Tips to Achieve Affiliate Marketing Success | Affiliate Marketing 101

Our Mediamodifier Affiliate Marketing 101 series continues with everything you need to know about affiliate marketing success!

Chapter 3: Tips to Achieve Affiliate Marketing Success

Our previous articles might have inspired you to start your affiliate marketing journey. You won’t get millions overnight, though, as we warned. It takes time and patience to complete the process. But don’t worry! In this chapter, we’ll cover some helpful tips for beginners to maximize their affiliate marketing success. 

Investing a bit of time and effort in affiliate marketing can help you earn a respectable income.

1. Always disclose that you are an affiliate 

Some online creators might choose to hide the fact they’re doing a sponsorship or affiliate link not to upset their audience. However, that often creates the opposite effect; there is nothing worse than finding out you’ve been deceived by someone you put your trust in. 

Audiences know that you are creating online content to earn a living – it’s your job, after all. People want you to be compensated for the hard work you put into the entertaining or educational content that you produce for them. 

Therefore, most of the time, nobody has an issue with a disclosed partnership. But by promoting something without disclosing your relationship with the brand – even if you truly believe in the product – you can harm your image. 

To avoid this, simply make sure to always speak honestly about what you’re reviewing or promoting to your audience, and to mention when your link is an affiliate one. This will strengthen your relationship with your audience in the long run. 

Moreover, some people choose to purposely click on affiliate links to buy products they would not be interested in otherwise, simply to support their favorite online creator! 

2. Get the message across efficiently

With our attention span continuously depleting, most people enjoy getting a quick dose of information. To achieve success as an affiliate marketer, it is important to effortlessly spread the word about the product you are promoting. 

Just remember the rule: keep it simple! There is no need to overly enhance your content with additional details that will make it hard for your audience to focus. Instead, have a clear and concise idea of what you need to get across, then just deliver it. 

You can take advantage of the rising popularity of short-form video content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Especially because users go to these platforms for a fast dopamine fix, you can satisfy that need by providing them with a bite-sized video that encapsulates what you’re selling, and why they would benefit from it. 

3. Be as informed about the product as you can be 

As you already know, you can’t promote a product without knowing enough about it. 

Before joining a new affiliate program, you need to decide if you are willing to learn enough about the product to promote it naturally. Luckily, this is easy if you stick to a niche you’re passionate about. 

You can start by listing your interests, then searching for these specific partnerships to join. However, if you truly can’t find anything that you are familiar with, no need to panic! Most successful programs offer a starting kit that will provide enough information to educate you on everything you need to know. 

Depending on the company, you might also receive the product or service for free, or at a discounted price, so you can properly use it and show it to your audience. 

4. Provide value to your audience 

The Internet is an infinite resource of information; the only way to stand out is to add to the conversation. That’s why your affiliate content should always bring something new to the table. 

You can do this in a few ways. Firstly, you can focus on how the product is different from others in its industry, and create content around its unique selling point. 

For example, if it’s a meal-prepping delivery company – why is it better than others? Does it have fully organic ingredients, more sustainable practices, or the best food variety? Or perhaps it simply is the most affordable. The same structure can apply to a ghost kitchen or other services, such as a courier service. Either way, make sure to point out how it stands out. 

Secondly, if it’s a bit tougher to find something unique about it, you can always just look at it from a new angle. If we take a peek at the Mediamodifier mockup generator, we can mention that online sellers can reduce the time spent on creating images for their listing by up to 90%. Providing new data or unique takes on why a product is helpful to its consumers is a great way to promote it. 

5. Educate, not sell 

You don’t want your audience to have to ask themselves “but why do I need this product?” after you gave them a presentation. 

It is not enough to present them all existing information on the product or service without making it clear why a person would use it. 

Therefore, it’s best to focus on educating the audience on what problem the product solves and how their life could be improved. This is a foolproof way to get more conversions than simply showing them an ad. 

Interestingly, sometimes it is enough to just plant a seed in their minds. You can create meaningful content about this specific problem that people face, and only at the end briefly mention how this product or service would help.

In certain niches, a more cheeky strategy could also work; after presenting the problem and making them aware of it, don’t solve it right away. By simply hinting that their experience could get better if they used this product, they might be hooked enough to click on the link and find out more information themselves. 

In terms of format, you can create tutorials on YouTube, or write in-depth articles. While it may seem counterintuitive to not promote the product, in some cases, an obvious advertising approach might do more harm to your success. 

And hey, even if you don’t convert them to clients right away, they will value your content and come back for more education on the subject, until they’re ready to make the purchase. And the “worst” case – you won’t ever manage to convert every single person who watched your video, but you will earn some sweet passive income from the YouTube ads. 

6. Put the time in

While it remains true that affiliate marketing is overall a lucrative industry that will eventually feel rather effortless, the initial work plays a huge role. 

You won’t be a top earner in a day, but don’t let that discourage you – everyone started somewhere! If anything, the fact you won’t be successful right away is a great thing. You have time to learn and make mistakes along the way before you reach the ultimate affiliate marketing success. 

Take the first few weeks to properly learn the product, understand social media marketing, focus on one specific audience, and create some goals. Especially in the beginning, it’s crucial to spend some time creating the skeleton of your business before you even start to seriously focus on promoting the products.

7. If it doesn’t work, change it

This tip comes as a natural extension of the previous one we mentioned. By taking the time to create a strategy that works for you, you will inevitably notice what simply doesn’t work at all. 

While it is good to give it time and try things out, it’s also important to realize when an approach won’t get any better. For example, if you have been focusing on one social media platform or one selling point but these don’t bring in any new customers, maybe it’s time to move on to something else. 

You can always keep the good parts of your strategy and adapt what doesn’t seem to work, therefore creating the perfect formula for you. Don’t worry too much about this – especially with Internet trends always changing, even the biggest affiliate marketers are always adapting their approaches. 

Another point you should remember from this is that it is important to set realistic goals that are in line with your niche and how early you are in your affiliate efforts. By doing this, you will understand when something could do better, without being too unreasonable and expecting too much, too early.

Conclusion 

Affiliate marketing can be a very great source of income when you reach success. If you want it to turn into a steady stream of passive income, you need to put the initial effort in to get things going. You’ve got this! 

Do you have any questions or comments about affiliate marketing? Get in touch with our customer support if you need help joining the program.