Introduction
Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective ways for anyone to earn money online. This is a quick and passive method to earn cash that is highly scalable, and that is easy to set up. No technical skill is required, and if you choose the right products and connect with the right market, you can stand to make hundreds of even thousands of dollars in a short space of time.
But let’s back up for just a moment. First: what precisely is affiliate marketing? How does it work? And what makes it so much more effective than other money-making strategies for internet entrepreneurs?
Essentially, affiliate
marketing means selling a product
that is
not yours for a commission. You
then get
to earn
money for
each sale
you make, meaning that
all you
need to
do is
to connect
that product
with an audience that will appreciate
it.
When selling
affiliate products such as eBooks,
you will
often find
that you get to keep 70%
or more of
the profit!
Choose the right product, and you
can earn
just as
much money
as someone
who built a product themselves.
In this book, you
will learn
the benefits
of affiliate
marketing, as well as how to
get started
quickly and efficiently in order
to begin
making money. With smart product selection,
a primed
audience, and just a little bit
of good
fortune, this could genuinely change
your life.
For those that are already selling affiliate products, this book should serve to provide you with the additional skills and tips you need to really take your business to the next level. This includes the tools being used by top brands in order to sell HUGE ticket items like MBA courses and $5,000+ powerhouse laptops.
Chapter 1: Why
Affiliate Marketing is the
Best Way to Make Money
for Beginners
Affiliate marketing is
a concept
that eludes
many people.
How can
you make money from
selling something you didn’t make?
How can earning money online really
be that simple.
The simplest
way to
explain it is that it
is essentially
sales. You are acting as a seller and
earning commission on any sales
you make.
In that way, you are just
like the
door-to-door salesmen who come around to
sell you
broadband.
The difference is that you
aren’t going door to door.
The internet
is your door and this
is a
door that
gives you
access to everyone
on the planet. That
right away
gives you
a huge advantage
– and
especially when you learn
how you
can get
the visitors
to come
to you.
The other difference here
is that
the commission
scheme is going to be highly different.
Regular salesmen will normally get
a small
cut of whatever they sell: perhaps
5-10%. As mentioned, the
difference with affiliate
marketing, is that you’re going to get as much
as 70-80%
of the
proceeds. That’s right: often as
an affiliate
marketer you are actually
going to
earn more than the
creator of the product!
This is what makes affiliate
marketing so hugely appealing:
because it means that
you can
start earning
just as
though you were selling your own
product, but without having to
invest lots of money to create
something from scratch.
What’s more, is that because
you’ll be selling a product that is already
out there,
you can
choose something that is already selling
in big numbers. When you create
your own
product to sell, there is always a small risk that you’ll
build something
that no
one wants.
When you simply market
something that is highly popular, that becomes
much less
likely!
Another huge benefit of
affiliate marketing is just how
scalable it is. If you create
a single
web page
selling the merits of an
affiliate product, then you
can start
profiting from it within hours.
In that
case then, what is to
stop you
from making
another page to sell
another product? And another
page to
sell another product?
How Affiliate Marketing Works
So, let’s get a
little more technical, shall we?
How precisely
does affiliate marketing work and why
would a
creator ever be happy to
give away so much
of their
own profits?
First, let’s consider the
type
of content you are going
to be
selling. To many marketers, affiliate products
will be
digital products. There are plenty more
options, which we will explore
in this
book
later. But for
now, that’s
what we’ll
focus on.
That means
things like
eBooks, like online
courses and like presentations.
Digital products
are immediately
a good
choice for selling online because they have zero overheads and no ‘COGs’ (this is a business
term meaning
‘Cost Of
Goods Sold’.
That means
that the
creator doesn’t have to
pay out
at all
for each
sale and
they can
instead just make profit
and share
that profit.
It also
means
they never had to invest
large amounts
of money
upfront and they
don’t have to handle delivery
either.
So, the creator likely
made this
digital product themselves using Word or
a camera,
or perhaps
they outsourced
the creation
to someone else. Either way, they will have built this ebook or course
with the
intention of selling it for
profit.
