Affiliate marketing is a great way to learn digital marketing and selling online.

To be honest, I’ve never taken online classes to learn affiliate marketing. I’ve never purchased affiliate-related Books either. However, I still earned $400+ in the past.

Without knowing anything about affiliate marketing, I could make some money. That’s a good sign of potential side hustle income. So, I decided to learn more about affiliate marketing this year.

You’ve already known The Simple Formula of Passive Income with Affiliate Marketing if you read my previous post. The formula was very simple but difficult to make happen, right?

So, I researched the ways to promote affiliate products!

DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. Please read my full disclaimer here for more info.

First, what is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s or company’s products/services. You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a percentage of the sale as a commission.

For example:

• You sign up for the Shopify affiliate program
• Shopify check your application
• Once your application is approved, (I was a decline by the Shopify affiliate program) you can access a dashboard
• Your dashboard has affiliate links and banners to promote Shopify
• Once someone makes a purchase through your affiliate links or banners, you earn commission!

If you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend signing up for an affiliate marketing network like ShareASale and Amazon Associate. These two are the most beginner-friendly affiliate network.

Ways to Promote Affiliate Products

To make money with affiliate marketing, someone needs to make a purchase through your affiliate links. Here are ways to promote your affiliate products!

Email Marketing

Did you know that? Email marketing is the most profitable direct marketing channel.

Global email users amounted to 3.9 billion users and it will grow to 4.3 billion users in 2023. (1) That’s almost half of the world’s population. In other words, email marketing allows you to reach people 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Send monthly emails or newsletters and include affiliate links in them. Please note that some email marketing tools like Mailchimp don’t allow affiliate marketing. Some types of affiliate marketing are allowed at ConvertKit. Before you sign up for any type of email marketing tool, check the terms and conditions.

Related Posts:

• Best Email Marketing Services to Consider In 2022
• How to Use Email Marketing to Skyrocket Your Business in 2020
• Simple Email Marketing: Mailchimp + WPForms

YouTube Marketing

According to Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts report, the average person will spend 100 minutes each day watching online videos in 2021. (2) It’s obvious that an online video is a great tool to reach targeted audiences!

One of the most common ways to promote your affiliate products through YouTube is to make a video about your affiliate products and add the product’s information with affiliate links in video captions.

For instance, Stella & Dot affiliate marketers create YouTube videos to announce new products as well as to conduct Q&As. MLM like Stella & Dot is usually not a long-life business model (in my opinion).  But it can be good extra cash opportunities if you expand the audience pool by using online videos like YouTube.

Product Review

Online research plays a very important role in modern consumer shopping. According to Bizrate Insights, 91% of people read at least one review before making a purchase decision on a product, business, or service. (3)

If you have a blog, write an honest and also unbiased review about your affiliate product! 32.7% of people think sponsored or affiliated reviews aren’t the most credible source of information. Therefore, be sure to include information on how to use the product, the pros and cons of using it, and your personal experience with the product in addition to your affiliate links. Don’t just say, “This is amazing! You should buy it!”

Be informative to readers.

If you need a good example of “product review,” check My Subscription Addiction! It’s one of the most successful product review bloggers.

If you want to create a WordPress blog for cheap, a Bluehost hosting service could be a great choice!

Resource Pages

If you have a blog, create resource pages and add affiliate links. I think these resource pages are pretty common ways to promote your affiliate products. Be sure to include a brief description of the products, the prices of the products, and what you love about them.

Here are some examples of resource pages:

• Powerful WordPress Plugins for Business Websites in 2021
• The Ultimate List of Tools & Resources for Online Business

Twitter Marketing

Making money with social media gradually becomes popular.

Some people make money with Twitter + affiliate marketing. These people don’t have a blog, only managing the Twitter account. I did some research and find out a lot of people are selling eBooks, planners, workbooks, and online courses through Twitter. It seems like educational products are popular on Twitter.

Here is an example of making money on Twitter + affiliate marketing:

• Decide what to sell to whom
• Sign up for the affiliate program
• Follow people relevant to your affiliate products
• Tweet something interesting or helpful tips to your target audience
• Sometimes tweet about affiliate products with affiliate links
• Once someone makes a purchase through your affiliate links, you earn commission!

If you don’t know where to start Twitter money, check websites like Gumroad. I found that many people are promoting Gumroad products and making some money!

How-To Tutorials

How-To tutorials are popular content on any type of media.

It’s problem-solving content which means driving huge traffic. More traffic, more chances to make sales. You can create how-to tutorials on the blog, YouTube video, Facebook video, Twitter video, Instagram video, etc. Don’t forget to include affiliate links or lead your audience to bio links.

Pinterest Marketing

People make money with Pinterest + affiliate marketing without a blog! I was amazed at how creative people can get.

Here is an example of Pinterest + affiliate marketing:

• Decide what to sell to whom
• Sign up for affiliate program
• Create the Pin
• Upload your image (Pin), and choose a destination website that is your affiliate links.
• Once someone makes a purchase through your affiliate links, you earn commission!

Remember! Just uploading your affiliate product images is not enough to make sales. The image should be a Pinterest size which is 1000 x 1500px (as of June 2021, it changes sometimes) The image (Pin) should attract people. Make an image that people want to click it. The most popular graphic tool for Pinterest is Canva. Because they offer tons of pre-designed templates. You don’t really need design skills if you use Canva. (And it’s free)

Related Posts:

• Canva Pro: A Review + How to Increase Your Productivity
• How to Create High-Performing Social Media Content
• Pinterest Impressions Increased by 120% within 5 Days!

Instagram Marketing

Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users and 95% of Instagram users are younger than 35 shopping lovers. (4)

In addition, 72% of Instagram users claim to have made a product purchase after seeing it on the app. Since most successful Instagram accounts are all fashion brands, it’s a good social media to sell fashion items.

You can’t click links on an Instagram caption. So, most affiliate marketers on Instagram use the word “link bio.”

“Link bio” means, go to the profile page and click the bio link. If you use a free tool like SmartBio, you can add multiple links on the bio page.

Coupons

Who doesn’t like discounts?

When you sign up for an affiliate program, you’ll get exclusive discount offers from brands. You can use the offers to boost your sales. (it’s a coupon code, sometimes just discounts without any code) The Krazy Coupon Lady is a great example of affiliate marketing with coupons.

Wrapping Up

Affiliate marketing can be a lot of work, but there are a lot of opportunities to promote your affiliate program! And also, you’ll automatically gain knowledge of digital marketing and selling online if you learn affiliate marketing. (These two are high in-demand skills)

It’s your turn! How did you promote your affiliate links?

Resources:

1. Statista. “Number of E-Mail Users Worldwide 2017–2025.” Statista, 19 Mar. 2021, www.statista.com/statistics/255080/number-of-e-mail-users-worldwide. Introduction
2. Barnard, Jonathan. “Online Video Viewing to Reach 100 Minutes a Day in 2021 –.” Zenith, 13 Sept. 2019, www.zenithmedia.com/online-video-viewing-to-reach-100-minutes-a-day-in-2021.
3. Kavanagh, M. (2021, April 14). The Impact of Customer Reviews on Purchase Decisions. Bizrate Insights.
4. Bagadiya, J. (2018). 367 Social Media Statistics You Must Know In 2021. Social Pilot. https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/social-media-statistics