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Affiliate marketing sounds like an easy way to make money and boost your income, and it is in many respects. When you get it right, a couple of savvy links on your optimised blog, website or landing page will add money to the coffers. It’s a breeze when you know what you’re doing.
However, not everyone understands the basics, regardless of how straightforward they seem on the surface. Also, you can’t afford to make errors. With that in mind, we’ve outlined a couple of the essential dos and don’ts of affiliate marketing to help you get the ball rolling.
Do: Advertise Services You Know
Promoting popular products and services will increase the likelihood of selling more units, which is what you want. The flip side of the argument is that you shouldn’t promote anything you don’t understand. Firstly, if it’s a dud, it will destroy your reputation with your followers, and they’ll never trust you again.
Secondly, it’s easier to write organically about stuff that you know and like. This stands out to audiences because they are always searching for unbiased, reliable advice.
Don’t: Over Promote
A huge mistake that’s easy to make is to promote too many products or services on a single page. Modern consumers are easily distracted. Did you know that 72% of millennials will “multitask” while surfing the internet, such as watching TV or playing games? As a result, holding their attention is hard at the best of times.
Giving them too many links to click on will distract readers from making a conversion by encouraging them to forget about the other advertised items. Promote one product at a time to offer yourself the best chance of lowering your bounce rate. Alternatively, you can even achieve impressive returns through affiliate marketing without a website, as long as you optimize your online media via other channels (such as social media) and select appropriate partners for the task at hand.
Do: Choose a Powerful CTA
A CTA, or Call to Action, might be the push a person needs to purchase a product via your platform. You should always try to convince people to click-through to your links anyway, so a brilliant CTA makes sense on every level. Sadly, they vary significantly, and lots of marketers assume the likes of “Click Here” or “Follow the Link” are acceptable.
They aren’t. A good strategy to use to tell whether your CTA is powerful enough is to consider the buying process. Would you hit a link for no reason? No, you wouldn’t. But you would if the marketer offered you an incentive, such as a free trial, a discount, or money off shipping costs. By incorporating these into your CTAs, you’re more likely to engage consumers.
Don’t: Target Unsuitable Audiences
It’s not worth your time wasting money and resources on people who are unlikely to spend a penny. Instead, you must tailor the product to your audience, thus affording yourself a greater chance of shifting items.
A smart strategy is to choose a service that matches the demographic of your readership. If it’s mainly male, for instance, it should tick the boxes that men like. Or, if your audience is millennials, remember they prioritize social significance when they pick between brands.
Hopefully, following these tips will remove the hassle from your side hustle!
