Every blogger or business owner that I know is chasing the passive income dream to some capacity. You know, when you are able to make money in your sleep and wake up to sales each day without having to do any extra promotion. Enter the ultimate guide to affiliate marketing.
I started to dabble in affiliate marketing about a year and a half ago so I have learned some key things along the way that I wanted to share with you. This post is going to cover more than just the basics so be prepared to soak in a lot of information. Let’s hop right in to the ultimate guide to affiliate marketing.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from the links in this post, I will make a small commission. Thank you for supporting brands who support Confetti Social.
The Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing
We’re going to cover:
- What affiliate marketing is
- strategies to promote your affiliate programs
- how I make the most money from affiliate marketing
- my favorite affiliate programs
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when you promote another company’s products or services and if another person purchases, you are able to earn a commission on that sale.
With affiliate marketing, you can promote the specific product or service as many times as you want to maximize your chances of having someone purchase using your specific link.
Best affiliate programs to join
There are a variety of affiliate programs out there so I’m going to share some of the best so that you can get a head start on your affiliate marketing strategy.
Some companies have their own individual affiliate program while others are on shared sites that have a variety of different affiliate programs hosted under one site.
Affiliate Networks
ShareASale
Two of the companies (Tailwind and Freshbooks) I’m an affiliate for use ShareASale for their affiliate network. It’s fairly easy to use and it is nice to have a lot of your affiliates housed under one place so you are just receiving payouts from ShareASale instead of the individual companies.
SkimLinks
I’ve actually never used SkimLinks before but it’s similar to ShareASale in that there are a ton of different companies hosted under this one website.
CJ Affiliate (formerly CommissionJunction)
Don’t know much about CJ affiliate either but I’ve heard a lot of buzz about it from other bloggers who utilize affiliate marketing a lot.
ShopStyle
This program caters more towards fashion, beauty, and lifestyle bloggers but it can be used by nearly anyone. This affiliate program runs on a pay per click basis so if you find that your audience clicks around more than they purchase, ShopStyle may be the program for you.
RewardStyle
I use RewardStyle a lot on my other blog, Breakfast at Lilly’s. It has a lot of the same brands that ShopStyle does but the commission you receive is based on purchases, not clicks. You can certainly make more money with RewardStyle than ShopStyle if your audience is more of purchasers than window shoppers.
Individual Affiliate Programs
ConvertKit
One of my favorite affiliate programs that I am a part of is ConvertKit. They pay out 30% commission for each person you refer on a monthly basis so I’m able to get money from CK each month with little to no additional promotion.
MailerLite
MailerLite is another email marketing program that has a decent affiliate program. MailerLite also offers 30% commission on each sale. I do find it a little more difficult to make money with MailerLite because they offer up to 2,000 email subscribers for free so people aren’t signing up and paying as much.
SiteGround
SiteGround is who I use for my website hosting. They offer tiered hosting so if you’re making 1-5 sales per month, you make 50$, 6-10 monthly sales you make $75, and it goes all the way up to $125 per sale which is crazy and can bring in a steady income if you’re consistently making sales on the product.
LeadPages
LeadPages is a landing page software that I use to get people on my mailing list for freebies, free trainings, and things of that nature. Like ConvertKit, LeadPages also pays out 30% recurring commissions on every single sale that you make.
How to promote your affiliate programs
Resource page
A resource page is one of the best ways to promote the products that I’m an affiliate for. I have a static page on my website that lists all of the resources I use to run my blog regardless if it’s an affiliate link or not.
Woven organically into your blog posts
Adding affiliate links into your blog posts helps you get those links in front of more eyes. I like to do full on posts about the products when I can so that my audience can see just how great the are. I’ve done them for both ConvertKit and Freshbooks.
Email List
I like to put affiliate links in my email blasts from time to time. This helps drive sales because not all of my email subscribers read every blog post I put out and vice versa.
As usual, Pinterest is making an appearance on the blog because it’s that good. You can easily make a graphic to promote a certain product or service that you’re an affiliate for and watch the cash roll in.
Disclosing affiliate links
Now with all the information I’ve provided you with, I can’t leave without discussing the importance of disclosing affiliate links in your blog posts, on your social media, and to your email list. All you need to do is have a policy page somewhere on your website and to put a disclaimer before any affiliate links that you may be using.
Your Turn:
I hope that you all enjoyed the ultimate guide to affiliate marketing and were able to learn at least one new thing from this post. Do you currently use affiliate marketing and/or have a solid affiliate marketing strategy? Please feel free to let me know down in the comments.
