Everyone loves good tips. Well, today, I'm going to share with you no less than 103 affiliate marketing tips.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online - you're making money off of something that some else created, you can get started really fast (as in today!), and it's very profitable.
By growing your affiliate business the right way - picking the most profitable offer, driving targeted traffic and building a list of eager prospects - you're going to receive a lot of commissions.
More...
I've put together a list of 103 tips for affiliate marketers... and I've categorized them into several areas of affiliate marketing, as you'll see below.
These affiliate marketing tips are based on my own experience with affiliate marketing over the last 15+ years... and they'll help make affiliate marketing easier, faster, more profitable, and more enjoyable for you.
Affiliate Marketing Tips for Beginners and Newbies
Let's start off with a few things I wish I knew when I started affiliate marketing. In hindsight, these tips would have saved me a lot of time and money... and unwanted stress.
- 1Build A List of Email Subscribers - Don't send your traffic and visitors directly to the merchant's website. Instead, send them to a lead capture page so that you can get their email addresses. It's a very smart move as an affiliate marketer, and it's critical for generating long term revenue for your affiliate marketing business.
- 2Pick A Niche That Already Has Hungry Buyers - Although affiliate marketing can be done in almost any niche, it's a good idea to pick a profitable evergreen niche that is proven to have hungry buyers. This is especially beneficially if you're now starting out. These niches tend to fall within the broader markets of Money, Relationships and Health.
- 3Picking Products To Promote - Promote high quality affiliate offers. Don't just promote a product because it has an enticing commission. It's also a good idea to promote products that are already proven sellers. There are more specific tips about picking products to promote below.
- 4Research Your Audience - This is an often neglected step, but it's important. By researching your audience, you'll learn about what your audience is looking for, their wants, problems they're experiencing, and what their trying to achieve, etc.
By learning about and understanding your audience, you'll be able to create content in your ads, blog posts, emails, opt-in pages, etc. that connect with them... which is likely to result in higher conversions. - 5Redirect Your Affiliate Links - Don’t use direct affiliate links in your content and promotions. Instead, create simpler and better looking links by redirecting them through your own domain. In the event that you don’t want to promote a specific offer anymore, or if the offer gets retired, you can change the redirect to a different offer. That way, you don’t end up with dead or unwanted links all over the internet.
- 6Take It Step By Step - Very often, especially newbies, when presented with a set of steps in an affiliate marketing course, they are in a hurry to get to the stage where they're making thousands in affiliate commissions... and therefore rush through steps or skip steps.
But that's the wrong approach, and generally leads to frustration, information overload and eventual failure... and then, of course, shiny object syndrome kicks in 🙁
A more effective and efficient approach is to follow step by step, as the steps often build on each other. Even the most elaborate houses are built by laying one brick at a time!
Affiliate Marketing Success Tips
Next, let's look at some of the mental aspects of affiliate marketing - implement these, and you'll be in a much better position to succeed.
- 7Treat It Like a Real Business - Don't see affiliate marketing as just something you're doing by the way and give it half-hearted attention. Treat it as you would a real business, and it would reward you accordingly.
- 8Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome - Shiny Object Syndrome is the habit of chasing after the latest business opportunities, buying product after product, hopping back and forth between different things, etc. It's a very common habit among persons wanting to earn money online. But it's a sure way to not make any real progress and not earn any money.
Avoiding shiny object syndrome is tough, but you have to make a conscientious commitment to STOP purchasing all those internet marketing courses and “make money online” products.
If you pick one approach/methodology/course, focus on that approach, ignore the distractions of other courses (shiny objects), and see it through to fruition, in a few months time, you'll be thankful that you did. - 9Don't Give up - As with any endeavour, you will be faced with obstacles and challenges in affiliate marketing, but don't give up!... Giving up is a surefire way to failure.
- 10Take Action - Just like with any type of self-improvement (health, fitness, wealth, etc.), if you don't take action, you're not going to get the results. By nature, we humans are lazy... we want to get a lot by doing little.
People often buy courses and training programs but don't actually implement the steps taught... Don't be one of those people... Take Action on What You'll Be Learning!
Tips For Picking Affiliate Products to Promote
With affiliate marketing, half of the battle is picking the right products to promote. Here a few tips for deciding which offers to select and which to pass.
- 11Make sure that the products Actually solve a problem - There are products out there that are for entertainment purposes only... and they sell well. But for your affiliate marketing efforts, it's better to focus on products that actually solve problems that people are actively seeking out solutions for.
