Hey lovelies, affiliate marketing has become quite a big thing in the blogging world lately and multiple times a day I’m asked in my DMs and emails, how much I make and where I make it. I’m often asked why I prefer affiliate money to other blogging incomes. I’ve delved in and out of affiliate marketing over the years but in the past six months, it’s really started to work out for me. I’ve been using Pinterest to grow my readership, and I think it’s worth noting that most of my sales come directly from Pinterest or my blog, and not my twitter account.
I think it would wrong not to accept that yes, I have high readership and yes my following is quite high on socials, but I honestly believe that if you understand your audience and market well enough you can still make good money. Before January I’d never made ‘big’ money from affiliate sales, using my isolation time I took the time to learn what my audience follows me for and what my monetisation options could be.
Since January 2020, I’ve made over $4,000 in affiliate sales. Yes, you read that correctly, these have come from a few sources Gumroad, Amazon, BlueHost and some links in some older wish list posts.
How I Started Making Affiliate Sales
My first sales came through amazon, and through fashion links on my old wish list posts we are talking (2017) and they were pennies. Amazon then dropped their rates at the beginning of the pandemic, making the click through and buy rates for affiliates really low.
In January I was offered affiliate links for some courses I purchased and at he time I declined. I came back to this March when I was creating content on these courses. I already had months of experience with them and then I started to use this to help me market them. I already knew they were useful and helped me, and that they would help other bloggers in the same way, and I recognised my following on twitter follows me for my blogging tips and blogging content.
My first week of affiliating for three courses I made £0.
How I’m Making Money Now
As of July my affiliate income mainly comes from courses on Gumroad. This works best for me because it’s niche specific. However I have no doubt during the holiday period of the year my sales will come more from Amazon/ other affiliate links in Christmas posts.
If you want to understand how to be successful at affiliate marketing Vee’s goes into in her latest e-book How to Become a Successful Affiliate extensively it’s £6 and worth picking up if you’re new to this and you’ll easily make this money back if you invest.
On my blog, I’ve added affiliate links on Gumroad into about 200 posts. I have 10 posts which do well on Pinterest, I make sure to daily pin my posts that do well with these links. I also daily tweet affiliate links, and I try to include 1 affiliate links per new blog post. This is normally found at the bottom of my post, it’s closest to the comment box.
The Sales I Made This Week
Before I start this week ( I’m counting Saturday-Friday) has been exceptional, and if you have supported me. I appreciate it so much. In 6 days I made 45 sales via Gumroad, and two sales via my hosting affiliation.
Obviously, if you’re an affiliate with Gumroad you only get an email for the sale, there isn’t a physical log you can access yourself but the people you affiliate for can check your sales. So I always write my sales down to keep up with what I’m selling.
How much money does that equate too? Just under $900. Which is abnormally high for one week. It happened because I made 2 high value sales and my affiliate percentage was 60%, which worked out just over $100 for each sale.
Most of my weekly sales go between $200-800, I always find the last week of the month is the highest.
What is the click rate for my affiliate links
According to my website stats, my Gumroad links received these amounts of clicks on the quoted day.
Sunday: 43 clicks
Monday: 22 clicks
Tuesday: 48 clicks
Wednesday: 44 clicks
Thursday: 71 clicks
Friday: 64 clicks
To then breakup my sales, Sunday I made 4 sales, Monday I made 2 sales, Tuesday I made 8 sales, Wednesday I made 4 sales, Thursday I made 18 and on Friday I made 9 sales.
Consistency Is Everything
It wasn’t until I started tweeting multiple times per day, including multiple links in posts and pins that I started to see progress. One a day just wasn’t enough, and it took a few months to really build it up to a point where I’m making daily sales.
Consider Your Commission
If you’re making pennies per purchase it probably isn’t worth it. Look for products that have a higher commission if you’re looking to make larger sums of money. If you sold 10 products and you only make $6 per sale, then you’re only making $60. If you sell 2 high commission products you could be making $200. Think about that when you take products onboard.
