Affiliates: Yes, Even Your Blog Can Earn Revenue – Type-A Conference 2011 Liveblogging

Our first afternoon session is about earning affiliate revenue with your blog. Our panelists are Debbie Bookstaber, Allison Fox, and Aprile Parelle.

Debbie does not have a very popular blog, but she still makes $20,000 a year through affiliate sales. (Wow!)

What is affiliate marketing and how does it all work?

Consumer -> Blog -> Affiliate Network (tracking) -> Merchant Site (Retailer)

By 2012, affiliate marketing will be a $3.5 billion industry. That’s money paid to publishers. This is a huge opportunity for bloggers.

Affiliate publishers earn a commission or a fixed amount per click/lead/sale for links that lead to merchant sites.

Who Does Affiliate Marketing?

• Traditional retailers that pay a % of sales (i.e. Amazon, Target, Best Buy)
• Travel sites that pay a flat booking commission
• Financial sites that pay a flat fee per lead/subscription

Let’s Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

• Where to sign up
  • Networks: Pepperjam, Linkshare, Commission Junction, Share a Sale, Google Affiliate Network
  • Merchant site
• Information to have handy
  • SSN or business tax ID
  • Website name & URL
  • Short site description, unique monthly visitors, customer demographics

Don’t forget!

• After you’re accepted into the network, you’ll still need to apply to invidicual merchant (retailer) programs. If your site is initially declines, send a follow-up note to the merchant directly.
• If you have questions or need help, contact the network.
• Keep your contact information up to date. This will enable merchants to reach out to you directly with special offers, exclusive products, etc.

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers

• Have you given up on affiliate marketing?
  • Many bloggers cmplain that affiliate marketing is a lot of effort for little return.
  • They’ve posted banners, spent time joining programs, and never seen results.
• If you’re savvy about affiliate marketing, you can earn five or six figures.

Pick Your Niche

Factors:

• Your interests (i.e. toys, beauty, travel, fashion, books, DVDs, games, food, tech/electronics, tools, DIY, green products, baby products)
• Amount of current search traffic for that niche (check Google Traffic Estimator)
• Competitiveness of the niche
• Availability of affiliate programs

You can make money for unpaid reviews by adding affiliate links to your review.

Affiliate links on Debbie’s site are integrated into every relevant post with CPM ad networks and CPA & paid placement. You can also use CPC ads, sponsorships, text links, and brand ambassadorships. Debbie gets paid by Sittercity because she ranks first for Find a Babysitter.

Cool Mom Picks includes a line at the end of posts to say soemthing like: “Get a copy of this book by clicking on our Amazon affiliate link.” You are not required to disclose affiliate links per the FTC. (Really? I thought we had to.) (Edited to add: YES. You DO have to disclose when you use affiliate links on your blog. The speakers were mistaken.)

Creating a buying guide and including affiliate links can continue to bring in revenue long after you post it.

Affiliate Twitter Tools

Amazon encodes affiliate links for Twitter. Linkshare also has a Twitter tool. You can also use bit.ly or other link shorteners to encode your affiliate links for Twitter.You can follow Twitter’s trending topics to find relevant affiliate links you can tweet. Not only do they show up on Twitter, but they’ll get included in Google searches.

Do your Google keyword research to determine what search terms are HUGE.

CPM programs are not as effective as affiliate links. The more subtle you can be, the more successful your affiliate sales will be. Few people click on banner ads, but if you can integrate the links into your content, it converts beautifully, and it converts over time.

“People hate to be sold, but they love to buy.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

You need a little bit of savvy to make this work. You don’t need to be Einstein. If you blog about fashion and cosmetics, don’t try to sell people diapers. Aprile does not do paid posts. Stick with your vertical, your niche.

Make sure you use SEO. Optimize your content with keywords so people will find your blog for the search terms they use when they want to buy something.

I am liveblogging as a volunteer for the Type-A Parent Conference, and an edited version of this post will be available directly on Type-A Parent.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.