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You are here: Home » BlogHeist Blog » Affiliate Marketing » Affiliate Marketing Strategies

17 Affiliate Marketing Strategies that will help you make Money

17 Affiliate Marketing Strategies that will help you make Money

Written by Linda Grandes / 24 Comments
Blogheist is a recognized blog delivering its readers the best tips to make money online. We regularly partner with brands that have products and services useful to our readers. Some of the links inside the article are affiliate links and we receive a small commission if you purchase through the link. No extra cost to you.
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Affiliate marketing is a popular way for bloggers to earn extra income. Simply put, you use your online presence to market products and services from other brands. When your audience makes a purchase through your channel, you receive a commission.

Table of Contents

  • 17 Affiliate Marketing Strategies to make money:
    • 1) Take Notes On the Affiliate Marketing That You Witness
    • 2) Market What You Believe In
    • 3) Fix Broken Links
    • 4) Always Prioritize Creating Great Content
    • 5) Identify Relevant Industries
    • 6) Localize Your Links
    • 7) Create Your Own Incentives
    • 8) Optimize Your Ads for Mobile
    • 9) Always Disclose Your Affiliate Activities
    • 10) Verify the Reputation of the Companies You Promote Always
    • 11) Start with an Affiliate Network
    • 12) Establish Yourself as a Credible User and Reviewer
    • 13) Go Live to Entice Your Audience
    • 14) Focus on SEO to Get Ahead of the Competition
    • 15) Don’t Take on Too Much
    • 16) Be Honest About Your Experiences
    • 17) See Campaigns Through to The End
  • Parting Thoughts

17 Affiliate Marketing Strategies to make money:

Of course, how this works is quite simple. Actually making a profit isn’t quite so easy. It helps to get started the right way. If you are interested in making a profit through affiliate marketing, keep reading. Here are 17 surprisingly effective affiliate marketing strategies.

1) Take Notes On the Affiliate Marketing That You Witness

Chances are, you encounter affiliate marketing quite frequently. If you follow blogs, follow influencers on social media, or read review sites, you have almost certainly engaged with people who are making money to promote products and services. This is a good thing. It’s your chance to engage in some very inexpensive market research.

Take notes as you surf. What appeals to you as a reader and potential consumer. Don’t stop at reading posts and clicking on affiliate links. Read the comments as well. Which affiliate marketing efforts are getting positive feedback, and which ones are creating scorn and skepticism.

2) Market What You Believe In

Not only is it easier to market products and services you truly believe in, but it’s also so much more believable. Your audience already trusts you. When you believe in the products you market, you can promote them with confidence, knowing that you aren’t steering your audience towards making a purchase simply because want to make a profit.

Test out the products that you market. Take a hard pass on the ones that aren’t up to your standards. Retaining the trust and respect of your audience is always the better choice.

3) Fix Broken Links

Not all affiliate links last forever. Sometimes links go dead for a variety of reasons. The product may no longer be available, the program may have ended, or a company may have gone out of business. Broken links cost you money. Not simply because you aren’t making commissions, but also because it makes your content seem outdated.

Make it a habit to check your affiliate links regularly. There are WordPress plugins and other tools that will help with this. Once you find a broken link, you can contact your affiliate partner for a replacement. If that isn’t an option, simply replace the link with something relevant.

4) Always Prioritize Creating Great Content

Always Prioritize creating great content
Image Source: Freepik

If you simply want to make money, consider creating an online store or becoming a drop shipper. But, if you have a blog or have otherwise worked hard to create a credible presence on the internet, you presumably want something more than that. This is why your content must always have top priority. If it becomes nothing more than a vehicle to sell products, you will lose your audience quickly.

Focus on creating content that is relevant to your audience, that answers their questions and helps them solve their problems, and that is very well produced. Use data to back your points. Add visual content to draw in more audience members and keep them on a page for longer periods of time. Then, find ways to include affiliate links organically.

5) Identify Relevant Industries

There really aren’t any good one size fits all options for affiliate marketing. Every audience is different. They’re going to be attracted to different offers. If you choose to work with business owners directly, work with the ones that produce products that are relevant to your audience.

If you choose an affiliate network, choose one that gives you some flexibility, or that targets a similar audience to yours. Always ensure that you choose high ticket affiliate programs so that you can ensure a good reward for your benefits.

