For many people, registering as an affiliate is the first action ever taken in the ecommerce world. Having no previous experience in this industry, they don’t quite know how to make the right business decisions. Therefore, they mostly have to go with the gut feeling. In this article, we’re explaining the basic affiliate marketing tips and tricks that will help any newcomer affiliate build a profitable and enjoyable venture!
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a web-based business strategy that implies a marketer promoting someone else’s business through his/her channel to his/her own audience. In this case, the so-called affiliate marketer who doesn’t own the business advertises its products or services and earns a commission from each sale. So, such people get paid while the business gets to reach the marketer’s audience of potential buyers.
By placing affiliate links on their sites or channels, many blog owners and social media influencers use this practice to earn money online. If you too want to enter this industry and learn how to succeed in affiliate marketing, here are 10 tips to help you out.
Tip #1: Learn the affiliate program terms
This is the foundation of any affiliate marketing.
Let’s face it: the ‘Terms and Conditions’ part gets ignored all the time.
If you’ve become a part of an affiliate community, take your time to read the program regulations carefully. It won’t simply let you understand how and when you can get your affiliate commissions; it will also guide you through the allowed and the forbidden methods of promoting the program.
Normally, the program moderators prohibit the participants from using any unethical promotional methods. As a rule, these are the strategies that:
- Exploit others’ intellectual property
- Conflict with the local laws
- Confuse Internet users
- In general, don’t look like a fair play
But of course, every merchant has a specific set of rules with regard to acceptable and unacceptable behavior. This is why it is vitally important to know these requirements from A to Z.
Tip #2: Research the affiliate product
None of the affiliate marketing tips will work out if you don’t know what you’re promoting.
Basically, after registering as an affiliate, you get responsible for spreading the word about the merchant’s product or service. That’s the core idea of affiliate marketing, right? 🙂
But, what can you tell a wide audience about this specific company or offer if you know nothing about its features and peculiarities? How can you gain a loyal audience of trusting followers and build relationships with them if this particular business sphere remains unknown to you? Why would anyone buy something through your sponsored links if you don’t seem credible and knowledgeable enough?
Examine the merchant and the promoted product carefully, and try to learn as many details about them as possible. It might turn out beneficial for you to concentrate on some well-defined, narrow part of this business.
Of course, you can’t become an expert in everything at once. Still, it’s possible to gain extensive knowledge about a specific element of the merchant’s activity. It will give you a competitive advantage over other market players. Moreover, you will be able to provide your potential clients with truly valuable content.
Tip #3: Make up a clear action affiliate marketing plan
Create a roadmap of your affiliate actions. At this point, you already know the peculiarities of the business or company you’re promoting, and you know what steps you can and can’t take for this purpose.
This way, you can think carefully about your strength, resources, and opportunities, and find out which ones of them are the best choice for each particular case. If you’re taking part in multiple affiliate programs, you obviously should modify your marketing strategy in order to tailor it to both the promoted product and the target audience.
Tip #4: Research your audience
The needs, wishes, and interests of your clients form the core of affiliate marketing tips. The reason for this is simple: your promotional activity should be precisely tailored and aimed at your potential clients specifically.
The better you know your audience, the greater is the chance of converting your occasional entry reader into a loyal buyer. There are some things that you definitely need to know about your target segments, so whether you’re running an online store or taking part in an affiliate program, do your best to find out as many details about your potential clients as possible.
Tip #5: Respond to your audience needs
Your target audience consists of real, actual people who have their own concerns, issues, and daily troubles. If the product you’re promoting can actually help these people get rid of their worries, your affiliate marketing success is guaranteed.
This is why it’s so important to research your clients’ areas of interest that are related to your affiliate program. With the help of statistical tools like Google Trends and forums like Quora or Reddit, you can find out what exactly bothers your potential customers with regard to this particular sphere. This, in turn, gives you the opportunity to understand what topics you should focus on, and what types of content will inspire the audience’s interest towards the product you’re promoting.
Tip #6: Build an active community around your valuable content
One of the most common mistakes made by affiliates is driving traffic to an ‘empty’ community. In this case, affiliates invest time and money into various types of ads in order to attract attention to their activity, and think that the reached audience will start buying immediately after visiting the promoted page.