It's also a good idea to determine if the product is also something that your audience wants (not need). The best way to figure that out is by doing the necessary research (Remember Tip #4). - 12Does the Product's sales page look professional and would it convert - read through the sales page of the product. Does the overall design, layout and graphics look professional? Will this page make a good impression on prospects?
Do you feel it would convert prospects into buyers? You can also get in contact with the vendor to learn more about their conversion rates. Ask specifically about conversion rates from affiliates. - 13Is the sales process User-friendly - As you’re going through the ordering process, take note of how easy it is. Do you have to jump through any extra hoops, such as filling out extraneous information on the order form? Are there a ton of upsells/cross-sells that could potentially dampen conversions?
- 14Be sure the vendor has a good reputation - Your customers won’t forgive you if you send them to a vendor who has poor customer service, doesn’t honor their refund policy, etc. You’ll want to do some research if you’re not already familiar with the vendor. Run the vendor’s name, website, business name and product names through Google.
- 15Look For Upsells/Cross-Sells/Backend Sales Commissions - Affiliate programs that allow you to earn commissions on other products in their sales funnels (upsells, cross-sells or backend offers), this will automatically raises your potential revenue.
- 16Check Cookie Length - be sure you understand how the tracking cookies work for that particular program. Focus on programs with long cookie lengths. You don’t want the affiliate program itself erasing your cookie after a day or even a week.
- 17Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket - Don't promote only one affiliate offer in your niche; it's prudent to pick a couple. You never know when a merchant can decide to stop selling their product.
Affiliate Email Marketing Tips
The goal of your email marketing should be to build relationships with your list of subscribers and (then) promoting affiliate offers - when people know, like and trust you, they’re more likely to buy products through your affiliate links.
Here are a few tips to get better results with email marketing:
- 18Set yourself apart - What makes you better and different than the other affiliates out there? Why should customers buy through your links? This is referred to as your unique selling position (USP), and it’s something you should promote throughout your emails.
- 19Be honest - If a product is bad, then don’t promote (or recommend) it... no matter how good the commissions are. Furthermore, if you’re reviewing a product, share both the good and the bad. Being totally honest with your prospects builds trust, which grows sales over the long term.
- 20Send multiple emails about the same offer - Every time you promote a new offer, send at least two or three emails about it. If you’re promoting a new launch, then build anticipation over a week or two with four or five emails.
- 21Presell products with a personal touch - Don’t just copy and paste the vendor’s ad into your emails. Instead, be a trusted gatekeeper from whom prospects can get the truth. Review products by honestly sharing your opinion.
- 22Educate and Entertain Your List - the objective here is to send emails that both entertain your subscribers as well as educate them. When you take this approach, they'll be eagerly looking forward to receiving your emails. Seth Godin is a good example of someone that educates, entertains and build relationships with his audience.
- 23Post “Are You In A Hurry?” Messages
Understand and appreciate that the people on your list are busy people... but they might still be interested in your content or offer. The solution is to include "Are you in a hurry?" at the top of your emails. - 24Keep Readers Excited About Your Newsletter
Offering some variety in the newsletter content will help keep your readers excited. You can also create an element of surprise, and they’ll open your emails just to see what you’re going to offer them next. Here’s a quick list of the different types of content you can send to your readers over the course of several emails:
- 25How to Jump Start A Cold List - You're list has gotten unresponsive and cold... it happens. It's likely because of neglect, despite all your good intentions. So, how do you get that list "pumping" again?
The first step is to be honest - let your subscribers know that you've made a mistake by neglecting them, but that you want to make it right. Then give them an absolutely irresistible (highly valued and highly in-demand) free offer.
If you haven’t emailed in quite some time, don't send promos out in your first several emails. If subscribers don’t recognize your name, they might mark your message as spam.
- 26Segment your list for maximum response - Most top autoresponders let you tag and segment subscribers based on several factors. For example, you can:
- segment by demographics, such as age, gender and location
- segment by the lead magnet they opted in for
- segment by purchases
- segment by whether they clicked on a link or not
- segment according to whether they open an email
Once, they're segmented, you can send out highly targeted emails to these list segments to boost your conversion rates.
Affiliate Marketing Domain Name Tips
Your very own domain name is the first step to branding as a an affiliate marketer. Check out these quick tips when trying to come up with a name:
- 27Choose a name that reflects your niche topic - you want your audience to see your domain name and immediately have a good sense of what your website is about. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- 28Avoid using brand names in the domain name, unless you own it - Adding a specific existing brand to your domain name can end in litigation.