Then the creator will
probably have begun selling said product
from their website or from a
random page online. They’ll try
to drive
as much
traffic as they possibly can to their website in order to encourage
people to buy from them
and thus
they’ll have their own passive income
stream.
But there’s
only so
much promotion
that one
person can do and eventually their well is going
to run
dry. That
is when
a creator
might start looking for affiliates to
work with
to help
them promote
their products.
The product
creator is thus willing to
offer affiliates
like us
70% and
above because they want to incentivize us to sell their
products. They also want
to encourage
us to
sell their
products rather than
the products
that other
creators are offering affiliate programs for.
While the creator will
now only
make 30%
on their
sales, this is still 30% more than they would have made on those sales
otherwise – because they
wouldn’t have exited.
And if that seller
can attract
thousands of people to their
books with
a legion of online marketers, they’ll
be making
gigantic profits and much more than
they could
on their
own.
In short, this is
a win/win
situation. The creator gets a thousand
more sales by encouraging
marketers to work with them
and
affiliate get to sell
a product
as though
it were
their own
and keep
most of the profits! They can
make just
as much
money as
they would from their own eBook or course, but without having to develop
one and
take that
huge gamble.
Specifically, the way
this process
actually works is via the
use of
‘affiliate links’ which
in turn
work via
cookies.
When you find an
affiliate product you want to
promote, you will be given an
affiliate link and this is
what you
need to
include on your sales page and
in your
blog posts.
When a buyer clicks
on your
affiliate link, they will first
be redirected
to another page on
the web.
Here, a
cookie will be stored on
their computer which will identify them
as having
come from
you. Now,
when they buy something
from that
store, they will be recorded
as being ‘one of yours’ and
the commission
will be
added to
your total
for you to withdraw at some
point in
the future.
For you it’s simple: promote
the product
and provide
the link.
That’s
all there is to it!
Chapter 2: How
to Find
and Sell
Affiliate
Products
Okay, that’s enough hypothetical talk… how do you
actually get
started and become
an affiliate
marketer?
Well, first you’re going
to need
a product.
In order
to get
this, you
are going need to
head over
to
a website such as Clickbank or
Commission Junction. Another good
one is
JVZoo.
Here, you’ll be able
to see
a large
selection of different products that have affiliate programs. Just
scroll through and look for
the ones you’re interested in. You’ll find that you can see some
information regarding the different
products, so try to look
for
things that are selling
for a
decent price and offer a
good commission.
Some sites will let
you see
a rough
number of sales, in which
case you of course want to
look for
the items
that are
selling well.
Once you’ve identified the
product you would like to
promote, you then need to contact
the owner. If you are successful, they’ll
provide you with your link and you’ll be free to use that as you choose.
Something else to keep
in mind
here though,
is that
many affiliate
products will include marketing
materials along with them. Remember: if you are doing
well, that
means that
the creator
is doing well. They have every
reason to want to see
you succeed
and as such, they will provide
things like emails, a sales
page, banner ads and other materials
in many
cases.
If you’re someone who
is completely
new to
the world
of marketing,
then I highly recommend that you choose a product that offers these kinds of bonuses. This way, you can get up and running
almost instantly by simply
copying and pasting the materials
you’ve got.
You should then see
yourself sell in the same
numbers: it’s the same product and the same marketing spiel… so there’s no reason
that it
shouldn’t
work just as well.
Like I said before:
this is literally a ‘copy and paste’ business
model. Someone else already
has the
product selling well with a set system, all you are doing is copying
the same system but making
sure it’s
your
bank account that will receive
the income.
Selling Physical Products and Services
While selling
eBooks through platforms like JVZoo
is an
excellent way to ensure that you
can keep
the maximum
profit, it also has its limitations.
Despite what some other marketers
might tell
you, the most popular type of product online is still of the physical variety.
And this makes sense
if you
really think about it. How
many people
do you know who buy physical
products? Pretty much everyone right? But then how many
people do you know who
would buy
an ebook? Your Grandma might not (unless it’s through Kindle)
because she doesn’t know
how to
use a
PDF file.
Likewise, your friend who doesn’t like
reading probably wouldn’t either!
And that basically leaves you with
a much
smaller cut of the market.
