After an amazing Affiliate Summit, I reflected on the most common questions and concerns I get from bloggers looking to monetize their site with affiliate marketing. I had the privilege of meeting many bloggers from the Type A conference, as well as those attending the Affiliate Summit, while speaking at the Ask the Expert roundtable for blogger tools
The most common question, I heard throughout the event was “What do you think of banners?” I immediately recalled the many affiliates that I meet who dismay that they put up a banner and only got 3 sales. My response is “Wow, you got 3 sales for just putting up a banner? That is great.” This response is always said with a smile but also serves as a forewarning. The truth is there no easy button in affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing takes work and patience. Luckily you have affiliate managers and online resources to help you reach success. will point you in the direction of the ‘successful’ button.
What are your most successful affiliate links in in your programs?
The default link. The link that simply states the name of the company or product. Why? My successful affiliates create call to actions and supporting copy in their own words.
Followers are on the blog because they respect blogger’s opinion and appreciate his/her style of writing. Copy and pasting pre-canned copy comes off insincere and un-compelling. When a blogger selects a prefabricated copy, most followers can identify it immediately.
What are the most important steps to create a successful affiliate post?
Pick a product or service you are passionate about and preferably use yourself. When asked during a follow up call to identify why a particular blogger’s affiliate post was not successful, her response was “my audience doesn’t give a shit about the product.” Well ok, don’t promote that product and find one you and your audience are passionate about.
Create your own copy and preferably images and/or video. Refer to the above paragraph that warns about prefabricated copy. Followers are there for your voice, give it to them. Below is a great example from Sense of Aesthetics, an 100% Pure affiliate
Develop a compelling and direct call to action. Be obvious here! Click here to get this product and support my blog. Many bloggers are shy to promote a product and make money. Hey, everyone needs to make a living. Plus it costs money, let alone your valuable time, to maintain a blog. If you lose a follower due to monetizing your blog, the follower probably would have found something else to grip about anyway.
Optimize the post. Use tools such as Yoast SEO to have your site optimized for the search engines. Select existing posts or pages that are already optimized for your affiliate marketing links. Organic traffic is always the most profitable and consistent for affiliate marketing.
Promote and promote again. Promote on all your social media channels with proper FTC Disclosures such as #ad. Send your post out to your email list. Don’t be shy to write a follow up post or remind followers on your social media a month later about the original post.
Work with good affiliate managers. My definition of a good manager, a manager who runs a parasite free/clean affiliate program and is willing to help you. It is the job of the affiliate manager to make you successful. I frequently do post and site reviews to help affiliates to help increase their conversions. After all, the success of an affiliate manager is measured on the success of the affiliate.
Be patient and test. You did not build your blog overnight so don’t expect affiliate marketing to provide instant success. Survey your followers to see what type of products they are interested in. Continue to build your email list. Test different programs, work with your affiliate managers and keep trying.
Affiliate marketing works. It isn’t easy but few things worth having are. The results of your efforts? An additional revenue stream for your blog. Now isn’t that worth your time?
If you are interested in working with me, I manage the following affiliate programs: Grokker, Natural Healing Oils, 100% Pure Cosmetics and Chegg.
Looking for other ‘good affiliate managers?” There are many great affiliate managers in the industry to help you. A few of my personal favorites include Greg Hoffman Consulting, Wade and Joe of Fanatics, and Adam Riemer .