- 29Say the domain name out loud - as if you were telling someone about it or sharing it on a podcast. Is it easy to understand? Do you have to explain the name? For example: If you use a word like “to,” people may not know if it’s "to", "too", "two" or “2.” Thus you’ll have to explain it every time you say your domain name. If you have to explain it, it’s probably not a good name.
Tips for Building Websites for Affiliate Marketing
Having your own website as an affiliate marketer is a great way to communicate with your audience, showcase affiliate offers, post viral content, develop your reputation in your niche, and get traffic from search engines.
Here are a few tips for building better affiliate websites:
- 30Ensure your site is User-Friendly - in addition to looking pleasing to your visitors, your site should provide a great experience for your users. There should not be many obstacles between your users and the action you want them to take (e.g., do you make users fill in unnecessary information on your opt-in form?)
Other things to take into consideration include ensuring that your site navigation is intuitive and easy to use, laying the content out in a way that makes it easy to read. - 31Ensure that your site is mobile-friendly - more than 90% of internet browsing is done on mobile devices. The first step is to ensure that your site is fully responsive, meaning that it automatically adjust the way it looks depending on what the viewer is using (desktop, tablet or phone). Fortunately, most website builders create responsive sites off the bat. The second step is to always view your pages in mobile view before you the publish them. Some people actually create and edit their pages primarily in mobile view.
- 32Include legal pages - these pages include your Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and Disclaimer. And don't forget to show the links to the pages... you can do this in the footer of your website.
- 33Audit Your Site Regularly - The idea here is to check your site regularly to ensure you don’t have any of the following issues such as broken links, slow loading pages, grammar/spelling errors, forms or other scripts that don't work, etc. I do audits of my sites at least once per month.
Tips on Writing Content for Affiliate Marketing
Creating good content is important for building your long-term affiliate marketing business. Here are 3 quick affiliate marketing tips for coming up with ideas on what to write about and making your content more engaging.
- 34Spice Up Your Content With Stories - Stories engage readers on an emotional level and make content more memorable. Also, tell stories with a purpose. For example, tell stories about people who are just like your readers, so that your readers can identify with the subject of the story. These stories can be motivational as you explain how someone just like your reader overcame the same problem your reader is experiencing.
- 35Use a Conversational Tone - Write as if you’re talking to a friend. You can also inject humor (sparingly). And use simple words.. don't try to flash big words to impress your readers.
- 36Seek out inspiration from other sources
Remember this: you don’t have to think up everything yourself. Instead, you can seek out inspiration from other sources. This makes content creation quicker and easier. Here are a few places to look:
Affiliate Marketing Blogging Tips
Affiliate marketing with a blog is a great opportunity to grow your audience, build a relationship with them and earn income by promoting affiliate offers in a variety of ways.. Here are a few blogging tips for affiliate marketers...
- 37Make Your Blog More "Sticky" - encourage people to visit your blog regularly by including quizzes and other interactive features, creating regular content features, Upload a blog series to keep people coming back. Make sure that you create quality over quantity.
- 38Post Product Reviews and Comparisons - These type of blog posts tend to have high conversion rates. Your audience is looking for someone they can trust to give them the straight scoop on products in your niche. You can become that someone by doing honest product reviews and comparisons. Be sure to include the good features and benefits of the products, as well as the product's weaknesses and flaws (with suggestions on how to overcome these flaws).
- 39Embed Soft Sells In Content - These also work well. The idea here is to post content and then drop a recommendation directly into the content. This isn’t a hard sell like a direct advertisement. Instead, it’s more like a gentle recommendation from a friend.
Affiliate Marketing SEO Tips
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website and webpages to show up in search engine result pages.
About 90% of all online experiences start with a search in a search engine. Think about your own practice… when you want to find some information about something, the first thing that you probably do is Google it! That’s why you can’t ignore getting traffic from search engines.
Here are a few affiliate marketing tips for better SEO.
About 90% of all online experiences start with a search in a search engine. Think about your own practice… when you want to find some information about something, the first thing that you probably do is Google it! That’s why you can’t ignore getting traffic from search engines.
Here are a few affiliate marketing tips for better SEO.