A Few Tips To Improve Your Sales
I’m asked this often, and you’ll might not love this affiliate marketing advice but I’m gonna be brutally honest.
Consider over-saturation – Sometimes when bloggers slide into my DMs for affiliate advice I notice that they’re selling products which are already very popular and have a-lot of affiliates onboard. If you don’t have a super engaged audience or a high following, if you’re competing in a field where people do, you might not make as many sales as you would like. You might find that the field is already saturated with 100 bloggers selling that same product already. This is where Pinterest can be a great tool for making sales via views back to your blog, but you might struggle on social media platforms such as Twitter.
Be niche specific – If you’re a blogger trying to sell blogging products but your audience follows you for fashion, you’re not marketing to the best of your ability. You’d be better off with fashion affiliate posts/links/products.
Use Multiple Platforms – One sale route just isn’t enough with when blogging is super competitive and you’re sharing affiliate links.
Pinterest – Pinterest hates Gumroad links – so get creative! Pinterest is also perfect for certain niches to make sales, don’t be upset if your pins don’t bring in sales quickly. It didn’t for me. Also with Christmas coming up make sure you gift guides are shared on the platform. It will boost your sales if your pins gain traction.
If you’re advertising guides – buy them and read them before you advertise them. I’ve had a-lot of people get in touch with me when they’ve gone to buy guides and asked the affiliate about details and they were told the affiliate didn’t own then. I’d always recommend owning and using something before you advertise it – but that’s just me.
I hope this helps and if you have any questions on affiliate marketing ask away in the comments. I do recommend Vee’s Affiliate Marketing Guide because it covers the things you need to know and it’s very afforable.
If you enjoyed this post why not check out my 35 Resources For Bloggers
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Some really great tips there thank you x I too am trying to get the hang of affiliate marketing. Still got a lot to learn though I reckon, but I do enjoy learning about it. Great post again x Take care, Sarah x
This is so helpful. I love that you included the link clicks and the conversions, so one can calculate conversion rates.
Cheers!
Sarah.
Oh wow, it’s amazing you’ve made that much from affiliate sales! Thanks for sharing these tips!
Thanx for some good insights about this affiliate marketing…
Do you have any clue about clickbank, Warrior Plus etc…
Wow, this is so helpful! I’m trying to earn money through affiliate links as well but sadly I think I still need to learn!
Great post! I will have to start incorporating some of these tips myself.
This is such an informative post Kayleigh! This is a great read and I have bookmarked this post for future reference, it seems that you have made some good money and I’m so pleased for you, amazing post lovely! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
Great info and thanks for the conversions. Those were really helpful in understanding how much you’ve been able to make through affiliates.
Super informative post, lovely! I always wondered what went into affiliate sales and now I know! I’ll be pinning this for future reference for sure!
Wow! These are wonderful tips!! Will be saving this to refer in the future ❤️
this was really helpful as I’ve been looking into getting more into affiliate marketing recently!
Tash
Yes!! Oversaturation is such a thing. There are a couple of products I have a hard time NOT finding ads/affiliate links to on other blogs. I don’t do well with affiliate links simply because I have not invested both the time and money into a single product long enough to shout it from the rooftops. This is such great advice and you are rocking it! I love seeing advice from people actually succeeding as opposed to just reiterating what other people say work without providing their own examples! You clearly know how to make this work girl!
Wow Kayleigh, you are amazing at affiliate sales! My blog is still fairly new so I’m not quite at the stage yet where opportunities are available for me to become an affiliate but this was super helpful to read, and I will definitely come back to this post when I’m ready to venture into the world of becoming an affiliate!!
Roni✨
http://www.myelevatedexistence.com
Very informative post. I’m just getting started with affiliate marketing and these tips were really helpful! and congrats on the sales! 🙌🏻
I love this handy list on the subject of affiliates, since I used to be a person who thought Amazon was the only option. I will have to get creative if I want to become an affiliate, but it is amazing what is out there if we look.