So how do we go about selling
physical products as an affiliate
marketer? The most popular option
is to become an Amazon
Associate.
Amazon’s associate
scheme is their version of an affiliate
program and it’s a
very tempting
option for many marketers.
If you look up
information on affiliate marketing, then
you’ll likely find that the vast
majority of it focusses on
selling digital products through the likes
of JVZoo,
ClickBank and Commission Junction.
On Amazon,
things are different. Amazon is
already splitting the profits with the
manufacturer, they have to pay
for storage,
shipping and postage and generally they
can’t afford
to offer
you more
than
4% or maybe 8% at
a push.
This means you’ll have to sell a lot more items at much higher
prices in order
to turn
a proper
profit.
But does that mean
you should
rule Amazon
Associates out? Not at all.
For starters,
selling physical products is often much more
profitable than selling digital
products. Think about it: are
you more
likely to spend lots
of money
on something
you can
hold in
your hands and show to friends,
or something
you have
to read
on a
computer screen?
Better yet, Amazon is
a recognized
brand and
a company
people trust. That means they’re much more
likely to buy from them
– and
they can buy with one click!
Amazon has a massive
roster of products you can
sell and
that means there will be something
relevant to go with nearly
every article.
And finally,
if someone
clicks on your URL but
ends up
buying something else from Amazon…
you still get paid! This can
potentially result in a lot of
earnings if someone were to
– for
example – buy a
new computer
and you
were to
get 8%
of that.
Even if you didn’t promote the
product directly, as long as
you sent the buyer to Amazon
in the
first place,
you would
earn that
commission.
So, the best thing
to do?
Use both
types of
affiliate marketing! But just don’t leave
Amazon out of the equation
or you’ll
be missing
out!
In future chapters, you’ll discover
how to
promote Amazon products
slightly differently, in order to get
the most
from them.
(Note: One limitation of
Amazon Associates is that you
can’t earn
cash if you don’t live in
the same
country. In other words, if
you are
based in the UK, then you will need to send your customers to Amazon UK.
You can
still make
sales through
Amazon.com, but you’ll only be able
to collect
vouchers in exchange.)
Other Options for Selling
Physical Products
Amazon is of course
not the
be-all and end-all when it
comes to
selling physical products. There
are countless
physical stores out there, as well as many manufacturers that will offer affiliate
programs direct to marketers.
You might find that
if you
take the
time to
look around
for other
products, you’re able to
find something
that is
much more
directly relevant to the
topic of
your site
(and thereby
more likely
to sell).
To find these affiliate
programs, just try typing in
your niche
and then “affiliate program” when searching
on Google.
You can
also find plenty of lists online for the best affiliate programs in each
industry.
Another option is to
direct a manufacturer or seller
that doesn’t offer an affiliate
program… and then to ask
them if
they would
consider creating one for
you. If
you manage
to do
this successfully,
you can
strike up an exclusive
deal and
potentially get a large commission
too.
Of course,
for this
to work,
you need
to be
able to
demonstrate that you have
the reach
and the
influence to make it worth
their while.
Selling Services
Another option is
to try
selling a service or a SAS (Software
As a
Service). This option
is potentially
the most
lucrative!
The reason for this,
is that
many services
will offer
you a
recurring commission. Let’s say
that you
manage to get someone to
sign up
to a gambling website. Some gambling
sites will
offer commission
on all earnings from that customer
for their
lifetime with the brand!
Likewise, if you can
convince someone to sign up
with a
hosting account, or to
otherwise join a recurring service,
then you
will often
find that you are
offered a commission that is
paid to
you every
month that they remain
with that
hosting company.
Of course,
this might
start as
a small
amount of commission. BUT it can
then add
up to
a large
amount of time. In a few years,
you might have hundreds or even
thousands of conversions, which will
then earn you recurring income
even if your site were to close down!
Chapter 3: How
to Choose
Affiliate Products
Wisely
While affiliate
marketing is an incredibly simple
and effective
way to make money online, it
is not
completely
foolproof. That is to say that
if you
choose the wrong product, or
market it in the wrong
way, you might not see the
immediate kind of success you
were hoping
for.