- 40Do Your Keyword Research - if you are going to implement an SEO strategy, then keyword research is an important step. The objective of doing keyword research is to find keywords that are relevant to the affiliate offers your promoting and that have low keyword difficulty scores (easier to rank for in search engine results).
There are free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest, and paid tools such as Long Tail Pro and KWFinder. - 41Coming Up With Seed Keywords - "seed keywords" are the initial words and phrases you input into your keyword research tools to get more keywords you may not have thought of, but people are search for. You can come up with your seed keywords by asking the following questions:
- What is your affiliate offer?
- What are the topics related to your niche?
- What are common pain points or issues that people have?
- What are people looking to achieve?
- What are the features of your product and services?
- How do you solve their problem? With which technique?
- 42Use a SEO Plugin - If you are using WordPress to build your affiliate websites (and you should), then install a SEO Plugin. It will help you optimize your blog posts and pages for ranking in the search engine results. I use and highly recommend RankMath. You get a lot of the features found in the premium versions of other SEO plugins, but for free.
- 43Get keyword ideas from Google Search Engine Result Pages - If you do a search on Google for your keyword, you can quickly get ideas for other related keywords by looking at the "People also ask" and "Related searches" sections of the page, which are usually to the top and bottom of the page, respectfully.
Affiliate Marketing Without A Website Tips
- 44Still Don't Send Traffic Directly to The Merchant - even though you don't have a website to send traffic to, don't send them straight to the merchant's website. Build your email subscribers list by sending them first to your lead capture pages. Fortunately, many autoresponders allow you to create opt-in pages without needing to have your own website.
- 45Use Content Publishing Platforms - you can publish your content (to build your audience) on other platforms such as Medium.com, which has about 60 million active monthly users.
- 46Use Social Media Platforms - You can build an audience (following) relatively quickly and easily on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The key is to create and post relevant content that is of value to (and impacts) your followers, then make recommendations (soft sell) to affiliate offers.
- 47Use Online Communities and Forums - Whatever niche you're into, there's probably an online community or forum about it... and they are good places to promote your affiliate offers. Become active in the discussions, and just as with Social Media, post relevant and valuable content, before you start making suggestions to your affiliate offers.
Whichever channel you choose, be sure to check the guidelines of the community, platform or forum so you understand what, if any, types of affiliate link posts are allowed and how you can include them.
Copywriting Tips for Affiliate Marketing
Copywriting is the use of the written word to persuade someone to take a specific action. It's one of the most valuable skills you can acquire as an online marketer. So, if you haven't studied it as yet, you should as soon as possible.
- 48Profile Your Audience - Before you even think about writing one word of copy, your first step should be to gather information about your audience. The more you know about your audience, the easier it is for you to create copy that really connects with them.
One of the best ways to learn about your audience is to spend time with them on forums, blogs, and groups. That way, you'll find out what their problems are, what frustrates them, what they desire, etc. - 49Create “You” Oriented Content
We’re all a little bit self-centered (or in some cases, a lot). Your reader is no different. So, when they’re browsing your blog, emails or other content, they’re not really interested in you except as it relates to how you can solve their problems.
With that in mind, you want to be sure to create “you” oriented content that keeps the focus on the reader, not on yourself. A quick and easy way to do this is to make sure you’re using words like “you” and “your” in far greater numbers than you use words like “I” and “me. - 50Highlight Benefits - Remember that prospects want to know what’s in it for them. You can answer this question by sharing the benefits of a product. This is particularly important when you’re creating headlines, which often work best when they’re benefit-driven.
- 51Craft Benefit-Driven Headlines
If your headline doesn’t get your audience’s attention, then the rest of your lead page doesn’t even need to exist because no one will read it. Use this mini-checklist to be sure you’re creating a strong headline:
- 52Motivate Your Readers - If you want people to take action, they need to be motivated. That’s why your copy needs to give them a reason to buy what is important to them. You can do this through stories, by using certain words, and by empathizing with what it feels like to have a problem (or to get rid of the problem). Here are some examples:
- 53Overcome Objections - Your prospects really don’t believe the claims you’re making. They’ve been burned before, and they don’t want it to happen again. That’s why your sales copy needs to raise and handle objections. One of the most common objections is that people don’t think the product will work for them. You can overcome this objection in the following ways:
If you want to quickly learn copywriting or improve your copywriting skills, then here are good places to get started:
Affiliate Marketing Traffic Tips
You can pick a high converting in-demand affiliate offer, and have good ads, but if you don’t have targeted traffic, then the affiliate commissions aren't going to come your way. Here are a few tips for improving your affiliate marketing traffic.