You can return to your audience personas to help with this task. If you haven’t created these, now is a perfect time. Your personas should include demographic information about your audience, their interests, their values, where they spend time on social media, and why they are interested in your brand. Use this information to identify the best industries on which to focus your attention.

There are a few reasons for doing this. First and most obvious is that this is the best way to ensure that people click your links and make purchases. By connecting yourself to relevant products and services your use of affiliates will seem more natural and less forced.

6) Localize Your Links

Amazon is one of the most popular and profitable sources of affiliate income. If you choose this option, one thing you can do to maximize your profits is to localize your Amazon links. What this does is simply send people to the appropriate Amazon site based upon their location. If you have a global audience, this can be very helpful.

Fortunately, there are several tools that will automate this for you. If you use WordPress, you can use the Easy Azon. Not only will this geolocate your affiliate links, but buy it also gives you some nice look options for CTA buttons and text. Remember that people are much more likely to spend money if they are sent to a local link and a web page in their native language.

7) Create Your Own Incentives

Most people are wise to affiliate marketing. They know you get compensated when they buy things through your website. You might consider sweetening the deal a bit by adding your own incentives. For example, you can offer a discount on one of your products, give access to exclusive content, or enter people in a giveaway if they make purchases through your links.

8) Optimize Your Ads for Mobile

Not only has mobile use increased. So have the number of sales made through mobile devices. This is why it is so important to ensure that your affiliate ads display well on mobile and that the landing pages your audience ‘lands’ on are mobile-friendly. If your affiliate partner can’t ensure that their content is going to work well on mobile devices, they may not be worth your time.

9) Always Disclose Your Affiliate Activities

Most people don’t resent your attempts to make money through your blog or website. As long as you are providing worthwhile content, people understand that you have to make a living. Affiliate marketing is prominent enough that people are used to it.

Where people do get tripped up is when they share affiliate links without disclosing that they are profiting from those. It is for this reason that reputable websites always disclose that their posts contain affiliate links. Do the same. It’s honest, and your audience members will respect you for it.

There are several different approaches you can take to disclosing your links. Some people will tag them to let people know they are clicking a sponsored link. Others simply include a standard disclaimer that is visible to readers. You can even take a direct approach, by asking people to make purchases through your website or use a bit of humor.

10) Verify the Reputation of the Companies You Promote Always

Affiliate marketing isn’t the same as PPC advertising. People know that you may not always control the ads that appear on your page. You do have significant control over the affiliate links that appear, and in many cases will place them manually in your content as your recommendations. Because of this, it’s your responsibility to vet the companies you promote thoroughly.

At a bare minimum, you should check the reputation of the brands that you recommend. But don’t stop there. Pay attention to audience feedback. It’s one thing if a few people have an issue with product quality or payment. It’s another thing entirely if several people have issues. It’s better to lose a bit of money by severing your relationship with a disreputable brand than losing the trust of your audience.

11) Start with an Affiliate Network

Managing individual relationships with different brands, then collecting your commissions can be painfully time-consuming. That’s a lot to deal with on top of your usual content creation, promotion, and engagement. You may find it easier to work with an affiliate network.

An affiliate network is basically a platform. They aggregate offers from relevant vendors, offer resources to help you find the best partnerships, and take on some of the back-office tasks related to affiliate marketing. Take some time to investigate your affiliate network options, then pick the one that is the best fit.

One of the popular Affiliate Networks is Clickbank, where you can find so many niche specific products. Once you join, you can start to earn money with Clickbank without any further delay.

12) Establish Yourself as a Credible User and Reviewer

Establish Yourself as a Credible User and Reviewer
Image Credits: Freepik

Whether or not people will click on your links and buy the products you recommend depends mostly on you. If people trust you, they are much more likely to consider your affiliate links. One of the best ways to approach this is by establishing yourself as a credible blogger, user of the products you recommend, and reviewer.

If people know that they can trust you to provide honest information, and they see you as an expert in your niche, your product recommendations are going to resonate that much more. Work to establish your blog, and create thought leadership before you monetize your content.

13) Go Live to Entice Your Audience

If you have a truly great product you want to promote, consider using a live video to generate some enthusiasm. A live product demonstration, question and answer session, or instructional video is a great way to educate your audience about a product. You can also win people over with the live engagement that comes as a result. What better chance is there to answer questions, and get feedback about products you have identified as being a good fit for your audience.

