To be a successful affiliate marketer you need to promote affiliate products in the most effective way possible. Meaning – generate most profit. If you don’t know where to start then this affiliate marketing guide for dummies is for you.
There are services, physical and digital products that can be sold through affiliate marketing. Choosing digital products (such as eBooks, training courses, software as a service, downloadable audio etc) rather than physical products usually means higher commissions. Anywhere from 50% all the way up to 100% commissions.
A lot of affiliate products have upsells as well. There is a funnel where you will make commissions on any upsells that your customer chooses to purchase. You can make a lot of money from promoting a digital product that has a good related funnel. To find the best affiliate products to promote the recommendation is that you take look for the best digital product affiliate marketplaces. For instance:
- Clickbank
- JVZoo
- Warrior Plus
Some affiliate marketplaces are a better option if you want to promote products in the “make money online” niche exclusively. Others have such products too, but they also has a range of products available in a number of other niches including:
- Weight loss and fitness related products;
- Personal development and selfcare;
- Arts and crafts;
- Gaming;
- Business;
- Betting and gambling systems;
- Health and physical wellness;
There are so many different categories and products that you can promote with digital affiliate marketplaces. Whatever your niche, it should not be a problem find someplace that is a good fit for your products. Some of these marketplaces enable registered users to instantly get affiliate links. But with most you will usually be required to have a permission from the product vendor first.
What Is An EPC In Affiliate Marketing?
Before we get into our top tips on how to promote affiliate products, we thought it would be beneficial to define EPC. EPC is something every business trying to do affiliate marketing should consider. EPC stands for earnings-per-click. This is a way to measure how much you would earn from each affiliate link. In addition, it is a metric that is dependent on the size of your audience and how effective your promotional strategies are. You basically count your profit by analyzing EPC.
Once you have your affiliate links then you need a way to get these out to your target market. In this article, we will show you 5 great ways, using which, you can promote affiliate products.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Tip #1: Blogging
The concept here is a simple one – you provide valuable content on your blog, work to drive traffic to your content, and add an affiliate link to a related product within your blog posts.
To give you an example, if you decided to create a blog relate to the “make money online”, niche you can create different categories and add appropriate content with relevant affiliate links. You might want to include things such as:
- Affiliate marketing
- Traffic generation
- Copywriting and conversions
- Product creation
- SEO
- Social media marketing
Of course, you can add more categories. It will be relatively straightforward for you to find related digital products that you can promote as an affiliate product with all of these categories. You will certainly find something fitting right into your marketing plan on digital affiliate marketplaces. It is worth having a look at what they have to offer.
To get started with blogging you will need the following:
- A domain name;
- Web hosting digital place;
- WordPress blogging platform; (Or some other blogging platforms but WordPress is the most popular and frequently used one. So, it’s better to start on WordPress, especially as a beginner in the field).
- A logo and a web header;
- Good quality content;
- Images and videos (all kinds of visuals you can use);
Creating your own digital space is the foundation of affiliate marketing. It should be professional looking and work well. Don’t go for a free blog template from sites like Blogger.com. It just screams cheap and does not look professional. You want your visitors, future partners and readers to purchase products that you recommend to them. If they think that you can’t even afford a domain name at around $10 a year and web hosting at $5 a month and upwards.. Let’s just say it will not affect their purchasing decisions in a positive way.
Tips on how to operate your blog to get the most out of it:
Most people don’t want to start a blog because it requires the regular posting of quality content. It is hard because aside from the initial investments mentioned above, you need to invest more time, energy and resources into content creation. Which is the key to successful blog operation process. The content needs to be unique and relevant, well formatted and SEO optimized.
Here are your options when it comes to adding high-quality content to your blog:
- Write the content yourself;
- Hire a good writer;
- Purchase PLR and make it unique;
First things first, if you don’t have enough budget to hire a professional, you will need to create content yourself. There’s simply no other choice. And it doesn’t matter how much you hate writing, make sure whatever you put out is well optimized in every way. If you get the high rank spot on search engines, you will generate enough money to hire someone to do it for you.
Now, if you hate writing then you will need to find a good writer who can provide the high-quality, unique content that every blog needs. There is some good quality PLR out there that you can have rewritten on gig sites by freelance content writers. And it’s usually fairly inexpensive, so this could also be a good option. All that matters is that you post good quality content on a regular basis.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Extra Tip: don’t expect any profit for a time being.