- 54Learn How To Create Attention Grabbing Headlines - traffic is about getting people to your content, and simply put the best way to do that is to create compelling headlines that generate interest and make people want to click, read and share your content.
It's a skill that is applicable everywhere - articles, ads, social media posts, emails, YouTube, etc. - 55Community Participation for Organic Traffic - Participating in communities not only helps establish your expertise, you can also use it to drive traffic to your lead capture pages. For example, you can comment on other peoples’ blogs, on their forums, and in their Facebook groups. You can also contribute on question and answer sites such as Quora.
The key to this strategy is to contribute thoughtful, unique content that sets your answers apart from other peoples’ answers. This is particularly important on sites like Quora, where the best answers rise to the top.
Whenever allowed, use a signature file to promote your lead page or bonus page. e.g., “Discover the secret trick Hollywood actors use when they need to drop fat fast – click here to get it for free!” - 56Consider creating viral content - If you think you can create a unique piece of content that stirs up positive emotion in people (such as joy, surprise or inspiration), then this piece of content may be on it's way to becoming a viral hit, which generates loads of traffic. It can be in the form of a meme, a report, a short video, a quiz or something similar. To learn what works in your niche, spend some time on social media studying viral content.
- 57Don't Be Afraid To Partner Up - The idea behind this method is to join forces with other people in your niche and engage in mutually beneficial activities. These activities include:
- 58Your subscribers are a good source of traffic.
You can get them to forward and/or share your emails. Here's how:
Tips for Improving Affiliate Marketing Conversion Rates
A conversion is when a visitor to your website completes a desired goal like click a specific link, sign-up to your email list, or purchase the product that you are promoting. The following are some tips to improve conversions.
- 59Add Value to Affiliate Offers - As an affiliate marketer, you’re always going to have a lot of competition. You're competing against other affiliates that are promoting the exact product you're promoting as well as others who are selling similar products.
One way to beat the competition is by adding value to any affiliate offer you promote. This can be done by providing free bonuses to anyone who buys an offer through your affiliate link. - 60Increase Conversions Through Trust - I've said it before, but it's worth repeating - people buy from those that they know, like and trust. In fact, a person's impulse buy is often triggered by the person that recommended the product. So, don't underestimate the importance of engaging your audience and building relationships with them... and one the best ways to do that is to provide value.
- 61Provide Proof - providing proof helps move your audience past their skepticism. You can offer proof in the form of testimonials, case studies, before and after photos, and screenshots.
- 62Do A/B Split Testing - testing and tracking provide you with the data to know what's working so you can improve your conversions. You can test things such as the lead magnet you're offering, the headline, bullet points, the call-to-action (CTA), or the overall design of the page.
Affiliate Marketing Sales Funnel Tips
Sales funnels are not only for vendors... many affiliates still think that way, and it's wrong. If you want to make a lot of money as an affiliate, then you need to create your own sales funnels.
- 63Plan Out Your Funnels From The Start - As an affiliate marketer, each funnel you create (have at least one for each niche that you enter) should consists of the following affiliate offers:
- 64Promote The Affiliate Offers Across Your Funnel - Once you’ve selected the various affiliate offers at various price points for our funnel, you can cross-promote the offers all throughout your sales funnel. This can include:
Affiliate Marketing Preselling Tips
Here are a few tips for creating a content strategy that works to effectively presell the affiliate offers you’re promoting.
- 65Share Something They Wouldn't Find On The Sales Page - If you tell your prospects the exact same information that they can find on the sales page, then they don’t really have a reason to check with you before they buy a product. That’s why you need to read and review all products before you promote them, and then share information not mentioned on the sales page. One effective way is to share some information about new ways to use the product, or how to make the most of its features.
- 66Share a Case Study - Even though your audience wants to believe the vendor’s claims (and yours), they’re still a little skeptical that the product works as advertised. You can help overcome this skepticism by offering proof in the form of a case study. Depending on the niche and the product, you can do the case study on yourself, or you can recruit a prospect and conduct the case study on them instead.
- 67Do a Video Demo - Another great way to presell an affiliate offer is by doing a video demonstration. This is where you demonstrate a strategy taught within an info product, or you demonstrate the product itself if you’re selling software or physical products.
For example, if you’re selling a dog-training book, then you can do a demo showing how you taught your own dog something outlined in the book. This is a great way to prove the information works.
