There’s no such thing as too many affiliate marketing tips, right?
This week, we bring you 11 tried-and-true insider tactics to level up your affiliate marketing game – whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro!
Tip 1. A product with low competition will help convert your audience into customers.
Try to promote offers with low competition, especially if you are just starting out. If you can gain traction in an offer with low competition, you are less likely to lose your audience to more experienced marketers.
This means trying to find products that affiliate marketers might not know about yet. The best way to find “sleeper offers” is through affiliate networks. Sleeper offers are up-and-coming offers that are showing early signs of success but aren’t over-saturated with promoters yet.
You actually have the advantage as a smaller affiliate, because you can test these new offers and find hidden gems that bigger affiliates can’t afford to take the chance on. If you’re an affiliate on ClickBank, you can learn more about how to find these offers in our ClickBank Gravity Score guide – and be sure to check our ClickBank Top Products post at the mid-point of every month for a new “trending products” update. This will give you a head start on finding those sleeper products to promote!
Tip 2. Always strive for quality over quantity.
Don’t base your choice of which product to promote only on a high commission rate. Strive to choose products that will provide your customers with the most value. The more value you provide, the more people will buy it from you, leading to higher commissions as a result.
After all, would you rather get just 1 commission of $150 or 10 commissions of $20? (Hint: the second one.)
Tip 3. Limit your promotion portfolio to offers with recurring commissions.
There are many products you can promote that have recurring commissions. This allows you to earn not only the initial commission, but an ongoing commission for that same sale every month.
Regular recurring revenue will help you grow your income and provides consistency in your paycheck, as long as the product is good and the buyers stay subscribed!
Tip 4. Increase your followers’ trust by showing them that you only promote products that you believe in.
Your audience will be able to tell if you believe in the products you promote or if you are just promoting them to make money. Use good copy and trustworthy marketing tactics to indicate to your audience that you truly support the products you promote and would buy them yourself (or that you actually have bought them).
One way to do this without breaking the bank is to check if a seller offers a “review copy” of their digital product or a sample of their physical product. You can usually find this on the “affiliate tools” page. Then, you can actually take the product for a spin and include your experience with it in your copy and creative for paid ads, email, blog posts, and videos.
Tip 5. Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience’s problems.
People will buy a product that they believe can solve their problems. Here are some relatable examples:
- A beginner affiliate marketer who is struggling to gain traction and traffic will buy a course that they believe will teach them what they need to succeed.
- A person who wants to alleviate back pain may seek out a yoga program to help increase their mobility.
- A mom who is a first-time homeschooler may need solutions to help their kids learn from home.
All of these people have different needs, but the fact that they have needs and are seeking solutions is the thing they have in common. Make sure the products you promote are solutions to your audience’s common paint points, and and that the copy you use points this out in a clear and concise manner!
Tip 6. Educating your audience about relevant products and services is value-added content.
People love to learn and get new information! Finding comprehensive, accurate, and applicable information has become harder and harder, as more people have started publishing on the internet. If you can earn people’s trust by providing quality information, you will have repeat customers.
And best of all, this extends to product recommendations. If you can provide objective, trustworthy reviews of relevant products or services, your audience will appreciate it!
Tip 7. Promote products that are directly relevant to the audience you are serving.
This is one of those affiliate marketing tips that is pretty self-explanatory. Make sure you know your audience and make sure the offer you promote is relevant to them. You’re not going to generate a whole lot of sales if your audience is “cat people” and you’re promoting a dog product.
Put another way? The more relevant the offers, the more sales you’ll generate!
Tip 8. Disclose any affiliate relationships you have with the vendors you are promoting to grow audience trust.
To earn the trust of your audience, it is critical that you disclose any affiliate relationships that you have with sellers that you are promoting. (Not to mention staying on the good side of regulatory bodies like the FTC.)
In a video, this might just be a quick statement saying, “For full transparency, I do make a commission if you use my link.” On your content website, an affiliate link disclosure should appear on any page with affiliate links – but many people just add it to their sidebar or footer to make sure it appears everywhere and include language saying, “This page may contain affiliate links that generate a small commission from clicks that result in a purchase.”
Even if there’s no regulatory requirement, though, it is a good practice to be upfront with your audience about conflicts of interest you may have. In the long run, that will grow your reputation and audience trust.
Tip 9. Promote higher priced products to get higher commissions.
Along with recurring revenue offers, it’s worth promoting offers with high average payout values. Generally, higher priced offers will pay out higher commissions, such as these best supplement affiliate programs on ClickBank.
Keep your promotion portfolio stocked with these (and whenever possible, still try to focus on the products that renew monthly)!
Tip 10. Write evergreen content to build an audience over time.
After you’ve built an affiliate site, creating evergreen content is key. The fact is, it’s hard to stay relevant in an industry that moves fast, so useful content in your niche will hopefully stay useful for your audience over the long term.
What counts as “evergreen?” General tips, tricks, and tactics are great. For example, in the photography niche, informational articles like “setting up a shot with the rule of thirds” or “the difference between F stop and shutter speed” will always be relevant – it doesn’t matter what camera you use!
As a bonus tip, remember that you can refresh or update your evergreen articles periodically to increase the shelf life of your content.
Tip 11. Invest in education to shorten the time to your first commission check.
Supplemental education is a great way to get a head start in the affiliate marketing industry. I recommend The Fast Track. It’s a six week course that will teach you how to earn $1k/day. This is great for affiliate marketing newbies or Spark graduates.
For affiliate marketers everywhere, it’s important to keep your skill set and tool belt fresh and up to date. These 11 affiliate marketing tips are something I return to often and remind myself that the basics are the only make or break element of affiliate marketing. Truly, you have to learn the foundations before you can level up.