Affiliate marketing is a form of internet marketing where you promote someone else’s products or services and get a commission for each sale.
In contrast to referral marketing, where the affiliate gets rewarded for referring customers, the affiliate in an affiliate program gets rewarded only if there is a successful sale.
It’s a great way to generate new leads and income with little or no upfront investment. For example, online stores or businesses offer commission-based programs that enable entrepreneurs to earn commissions by placing affiliate links on your blog or other social media platforms.
Affiliate marketing is also an excellent way for people with a particular skill set or expertise, such as fashion or cooking, to make money from the things they know best. While affiliate marketing can be quite profitable and it’s not as easy as it may seem, there are some dos and don’ts that you need to know for affiliate marketing success.
FREE Checklist: Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
The Dos and Don’ts for Affiliate Marketing Success
Overall, affiliate marketing is a great way to start making money online because you can sell other people’s products without the headache of start-up costs, product creation, payment systems or delivery issues. An expert has already done that work for you.
As long as you find the right products that genuinely work and solve your target audience’s problems, you’ll be successful.
Do: Create a Strategy Before You Start Your Campaign
Launching an affiliate marketing strategy can feel like an uphill battle if there are a lot of competitors in the field. However, with a solid strategy and sound research, you can quickly rise above the rest and reap huge rewards.
The best affiliate marketing strategy is to build an audience interested in products and services you can offer. This can be done by building a website, blogging, and promoting your content through social media outlets like Facebook or Twitter.
Don’t: Share Products You Don’t Believe in or Understand
A challenging part of affiliate marketing is trying to find products to promote that you actually believe in. This can be tricky because, as an affiliate marketer, your audience can see by your actions if you believe in a product or if you’re just trying to make more money. Nothing is wrong with making money – understand that – but your first goal needs to be to add value, not make money.
Making money will feel better when you only promote things you believe in and get. If it seems like you’re just promoting anything to make money, they’ll know it, and they won’t trust you. Not only that, but the point is also to make sure your audience benefits from the information and products you share. The key to affiliate marketing success is sharing products you know your audience can’t say no to because they work and make their life easier or better.
Do: Be Transparent
Affiliate marketing is a big business. It’s estimated that it’s worth 4 billion dollars. However, in recent years, the industry has been growing shadier with many misleading practices from unethical affiliate marketers. Don’t do this. Transparency about what information you are being paid to share is not only the right thing to do, it is the law. You must add a disclaimer when dealing with affiliate products.
This means you should let your audience know that you will get a commission if they click any ads on your website or within your social media posts and email. Not only is it the law it also helps to ensure your audience knows you only want to share information that is useful and beneficial to them. Making money is just the added bonus and what helps you continue to share valuable content.
Don’t: Don’t Use Spammy Tactics
For your content to be enjoyed, appreciated, and found, you need to make it interesting, educational, and relevant. Spammy tactics may work for a short time, but they’re always ousted eventually as dishonest. Oversharing or using too many keywords in your blog post can make you seem untrustworthy. It can also downgrade the value of the products or services you are sharing. The best time to share your affiliate links is when it’s helpful at the moment.
For example, sharing your affiliate link to a set of headphones while your audience is watching your live content. This will help your viewers hear your live content better and make sense to your viewers watching. But oversharing affiliate links to a crypto-currency scam wouldn’t make sense. Of course, there are affiliate products for everything. But that doesn’t mean you should participate if it doesn’t make sense to your target audience.
Do: Have an Easy-to-Use Website with Clear Navigation
Affiliates work to sell products by using their own websites and social media to bring in traffic. Therefore, it’s crucial to have an easy-to-use website with clear navigation and keywords to be successful in this field. If it’s not easy to participate, your viewers will probably walk away no matter how much they want to use the product or service.
Don’t: Make Fake Reviews
Some affiliate marketers create fake reviews for their products. But, in doing so, they are essentially committing fraud on their customers, which isn’t suitable for business or your reputation. Reviews aren’t something that you can fake nor should. It leads to dishonesty and a poor customer experience.
If you had a bad experience with a product or service, it’s important to make sure you either disclose that information or choose not to work with that affiliate marketing partner.
Free Download: Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
There are many companies that are willing to pay you to sell their products and services online.
Success comes from choosing the right niche, staying committed and understanding your audience. One thing to keep in mind when you start affiliate marketing is that success isn’t going to happen overnight. You can make unlimited profits, but it will take time. To learn more on how to succeed with your affiliate product sales, download my free checklist, Affiliate Marketing For Beginners.