Another example: if you’re selling software, like a membership site script, you can take people on a virtual tour of the features and the user interface. This lets people imagine what would it be like for them to own and use the product. - 68Prepare a FAQ - Yet another good type of presell content for affiliate offers is a frequently asked questions (FAQ) list. This list may include questions such as, “Why is ABC Product better than XYZ?” and “How do I know it works?”
- 69Turn Flaws Into Positives - All products have their downsides or someway that they may fall short. No product is perfect. You know that. Your prospects know that. When writing your reviews and comparisons don't be afraid to mention the flaws. Otherwise your content may come across as a completely biased ad, and your prospects are going to lose a little trust in you. Revealing product flaws gives you chance to turn those flaws into assets. For example, if an ebook seems relatively short compared to similar products, you can turn this perceived flaw into an asset by saying it’s a “no fluff, no filler” book for busy people.
- 70Create Unique Preselling Content - Many affiliate programs provide materials you can use as content to presell offers. While you can use these prewritten materials as a foundation, you should tweak them to create something unique to set you apart from other affiliates.
- 71Include a Call To Action - Whichever type of presell content you do (review, product comparison, or otherwise) be sure to include a call to action telling the reader specifically to click the link and take action.
- 72Share “Useful Yet Incomplete” Content - This is a really effective strategy. The content would be useful in the sense that it solves part of your prospect’s problem, yet it’s incomplete because it doesn’t solve the entire problem. This “incompleteness” is what opens the door for you to promote an offer that does indeed solve the entire problem. Here are a few examples:
Clickbank Affiliate Marketing Tips
Clickbank is one of the most popular affiliate networks. They have affiliate offers in a wide range of niches, and commission rates are typically high. Here are some tips to maximize on this long standing affiliate network.
- 73Subscribe to the Clickbank YouTube Channel - Clickbank has it's own channel and YouTube that provides some very useful and actionable information for Clickbank affiliates. Click Here to Go to the Clickbank YouTube Channel.
- 74Look at The Gravity Score - For each affiliate product in the Clickbank Marketplace, there are a few stats that are provided, including "Initial $/Sale", "Avg %/Sale", etc. But the one you should be paying the most attention to is "Gravity". It's a measure of the number of affiliates that earn a commission by promoting that product in the past 12 weeks.. in other words, it's an indication of what's converting (selling) for affiliates right now.
That being said... affiliate offers with high Gravity scores are likely promoted by many affiliates and competing with affiliates who likely have large ad budgets can be difficult (and discouraging) for affiliates just starting out. - 75Beware of Shady Products - The Clickbank Marketplace does have many solid products, but it's also riddled with low quality over-hyped products. Avoid promoting these junk products, or your credibility with your audience will take a hit. Follow the tips on picking affiliate products to weed out these low-quality products.
- 76Quick trick For finding the top converting offers - when you go to the Clickbank Marketplace, there's a search bar at the top, that's labelled "Find Products". Without typing in any search keywords, click on the search icon. The results that show up are the top converting offers.
Affiliate Marketing Passive Income Tips
Passive income are an affiliate marketer's dream... you get income that keeps coming to you, month after month, year after year, from work you do just ONCE. With the following tips you'll be able to increase your passive income with affiliate marketing.
- 77Promote Affiliate Offers That Pay Recurring Commissions - These are programs that pay you commissions for every month that the customer you referred remains a paying customer. This will include affiliate offers like membership sites, service subscriptions (such as autoresponder and other software as a service products), consumables with auto-rebilling options (such as specialized supplements) and similar, etc.
- 78Research Two-Tier and Multi-Tier Affiliate Programs - with two-tier and multi-tier affiliate programs you get commissions on any sales you make, PLUS you get the opportunity to recruit other affiliates into the program. You then make a small commission on any sales that they make. If you're interested in multi-tier affiliate marketing, one very long-standing (20+ years) company that has a variety of products and services that you can earn multiple commissions on is the Strong Future International (SFI) Marketing Group.
- 79Create an evergreen autoresponder email sequence - With the power of autoresponders, you can set up an autoresponder email series that runs for three months, six months or even a year!
This will allow you to make money all year long in a completely passive way. Just be sure your content is evergreen - Share time-tested solutions and content (It should be relevant last year, right now and still be relevant a year from now. - 80tap into an existing Passive Income eco-system - These are affiliate offers that have an in-built system that allows you to passively earn commissions on multiple products, including recurring commissions (that are automatically promoted for you). Two such programs that are legitimate and that are worth your time are Anthony Morrison's Partner With Anthony Program and Wayne Crowe's OLSP System.
