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Are you new to using affiliate links for your content? Here are 5 must-do’s for influencers to maximize income earnings from affiliate partnerships.

Many influencers have caught on to the power of affiliate links for bringing in additional revenue when partnering with brands. Essentially offering a form of commission, affiliate links give you potentially limitless opportunity to earn income for directing people to buy a particular product or service.

Just like when you share a unique voucher or discount code with your followers, the link is customized so that brands can track purchases back to your recommendation.

Affiliate links can help to turn a one-time brand sponsorship into a long and lucrative partnership – but only if you use them in the right way. Whether you’re brand new to affiliate marketing or looking to refine your existing strategy, here are five things that could help.

1. Diversify your channels

Often sales tactics work best when you have a laser-focus on what you want to achieve, but affiliate marketing is one area where the scattergun approach can be more effective. By spreading your links far and wide – across a range of channels including social media posts, video descriptions and subscriber emails as well as your website – you can improve your hit-rate and make sure that the content is available to casual fans as well as more loyal followers.

You can also diversify by choosing to work with more than one partner brand. With recent stats showing that more than 80% of advertisers now have an affiliate marketing program, there are certainly plenty of partners to choose from.

The key here is setting your own rules about who you partner with, and avoiding companies that could be seen as competitors, even tangentially. You’ll want to handpick a small number of affiliate partners – usually no more than ten – and make sure they appeal to different aspects of your followers’ tastes and interests. This can help you maintain credibility while simultaneously providing more opportunities to increase your income.

2. Avoid placing too many links on your website

Of course, getting your links out there doesn’t mean that you should start overpromoting or doing anything could be considered spammy. Putting too many affiliate links on your site without providing context (or a reason for people to click!) could lead to SEO penalties as well as reputational damage.

It may seem like a difficult balancing act, but it really revolves around one important principle: always make sure your affiliate link has a reason to be there. So rather than linking to every product you promote at the end of each blog or in every video description, produce tailored content and link accordingly.

Brands that you partner with will want to see that you are promoting their products in an authentic way. While it’s true that you will always need to disclose to your followers if you’re using an affiliate link, this shouldn’t stop you from integrating them into your content naturally.

Make sure every affiliate link you use is placed purposefully. Too many affiliate links can be seen as distracting and over-promotional. (Photo: pexels.com)

3. Understand your metrics to calculate profit

To understand how your affiliate links are performing, you’ll need to consider two key metrics – earnings per click (EPC), and cost per click (CPC). The acronyms might sound similar, but it’s important not to get these two figures confused. Here’s a quick overview:

• Cost per click = average amount you’re spending to get people to click on your link
• Earning per click = average amount you’re getting paid when somebody clicks the link and buys a product.

This means that, at the most basic level, your profits can be calculated as EPC minus CPC – how much you’re earning minus however much you spent to get that click.

Whether or not you need to worry about cost per click will depend on whether you’re using any type of paid promotion to help advertise your affiliate links. If you’re simply posting the link as part of your existing content, then your CPC should be relatively low.

However, all influencers with an affiliate program in place should be thinking about their earning per click – in fact, this metric should be driving everything you do. By understanding how much you’re earning, you can understand which products are most popular and focus on these areas in the future.

4. Ask for help from the brand

The brand almost certainly has insights from previous campaigns – so ask them what has worked well and what was less effective. It’s in their best interest to give you good data and sound advice; after all, your whole objective is to make sales on their behalf.

Most marketing teams know that they should be sharing their insights with their influencers, however it can easily be overlooked. If you’re not getting enough information to make sound, data-driven decisions, then don’t be afraid to ask. A good, long-term partnership should involve exchanging data regularly so that both parties can learn and improve.

Don’t be afraid to ask a brand for help: they can give you tips on what works, what to avoid, and where they’ve seen other influencer partners succeed.

5. Practice patience

Affiliate marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Since it doesn’t cost you anything to leave affiliate links up in your content, you don’t need to get it perfect right away. Instead, you can give it time, experiment and refine your approach once you know what works. There are lots of great resources online to help influencers get a solid grasp on their own affiliate marketing strategies.

One of the most important tips is to really get to know the products that you’re selling. You should be able to answer questions about the items you’re linking out to, explain key features and benefits, and ultimately provide an authentic recommendation. This approach may take a little longer, but it’s sure to yield better results – both in terms of building your relationship with the brand and maintaining trust with your audience.

Making your affiliate program work for you

As you can see, managing your affiliate program effectively can take a lot of time and manual effort. If you want to take some of the weight off, consider turning to an affiliate network such as Fintel Connect. This can take care of all the factors mentioned above, while also strengthening the relationship between you and the brands that you work with. An affiliate network also makes sure you have total transparency, so that you and your partners can both be confident in the results you’re achieving.