It will take a while for you to generate good commissions from your blog. You need to build up your reader base and keep driving targeted traffic. You can do this by sharing great content on social media, using links and contacting others with similar niche for a promo campaign. It’s a good idea to have the option for your visitors to opt into a newsletter so that you can use email marketing (see below).
Yes, creating a blog is a lot of work, but you will be creating an asset and it is a great way to communicate directly with your target audience. Make sure that you optimize all of your blog posts for SEO so that you have the best chance of ranking in Google and the other search engines.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Tip #2: Email Marketing
If you have been involved in affiliate marketing for any period of time then you probably know that having an email list is a must. Don’t listen to those that say email marketing is dead – it isn’t. Is it tougher than it used to be? Yes, it is but you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Whatever it takes, point stands: you must do email marketing to promote digital products.
When you are looking for good digital products to promote there is often an “affiliates page” that you can visit for each product. It is very likely that you will find email swipes there. The product vendor test those swipes beforehand and then they convert them. You can change it up a little bit but keep the core message very similar to the original.
To get started with email marketing you will need:
- An autoresponder service;
- An incentive to offer your visitors in exchange for their email address;
- A welcome email;
- An email sequence that the new subscriber receives over the first few days of their subscription;
There are lots of other providers too so you need to do your homework here. It will cost you around $20 per month to get started and with most autoresponder services you will pay more as your email list grows. Au autoresponder service is a must unless you (or someone you hire) want to spend 24/7 sending and answering emails. Such services decrease the chance of making a mistake too.
Once you have a list of email subscribers that are interested in your niche, you will be able to communicate with them at any time. Not only can you set up an automated sequence of emails but you can send a broadcast message to some or all of your subscribers as often as you want. A welcome email is a must as well. It has been estimated that the most open rates (around 60%) are generated by welcome emails, rather than additional ones.
Although, you shouldn’t forget to send out an email whenever there’s a promo campaign going on. Especially if your subscribers can benefit from it (like a giveaway or a charity event, special day sales and holiday sales campaign). Email marketing is still a very powerful way to promote digital products.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Tip #3: YouTube Video Marketing
It is amazing how many people overlook YouTube and video marketing as a way to promote digital products. YouTube is the second largest website on the planet and gets billions of views on all of its videos every day. YouTube creators can become celebrities and influence their fan base in more ways than one. Landing a collaboration with a popular YouTuber in your niche can enormously help you and your business. What’s even better though, is to become one yourself. Though this will take a lot more time and efforts than a simple collaboration.
If you have not noticed yet, people prefer to watch a video these days over reading a lot of text.
One of the main reasons that digital marketers avoid making videos is that they do not want to appear in front of the camera. This is a crazy reason not to get involved with video marketing – just get over the shyness! You don’t have to, actually (well, unless you are completely broke). Hire somebody to make videos for your products. Or again, ask an influential YouTube content creator relevant to your niche to collaborate with you in exchange of a sum or a free set of your products or services.
Did you know that you can create videos that do not require you to get in front of the camera? Sometimes such videos work perfectly well. Especially if they are product reviews for example. But most people are going to want to see who you are so that they can trust you.
We recommend that you create review videos where you actually demonstrate the good things about the product you are promoting.
To make a successful YouTube video content you will need:
- Screen recording software;
- Access to the product you are promoting;
- A good quality camera or any recording equipment with high resolution (even a smartphone could work);
- A good microphone;
- Video editing software for the post recording work;
Let’s say you want to make a product review of some item. You can only show your viewers the product itself and as much of your body as you need without showing your face, for example. Or you can show your face at the beginning of the video, during the introduction and then at the end. The rest of the video should be all about how to use the product and why it is good.
If you don’t want to talk in your videos, for any reason, you can put captions. To reduce mistakes while talking live you can first record the visual and then add a voiceover. This will take twice as much time as you need to record the voiceover separately. However, if you have to re-start recording when the mistake occurs, voiceover can actually be a less time consuming option.
SEO optimization for a YouTube video content:
When you upload your videos to YouTube it is essential that you optimize them properly for SEO. YouTube is a social media site of some sort, but it is also a giant search engine. So just like with Google, it operates according to SEO principles. A lot of people use the search facility on YouTube and you want to make sure that your video appears in the search results for related keywords. You need to pay attention to:
- Optimizing your title (main keywords should be put at the beginning of your video title); Furthermore, you title should match your video content. Otherwise, it will be labeled as a clickbait and there’s a higher chance of high bounce rates, no proper engagements with your channel and less overall profit. So called clickbait videos are simply not fitted for professional YouTube channels so be aware.