Social Media Affiliate Marketing Tips
Social media simply can't be ignored... the platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc, etc.) are BIG and growing daily. They are a good medium for connecting with your audience and getting eyes on the affiliate offers you're promoting.
- 81Go Where Your Audience Is - Your audience is already on social media, so you should be there too. For best results, pick the top two or three platforms where your audience is already congregated, and then develop a strong presence on those platforms. There are applications you can use to schedule and post content across your platforms automatically and simultaneously.
- 82Set up social groups - In addition to setting up a social media page, be sure to also explore other options, such as setting up a Facebook Group to build a community.
- 83Include the "Follow Me On Social Media" CTA in your content - Getting your audience subscribed and following you on multiple platforms is a good idea, as it increases the chance that they’ll see your content.
Here’s an example CTA you can use to get people to follow you on Facebook, Twitter or some other social media platform - “Be the first to see all my best training content by following me now on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram. All you have to do is click here, and then watch your feed!"
Facebook Affiliate Marketing Tips
The Facebook platform has some very unique features that allow you to create very targeted promotional campaigns. For this reason, it should be considered for inclusion in your affiliate marketing arsenal.
- 84Focus on a narrow audience - When you’re using an advertising platform such as Facebook ads, you get the opportunity to select the audience who sees the ad. The more carefully you focus in on a narrow segment of the market, the higher conversion rate you’ll enjoy.
One benefit of using Facebook is that you can select your audience based on their interests. For example, if you’re selling a book about training deaf dogs, then you can select an audience that has already shown interest in this topic, such as people who’ve joined a deaf dog training group on Facebook. - 85Consider a Retargeting Campaign - A retargeting campaign is where you ONLY show a specific advertisement to someone who’s already been to your site or engaged with your business in some way.
For example, if someone has visited your lead page and didn’t opt-in, you can show them an ad for an even better offer (such as a lead magnet AND a discount coupon). This sort of repeat exposure boosts conversions. - 86Test The Variables That Matter Most - A good key to testing is to focus on the variables that will have the most impact on your conversion rate. These include:
- The audience you’ve selected and/or the keywords.
- Your ad headline.
- Your ad graphics.
- Your Ad's call to action.
- Your landing page (headline, benefits, CTAs).
Productivity Tips for Affiliate Marketers
Most people that are looking towards building an income online through affiliate marketing also have day jobs. So the time you spend on building your affiliate marketing business is limited and should be spent productively. Check out these tips for being more productive.
- 87Avoid Getting Sidetracked - It’s easy to think that you’ll just quickly check Facebook before you begin working for the day, or that you’ll look at a few YouTube videos. Next thing you know, hours have gone by, you’ve been totally sidetracked, and you’ve gotten next to nothing done.
Don’t make this mistake. If you have a tendency to get sidetracked, then you’ll want to take steps to prevent it. For example, if checking Facebook is your downfall, then put your laptop into “airplane mode” so that you can’t mindlessly surf the internet when you’re supposed to be writing. Or if you need to use the internet for research, then install an app (such as Freedom and Cold Turkey) that blocks social media or other tempting sites. - 88Do Proper Planning - If you don’t plan your days, then you’re going to find yourself going whichever way the wind blows – and that’s highly unproductive. But don’t plan too many things. You should plan out what you want to achieve this week, this month, this year... and identify the activities you need to do to achieve those goals.
- 89Create To-Do Lists - People who don’t make lists tend to meander all over during their work time. One great way to get focused is to create a list of everything you aim to accomplish each day. Crossing things off your list also tends to give you a boost to your momentum, which makes it even easier to get more done in less time.
- 90Use Templates and Swipe Files - Develop templates and swipe files you can use to create your content and build your pages faster. Spend about 30 minutes a day developing the different types of templates and swipe files… it would save you lots of time in the long run.
Tips for Establishing Yourself As An Expert
Why should you even bother trying to establish yourself as an authority in your niche? The simple answer is that it will result in more sales for you. People generally prefer to follow and buy products from niche experts.
- 91Display your credentials - if you have some kind of credential in your niche, then let your audience know. It doesn't have to be a degree or certification or award. It can be a simple thing as your years of experience... or that you've gotten results.