14) Focus on SEO to Get Ahead of the Competition

The first trick to profiting from affiliate marketing is to earn enough traffic in the first place. If you aren’t ranking high for the right keywords, you aren’t going to draw in people who are interested in the products you have for sale on your pages.

Every good affiliate marketing strategy should include a solid SEO strategy. This will help ensure that you earn top of page search engine results, and get the traffic and engagement you need.

Read here: 38 Essential Tools for Affiliate Marketing

15) Don’t Take on Too Much

You may be tempted to sign up with every affiliate partnership that’s available to you. This is a big mistake. It’s hard work managing these relationships. Instead, stick with a couple that you think are a good fit. Later, you can analyze the results, then try to create additional income streams.

16) Be Honest About Your Experiences

You can make money from the products you link without delivering a five-star endorsement. Your audience will see right through you if you claim that every single product is the best ever and that you never encounter any problems.

It’s okay, to be honest about your experiences. If something may not be a fit for certain members of your audience, say so. If you find something about a product difficult or confusing, but the end results worthwhile, let people know what you experienced.

For example, if you’ve got a blog on video gaming, you may not be a fan of every title that you’re asked to promote. It’s okay to say so. You can still use your knowledge of video games to recommend games that you know others will love.

17) See Campaigns Through to The End

Once you gain any traction as a blogger or influencer, you are going to be bombarded with offers to promote products. Many of these will come in the form of exciting offers and promises of great profitability. Don’t be distracted.

If these programs are worthwhile, they will be around a month from now, six months from now, or a year from now. Focus on your active campaigns. Analyze the results. Then decide if you want to move on to something new.

Parting Thoughts

Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money through your online presence. Done right, you can use this technique to increase a steady stream of passive income while maintaining your credibility with your audience. Follow the 17 strategies above to maximize the success of your affiliate marketing.

Note: These affiliate marketing strategies are contributed by Linda Granes. If you want to contribute an article, then check our guest blogging guidelines.

Here are some hand-picked articles for you to read:

  • ShoutMeLoud Affiliate Marketing eBook Review: Making $1000 fast
  • How I lost Rs.2,28,815 by neglecting Affiliate Marketing?
  • Affiliate Marketing 101: A Guide for Beginners [Infographic]
  • What Services You Can Sell On Fiverr (Ultimate List)
  • How to make money while you sleep with Affiliate Marketing?

If you find this article useful, pin this.

17 Affiliate Marketing Strategies that will help you Make Money
Image Credits: Freepik
Linda Grandes
Linda is a professional writer and she loves to help students. She has spent the majority of her career in the writing industry, gaining experiences in areas such as editing and writing. Currently, Linda is a blogger at Studyton and Head of CD at WOWGrade. Linda also enjoys reading books and traveling.

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Reader Interactions

24 Comments

  1. Alok Patel says

    December 1, 2018 at 10:25 AM

    Nice and helpful… Thank u

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      December 1, 2018 at 1:11 PM

      Your welcome Alok:)

      Reply
  2. Harish kumar says

    February 4, 2019 at 1:07 PM

    Its really great informative article. Thank for your sharing.

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      February 8, 2019 at 9:40 PM

      Thanks Harish

      Reply
  3. sanket says

    March 14, 2019 at 8:56 PM

    You did a brilliant effort in publishing this informative article here with everyone. Thank you for this.

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      March 22, 2019 at 11:37 PM

      Glad you found this article useful 🙂

      Reply
  4. Jack Cao says

    March 26, 2019 at 8:14 AM

    Thanks for all the tips you have provided! All of them makes a lot of sense. I think the most overlooked tip is #3. Often times I watch a video on YouTube, and I tried clicking on the links in the description box and it leads to nowhere. In fact, I had the intention to buy the product through that link. It is so sad that some affiliate marketers do not keep track of their affiliate links. As for me, I always test my affiliate links once every month so I know if it is working.

    Anyway, thanks for sharing all these great tips!

