Welcome to the eighth installment of Build Your Online Business (BYOB). Want to learn more about this entire month of June series? Start with the The Secret Ingredient To Building An Online Business.
I first started dabbling in affiliate advertising late last year when a friend with an online business was launching a really cool product that I received an advanced copy of. I liked what they’d done so much I joined their affiliate program – and that my friends, was how it all started.
I received my own affiliate link which I tentatively added at the end of a blog post I wrote on a related topic to that of the product. It seemed like a good fit to refer my readers to this program with my own simple and honest review of why they should check it out.
I didn’t expect much at all and yet a few days later I had received around $150 in my PayPal account from affiliate sales, for simply telling people about something I thought they should know about.
In all honesty I took a while to catch on to this `affiliate marketing’ thing. A little like `list building’ I had this wrong perception in my mind of what it meant. The words shady, dodgey, money grabbing came into my mind.
I’ve completely redefined my definition of what affiliates are and what this means to my business. So let me break it down:
Affiliate marketing = Leveraging your traffic & trust into business referrals
It means receiving commissions from products you believe in and would recommend to your customers through a newsletter write up, blog review, or by placing advertising on your site. On the flip side when it comes to having your own lovely affiliates, it means rewarding people who refer your products and services to others.
Since that day of my first attempt at affiliate marketing I’m happy to say the money I make from affiliate sales provides me with a steady and consistent stream of revenue. Not enough to live on it by itself by any means but then I don’t make this my number one priority. If you chose to, you could definitely make several thousand per month from it depending on the size of your audience and how far you were prepared to push it. But this takes time.
Starting Out in Affiliate Marketing
In general you need to have a plan, just like anything else you do online. You need to consider where you want to promote products and services you believe in, how often and why?
For me I have several avenues – occasional mentions and write ups in my Highflyer newsletter, Webinars where I partner with experts I trust and who offer my attendees a special offer, and then blog posts and site advertising. I will also promote my affiliate links via Twitter and Facebook where appropriate. In fact sometimes I only do it through this depending on the offering.
As you may notice like other site I don’t have a million ads down the side. Currently I’m just promoting one friend’s product that she just launched – you should totally check it out!
I’m not even displaying my own products although I have done and will do again. I’ve dabbled with having more ads and I think they’re just a distraction. I think bigger is better and less is more.
On my BizTools page I have personally written reviews for a number of tools I use to run my business online. Some are affiliate links. The same applies on my Travel page where I only have a few recommendations and once again not all of them are affiliate links.
These avenues are the main ways in which to earn affiliate commissions. When you think about it you are acting as a sales person for that person and your reward is a cut of their sale.
How to make money through affiliate programs
There a number of different affiliate programs that you can sign up to and promote products they have on offer. The top ones are:
These sites all offer text and image links – with HTML code to make it really easy for you to put on your site or in your newsletter.
Then there are independent affiliate programs set up by the person that you can join. You will get your own affiliate link and often access to badges, banners and logos to use on your site if you wish. You will also get text links you can use – and HTML code to use to make it really easy to post it on your site.
As I’ve built my business I’ve preferred to work with my people I meet and join their individual programs, where as when I started I used Amazon Associates for recommending books I was reading and Commission Junction for some of the tools that I used as they had their programs through them.
How to choose what you promote
I speak to a lot of people about their own methods and success. I know several people now who only promote high ticket items because otherwise it’s not worth it to them – like For me it all depends on the product. The current advert you can see on the sidebar is a $25 product that also has a pay what you think it’s worth. The Only 72 Hour Sale is a $97 product price point worth over $1,000 with a 3 day window (awesome product and affiliate link).
I do get the higher price point items though at as it can take a lot of time and effort to find the right programs and then to make sure you are writing a really solid review or doing the product or service justice in your own words. That said sometimes a simple paragraph and link works wonders depending on how you play it.
At the end of the day you will make money if you have built trust with your with your audience and then selectively searched for great products that you would recommend or use yourself or truly believe are beneficial to your community.
Don’t get lured in by making a quick buck – that’s not what you’re all about – right? It’s ok to say no to people in your network who approach you to promote their product. It has to align with your values, your brand and your audience’s needs.
I also look for generous affiliate commissions. While some products on Commission Junction for example can be 15-35%, and Amazon much less, a lot of the private affiliate programs that I enter into directly pay 50% which is normal for individual programs these days.
Most pay you direct to PayPal, via a direct deposit or by check on the first of the month or in the first week of the month. Often the programs that track your performance show you clicks on your links and number of conversions and sales you’re owed.
Setting up your own affiliate program
My Spread the Love affiliate program pays 60% and I think that’s only fair to people who are going to recommend what I do on my behalf. It’s my cost of having my own loyal sales team.
That said for the longest time I didn’t really rely much on affiliates and even now, there are a handful who actively promote me and make decent commissions, but that’s growing as my business does.
I currently use e-Junkie which is what I also sell my products and programs on and it has served me well to date. It’s also great if you’re starting out as it’s simple to set up and only $5 per month. But it’s frustrated me as my business has grown in being able to provide better service to my affiliates. I can’t send out emails to my affiliates that contain their unique affiliate code already placed in the marketing materials I provide for example.
So other options to use are Clickbank which manages all your payments and payouts for you and any refunds and charge backs too. That’s the next step for me. It costs more but from what I have heard from friends it’s worth it.
The next step up would be a robust program like that of Infusion Soft with a much higher price tag but incredibly powerful features to allow you to track your key affiliates and offer them higher percentage commissions too.
For your program to be successful you have to pick key people you’d like to have as your main affiliates – preferably with a large audience to market too and an established base. Of course I always welcome genuine advocates who want to promote what I do.
I provide marketing materials, pre-written tweets they can choose to tweaks, Facebook updates, newsletter materials and then logos and banners where appropriate. You should too.
All you need to know about affiliate marketing
While I have made one off sales of $400+ thanks to referring the right products to people who need them most, this is still an area I’m continuing to learn about. However as I write this I happen to be sitting next to a self taught expert in affiliate marketing who has, in the past year, made nearly a million through his businesses using purely affiliate marketing.
This blows my mind! He was kind enough to gift me a copy of his amazing book How to Turn Traffic & Trust Into Sales. Chris Brogan was so impressed by Nick Reese, he asked him to write a book on it.
I sat here and read this straight forward, valued packed, no BS book on how you can make serious money with affiliate marketing just by taking action and starting.
This 74 page eBook is worth the minimal investment that you will no doubt make back in droves if you actually follow what Nick tells you to do. The biggest convincing factor for me is the fact that he lives and breathes this stuff and makes serious money from it.