- 92Publish content that digs deep into topics - Another good way to position yourself as an expert is by keeping up with all the new research in your niche, and then discussing it whenever something new comes out. You can explain technical research in lay terms to your audience, as well as explain what it means to them, and what steps they need to take.
To uncover research, you can use sites like Google Scholar or Google News. You can also keep an eye on academic/research journals that are specific to your niche, so you can discuss new research just as soon as a new journal is published. - 93Don't Be Afraid To Write With Authority - Don't write like you're unsure of yourself and what you're saying. Write with confidence! Words like “maybe” or “perhaps” or “you can consider” or “might”… and so on can perhaps weaken your content. You saw what I did there?
- 94Do JVs With Other Experts - When you do joint ventures with other experts in your niche, your name gets associated with their names – and that automatically elevates your status. For example, you can do a webinar together with one or more experts in your niche.
- 95Start a YouTube Channel - The idea here is to create yet another platform for you to showcase your expertise. For example, you can share how-to information and demonstrations, you can post interviews (which establish your expertise), you can post webinars, you can post slide presentations, you can post niche predictions and more. Be sure to build your following, as this serves as further social proof that you’re an expert.
Tips for Winning Affiliate Contests
Winning an affiliate contest is great - apart from earning affiliate commissions, you can win some cool prizes and your status in the niche would be raised. This means that vendors may start approaching YOU to promote their products (perhaps even offer you higher "super affiliate" commissions and incentives. Here are a few tips for getting on those leaderboards...
- 96Get started early - If you want to win affiliate contests, you need to start months ahead of time and focus on building a mailing list, creating a following on social media, growing your blog readership and developing relationships with your prospects. If you're in the internet marketing niche, you can keep an eye on the MunchEye.com website which has a calendar of upcoming product launches.
- 97Interview the Vendor - Try to get a 30 minute or so call where you extract some niche secrets from the vendor, and then promote the product at the end using your affiliate links. This is a great way to associate yourself with the vendor, which in turn lets you borrow the vendor’s credibility. Be sure to schedule it well ahead of time since the vendor is going to be really busy in the weeks leading up to the launch.
- 98Create Exclusive Bonuses - Whenever there is a big contest in a niche, prospects are going to find themselves with a lot of choices. You need to stand out from all the other affiliates by offering an exclusive, relevant and valuable bonus. Create something specifically for this product. Don’t just dig around on your hard drive and look for relevant private label rights products.
- 99Generate Excitement Across the Platforms - If you’re looking to win an affiliate contest, then you need to do two things: 1) Post ads and content across multiple platforms - both free and paid platforms, 2) Reach out to your audience multiple times across these platforms by sending a series of emails before the contest to build anticipation by highlighting the main benefits of both the product and your bonus offer.
Tips for Creating Effective Bonus Offers
A really effective way to get more commissions is to add value to the affiliate offers you're promoting. In other words, giving away an exclusive bonus for those who buy an offer through your affiliate link.
Here are some tips for creating bonuses that convert:
- 100Ensure The Bonus Is Highly Desirable - If people don’t want your bonus, then your bonus does absolutely nothing to add value to the offer. That’s why you’ll want to do your market research to find out what your prospects really want. If your prospects are already buying similar products, then you know they’ll jump at the chance to get your version for free as part of a bonus with the vendor’s offer.
- 101Make Sure The Bonus Is Highly Related To The Main Offer - Offer bonuses that enhance the use and enjoyment of the main affiliate offer that you're promoting. Don't just toss any bonus into the mix. Instead, create something that is a good fit for the main offer.
- 102It's Better If The Bonus Is Easy To Deliver - To make this process as hands free as possible, focus on delivering digital bonuses. Certain affiliate platforms (such as JVZoo) have the functionality that allows you to deliver bonuses automatically - just upload the bonus, and JVZoo will deliver it whenever someone purchases through your affiliate link.
- 103Make the bonus something that people will reference often - The reasoning behind this is that the more they refer to your bonus, the more often they’ll see your links and CTAs within the bonus. Also, having to refer to your bonus often translates to higher satisfaction with the product, which means that the next time they go to buy a product in the niche, they’re going to check to see if you’re offering a bonus.
Even More Affiliate Marketing Tips
Here are some even more great tips you can check out:
Conclusion
There you have it... 103 affiliate marketing tips!
Now I’d like to hear from you: Which tip did you find the most enlightening? Which is new to you? Or maybe you have a tip you'll like to add...
Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below.
