If you remember from my previous posts about affiliate marketing (Part 1 and Part 2), one way to make money online is to promote products you can honestly recommend, and then get a percentage of the profits. You do not have to blog to be an affiliate and make money for referrals! Anyone can do this.
I thought I'd put this video tutorial together to show you exactly how this works. I'm using my time management ebook to demonstrate, but lots of products have affiliate programs so just do a search. Signing up to be an affiliate will cost you absolutely nothing so really, it's just potential money in your pocket.
Psst…!
I'm posting this today in case you have read Tell Your Time and want to join the affiliate program BECAUSE, there's some fun stuff happening this weekend for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
In a nutshell, come this weekend, not only will you get the very generous 50% sales commission I offer to all my affiliates normally, but there's also going to be a couple of bonuses this weekend making it an ever sweeter deal! (Details will be sent to all affiliates so hurry and sign up if Tell Your Time is something you feel comfortable promoting!)
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
A few notes of caution:
- I don't generally recommend promoting products you have not tried yourself. Honesty and authenticity are key.
- Do not spam people. I would not suggest you email someone your affiliate code without their permission.
- As mentioned in the video, be sure to understand the Terms of Service for sites on which you will be pasting your affiliate links.
How does something like an amazon affiliate work when you have both uk and us readers? Do you need a seperate link for amazonuk and amazon usa?
Hi Susie, hmmm…good question. I didn't know the answer but according to this, the answer apparently is you have to sign up for each country.
I recently posted a link to Groupon on a blog post for what I thought was an awesome deal. Throughout the day at least a dozen people read the post. I didn't actually purchase my groupon coupon until it was almost expired and when I completed the purchase it said, "refer others using this unique web address and get $10!" I was so mad at myself for not knowing about this before I posted the generic link! I could have made some money with my own affiliate code! I'm still taking baby steps with my blog and this would have been a really easy step, unfortunately I missed out.
Oh, that's a bummer! I can relate though (I'm sure many of us can). I think it's a good time to remind everyone that ANY TIME you are talking about a specific product or service on your blog, always do a quick search beforehand to see if there's an affiliate or referral program. There are a boatload of ideas for affiliate programs at the end of this post.
Hi Amy, I'd like to promote 'Tell Your Time' on my blog this weekend. I'm not sure if this is possible, though, as I'm in the UK. I'm just wondering how affiliate payment would work for that? If there are any purchases, do you pay only into US bank accounts? Or is it possible to use Paypal?
Hi again, I think my question above has been answered. I've just signed up to be an affiliate on your affiliate page and see that transactions are all done through Paypal. So, that's fine!
Hi Susie and Amy,
Re: Amazon, yes you do have to sign up for each country. I have an Amazon.co.uk account and an Amazon.com account. I'm not sure how this works if you want to have an Amazon shop on your site (you probably have to have 2 separate shops but that seems a bit clumsy). But certainly within posts you have to put links to both sites. I'm new to all this but I've done this in a post at the following link (although I'm not that happy with how it looks on the page): http://countingeachblessing.blogspot.com/2010/11/stop-dieting-and-start-living.html .
I thought an alternative might be to show just the image of the product so the customer can see it but it doesn't look so commercial with the prices etc. (this is quite fiddly to do though — see the instructions below which Amazon emailed me – I've not tried them yet, have just fiddled about with changing the code a bit which is fussy). This then links through (in my case because I'm in the UK) to the product on the amazon.co.uk page. Then, in my text, I'd also say something like, "For UK readers click here and for US readers click here to see further details about the product".
Instructions from Amazon for adding just a product image link:
"The preferred way of adding Context Links Beta JavaScript to your Blogger blog is to add a new "Page Element" from the Layout page, selecting a "HTML/JavaScript" component. In case you edit the HTML of your template and place the Context Links Javascript, Blogger sometimes strips off the javascript that appears inside the comments tag. If you are very keen on installing it this way, please remove the comments tags from the Context Links javascript
We recommend you follow the next steps for adding Context Links to most Blogger templates:
1. From the Blogger customization page, go to "Layout" page
2. In the edit page layout page, click on add a "Page Element"
3. Choose "HTML/Javascript" and click on "Add to Blog"
4. Give a title to the page element, for example "Context Links"
5. Paste the code from Build Links page in the "Content" part of the form
6. Click on "Save changes" and Context Links will be added to this particular blog.
If you have any problems, we recommend that you contact your blog provider to request assistance in adding JavaScript into your template. For additional information, please consult our FAQ at:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/tips/t16/.
If you would prefer to only show the Context Links in certain parts of your blog, you can use inclusion and exclusion markers as described in the FAQ at:
https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/network/tips/t16/a7/. "
Sorry, this is very wordy and probably not terribly clear but hopefully it helps a bit!
Best wishes, Anna
Hi Amy
I was trying to use your graphic as a button in the widget section, and have it link to my affiliate code. Is this possible? I know you said link it like in step #8, but how does that work in widgets?
Staci
Hi Staci,
Yes, to attach a link to in an image (within a blog post I presume?), while in your "Add a New Post" editor (Visual Tab), once your image is uploaded, simply click on the image to select it. Then click the link icon (looks like chain links) just as you would a normal text link. I hope that helps!
Actually, I meant if I wanted to include the image as a button on my side bar, that when clicked would also be an affiliate link, so that it was on the side all the time, until I removed it. Kind of like the amazon affiliate link buttons that they have, that you put in your widgets, and not just a single post.
, could you suggest whether to have links go to a new window or the same window. I am sort of vague on the pros and cons, and didn't know if it really mattered.
Some time, you know in your spare time
I assumed that to make my site more "sticky" I would open a new window, so that people might couldn't just click away so easily. But then I thought of ads, and click thrus, and wondered if having links (to my own site, just different posts) should be in the same window, and then people have to click back through.
Does it even really matter?
THAT was very informative. Thanks for this video. I never understood how to use a text affiliate link and also did not know about the HTML part and the 'anchor text' . I signed up as a DaySpring affiliate but did not understand how to used the link info and so have never earned even a penny from it. This is the type of stuff I was hoping to learn at Relevant last year… maybe I will learn more of it THIS YEAR.
Glad it was helpful!
I have no idea why I have never seen this video Amy BUT I'm so happy that I happened upon it because I've had you Tell Your Time ebook on my site for so long and it show up so funky..I just didn't get it..but I didn't want to take it down cuz I LOVE it
..so now I can fix it! Yay!!
Thanks again!
Shari Lynne