- Optimizing your description (again use other keywords here, it’s the same thing as meta description on Google);
- Using the right tags;
- Using the right hashtags;
- Having an appealing thumbnail;
You can be as detailed in your description as possible. In fact, more details you put there, better. Viewers will still have questions that you might have answered in the video. They can always check out the description for the key information.
Don’t forget to put links to your other social media platforms, your website, specific product on your website that you are reviewing in a particular video, links to your sponsors’ channels or websites when needed.
Tags are how initial viewer base finds you. They also increase the chance of many people (interested in your niche) viewing your video within the first few 24 hours of its posting. This way you can get it on the trending page, which then, through YouTube algorithm will appear on everybody’s explore page within your niche, or your local area.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Extra Tip:
The thumbnail that you choose will not help you with SEO but it can get you the click over your competitors. Good thumbnails have high click-through rates so don’t ignore the importance it has.
Always add your affiliate link in the first line of your description so that it features above the fold.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Tip #4: Paid Traffic
The good thing about paid traffic is that you can get results really fast. You have a number of different options when it comes to paid traffic methods. The most common ones are:
- Pay Per Click (PPC) ads – (e.g. Google Adwords, Microsoft Ads);
- Social Media ads – (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn);
- Native ads;
- Banner ads;
- Solo ads;
For PPC ads and social media ads, you are probably going to need a high-quality landing page. Google, Facebook and some specific native ads networks are very particular about this. With Microsoft Ads, it is still possible to link directly to an affiliate offer in some situations but it is not something we would recommend.
Your landing page pre-sells the offer.
The landing page needs to be fairly brief but it should add value to the visitor. Convince the reader that they need to click through to the affiliate offer to find out more about the product, for example.
Native ads can bring good results because they do not look like ads. They appear on high-traffic websites and they are the best option if your affiliate offer is of a general nature. Such as weight loss products. General nature here means that there’s a chance the absolute majority of ad viewers will be interested in the niche.
With PPC ads you use related keywords to drive traffic and with social media ads, you can create a targeted audience for your campaigns.
Banner ads are probably the least effective of the paid traffic methods. Solo ads can work with the right email list and the right offer. Before trying out paid traffic method to increase your traffic, you need to do your homework, research, compare different options and choose a reputable ad seller. Especially when it comes to solo ads.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Tip #5: Social Media Marketing
Marketing on social media can be considered to be one of the least expensive, most effective and the most widespread marketing option nowadays. The most popular social networks are:
- Tik Tok
You can do your SMM campaign on one or two out of these platforms. But it’s better to have your digital presence established on as many as possible. Again, if you’re tight on a budget, you need to do it yourself. To learn about how to do it right, check out the various tutorials and beginner tips. Once you have enough money though, it’s better to hire a professional.
What you need to know about Social Media Marketing:
It’s not about simply posting links to your content or few pictures with some tags.
You need to know who your target audience is and where they hang out most frequently. Facebook appeals to the widest majority of people so you can create a Facebook Page and join popular Facebook Groups to promote your offers. Be careful with groups as they will kick you out if members think you are a spammer.
If you want to promote affiliate products that appeal to the business market then you need to use LinkedIn for your marketing. Tik Tok is a fairly new platform that is growing rapidly and caters to the younger generation. Pinterest users are predominantly female.
You can certainly make commissions using social media platforms. Post useful content and try to engage people. Once they know, like, and trust you then they will be more likely to check out anything that you recommend.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies Extra Tip:
In SMM every detail is important. You need to generate traffic to your accounts in order to get the engagements and drive profit. Timing (i.e when is your target audience most active, platform selection, posting schedule, regular updates, using beneficial features (such as Story or a Reel on Instagram), tagging, linking, presentation and most importantly, quality content. Everything should be taken into consideration.
Conclusion
There are ways using which affiliate marketing can generate more profit faster. Using the above discussed options are things every affiliate marketer should include in their production and promotion strategy. Don’t forget to adjust everything according to your business’s specific needs.
That wraps up affiliate marketing guide for dummies. Share your experience with affiliate marketing or ask questions if you have any down in the comments section.