A lot of your success then
will ride
on your
ability to choose the
right product. Here’s what you
need to
know.
What Not to Sell
Most people
when choosing a product to sell will load up their
affiliate network of choice
(ClickBank, JVZoo, WSOPro) and then
look for the items that have the most sales
and the best
commission.
This is a good
move because
those figures
suggest that other people are earning
a lot
of money
and so
should you be able to. In
fact, you
can literally
‘copy and
paste’ their business model!
But if that’s all
you’re doing then you’re making
a mistake.
99% of
the products at the
top of
the listing
are going
to be
on the
same precise things: making money online,
dating or fitness.
If you start promoting
one of
those books,
you’re now competing with all the
other people
selling the same book and all
the people
selling similar books. Most
people who have used the
internet for more than a day
are already
sick
of being sold ‘make money
from home programs’.
What’s more is that
these are
the most
competitive niches on the web.
If you don’t already have a massively successful
website/mailing list, then getting
to the number one spot on Google
for ‘Make
Money Online
eBook’ or ‘Build Muscle’ is
going
to be nigh impossible. You’re
setting yourself up to fail.
Alternative Strategies
Instead then, consider picking
something in a smaller niche.
Let’s say you find an eBook
aimed at
a specific
industry or job – maybe
something telling
people how to make money from flower
arranging. It seems less
exciting and the audience is
smaller but your product is now
unique.
What’s more is that
you can
easily reach those flower arrangers
by posting on a few flower
blogs. And you can probably
get your
sales page to the top of
Google for ‘flower arranging eBook’
much
more easily. It has
a clear
USP as
well, which
makes it
very easy
to sell.
Better yet though, is
to look
at the
routes to market you already
have. What contacts can
you leverage?
Where can
you reach
a lot of
people? What are those people
interested in?
Think about how you’ll
sell the
product and where you’ll reach
your target demographic before you
pick the
product. That is how
you succeed and it’s a strategy
you can
repeat over and over again.
If you already have
a successful
website with a huge audience,
then of course it makes
sense for
you to
choose a product that will appeal
to that
audience.
Multiple Products
Remember as well that you have the option
of selling lots of products. This is another one
of the
big advantages
of selling
digital products: you can
quickly add or remove products
from your site without needing to
spend days
writing and formatting!
There are pros and cons to selling
multiple products. Selling
multiple products is great
if you
have a
big site
and you’re
using soft-sale techniques (see the next
chapter). This also allows you
to offer a range of prices
for different
types of
customer.
That said, focussing
on one product at a time will allow you to create
more buzz
and excitement
around that one specific product,
and to create a more streamlined
website that directs customers all
to a single page: the buy
page.
Choosing Physical Products
Choosing physical
products is a slightly different
process. Again, the strategy here should
be to
pick things
that are
relevant to your content, and to
the typical
reader of your website.
At the same time,
they should
also be
items that
are good
quality, and that fulfil a real
need.
The good news is
that there
is no
reason to make a big
upfront investment and take
a risk
by buying
lots of
items in
bulk. You
aren’t going to be looking at
a situation
where you
have a
warehouse full of fidget spinners!
That means that you
can
follow trends, and generally throw
everything at the wall
to see
what sticks.
I do recommend though
that you
have a
range of
different products at different price points,
in order
to cater
to every
kind of
buyer.
BUT also remember that
you make
commission on anything that is bought
after the
user visits
Amazon. That means that the
main priority should be to get
the person
to click
the link
and to
visit the
page – perhaps more so than
selling that specific item!
***
Get yourself
a web
host and
create your site. Make one
new page
and place the sales
page copy
you got
on there,
along with
your affiliate link. You now have everything in place in order to start
selling and start making
profit! We’ll take a look
at this
next step
in the following chapter.
Chapter 4: Building
an Audience
and
Marketing the Products
The key to success
when it
comes to
selling affiliate products, is to build
an audience
first. This is the “catch”
(insofar as there is one), as
it means
that you
need to
actually put in some time
and work in order to make
the biggest
sales.