They, however, don’t take into account the fact that no one would buy a product from a community that doesn’t seem active – or that doesn’t inspire much trust. If your blog, or YouTube account, or other page dedicated to the affiliate promotion doesn’t look like a credible source of knowledge and information, you can’t expect the visitors to gladly risk their money for a dubious purchase.
This is why it is so important to spend some time filling your page with engaging, educational and helpful content that is highly valuable to your target audience. By gaining the reputation of a trusted expert in this particular field, you build an ample base of interested readers who are loyal to you and are well motivated to buy the products you’re recommending.
Tip #7: Experiment with various content types
Depending on the product or the company you’re promoting through your efforts, you can try filling your dedicated affiliate page with multiple types of promotional posts. It will give you the chance to monitor the level of your followers’ engagement, view the intensity of commenting, and gather data on other statistical indicators in order to identify the most suitable kinds of content for this particular program and audience.
For example, if you’re running a blog or an account in a social network that allows writing quite long texts, you can try mixing the following types of content:
- Tutorials explaining how to use the product you’re promoting correctly, and how to benefit from it;
- Comparisons that explain (in a neutral tone) how this exact product is different from the similar ones;
- Real-life reviews and testimonials of the people who have actually tried this product;
- Expert opinions about this product that are left by recognized industry professionals or influencers;
- Industry news that is relevant to your target audience.
Tip #8: Use videos in your affiliate marketing campaign
Videos become a more and more powerful promotional tool. Lately, we have even included them in our list of the top 5 digital marketing instruments to use. There is no doubt that this type of content will stay demanded and popular for years to come. So, naturally, it’s a good idea to include video promotion in your affiliate marketing strategy.
Similarly to the already described text entries, you can dedicate your affiliate videos to:
- Real-life customer reviews
- Comparisons with other products
- User-friendly tutorials
What’s especially convenient, you can even take the already written texts, and simply turn them into videos. This way, you will create new, engaging pieces of content quickly and easily.
Tip #9: Respect search engine optimization
There is a popular opinion voiced in other affiliate marketing tips. It says: while filling your page or website with appropriate content, you should, first of all, consider actual users’ queries, and not clumsy SEO phrases.
In our experience, SEO can do magic for your business! This is why we recommend that you always keep it in mind and use all the numerous benefits of SEO to drive the growth of your affiliate business. Start with finding the appropriate keywords for your venture!
Also, make sure to optimize your channels for mobile devices.
Thanks to the growth of mobile technologies, the amount of smartphone users increases every day. For many of them, a smartphone is the only device that lets them go online. This is why building a mobile-friendly destination becomes a task of paramount importance.
So, whatever you’re doing to promote your affiliate program, make sure the content you’re posting can be easily accessed through mobiles. Whether you’re running an affiliate Instagram account or managing a separate dedicated website, the same rules apply! Pay attention to the correct operation of affiliate links as well.
Tip #10: Pay due attention to affiliate links
While efficient affiliate marketing strategies play a crucial role in this industry, you shouldn’t forget about such a simple thing as affiliate links.
First of all, make sure to actually place them inside your blog posts, descriptions to your videos, social media content, ad banners, and so on. Unless there’s a clickable affiliate link in your content, you can’t expect a lot of sales. Even if you have such a link in your social media account bio, for example, don’t expect the audience to go check it.
Remember, an affiliate can earn a commission only if a buyer makes a purchase after following the affiliate link. So, make sure the link is clickable and easy to spot.
Tell your audience that your posts contain affiliate links. It works both as a warning and as a reminder. Often followers do buy the product but forget to follow the affiliate link, so you don’t get paid.
For example, you can place a reference saying, ‘This article contains affiliate links. If you purchase services through my links, I will earn a small commission (at no cost to you.) Thank you for your support!’ Or you could use an official affiliate link disclosure: ‘Disclosure: This blog receives commissions for using [COMPANY NAME]’ products.
Nevertheless, we use these goods because of their high quality, and the decision to purchase them or not is yours.’
In this paragraph, you explain that you’re not trying to deceive people, that they lose nothing, and it’s how they can support your channel.
And finally, check all the links before publishing materials to make sure they work properly.
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