Hey lovelies, this is another highly requested post in my Blogging Tips series. Affiliate marketing can be super tough to learn, and to continuously make money from, if I’m honest I only know a handful of people who have successfully gotten their teeth into it. So I thought I’d share some things to think about and how I do things.
Before I start everything about money making I learnt from this course Turning Your Blog Into A Money Making Machine.
What Is Your Brand?
To understand your selling angle, you need to know what your brand is, what your readers follow you for and who your audience is. For example my Twitter audience is mainly bloggers looking for blogging tips, and my Pinterest audience is people who enjoy food posts and also blogging tips. So it was very clear where my strength sat.
What Would You Want To Affiliate?
After you figure out who your audience is then moving forward you can look at different ways of affiliating. Would you like to sell someone else product directly? Would you rather join an affiliate scheme?
If you’re a book blogger for example, you would be better off joining amazon affiliates or a book related affiliate program and adding in relevant links to your posts of the book. That way you could drive your audience towards buying those books that you’re already featuring.
Is That Niche Over Saturated?
Now I’m all for people making money where they can but saturation can become an issue, for example say you have 20 people affiliating for the same product in the same niche from the same creator, the pool of sales is more diluted than if you have 3-5 people affiliating that product. Think could I make more sales than the other people affiliating it or do we have similar following and it might actually be damaging to potential sales.
Affiliate marketing can be competitive if you’re advertising the same product on the same socials, and it’s definitely something to consider before starting.
How Would You Get Your Affiliate Links Out There
I did this in a multitude of ways I have:
– Updated all my popular posts that get traffic everyday with relevant links to affiliate products.
– Post a pin on Pinterest daily with a link to one of the products I affiliate for.
– Post on my socials with links to the products I am currently using.
– Produced blog posts about using the products after I’d read and tried them
– Added widgets from the amazon program to my sidebar and to relevant older posts.
Obviously different routes would work for different people, if I had a built up mailing list I’d be using my affiliate links to drive sales through my newsletters, as I’m aware that it is an incredible ways to drive sales. If you had a good Facebook following or instagram following you could share images of the products with links which with an engaged following I have no doubt would work the same.
Finding Products To Affiliate For
Creators often post on twitter when they’re looking for people to affiliate for their products, they may also get in contact with you. I would recommend doing your research, and buying and reading the products you affiliate for if you go down the route of affiliating for e-books, that way you genuinely love and enjoy the products you share and can answer any questions about the e-book if someone asks you.
If you go down the route of using a program like Amazon, Ebay or ShopStyle – I’d really take the time to implement them onto your blog, add the best products for your brand and niche that you could sell.
Don’t Get Disheartened If It Doesn’t Happen Over Night
I honestly felt massively in over my head when I started affiliate marketing, you definitely need to find a balance, and learn how to sell something. Every time a social post of mine didn’t result in sales, I tried to take the bits that didn’t work and change it up for my next post. It’s definitely a process that requires time and effort, on-top of your blogging schedule. If it doesn’t work for you change it up, and continue to hustle.
I hope these tips are helpful, please check out the rest of my Blogging Tips page, let me know in the comments if you’ve ever tried affiliate sales before.
I’m just now getting to the point where I can do this and didn’t know where to begin. This breaks it all down more simply and is super helpful:)
This is so helpful! I’m just getting started with affiliate marketing and it can be quite overwhelming.
I’m just starting out with affiliate marketing and there’s so much to consider so this was really useful! Thanks for sharing!
Tash // A Girl with a View
Great post! Thank you for sharing! I hope one day I will be able to do affiliate marketing on my blog and socials.
I really like this post Kayleigh, I’ve learnt so much about affiliate marketing by reading this post than I have ever done before! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
This is great advice! I do not make a lot of affiliate income simply because of what I blog about. It’s hard to talk about living on a budget, being a minimalist, and nontoxic living while pushing products. I pick and choose very carefully and just take my time. It’s a good thing I didn’t expect to be an overnight sensation on affiliate sales!
Great tips! I tend to always forget about older posts, but I should really promote those (with affiliate links) more! Thank you
Great advice. I currently only have Amazon and try not to over do it on my posts. I have gotten clicks but no sales yet. I don’t really expect it yet. But hopefully soon.
These are some great tips for affiliates – I see so many of them around it’s nice to know that it is open for all sorts of people to do too. Affiliate marketing is really effective too; I know all of the ebooks/courses I have purchased or enrolled on are from successful affiliates. Some really useful tips for if/when I get started with it!
I’m hoping that once my blog starts gaining more traffic I can start getting into affiliate marketing – your tips are definitely going to be helping me in the future! x
Emily | emiliamarlowe.co.uk
Hi Kayleigh. Thanks for sharing these steps for affiliate marketing. Can you remember key dates/timings how long it took to make your first sale, how long to your first $100 / $1,000, has progression being fairly gradual or were there certaoin key points?
I’ve just signed up to the Amazon program. I’ll be honest I’ve always found affiliate marketing a little overwhelming but this really broke it all down.
Thank you for these tips. I’ve signed up for a few affiliate programs and hoping to start getting sale soon.
Adding this article to my Blog resources! Thank you!
Thanks! I’m really trying to better understand affiliate marketing and marketing my blog in general.
Thanks for the tips! There is so much to learn.
I am so so excited to start working through your ebook Kayleigh! Great post x
Nice post. I hope I get to start affiliate marketing, still working on my traffic.
Such an informative post! Reading this makes me excited for the day I start working with my affiliate marketing. Thank you for sharing your tips! x
I’ve been blogging for a few years now but never knew how to tackle affiliate marking! I don’t know why I just find it so hard to work for me. Thank you so much for sharing this honestly! I feel like I understand it a lot better now! Going to give these tips a go 😍
Thank you for sharing these great tips – I used to do loads of aff links and sales but scaled back when my day job became all encompassing. Now that the dynamic has changed, I think I might get back into it!
Rosie
Some great tips here. Thanks for sharing.
This is a fantastic post, thank you! As someone who is trying to grow my affiliate marketing a little these are some great tips- and I know you’re an expert in this field! Thank you for sharing x
Thanks for sharing its something I have been wanting to do and here are some handy tips
I want to get back into my aff marketing but I am scared to take the plunge. This post should really help me get it all ready to go!
Rosie
Affiliate marketing indeed so hard and need a lot of work and patient. But eventually, it will pay off 🙂 I’ve been getting some income from my affiliates this year! Not much, but I’m happy that I can make some from blogging. Thank you so much for sharing these tips, Kay 😀
This is informative and a very helpful post! I think it’s hard to wrap your head around it and mostly that it won’t happen overnight! We have been getting some income from it and it’s always a win even if it’s a couple of pounds 🙂 Thanks for sharing x
That’s actually good idea to have separated social media account. All my social media only made for my blog haha. Great tips!
Some really great ideas on how to promote your affiliate links. Thanks!