers’ (which includes bloggers and social media personalities) can be downloaded here.

The main point made in the ASA guidelines is that it should always be clear to a visitor to your website (or whatever) when they are reading an advertisement or clicking on an affiliate link. There are no hard and fast rules about how exactly this must be done, so different people take different views. Personally with Pounds and Sense I have a general Affiliate Disclosure page, and also include a separate disclosure paragraph in any post with affiliate links or other commercial associations. At the start of each post it will also say if it is (for example) a sponsored post. I have never encountered any problems using this approach, but obviously it is something everyone needs to decide for themselves based on the guidelines.

If you also use email marketing, you can (and almost certainly should) include a note near the end of every email such as, ‘The sender of this email has an affiliate relationship with the authors of the products mentioned and may receive compensation from them in the event of a purchase.’

More Top Tips

Here are a few more tips for maximizing your income from affiliate marketing…

• Promote products you can genuinely recommend, preferably because you’ve used them yourself, or at least based on solid evidence.
• Talk about what you like and don’t like. Be honest with your readers and build trust. People are far more likely to buy things you recommend if they have learned to trust you in the past.
• Take any opportunity to promote products in passing, as well as in dedicated posts. For example, in a gardening blog, if you’re talking about a particular plant species, you might mention in passing a supplier from whom you have received good specimens in the past. Low-key recommendations such as this can be surprisingly effective for generating sales.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Promote multiple affiliate products. Better yet, diversify across all income streams. In other words, use affiliate marketing, but also use other forms of income generation such as selling your own product, offering a service, or selling advertising space on your blog.
• Although most affiliate offers involve a payment per sale, in some cases merchants will pay for other outcomes, e.g. a quotation request (for insurance perhaps). As you gain experience it is worth looking out for such offers to promote, as they can be very lucrative. The same goes for recurring subscriptions.
• Create a ‘Tools I Use’ or ‘Things I Love’ page on your blog. Many readers will enjoy seeing a handy list of your favourites, plus it’s an easy way to promote some affiliate links.

Taking It Further

Once you have made your first few commissions from affiliate marketing, the chances are you will want to take it further to increase your earnings from it.

Key to this is driving more potential buyers to your website. I have provided some tips above, but if you want to boost your income to the next level, you might want to consider engaging an SEO (search engine optimization) company – like my friends at the UK-based Lojix, perhaps.

Lojix are a digital marketing agency offering affordable SEO, pay-per-click advertising management, PR, marketing and website design services. They say they will work with you to increase the number of leads that you get from your website, whether that is an increase in orders from an e-commerce site or an increase in sales leads for businesses that are service providers. They say they work with businesses that require just a local presence right up to companies that trade all over the world. I asked my colleagues at Lojix what were their top tips for boosting your income from affiliate marketing, and they came up with the following:

1. Don’t be lazy by copying and pasting descriptions of products you want to promote. If your marketing strategy involves getting organic visits – which should be top of your list – Google is likely to ignore your content if you do this and won’t rank your site high in their search results at all.

2. If you are just starting out with your site or blog you should probably go down the niche route, as trying to get organic visits from Google for popular products will be difficult.

I definitely agree with both these points. There is much to be said for researching search terms and targeting those that have reasonable traffic but not so much competition that it’s hard (or impossible) to compete. A reputable, professional SEO agency such as Lojix can assist with this. If you think they might be able to help you – without any obligation – please do drop them a line.

Closing Thoughts

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online, with a minimum of hassle and expense. It is therefore ideally suited to home-based entrepreneurs. The method can be applied in many different ways, though blogging and email marketing are especially effective.

It has a further advantage in that once you have published, say, a product review on your blog, it will remain there indefinitely, potentially generating further affiliate fees for you over a long period. One review I wrote some years ago on my former freelance writing blog (for a self-development product) made me well over £3,000 in total.

Obviously, not all of your affiliate promotions are likely to prove as profitable as this, but the beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can promote almost anything you like. If one offer doesn’t perform as well as you hoped, there is always something else you can try.

Good luck, and I hope you make lots of money from affiliate marketing!

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, please do post them below.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Lojix.