The good news, is that if you choose
a topic that you find
interesting, you will essentially
be earning large amounts of money
for doing
something you enjoy.
But in order to
get to
this point,
you first
need to
build that
audience and gain their
trust as
an influencer.
Are there other ways
to sell
affiliate products? Of course! And
we’ll explore those in this chapter
too. BUT I still highly
recommend that you build that audience
and make sure that people
are interested
in your
brand.
How to Create a Brand That Sells
Gaining this kind of
influence of course is not
easy. In
order to
get to
the point where people will buy things just because you
recommend them means putting
in a
lot of
time, and
making an honest attempt to provide
real value
over time.
This starts by creating
a website
along with
a strong
social media presence. Don’t try and sell
right away,
but instead
spend time
building up that trust
and loyalty
through a campaign of delivering
excellent quality content consistently.
The most important thing?
Have a
clear, strong brand, with a great
mission statement, and a concrete
“buyer persona.” (The buyer persona is
the portrait
of your
“ideal customer.”)
The biggest
mistake to make is to
try and
create a very general website with as broad an
appeal as possible. As with
the digital
product you buy in
the first
place, this can be a mistaken strategy.
The reason for that,
is that
when you
go extremely
broad, you also necessarily create a
brand that
is dull
and uninteresting.
A “fitness”
website for instance is too
generic and too done
to death
to be popular. It means
competing with the entire internet
pretty much. How do you stand
out in
such a
saturated market?
Consider instead
then having
a website
that is
about Fitness for Over 40s. Or how about
Paleo
Fitness. Or CrossFit. Or Outdoor
Fitness. Or Hardcore Bodybuilding.
All of these options
have a
much clearer
target audience, a much clearer mission statement, and a
more interesting
hook. They
will each appeal to fewer people,
but the
people that they do appeal to,
will be FAR more likely to engage
and be excited that there is something
out there
specifically
for them.
The brand should then
be born
out of
this clear
and passionate
goal. That means that
when someone
looks at
your logo
or your
website design, they should
know instantly whether it
will appeal
to them or not. Your brand
should strongly communicate who it
is for and what it is
about: and your content should
then back
this up.
The hardcore
bodybuilding site will likely be
red and
black with
lots of
dark images of extremely strong guys, and articles about
“boosting testosterone with compound
lifts.”
Meanwhile, the paleo fitness
site will
likely be green and white
with images of people
running outside in nature. From
here, all
your advertising,
all your
social posts, and EVERYTHING should
be congruent with this
image.
And then, when you
choose your affiliate product, it
should ideally speak to that exact
same audience.
And you
will market
it in
that way, and sell it with
that value
proposition.
What’s ALSO crucial
is that
you provide
unique and new content
that demonstrates real expertise.
Here’s a shock: if
you hire
a writer
who doesn’t
know about
the topic, then you will NEVER
sell the
affiliate product. Why? Because all that
hired writer
CAN do,
is to
research the topic and regurgitate it in their own
words.
That means that none of the content
is going to be new or
insightful, and might well
be out
of date
or incorrect
(because they won’t know the topic
well enough
to identify
when this
is the
case).
You should
write yourself or find a writer who is genuinely
passionate about the topic.
Why? Because then they will have
something NEW and exciting
to say!
This is
how you
become a thought leader, and get
people to listen and to
sign up:
because they want a new perspective.
Be bold. Be different.
Be passionate.
Then choose
a product
that speaks to the very same
audience.
Don’t have time for
that? Don’t
worry –
there are
other options
too which are listed below.
Placing Your Link
As an affiliate marketer,
selling couldn’t be easier. You’re
given one link, which is a link to
promote a product and you
can then
make sales and cash
from anywhere
you place
that link.
So the question is: where
do you
put it?
Most of us will
place our
link on
a landing
page/sales page, but this is only
one option.
In this
section, we’ll look at how
that works,
as well as several more options.
Creating a Sales Page
A sales page is a page on a website
that has been designed
specifically with the purpose
of selling
something. That means
that it won’t provide
any other
content (no articles) and likely
no other links or even adverts
either. You don’t want anything
here that could risk distracting people
from the
product you’re selling.
