How to start with affiliate marketing

Did you set up your blog and now you’re wondering how to start with affiliate marketing?

Great!

Because if you want to monetise your blog with affiliate marketing you are picking the easiest way to make money with a new blog.

There are several ways you can make money with your blog, but affiliate marketing is by far the quickest and easiest, especially when your blog is still in its early stages.

Why?

Because with affiliate marketing you don’t need tons of traffic (like you do with ads) you just need the right traffic.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t cost anything to set up and it’s super easy to do so let’s get to it and find out how to start with affiliate marketing!

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I may earn a small commission for affiliate links in this post at no extra cost to you. Please read my disclaimer for more information.

WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?

Affiliate marketing is the process of promoting other people’s products in return for a percentage of the profit.

When you’re a blogger this means you add affiliate links to your blog posts and when someone clicks on that link and buys the product, you earn a commission.

There are a few different kinds of affiliate marketing:

Pay per click; you get paid when someone clicks on your affiliate link.
Pay per lead; you get paid when someone clicks on your link and signs up to their email list.
Pay per sale; you get paid when someone clicks on your link and buys something.

Most affiliate programs use the ‘pay per sale’ option, and this option also pays the highest commission.

HOW TO START WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING

Technically you can start with affiliate marketing without a blog and create Pinterest pins that lead straight to your affiliate products.

You can read how to do that here:

How To Make Money On Pinterest

Is this going to lead to a lot of affiliate sales?

I guess that depends on the product you’re selling. This method probably works for things like clothes, where all you need is a visually appealing photo on your pin that will convince buyers to click through to the website to check out the product further.

Some products, however, need a bit more of an explanation and consumers for these products will probably need more convincing that the product you’re sending them to is actually the best product for them.

This is where your blog comes in.

If you write a post about a product and tell your audience how it helped you achieve A, B and C, they will see the benefit of this product and are more likely to buy it.

Through your blog you will be able to build a following that trusts your opinion of your recommended affiliate products. And if they subscribe to your email list you will be able to keep sending potential customers to your blog and to your affiliate links.

So to increase your sales with affiliate marketing you need a blog.

If you haven’t started a blog yet you can read this tutorial on how to set up your WordPress blog in 15 minutes or if you’d like a more in depth walk through, you can sign up to my free course: Kickstart Your Money Making Blog.

WHEN TO START WITH AFFILIATE MARKETING

A lot of new bloggers start their blog and think they need to create lots of content first before thinking of monetising their blog.

Using this approach will only delay the opportunity to make money from your blog. There is no need to wait with affiliate marketing, it is perfectly fine to add affiliate links right from the start.

Example: I was reading this blog post recently and it included a list of products and reasons why they were so good. I was surprised to see that these products came without a link. I asked the blogger why she didn’t add affiliate links and she said that her blog was only 2 months old and she would do this later on.

There are a few problems with this approach:

I was frustrated that I could not check out the product
I was confused why it wouldn’t include a link to make my life easier (If you recommend something, always include a link, even if you are not an affiliate of this product.)
No one knows how old your blog is, so don’t hold back!
If she was to add affiliate links later on, she might find that her recommended product doesn’t have an affiliate program but a very similar product does. Now she will have to rewrite her content to match this new product.

In other words, it is a good idea to sign up for affiliate programs early on, so it can actually help you write your blog posts. Make sure to find products that you like and that you know are suitable for your audience.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

To be successful at affiliate marketing you need to know who you are writing your blog posts for. You need to know your audience.

When you know who your target audience is, you can figure out what products you can sell to them.

Use the following process to find suitable products for your audience:

What problems does your audience have, what are they struggling with?
Create informative blog posts that answer this audience’s questions.
Choose affiliate products that will help your audience solve these problems.
Recommend these affiliate products in your blog post where relevant.

you can reverse engineer the sales process.

What affiliate product do you love and would you like to sell?
What problem does this product solve?
Who has this problem?
Create a blog that targets the audience that needs this product.
Create informative blog posts that answer their questions.
Offer them the affiliate product as a solution.

HOW TO FIND AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

When you know what product you want to promote, you need to find their affiliate program and sign up for it. Most businesses and brands that have an affiliate program have a link in their footer like this:

You can also sign up for affiliate networks. Affiliate networks are like the middle man between the blogger and the brand that sells the product. Affiliate networks are great to sign up for, because they have affiliate programs for any blogging niche.

