Anyone had success with affiliate marketing?
Hi all,
Currently most of my referral traffic is direct or from social media, and I'm looking to increase sales by adopting an ad strategy. I've seen examples of affiliate marketing working for some creators (on Gumroad specifically) but am curious if anyone has had success with affiliate marketing and if so, what are some best practices in this space? Thanks!
i recently start affiliate marketing of https://wikipagemaker.com/ and the result is quite impressive
Sounds like he just wanted a backlink 🤓
Are you saying that you promote this website and get paid affiliate commissions? What are the impressive results, did you make a lot of money?
Did you use a network or build it out yourself?
Thank you. Do you have any tips you can share for successful affiliate marketing, or resources you used to inform your strategy?
You're looking to potentially take on affiliates for your own product as a creator?
I saw a youtube video by Wes Bos not long ago, and his advice was to invite a few select people to your affiliate program instead of making it an open thing.
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBlOxBQrP9I
There is a lot of fraud in the space. So that is one way to make sure you don't have that issue (i.e. you know every affiliate personally). Of course, you don't have to, but maybe it's a good way to start small?
(For context, I run a SaaS that helps affiliates themselves do affiliate CRO on their evergreen SEO content, and have been doing affiliate marketing myself for a few years as a blogger.)
If I were in your position, I'd write my own evergreen content and get the leads that way. You can write content that targets people with the exact problems your products solve, and not have to split the earnings with an affiliate.
That, or reach out to people who already rank for those terms and offer them an affiliate deal after they've tried your material. Just a few ideas :)
Thanks @momoko! I've had a lot of success with sales coming from organic channels and have produced a lot of evergreen content, with CTAs that drive to my book sales page. I've just heard that some creators have had some success with affiliate marketing and though I'm skeptical, wanted to understand if it indeed was as viable a channel as some made it seem. :) Working with people I already know was definitely the goal, so I'll check out the video and conduct more exploratory research before making any decisions. Appreciate your input.
Gotcha, I've never done affiliate marketing as a creator selling products. But the power of a "personal recommendation" on conversion can't be overstated, especially if you have affiliates with credibility. Hope the video is helpful & good luck!
I've made some coin from affiliate marketing :) like a few hundred bucks. I need to be more strategic but I am an affiliate for Bluehost and promoted it on my Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JsgmtOaPck
This is really good to know; thank you! If I may ask, did you use any resources to help you develop your affiliate marketing strategy?
Interesting @radiomorillo
I'm also in the process of applying effective affiliate marketing for Virtual Mojito, keen to learn from you.
Is this for a book? Affiliate marketing is my main revenue driver but I am on the publisher's side. It matters what you are selling. Books usually work best on Amazon, because it an easy program to get into and promote items. So you will probably find that many bloggers who might mention you are already in it. If the book is only published somewhere else then its a bit trickier but not impossible. Then the blogger has to promote the book AND the alternative way of purchasing it that may not be familiar to the reader.
Correct, it's for a book. I've actually had a lot of success with it outside of the Amazon ecosystem; it's geared toward developers and for sale on Gumroad. (I've made ~1100 sales to date.) Gumroad enables affiliate marketing and I've seen other creators on Gumroad promote via affiliates, but I'm less concerned with the platform and more so with the strategy.
It's definitely a good strategy, just be careful not to cannibalize sales. I would forgo promo codes and just have links.
Affiliate marketing can really shine when you've exhausted your network of places to promote because it can bring in new bloggers and influencers, which is a key part of its success.
It can be less successful if you have a few giant channels you don't control. For example, if a lot of your sales come from one directory listing or one blogger, then you run the risk that they will switch to the affiliate program and your overall profit will go down. If not too many new affiliates join you will be worse off than if you had never created the program in the first place.
However, if you're doing most of the promoting yourself, then that's not such a great risk, or if your current partners are not the places that would switch to your program then it could be a good move.
Just be aware you need to promote the affiliate program too. A book is not something that causes people to rush in and promote it on its own, because the profits are not likely to be high. It would be a side gig for someone like me, something I would list in an education section or as a one-liner in a post. So I would need to be educated on who it was for and good places or contexts to mention it in. That's what you'll need to do with your affiliates.
This is incredibly helpful. Thanks so much for the advice!
I am still trying to build up an Amazon affiliate site with Wordpress (the recent commission cuts were a bummer). So far with really limited success, my niche is a bit too broad, but let's see. Not giving up yet!
No experience, just wanted to say I follow you on Twitter (not sure how I found you) and love your work :)
Hehehe thanks so much @AndrewV! Hope to be more active on IH moving forward. ;)