Applying to an affiliate marketing program is only the first step toward becoming a passive income earner. To make the most of it, you’ll need to be more proficient in promoting products.
This post will cover the most effective ways that affiliate marketers use to get everyone’s attention and get more sales. These tips will make you a more efficient marketer and help improve your earning potential.
You’ll also find examples of these tips in action. See how an affiliate marketer might use them in a real-world setting.
Add these to your affiliate marketing strategy and you’ll definitely boost your chances of making money across different platforms.
Let’s begin.
1. Utilize TikTok and Instagram videos
The days when you could do affiliate marketing through a single landing page are over. It’s not enough that you work with different affiliate marketing platforms and networks.
Affiliate marketing campaigns need to run on different platforms as well. You need to be where people are.
And these days, most potential buyers are on social media.
To be more specific, they’re on TikTok and Instagram enjoying short-form content. So as an affiliate marketer, that’s also where you should be.
For example:
The TikTok account Homeus004 currently has over 26,000 followers.
You’ll notice that most of the videos that the account owner uploaded all feature kitchen gadgets. A closer look will show that there are multiple clips promoting the same product. The green ice tray, in particular, is hard to miss.
Each ice tray video gets hundreds to thousands of views.
The videos get labeled as TikTok finds. But they’re really promotional videos. You’ll find the affiliate link in the profile bio. Clicking on it will redirect you to a landing page where users can buy the products they’ve just seen — including the ice tray.
If you can utilize these social media platforms to spark interest in your products, there’s no telling how many conversions you could generate.
People are willing to follow these accounts even though they’re clearly there for marketing purposes. Why? Because they’re genuinely interested in finding products that can change how they do things.
In short:
You can build an audience that is more likely to buy your products.
Create a TikTok or Instagram account specifically for affiliate marketing just to test this strategy out. You will have to deal with limitations set on these platforms though.
You’ll be limited to one or several bio links.
The solution is to use a bio link tool like Shorby to create a mobile-optimized landing page just for your social media followers.
Some social media management tools like Pallyy also include this kind of feature.
Now, exactly how you use this page will depend on your top-level affiliate marketing strategy.
You could simply add a button linking directly to the offer you want to promote. Alternatively, you could build a lead magnet or course around the offer and promote that on your bio link page instead.
Think of this like a sales funnel and consider how you can add more value.
Ideally, you’ll want to find a way to get customers onto your email list first, then buy the affiliate offer afterwards.
Related Reading: The Definitive Guide To TikTok Affiliate Marketing.
2. Create targeted blog posts
If you want more affiliate sales, you’ll have to create targeted blog posts. But what does that mean exactly?
When you create a blog site specifically for an affiliate marketing program, you want it to focus on a specific niche. If you’re trying to sell home appliances, for example, then it wouldn’t make sense to promote online courses on the same site.
Focus on one product category. This will help your pages rank better for all relevant terms.
For some affiliates, that means finding affiliate networks first before building a site. Others do it the other way around. How you approach this is completely up to you.
Caroline Hirons is an expert in the beauty space. She uses her blog to promote some of her products. But she also has sponsored posts and affiliate links throughout her site.
If a blog post features an affiliate link, you’ll find it at the bottom of the post.
Caroline managed to create a blog site that’s focused on beauty and skincare. That raises her credibility in the space but also attracts her target audience.
If you’re only starting to explore affiliate blog categories, you should consider doing keyword research.
Because it’s free, any affiliate marketer would suggest that you try Google’s Keyword Planner. You’ll find this feature within Google Ads under Tools and Settings.
You can enter a keyword and have the Keyword Planner show you how competitive a keyword is. More importantly, it provides keyword suggestions. Not only can you use these to optimize your pages for search engines but also to figure out which affiliate program to work with.
For example:
A quick search for “online courses” shows that a lot of people also search for “Udemy courses” and “Coursera courses”. However, the former has “Low” competition while the latter has “Medium”.
A search for “Udemy courses” also shows that most related keywords also have “Low” competition.
You can take this data to mean that Udemy keywords are easier to rank for. Therefore, you should create blog posts that target people who’d like to buy online courses from that company.
That means you should sign up for Udemy’s affiliate program and add their links to your posts to make money.
Related Reading: The Best Keyword Research Tools (Comparison).
3. Disclose your affiliate partnership
You must disclose your affiliate partnership regardless of what platform you’re using. This will protect you from any legal ramifications you could potentially face and make you more transparent with your audience.
There are still affiliate marketers who attempt to hide their disclaimers or not have them at all. The fear is that it would turn off their audience from buying a product or make it look like they’re sellouts.