Some affiliate networks are:

Share-A-Sale

Awin

Clickbank

Once you’ve signed up to a network you’ll be able to browse tons of affiliate programs and find products that are suitable for your audience. When you join a program, they will supply you with your own personal affiliate link for this product. All you have to do is add their affiliate link to your blog post and promote your post.

If you’re struggling to find affiliate programs that suit your niche, Check out this Affiliate Programs Master List.

This list includes over 600 high paying affiliate programs for over 20 niches. Save yourself hours of searching and find affiliate products your readers will love within minutes.

Show me this list!

LEGAL STUFF

Always make sure to read the Terms & Conditions of every affiliate program you sign up with. Some programs won’t allow you to send affiliate links in emails or add them to pdf’s or ebooks. Some won’t allow you to use link shortening services like bit.ly to cloak your links.

Disclosure

When using affiliate links you always have to include an affiliate disclosure to let your readers know that you are promoting a product and you will receive a commission if someone buys something through your link.

This is my affiliate disclosure:

I may earn a small commission for affiliate links in this post at no extra cost to you.

Make sure to put it:

Near the top of every blog post
In your emails
In your Pinterest pin descriptions for pins that go straight to an affiliate product
In social media posts promoting an affiliate product
In your optin freebie like an ebook or digital download if using affiliate links

Must have blog pages

When using affiliate marketing to monetise your blog, you need to add the following legal pages to your blog:

Terms & Conditions
Disclaimer
Privacy Policy

It is important to set these pages up properly to protect yourself from fines and lawsuits.

Most affiliate programs require you to have legal pages on your blog and might refuse to accept your application if you don’t have them. Contact a lawyer to get these pages tailor made to your business, or check out this Legal Bundle Value Pack which has all legal pages you’ll need in one super affordable bundle.

For more tips on how to make sure your blog is legal, you can take this free legal course for bloggers.

THE BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING

Compared to selling your own product, affiliate marketing has several benefits.

No upfront production cost. If you are selling a physical product through affiliate marketing, you don’t have the up front cost of creating this product.
No risk. Because you don’t have to invest money into producing a product, there is no risk if you don’t sell anything.
No extra work. If someone buys through your affiliate link, you make money but you don’t have to send the product or deal with returns or complaints. You can literally make money while you sleep.

You can also use Affiliate Marketing as research for your own business.

Let’s say you are considering creating your own digital product like an ebook or an online course. How will you know if there is a demand for this? You could sign up as an affiliate for a similar course or ebook and see how often it sells.

PROMOTING YOUR AFFILIATE PRODUCTS

To promote your affiliate products you’ll need to write helpful blog posts that solve a problem for your target audience. If your affiliate product is very relevant to your topic you’ll be able to naturally mention the product without looking salesy.

The posts that tend to convert the most are the posts that review the affiliate product. Let your readers know why you love this product. Show them how it works and how it will benefit them. Try to add a photo or a screenshot of the product, or if it’s a physical product and you own it, take a photo of yourself using the product. This will create trust in your readers, and readers that trust you are more likely to buy from you.

Once you publish your post you’ll want to share it with your email subscribers and on social media.

The best way to promote your content is on Pinterest. If you’re new to Pinterest marketing and you could use some guidance on setting up your Pinterest business account correctly, please grab my free guide: Pinterest Set Up For Success. This guide will not only help you set up your account correctly, you’ll also learn how to implement SEO and best pinning practices.

QUICK TIPS FOR AFFILIATE SUCCESS

Target your post at a specific audience
Address a problem in your blog post
Add affiliate links in relevant spots throughout your blog post
Focus your blog post on one product only to get more clicks and sales
Optimise your blog post for SEO
Promote your blog posts

For a detailed strategy that quadrupled my affiliate sales, read:

3 Things I Did To Increase My Affiliate Sales By 481% In One Month

This is how you start with affiliate marketing

I hope this post has answered your questions and you now have a better understanding of how to start with affiliate marketing.

If you’re serious about monetising your blog through affiliate marketing, I highly recommend taking this in-depth course by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner:

Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing

Michelle started out just like the rest of us, with no previous knowledge of blogging and now she earns over $50.000 per months with her blog, all from affiliate marketing!

I took this course and it’s helped me so much, you can read about it here:

3 Things I Did To Increase My Affiliate Sales By 481% In One Month