Blogging 101: Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers

Have you ever wondered how other bloggers make money from their blogs outside of brand deals? Or you know about affiliate links but you just don’t know how to use them for your content? Well this is the post for you. I’m going to talk all about affiliate marketing, and how to best maximise your use of it for your blog.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when content creators can use tracking URL links to promote a product for a company. This link works by dropping a cookie on the reader’s computer or phone for (usually) the next 30 days, and if they purchase anything from that site, the creator receives a commission. Despite popular misconception, affiliate links do not increase prices of products, it just shares some of the profits the company would receive with the content creator.

Why Should I Use Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing, once you’ve got your head around it, can be an extremely simple way to monetise your blog. Of course monetising isn’t for everyone, and if you don’t want to then you don’t have to. However, if you’re already creating content that surrounds certain products, then it’s very little effort to add in affiliate links after. For example, I add affiliate links for my book and beauty reviews because it is content I was already writing, and people who are interested may want to purchase what I’ve reviewed.

Another reason is that you can utilise the tracking of these links to your own benefit. If you’re anything like me, you love some good stats that give you relevant information. Affiliate links can show you how many people are clicking through to the product page from your content, showing interest in that particular piece of content. The more clicks there are, there is a logical conclusion that people are intrigued after your post. This allows you to plan more content that is similar, to entice more people to read your blog.

Tracking your actual commissions as well can help you to learn which products you’re actually influencing others to purchase, which allows you to cater more content. This is more focused on maximising your affiliate income even more, but it is similar to clicks where you can gauge interest in content. For example, my Illamasqua beauty post is still my strongest post for affiliate commissions. Therefore I wrote more blog posts that were brand focused for beauty products, which have also gained affiliate clicks and commissions.

Overall affiliate marketing is a low effort way to monetise, with low risk as you’re not investing anything. Often links can create passive income for a significant time after the post goes live, and you won’t need specialised expertise in affiliate marketing to help you set it up.

Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Yes… but you have to do it right. Because affiliate links are fairly easy, they’re attractive for many blog owners to utilise. This means there’s a lot of market competition when it comes to affiliate links, and many programs run on a last click basis. If someone clicks your link, but then clicks another affiliate link within the 30 days and then purchases, you’re out of luck and won’t receive anything. Therefore you need to already have content which is influencing people to purchase quickly.

If you’ve not previously created a base of readers who enjoy and trust your content, there’s less of a chance for affiliate marketing to benefit you. So work on improving your blog before you dive into the deep end of monetisation through affiliates.

Can I Use Affiliate Marketing on WordPress?

If you’re self-hosted you’re all good to go for affiliate links. There’s a lot of questioning about whether bloggers using WordPress free can use them though. Luckily WordPress has cleared that up, where creators can use affiliate links, as long as the website isn’t only for affiliate links (For example, coupon sites use affiliate links and would not be allowed on a free WordPress account).

Rules of Affiliate Marketing

With any kind of marketing or advertising, you need to abide by the rules set by your countries advertising bodies. For the UK, the ASA states that affiliate links need to be clearly disclosed as such. Ensure that your policy or disclaimers page discusses how you use affiliate links, and add it to the agreed cookies pop-up on your site.

What Affiliate Networks Should I Join?

AWIN is one of the best UK affiliate networks as it has so many UK brands available. For example, I work with Illamasqua, Waterstones, Wordery, Boots, The Body Shop, Benefit Cosmetics and Union Hand-Roasted Coffee and more all on this network. There’s multiple niches for bloggers to utilise AWIN for, as there’s a wide range of advertisers. I’ve personally worked in affiliate marketing before, and AWIN was what the agency I worked for used for all of their client’s affiliate programs. Also note that my AWIN link is also an affiliate link, if you would like to sign up.

Amazon has its own affiliate program, Amazon Associates, which many bloggers use because there’s millions of products available. It’s extremely easy to create an account and to set up as there’s WordPress plugins, an affiliate site, and also a ‘sitestripe’ feature allowing you to quickly create an affiliate on the usual Amazon website. I would admit that for me Amazon is not the best for actually converting people to purchase, although my niche for Amazon links are usually books. A lot of my followers prefer independent shops or other brands which I use through AWIN instead.

Whilst most affiliate programs utilise commission based using percentage of the sale as their payments, it’s not the only type of payment. Although rare, some companies may pay a specific lump sum for affiliate links to a certain product, for example AWIN does for its network program. Others may pay on a CPC (cost-per-click) basis where every click on the affiliate link gives the creator a commission, even if no sale occurs. Make sure you read into what you’re getting from each program you join.

Promote your Links

A key part to affiliate marketing is that you do need to spend some time promoting your links. Whilst some can be ‘evergreen’ links (AKA Amazon Affiliate links to books), others may be seasonal (clothing). It’s a good option to promote content with affiliate links to get the most of out of them. As I talked about before, it will be much harder to promote affiliate links if you don’t already have readers who trust you.

Promoting your links and promoting your blog go hand in hand, as you want more readers to see your links. Whether you’re using social media, email lists or building/contributing to a community, promotion of your posts helps build traffic that allows for passive income of affiliate marketing. My other Blogging 101 posts have covered promoting you blog in much more detail.

Utilise your Niche

If you’ve chosen a niche, you’ll be able to realise which products are more valuable to your audience. For example, a book blog should probably focus on books and book related links, which is what their audience is interested in. A pair of hiking boots on the other hand, might not work so well. Whilst this affiliate link has a higher commission by percentage, there’s a low chance of click-through rates which can hinder your overall affiliate earnings.

Also remember that if you’re trying to sell products that are completely unrelated to your niche, it can reduce the overall credibility of your brand when it comes to talking about any products. Relevant or not. 

Measure Your Own Performance

On most networks you’ll see stats for which of your affiliate links are doing better than others. On networks like Awin you can also see which companies do better than others through your affiliate links. There’s a balancing act of using higher commission for higher priced companies, or more commissions for lower priced companies. This is beneficial if you’re trying to create better content for your audience.

Persevere

Affiliate links won’t be an immediate source of income, and you’ll still need to spend time managing other parts of your blog in order for affiliates to work for you. Blogging for most is not a money-making venture, however even the smallest of blogs can gain affiliate commissions if they have engaged readers. Be persistent at working on all aspects of your blog, to keep readers interested and coming back for more.

Have you ever wondered how other bloggers make money from their blogs outside of brand deals? Or you know about affiliate links but you just don’t know how to use them for your content? Well this is the post for you. I’m going to talk all about affiliate marketing, and how to best maximise your use of it for your blog.