But the reality is that most of the public already understands what affiliate links are and how they work. Also, hiding relationships with an affiliate network only makes you look shady.
Tech Things is a YouTube channel with over 9,000 subscribers. It features gadgets that people can buy from Amazon.
The channel’s owner adds affiliate links in each video’s description along with an explanation as to how they work.
You can find the same on blogs and some news sites. Mashable, for example, also discloses its affiliate links. They even explain what they are and how they benefit from them.
When you disclose that you’re part of an affiliate program, you make it clear to your audience what you stand to gain from promoting certain items. If you don’t, your motivations can be questioned — and you don’t want that.
There are many ways to disclose that you’re an affiliate marketer.
The most common would be stating it directly within the post. You can place it at the top of the page or just above or below the affiliate links.
However:
Some affiliate marketers go the extra mile by having a separate disclaimer page on their site. You can also utilize a hover-over feature to show readers which are affiliate links.
You can have a banner do all the work too.
4. Promote through your YouTube channel
Affiliate partners like pushing products on YouTube. Why? There are several reasons.
YouTube is a highly visual platform. With the right videos, you shouldn’t have any problem engaging your target audience. It’s versatile too. You can experiment with different types of videos to see which ones deliver the best results.
And then there’s the added benefit of being able to demonstrate your products. Viewers can see for themselves how they can impact their lives.
The YouTube channel Consumer Tech Review has 177,000 subscribers — most of whom are there to see videos about the latest products in the tech space.
Most videos on the channel use the “listicle” format. More specifically, a video would showcase the top five products based on a topic.
In every description field, you’ll find affiliate links for all the products seen in the video. The uploader even goes so far as to add referral links for people residing in other countries.
If you don’t like this video format, there are many more you can try. You can do unboxings, comparisons, tutorials, or even reviews.
For example, Richard Walls who has over 26,000 subscribers made a video reviewing one of the biggest sources of online courses.
But when you scroll through the video description, you’ll find that he has an affiliate partnership with other online course platforms.
One of the advantages that YouTube has over social media is that you can add multiple clickable affiliate links in the description. For an affiliate marketer, that’s more than enough reason to invest in YouTube.
If anything else, you can use it for cross-promotion with your social media pages.
And because YouTube videos are always in circulation, every video you upload can last you a long time. So as long as your affiliate links continue to work, you can continue making affiliate sales.
5. Use promo codes
Affiliate marketing works better if you have promo codes to offer. Any sort of discount or freebie that you can offer interested parties will go a long way toward incentivizing them to take action.
They can help you get more clicks and conversions. And you’re providing everyone with value. That can lead to more people supporting you across all platforms.
For example:
The Unbox Analysis YouTube channel does reviews of different gadgets — and even knives. The channel owner has affiliate links on his channel description.
You’ll also notice that there is a discount code that people can use to get 30% off their first order.
The YouTube channel Elliott Recommends uses the same tactic in his water gun comparison video. He offers a 5% discount for one of the products he reviewed.
Getting promo codes isn’t that difficult. Truth is, there are affiliate programs that have their codes readily available. All you need to do is add them to your social media or YouTube videos.
If you don’t see that option, you can probably reach out to a member of their teams to ask for one. Since it will benefit both you and the company, they would likely grant the request.
There are even more related strategies you can use if you have your own affiliate site landing page.
You can make the promo time-limited. This motivates interested buyers to take action immediately or else the code expires. Alternatively, you can limit the code to a select number of people which achieves the same thing.
Your affiliate website must display your terms and conditions. This will prevent people from abusing your promos. If your promo campaign has a duration, you need to clearly state when it will end. You can clarify how many items a person can buy using one of your codes.
6. Optimize your site for mobile users
Optimizing your site for mobile users is great for search engine optimization. However, it’s even better for improving user experience. And the longer you make people stay on your site, the better your chances of increasing your affiliate income.
NerdWallet describes its site as reader-supported. That’s its way of saying it earns money through affiliate links. So it’s in its best interest to keep the site as mobile-friendly as possible.
The site looks just as clean on mobile as it does on desktop. All the affiliate links are easy to spot.
Now, most modern websites will be mobile-ready by default. This goes for sites built with website builders like Squarespace and Wix.
It also goes for sites built with WordPress. Most WordPress themes are mobile-ready out of the box. And if they aren’t? Switch to a better theme.
Given that most sites will be mobile responsive by default, the important thing you need to do is test your site on mobile devices. Not just phones but tablets too.