The design of a sales page
is normally
going to
be very
long and
narrow, which will in
turn encourage
readers to keep scrolling and
therefore to invest more
time into
the process
of reading
what you
have to say. This makes it
much harder
for them
to leave
without buying, as they will feel
as though
they wasted
their time!
Most important
though is the writing. Write your sales pitch
correctly, and you can
take this
captive audience and turn them into eager
buyers.
Persuasive writing
is an
incredibly powerful tool that can
turn you
into a marketing Jedi. These are
not the
drones you are looking for…
Ultimately, if you know
how to
use words
to persuade
an audience,
then you will be far more effective at making
sales, at getting
people to subscribe to
your list
and generally
at achieving
any goal
you’re looking to.
So how do you go about
learning this superpower? Here are
some tips that will help…
• Grab attention: People
are in
a hurry
and they
don’t want
to read through large amounts of
text. If
you want
to persuade
your audience, then first
you need
to get
them to
actually read what you have to say. How do you do this? One method is
to open
with a
bold statement.
Another is to grab
attention by using a narrative
structure. The latter works particularly well as we naturally
find it
very difficult
to turn away from a story
without getting to the end!
• Appeal to facts
and figures:
People aren’t always inclined to
trust you – after
all, they’ve
never met
you and
they know
you want to sell to them!
Instead then, let the numbers
speak for
you. The more figures you can
quote and
the more
authorities you can reference, the more
persuasive your argument will become.
• Anticipate: Try to
anticipate the concerns that your
readers will have and then combat
them right
away. For
instance, you can mention how there
are ‘lots
of amazing
sounding offers online’ but point out
that this
isn’t ‘just
another scam’.
• Mitigate risk: People are naturally
inclined to ‘loss aversion’.
This means that they
are more
keen to
hold onto
what they
have than they are to gain something new. You need to remove
any risk factor then by offering money back
guarantees and free trials.
Most importantly:
understand the value proposition. This is the emotional
value of your product: the way in which you are
promising it can change
your readers’
lives. For example, if you are
selling an eBook on fitness,
then you
should note that you’re not really selling an
eBook on
fitness!
What you’re really selling
is the
feeling of having boundless energy,
ripped abs, and tons of confidence. You need to focus on that! Speak to
the heart,
and try
to get
the reader
to feel something
– ideally excitement for buying your
product.
Remember: many digital products
will come
with ready-made
sales pages like this, meaning that
you can
simply lift the script wholesale
to use on your own page.
With your sales page,
you now
simply need to direct your
audience toward that page in order
to start
generating conversions. This can be done
through emails, and by promoting
your product
on your
social media. You can
even include
adverts for the product in
the sidebar of your site and
elsewhere.
Building a Store
If you are selling
multiple affiliate products (which is
also very
good strategy), then you
can build
a store
in order
to sell
them from. That means that you’ll be highlighting and promoting
products that are relevant
to your
brand as
you might
do in
an ecommerce store. The only real
difference is that when the
buyer clicks on your item, they
will now
instead be taken to an
external page.
This is simple
to do: for example, you can do it by using the
WordPress-friendly ecommerce
plugin called WooCommerce.
This will allow you
to create
a store
from your
site where
people can view items. It supports affiliate content, meaning that if someone
clicks on an item, they
will be
taken to
the new
page using your referral link.
More Ways to Sell
But how about embedding
links within
the body
of your
articles? This is something that very
few affiliates
take advantage
of but
it’s a
great way to monetize a website or blog. Simply write about
whatever subject you’re interested
in covering
and then
insert an affiliate link into the
text. This
way, you
can promote
the product
subtly and anyone who
is engaged
with your
content might click it.
It’s like adding AdSense
to your
page, except
you earn
much more
commission and you get to
actively encourage people to click
the link. You can even be honest about the fact that it earns you money!
In fact, the law in many parts of the world is that you must disclaim that you are making money from
those products. You can do
this easily
by using
a plugin
that adds
a message
to the bottom of every page
on your
site –
but don’t
forget!
One of the best
types of
content for selling affiliate products
is the
top ten list. You can make
a countdown
article listing the best home
gym equipment if you’re
in the
fitness industry, or you can
create an article sharing the most
powerful laptops on the market
if you
write about tech.
