Are you looking for ways to make your first sale as an Affiliate Marketer? You do not need to blog to make this achievable but it will help you, in the long run, to grow faster.
Starting a brand new blog is very exciting and there never seem to be enough hours in the day to get all of your ideas out. If you feel like this I can definitely relate as that’s how I felt and still do 1 year later.
A very straightforward way to make money with your blog is to join an Affiliate Marketing Program connected to your niche. There are so many to choose from A couple that I use are Amazon and Shareasale.
It is very possible to make sales extremely quickly using this method, even in the first few months. Now, the amount won’t be earth-shattering but the feeling is as if you have won the lotto. If you can do it once you can do it again and again.
We are going to cover How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing for today’s topic.
Have You Heard Of Affiliate Marketing
Have you noticed on the various social media channels that bloggers are using affiliate marketing?
The reason this method is so popular is that it is a way for product owners to get free marketing. It is also a brilliant way to make money with your blog for Free.
How it works:
- Go to google and type in your niche + Affiliate.
- Apply to the program filling in all of the details and reading all of the FAQ’s.
- Once you have been approved you will receive an affiliate link that you can share with your email list, on social media channels, and also in your blog posts.
- Share your blog posts on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and any others you are associated with.
- When a visitor clicks through to purchase any product from the site you will receive a commission. The amount is different for each one you sign up for.
As you can see it is a very simple process!
Affiliate Marketing Blogging Course
You can sign up for free to Wealthy Affiliate it teaches you how to get started with a blog and not only that it has hundreds of Affiliate programs that you can look around at Before joining.
Check out Pinterest To See What Other People Are Using
A lot of users on Pinterest are going for gift guides, finding a pin about them won’t be hard, click through and see what affiliate programs they are promoting.
You will be able to see many different ideas using this method.
Join Amazon’s Affiliate Program
Although Amazon’s commissions are not the best it still has its place. Amazon is massive and sells products for every niche you could possibly think of. Parenting, crafting, ebook making the list just goes on!
I use Amazon on my other blog and sales come through consistently!! That is a great feeling checking the stats every end of the month.
This was where my very first sale came from!!
Share a sale is a part of Awin, it is free to join and has truckloads of merchants that you can apply to. It is very easy to navigate as well which is always a bonus!
The commissions on here are much higher than on Amazon some of them are around the 75 % range.
Other Things To Consider
Different programs have different cookie life. Hey Lisa what’s a cookie?
Cookies are the amount of time each merchant sets between clicking and making a purchase. They can range from as little as 24 hours to a lifetime and everything in between. As long as the visitor clicks in the time period then you will receive the commission 🙂
The Amazon Cookie is only for 24 hours, which is one of the shortest. BUT even if they don’t buy the product they clicked through to look at but go on to purchase several other items you WILL still get the commissions.
Another thing to be aware of is the first click or last click cookie rule.
The difference between the two
First Click Rule:
you write a post about backpacks and they click through to the site but do not purchase anything on that visit. The cookie life is 30 days for instance. If they then read more articles related to backpacks and click through again within the 30 days you will receive the commission.
Although that does sound just great it is not necessarily the best route to go with. You could have done all of the work but not get the sale because they already had a cookie sitting in their web browser.
Last Click Rule:
Amazon practices the last-click rule and that is the option I would recommend you going with. The content you write and research will be so compelling that the reader will click through and purchase from your site. It is only right and fair that you should receive the commission for all of your efforts.
Amazon Rules
- You cannot hide your link using bitly a free link changer or pretty link a WordPress plugin. You must use the long link provided by Amazon. It will contain your personal affiliate information.
- You can only use the images from Amazon in your blog posts. Do not take screenshots and add them to your pins or images to be shared on social media. This will when discovered get your account shut down.
- Amazon also has a very specific Affiliate disclosure that you have to use.
What You Must Have On Your Blog
you have started to write reviews and content for your blog, you have your affiliate links and now you need to comply with the laws by having certain pages set up.
- Your site now has to have a cookie policy
- You also need a privacy policy
- For each post, you write You Must State that the post may contain affiliate links
- For Amazon only you HAVE to use their already written policy and include it on every page that contains Amazon Affiliate links.
The Best Posts To Write For Affiliate Marketing
There are a few different ways of promoting affiliate marketing, I had a lot of practice using different ways on my other blog.
My personal favourite is the Review Post, this is where the whole article is dedicated to just one product. I had the most success with Review posts.
Another way is to write a round-up post these convert very nearly as well as Reviews.
These can be:
- My Favourite ….
- The Best Of
- The Top
A lot of people ask do we have to use the products? The answer is not necessarily if you have and you can show images or make a video then you might get better conversions.
On Amazon, you can choose to use certain features like the best seller’s recommendations. Take notice of what people are purchasing through the Amazon tracking system and if it fits with your niche then do a review of it.
Gift guides are another method you can use especially when Special occasions occur like Valentine’s day, anniversary’s and birthdays.
How To Use Affiliate Links
mistakesbloggersmake.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
I’m going to use Amazon links in this example:
- Link Only Masks
- Image Only
- Combined Text and Image
- Custom Ad is a new feature
The first 3 options tend to convert very well so it’s up to personal style choice.
By far the best way to promote affiliate links is in your blog posts as opposed to just sending out links in your emails, there are a lot of autoresponders who don’t like it and they can shut down your account.
There are a lot of new bloggers who don’t feel comfortable having Affiliate links on their sites I decided to do it because the visitors would have bought the products anyway so why not through you.
Give me some feedback about how your experience goes with the Affiliate Links!!
Lisa. CEO and founder of mistakesbloggersmake.com