Fortunately, WordPress users will find a preview option in the customizer so you won’t need to switch to another device as you’re designing your site. Although, I’d always recommend doing a final test on an actual phone once you’re done.
The main problem areas tend to be navigation areas. You’ll need to pay special attention to those.
7. Target specific occasions or events
Many affiliate marketers focus on products that they can sell year-round. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But that means there are seasonal products out there that don’t get any attention. Good products that could lead to additional affiliate revenue.
Take the star lantern that’s on Sierralmiller’s Instagram account. This post went up a few weeks before Halloween, just in time for people looking for Halloween decor inspiration.
Sierra has a link in her bio for anyone who wants to buy the lantern. She even offered to send the link to anyone who’d message her directly.
The same goes for the _dr.home_ IG account. The post below has the hashtag #mothersdaygifts to target those looking for a present for their mom.
If you don’t like that approach, you can do monthly roundups instead.
Some affiliate products are more appealing in some months than others. And that makes sense. Coolers, for example, will sell better when it’s hot. Lumping products together and creating content to sell them just works.
You can create an Instagram Reel to showcase all of them in one video. Viewers can then choose which ones make the most sense for them.
That’s what Teresalaucar does with her posts:
This Instagrammer has a great affiliate link landing page on her bio. This brings users to her shop where they can find all the products she features on her IG posts.
There are plenty of reasons why you might want to invest in occasion-based affiliate marketing.
For starters, people are more willing to spend around holidays. There are also more keyword opportunities for you to explore. You can launch limited-time promotions around them too.
This strategy is also great for engagement. People like interacting with these types of posts. And the more engaging your posts are, the more social platforms show them to other users.
8. Think like an influencer
Many of those in search of affiliate marketing income on social media are influencers themselves. They use lifestyle content to attract an audience and then promote affiliate products once they have enough of a following.
If you want your affiliate campaigns to be successful, you’ll have to do more than just post videos of your products. Show yourself using them in a real-world setting.
Heart Defensor has over 4 million followers on TikTok where she posts product finds and sponsored content. Some of the products she features are from affiliates though.
One of the products she posted about is a nail kit that allows her to do her nail extensions. In the video, she’s seen using the product and documenting her progress.
Heart clarifies in the description that the product is an Amazon find and that users can find a unique affiliate link to it in her bio.
And sure enough, clicking on her link will redirect users to a landing page where you can find the products she has affiliate links to.
Using this effective affiliate marketing strategy means you’ll need access to the products you’re trying to sell. This isn’t an option for some marketers.
That’s something you should keep in mind.
But here’s the thing:
Social media users like it when they’re able to relate to the people they follow online. If you show people how much you’re enjoying the product, there’s a good chance they’ll try it out for themselves.
And if you’re able to gain a lot of followers, it’ll increase your credibility. That will make it easier to promote your affiliate product.
Just make sure you don’t stick to one type of TikTok or YouTube video. Add some variety. You can do vlogs, for example. Something that would break the monotony of posting affiliate product videos.
9. Provide social proof
If you’re going to use your site to advertise affiliate marketing products, you’ll want to show some social proof to let people know that you’re legit.
What is social proof?
In a nutshell, it’s anything that can help prove that you are a credible source of information. This can refer to positive reviews, comments, star ratings, or—as in this case—social media followers.
If you have a lot of followers across different social media platforms, linking to your social accounts can get people to trust you. If potential buyers see that others seem to trust you, it’ll put their minds at ease.
The Planet D is one of the most recognized travel blogs in the world.
And like most travel blogs, it uses affiliate links where applicable.
There are different social proofs available on the homepage. Having the logos of news outlets and organizations that featured the blog are prominently displayed.
You’ll also learn as you scroll down that Forbes ranked the site as one of the top ten travel blogs in the world.
Links to the site’s social media accounts are at the bottom of the page too. And if users check them out, they’ll find that The Planet D has thousands of followers across multiple platforms.
It has around 190,000 followers on Facebook; 67,000 on Pinterest; 66,000 on YouTube; and 200,000 on Instagram.
All these social proofs work together to make this affiliate partner a reliable source of information in the eyes of its readers.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is easy when you know which strategies to implement. These can help you make money on Instagram and give you another way to monetize your blog.
For the best results, combine two or three of these strategies to maximize your affiliate campaign’s growth potential.
Also, remember to keep track of your affiliate analytics to see which of these strategies help you make the most money.
Want to learn more about the affiliate marketing industry? Check out our post on affiliate marketing statistics for the full lowdown.