Whichever you do, this
is perfect for
generating clicks and money, and will
also lend
itself perfectly to rich snippets,
which can
really
help your content to stand out in the SERPs (Search Engine
Results Pages).
Likewise, there’s
nothing stopping you from placing
an affiliate
link within the body of an
e-mail. This is a great
way to
reach people
right inside their inbox
at a
time when
they may
be receptive
to your
offers.
Affiliate links can also go in eBooks.
If you are selling a digital
product or giving one
away for
free, then
you can
add links
to your
PDF. The people reading this are
likely to be highly engaged
with your brand, and thus likely
to buy
what you
recommend. These are qualified leads and
that makes
it the
perfect place to try and
sell even bigger ticket items.
Imagine selling
a digital
product for $20 a pop,
and then
making lots MORE money from all the people reading the book and
following your advice.
Or how about putting
an affiliate
link on
a physical
flier or
pamphlet? The best way to use
this is
to use
a more
memorable and simple URL and then
have it
redirect to your affiliate link.
That way
you can
actually advertise your product
in person!
The point of these
suggestions is partly to demonstrate
that you
don’t always have to
be actively
selling the product: you can
try the soft-sell by simply adding
the link,
perhaps with an image.
This works especially well
for physical
products (especially if you use a
well-designed button and the item
is actively
related to the content on the
page). If you have a
popular site with a lot
of viewers
and a lot of content, then
simply weaving buy links in
throughout in this
way can
lead to
lots of
sales trickling
in… and
they all add up!
There are many more
ways you
can use
affiliate links, you just have to
be creative.
Experiment and try different things
and you
might be surprised what works best
for you
and your
product!
PPC Advertising and Other Marketing
But what if you don’t have an audience? What if you aren’t an
influencer who has
earned the trust of your
readers?
In this case, you
will need
to find
ways to
send visitors
to your
sales page directly. The
good news
is that
you can
do this
easily through PPC (Pay Per Click)
platforms such as Facebook and
AdWords.
PPC means that you
only pay
when someone
actually clicks on your advert. You
decide what your maximum spend
“per click”
is going to be, and what
the cutoff
point of
your budget
will be
as well.
If you set your per click
spend too
low, then
your ad
won’t show
when there are lots
of competing
ads from
other brands
in the
same niche. Set it too high,
and you
likely won’t turn a profit.
When placing
ads on
Facebook, you will be able
to target
who they
are shown to based
on information
that users
share with
the social
site. Those include:
• Age
• Sex
• Location
• Hobbies and interests
• Job title
• Income bracket
• Interests of others
And more!
When placing
ads on Google through AdWords, the aim is to consider
not only
the interests
of the
person (based on what they
are searching for – the “keywords”)
but also the intent
of that person.
Intent is an important
consideration for PPC, because it
tells you
whether someone is researching,
or looking
to buy.
If they are researching,
then they
might search
for “best
computer games this year.” If they
are looking
to buy,
then they
might search
the name of the computer game,
or “cheap
computer games.” You can also use
“negative keywords” to rule out
phrases that might suggest someone is
not
interested in buying and so
has the
wrong intent (such as “free download”).
The aim of PPC
is to
ensure that people ONLY click
the link
if they are likely to buy
from you.
This lowers
the amount
you spend, while increasing the potential profit. That means the adverts must be as tightly “targeted” to the right person as possible,
even to
the point
of scaring
away people
who won’t
likely want to buy
using the
right text.
The link should of
course direct people to a sales page
in order
to maximize your profits. You then
need to
focus on
the conversion rate of your site. In
other words,
if your
landing page is well written,
then it might convert 1% of
visitors (meaning 1% of visitors buy
from you). The higher
you get
this number,
the more
you can
afford to spend on your advertising
while still
earning a profit.
Direct Selling Through Facebook and Other Platforms
Of course, you also have the option to sell directly through those other platforms. There is nothing to stop you sharing an affiliate link to your Facebook group, or to your Instagram (in your bio, or once you are able to add the swipe up feature on stories). This is a useful way to build an engaged audience if you don’t have the skills or time to create a website.
