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Affiliate Links in Newsletters

by NJP

Greetings, fellow affiliators

I've built an outdoor blog that's getting about 20K new users/month.

My initial plan was to get to 5k mri with Amazon links. Then Bozos cut the commissions.

I'm at about 3k, including some non-AZ commissions (about $1200 from AZ).

I'm adding a podcast of daily, 10 minute episodes (a la Epic Gardening).

Anyone who signs up for my newsletter gets all 7 epis for the coming week in advance.

The newsletter will include affiliate product links, special offers from affiliates, links to new blog posts, some exclusive content only for newsletter subscribers, and of course the private RSS for the week of shows.

There are some very good affiliate commissions in my niche.

This is my plan for monetizing my podcast without needing to think about ads or paid subscriptions.

Mostly I want to build a solid business without worrying about AZ or any other platform pulling the rug out from under my income.

I'm interested in ideas, critiques... whatever you've got to share about this concept.

Thanks for reading.

NJP's avatarNJP
on September 4, 2020
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  1. 2

    I have an active outdoor site case study going on in my newsletter:

    https://thewebsiteflip.com/case-study/outdoor/

    I think you will find value in reading thay.

    MushfiqS's avatar MushfiqS
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    6 years ago
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  2. 2

    Just make sure you double-check the terms and conditions for EACH MERCHANT you work with. (Not just at the Network-level)

    Some merchants will allow you to promote them in email. Others may ask you to get approval for each campaign. Others may disallow it altogether.

    You probably know already that Amazon does not allow you to use affiliate links in email.

    Also, make sure you're using subid tracking so you can actually measure which of your emails are converting, and be able to attribute the conversions to email as opposed to your website.

    Hope that helps! I've had decent results using affiliate links in an email course, but it's not my main strategy. Earned much more from putting affiliate links inside buyer-intent SEO content.

    momoko's avatar momoko
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    6 years ago
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    1. 1

      Thanks for the reply.

      "Earned much more from putting affiliate links inside buyer-intent SEO content."

      Yeah I've done alright with that, but the plan from the start was to ultimately sell my own products, membership... and to not be dependent on a platform and the "generosity" of affiliates.

      So this approach (sign up for bonus content & newsletter which includes affiliate links) will build my own audience, give me more control over earnings and a lot of other advantages.

      Regarding affiliates that don't allow links in newsletters: I can link from the newsletter to my pages where AZ and others are.

      But again, I'll be moving on from affiliate $$ to much more lucrative sources as the audience grows.

      NJP's avatar NJP
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      6 years ago
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      1. 1

        Yeah makes total sense, good luck with your newsletter! ^_^

        momoko's avatar momoko
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        6 years ago
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  3. 2

    Good job!
    Maybe you can consider extra monetization models based on your audience:

    • B2C - a Ning community or Sub-Reddit to build a community around your platform.. Or some
    • B2B - Gardening business directory which you can monetize with freemium and sales commissions

    Ads monetization:

    • Adsense?
    • Maybe try to sell direct advertising on the website & on the podcast by simply creating an Advertise page and mention it in the podcast & the newsletter?
    Brandvertisor's avatar Brandvertisor
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    6 years ago
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