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      March 26, 2019 at 10:49 AM

      Thanks, Jack. The main reason for Youtubers not able to keep track of their affiliate links is they directly post affiliate links or use some shorteners to the video description. These shorteners cannot keep track of the activeness of the links. Even, I have done this same mistake in the past and lost some affiliate sales and backlink opportunities too. Later, I have figured out a way to solve this. By using a WordPress Plugin to cloak the link, like Thirsty Affiliates, I will have a record of all these affiliate links on my WordPress dashboard. I use these same cloaked affiliate links on my website too. My Broken Link Checker plugin is good enough to alert me whenever the links are not working. That helps me overcome this.

      Glad to see, you have spent time on my blog 🙂

      Reply
  5. Faith Taylor says

    April 23, 2019 at 1:06 PM

    Very informative. I love offering incentives too – offering bonuses that go alongside the main product greatly increases the conversion rate. Also a good option to monitor your links from time to time, products come and go all the time!

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      April 23, 2019 at 9:40 PM

      Yes, Taylor, these are some cool methods to increase our affiliate conversions.

      Reply
  6. Maria says

    May 3, 2019 at 4:19 PM

    Really affiliate marketing is the good way to make the money online for blogger.
    I am blogger, recently joined the bluehost affiliate program to earn money..
    Your tips will help me..

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      May 4, 2019 at 10:35 PM

      Hello Maria, Great to hear that you have joined the BlueHost affiliate program. In fact, this is the right time to join Bluehost because BlueHost is offering great discounts for its users right now. And also they have increased the Affiliate Commission per sale.

      Reply
  7. Melissa Howard says

    June 27, 2019 at 3:24 PM

    thanks for sharing about affiliate marketing that is the good way to make the money online for blogger.
    I am blogger, recently joined the Godaddy affiliate program to earn money. I have added some hosting deal on post and promoting post with possible ways.

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      August 2, 2019 at 11:15 PM

      Thanks, Melissa for sharing your promotion tactics. Did you make any affiliate sales?

      Reply
  8. Ezeani MacDonald says

    January 19, 2020 at 4:11 AM

    Thanks for sharing your own personal affilate skills here, But I will like to know if there is a way to get a free broken link check website other than the WordPress plugin,

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      January 20, 2020 at 8:58 PM

      Hey Ezeani, there are websites available to check broken links for free. Here is one: https://smallseotools.com/websites-broken-link-checker/

      Reply
  9. Faith T says

    January 26, 2020 at 6:52 PM

    Very helpful, and I totally agree with the strategies you mentioned. In fact, I think I lost dozens of potential sales last year because of a few broken links on my website. I upgraded WordPress, and it sort of reset my permalinks structure. What a waste lol

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      January 26, 2020 at 11:16 PM

      Many bloggers who migrate their websites to WordPress are unaware of this permalink structure. And as a result, they lose their traffic and leads after a website migration. In fact, I have lost my traffic after migrating to WordPress.

      Reply
  10. Abhishek Verma says

    April 14, 2020 at 9:54 AM

    Explained every topic briefly. I completely agree with 3rd point, broken links cost money. Same thing happened with me last month when Express VPN changed their affiliate link.

    I got to know about it after 1 week and i lost many sales due to this.

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      April 15, 2020 at 10:51 PM

      Ohh, sad to hear that Abhishek. But, good that you have identified the broken link and changed it.

      How good are your affiliate sales now? And what are the products you are promoting?

      Reply
  11. bindu says

    July 6, 2020 at 8:02 PM

    How can I make passive income through affiliate marketing without a website or blog?

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      July 7, 2020 at 7:54 PM

      Hey Bindu,

      You could still make a passive income through Affiliate Marketing without a website or blog.

      This can be done through Social Media.

      Facebook groups – You can choose a product and find relevant niche Facebook groups and then keep sharing valuable content and later with some affiliate links to get affiliate sales

      Youtube – Create quality content and build subscribers. Post your affiliate link in the description to get more affiliate clicks.

      Similarly, each Social Media Network has got its own way of getting affiliate sales.

      I hope this answered your question.

      Regards,
      Nirmal Kumar.

      Reply
  12. Glan Smith says

    August 21, 2020 at 4:12 PM

    Hey Linda,

    What an amazing strategies. Just love it.

    I’m actually finding this and found this article.

    Love it. Thanks for sharing

    Reply
    • Nirmal Kumar says

      August 22, 2020 at 6:27 PM

      Thanks, Glan for your comment:)

      Nice to hear that you have found this article useful!

      Regards,
      Nirmal Kumar.

      Reply

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