Chapter 5: Powerful
Modern Tools and
Strategies
Selling a combination
of different products – including digital,
services, and physical -
is far
more powerful
because it combines the kinds of massive sales you can make by building a loyal
audience with the VOLUME that comes from shifting
lots of physical
products.
And here’s something else
to keep
in mind:
having such a diverse portfolio of affiliate products to sell on your site means that you have the
option
to add things that are
“pie in
the sky”
sales. An example? I once sold
an MBA
through an affiliate link! This
was through EDx, which is a potentially hugely profitable affiliate
program, though also an
example of one that you
must sign
up for.
The challenge?
Managing and juggling all of
those different
items! This is why the big,
serious brands will use tools
that streamline
this process, and that give them
access to some of the
most lucrative
affiliate programs on the
web.
Crucial Tools for Taking Affiliate Marketing to the Next
Level
One of these
tools is Genius
Link. Through Genius, you are able
to attach
multiple different accounts and then add their affiliate
programs. This works
particularly well with Amazon,
as it
allows you to add accounts
with each of the
different local versions of Amazon.
Each link will then
send the
user to
the correct
version of Amazon based on their
location, meaning you don’t need
to worry
about losing customers! You can also
add a
number of other programs however, such as Barnes&Noble, BestBuy, and iTunes!
From here, you can generate
a link from Amazon as easily as grabbing
the URL
to the
sales page,
and then
pasting it into a box. If
you have
the Chrome
plugin, you can just click
that button
right there when your browser is
pointed at the page!
A similar
option is something called Trackonomics. This tool works
in a
similar way, but lets you add
items from
a FAR
larger list of affiliates.
That includes
the likes of the aforementioned EDx. Better yet,
Trackonomics can let you
search for products in a vast array
of different affiliate accounts, and then
use the
option that earns the most cash.
In other words, if
you are
selling a smartphone, you can
now compare the commission on that
smartphone were you to sell
it from Amazon, versus the commission
were you
to sell
it direct
from the manufacturer. Versus
Best Buy, versus every other option
out there!
Both tools also let you track clicks
and purchases, in order to identify
which of
your links
is the
most popular,
to identify
when a
link is down, or to see how much you have earned
in a given
timeframe.
The only downside?
Trackonomics costs a HUGE $500 per month.
There is
a free
trial however.
Genius Link meanwhile is free.
More Tools
These tools will help
you to
take your
affiliate earnings to another level, but there are many
more options
out there
as well
for those
that want to create
a more
streamlined business model and funnel.
For instance,
it is
almost essential to use Google
Analytics in order to track the
success of your website and
individual pages. You can see how
you rank
for different
terms, optimize those terms, and then
see how
those pages
are leading
to the
sales page, and which routes earn
the most
commission.
Similarly, using tools that let you conduct A/B tests on your landing page can also help you to improve it to the point that it massively increases conversions.
Conclusion
So, there you have it: everything
you need to know to build a highly
successful affiliate marketing business. Whether
you keep
things simple or aim for the stars is up to you, but I highly recommend you follow the advice
in this
book and
try selling
real products that have broad appeal
and massive
prices as well as the traditional digital
eBooks and courses.
The classic process for selling
affiliate products is simple:
• Find digital
product and get an affiliate
link
• Create a sales page
• Place link on sales
page
• Send traffic to sales page both from your own website, and through marketing
• Wait until the product
stops selling,
then rinse
and repeat
I am recommending that you slightly alter
this model,
to earn
more money and build a more resilient,
long-term business
model.
Here’s the new
strategy:
• Create a website
and build
an audience
that trusts
you and
enjoys what you do
o Do this by generating
genuinely unique and passionate content with a strong visual
brand and
mission statement
• Find a few big ticket affiliate products and services and create
sales pages
for those,
then “launch”
them from
your site by using email blasts
and teasers
to create
hype
o
Find the products that are most
successful and then send more visitors
here through
paid advertising
• Meanwhile, sell as
many smaller
digital products, Amazon physical products, and services, through articles and websites
that you
promote using SEO