That’s a super interesting post. I have been researching a lot how affiliate links and ads work, because it’s all just so new to me. Will definitely be using some of your tips! Thank you!
Great tips !
Great to see a real life example of blogging income. Those $100,000/ month income reports, while incredible, can be very disheartening for those of us struggling to make a single dollar. That ad income is pretty inspiring!
Super helpful post! I’m just getting my feet wet with this and it’s a little overwhelming. Following you on Pinterest now.
This is great post to show the breakdown. Affiliate marketing can be a bit confusing when you first start out, can’t it? This post explains it all perfectly, as well as giving tips on how to increase your affiliate sales. I use Amazon affiliates, but I haven’t made any money from that yet, I might have to use your tips and look into affiliates elsewhere!
Thanks for sharing!
Aimsy xoxo
Aimsy’s Antics
These are such good tips! Although I’m way off considering anything like this yet, it’s so nice to have a reference point to come back to which is so informative and tells you everything you need to know. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, that’s a lot of money you earned through affiliate links! You inspire me to work hard on making affiliate work for me too! Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
This is such a great post, I’m just starting to look at affiliates and such, so thank you for creating a truly helpful guide to it! I’m definitely going to check out your other blogging posts too!
Dani x
http://www.simplycourageous.co.uk
Good ideas. I’ve been working on my affiliate marketing much more than ever
There’s so many things I didn’t know about affiliate selling and this has been so helpful to read. I’ve been looking into giving this a try in the future and I’ve been researching to see what I need to understand and do etc. This post has provided me with lots of information and it’s crazy how well you can do from it if you work hard and keep going with it. Hard work really does pay off! Thanks for creating this post and sharing this with us 🙂
Brilliant post Kayleigh! Very informative and helpful. I’ve not made anywhere near as much as you with affiliate sales, I really do need to up my game and make more affiliate pins and add more links to old blog posts. Thank-you for the inspiration! x
I am completely rubbish at affiliate sales but it’s something I would like to try and get better at! At the moment I’m only on Amazon but I’m planning on setting up a Resources page, so that will be the time I start thinking seriously about affiliating. I’m bookmarking this post, Kayleigh, it’s so helpful, thank you! Lisa x
Great tips! I was looking into gumroad!
Wow, I had no idea you could make so much from affiliate sales! I think once I build my blog up a bit more and get into a routine, I need to get my head around it. Thanks for sharing xx
Helen
You’re smashing it with affiliate sales girl!! I also love how you showed your click-through stats and sales based on each day!
-Kyra xxx
You are doing soo well!! In awe of how amazing you’ve done! I’ve just set up with Amazon so hopefully I can make my first sale soon
Thank you for sharing these tips! I have just started with affiliate marketing and so far I have made a total of £4.27. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start and I am proud of that! I am trying to push for sales, but it can be difficult when a lot of people already have what you’re selling. My goal for July is to put more effort into affiliate marketing, and try to find something that not many other bloggers sell. Thank you for sharing these tips! They’re really helpful!
Em | http://www.loveemblog.com
Ahhh amazing! I need to look more into this as I barely make anything!
https://www.emilyclareskinner.com
Absolutely brilliant advice! I’ve never really understood it before but you’ve made it really clear.
You’re absolutely smashing it and it’s lovely to see x x
These tips are amazing! It is so important to share it if it has worked for you too!
Love, Amie ❤
The Curvaceous Vegan
Hey Kayleigh. Thanks for sharing your insights on what has worked for you in relation to affiliate marketing. I’m a complete beginner to all of this and I see that I have a great deal to learn – thanks for making that a little easier.
Thanks for sharing this. Would love to start making money through my blog so will definitely be using these tips 🙂
Lauren // https://www.wooloftheking.com/
This is so awesome! I’ve always wondered if it was profitable to have affiliate links set up and now I’m definitely convinced! I’ll have to look into this further – thanks so much for sharing!
I have just this moment bought and downloaded your ebook. I shall let you know how I get on 😉
Sarah x