Affiliate marketing has been one of our blogging journey’s most exciting (and rewarding!) parts. We can earn a passive income by simply recommending products we use during our travels – that’s the beauty of affiliate marketing for bloggers! You simply get to support your readers with helpful tips and, create a sustainable income stream along the way. Whether you’re a complete beginner to affiliate marketing or looking to refine your approach, this guide breaks down everything you need to know to dive into affiliate marketing with confidence.
Affiliate Marketing for Beginner Bloggers
Affiliate marketing — you hear the term often enough when you dive a little deeper into the world of bloggers. It’s no wonder either, as it’s one of the most lucrative ways to establish a passive income from your website, even as a beginner. We didn’t implement affiliate marketing into our blog when we started, which was one of our biggest mistakes.
About 70% of our website’s revenue comes from affiliate marketing. It’s become our best income stream and something that you shouldn’t miss if you want to make money from your blog.
This performance-based strategy involves promoting products or services through unique affiliate links, allowing you to earn a commission when someone performs an action (purchase, sign up, click) using your link. Using your influence and reach, companies (merchants) generate sales or leads and then reward you for your efforts.
We once questioned whether it would feel too ‘promotional’ to use affiliates, but we’ve learned that, when done right, it really can be a game-changer for your audience while also generating money for you! Even for beginners, affiliate marketing offers plenty of opportunities.
Who Can Use Affiliate Marketing?
Although travel is our primary focus, affiliate marketing can be applied to virtually any niche — whether you have a blog focused on cooking, fitness, beauty, or technology. You’ll be surprised by how many affiliate opportunities are out there; think about any of your favorite products right now, and there’s usually an affiliate program on offer!
This is exactly why it’s so important you find a niche you’re passionate about. That way, it’s also much easier to support specific products or services. For example, blogs specializing in food and recipes might look to promote a big player like Hello Fresh (meal deliveries).
Also read: Our favorite blogging tools
Affiliate Marketing: Blog or Social Media?
While many people choose social media, like Instagram or TikTok, for affiliate marketing, the income generated there is often short-lived. This is because of the transient nature of the platforms — it might give you an initial boost in sales but usually lasts for just 24-72 hours, and then you’ll need to post again.
Affiliate marketing for bloggers, on the other hand, is an incredible way to generate a stable and long-lasting income. Due to blog posts’ long lifespan and continuous ability to drive traffic, you can generate revenue long after publishing your articles. Because blog content can be found through search engines, it brings in new readers and potential customers over time.
Plus, the detailed wording of your blog gives you a greater opportunity to persuade your readers of the value of a product or service!
How Much Traffic Does My Blog Need to Be Successful?
The general rule of thumb regarding affiliate marketing is that more traffic means more clicks on your affiliate links and more chances of conversions. As a result, a blog with substantial traffic can generate considerable affiliate income, even with modest conversion rates.
Did you know? The average CTR (click-through rate) on blogs lies between 0.5 and 5%, meaning that from the 1000 visitors you have on your page, 5-50 will click the affiliate link.
However, it’s important to note that it’s not just about high volume but also about how much you actually convert. For example, smaller, more niched blogs might have a lower-volume of traffic but they’re more likely to have an audience that will interact and purchase through affiliate links. So, the size of your blog doesn’t necessarily matter to be successful with affiliate marketing (perfect for beginners!).
How to Make Money Using Affiliate Marketing
One of the best things about affiliate marketing for bloggers is that you don’t need a lot of money to start earning. What’s important instead is time, effort, and know-how. The earning potential of affiliates is vast, ranging from 100 to 10,000 euros a month, sometimes even higher!
Unlike other business models, you don’t require a lot of upfront investment. Plus, you don’t need to create your own products or handle customer service; you simply recommend existing products or services that you believe in and earn a commission on the sales. This makes affiliate marketing accessible to anyone with a blog, regardless of their budget, including beginners.
However, it’s important to note that affiliate marketing is not a ‘get-rich-quick’ scheme. Success requires time, effort, and a strategic approach. The amount of traffic and conversions are also factors, as well as your niche, the products you promote, and the commission rates. But as these grow, so does your affiliate revenue.
In our Ultimate Blogging Masterclass, we’ll provide you with a step by step guide on integrating affiliate links.
Common Payment Models
There are several models in affiliate marketing, each with its own benefits. The most common one is Pay-Per-Sale (PPS), where you earn a commission when someone purchases something through your affiliate link. This is the primary way many bloggers, including us, earn revenue from affiliate marketing.
Example: We use this model with GetYourGuide, which allows us to earn a commission each time someone purchases a tour or activity through our links.
Another model is Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Here, you receive a commission based on the number of clicks generated from your website to the advertiser’s site, regardless of whether a sale is made. And then there’s Pay-Per-Lead (PPL), where you earn a commission when referred visitors provide their contact information. Typically, this is by completing a contact form or signing up for a trial on the advertiser’s website.
How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing
1. Choose Your Affiliate Marketing Model
First, you’ll have to decide whether you want to earn a commission when someone purchases a product through your link (PPS), when someone clicks on your affiliates (PPC), or when referred visitors provide their contact information (PPL).
2. Affiliate Program or Network?
Next, you’ll want to find and join an affiliate program or network that aligns with your niche. Once you’ve signed up, you can choose products or services to promote that resonate with your audience. Make sure you always select items you genuinely recommend so you stay authentic and trustworthy to your audience!
Depending on where you are in your blogging journey, you might choose to work through individual affiliate programs or an overall network. There are benefits to both! We deep dive into the specifics of affiliate networks and programs in our Ultimate Blogging Masterclass.
Affiliate Networks
Affiliate marketing networks are large platforms that have multiple affiliate programs in one place, acting as intermediaries between affiliates, like you and us, and merchants, the companies whose products you’re promoting. Examples of well-known affiliate networks include Awin, Impact, Partnerize, and ShareASale.
Joining one of these networks means you’ll have a single dashboard with all your affiliates in one place rather than having to communicate with multiple partners. This is perfect for beginners to affiliate marketing! However, commission rates are typically a bit lower.
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs, on the other hand, are directly managed by the companies themselves, like Booking.com, Amazon, HelloFresh, and GetYourGuide. These typically offer higher commission rates as no middleman is taking a cut (affiliate networks).
The best way to find affiliate programs that suit you is to search for the brand name + affiliate program on Google. The brand will either let you sign up for their program directly or through one of the networks mentioned before. Unlike via a network, it takes a bit longer to reach your payout threshold, so with a small blog, this may take a bit more time.
Did you know? The affiliate links’ sales commission typically ranges between 4 – 15% depending on the affiliate program.
3. Cookie Duration
Cookies are information sent to your browser every time you visit a website. It records crucial data, like how long you spent browsing on that particular site or your preferences. These cookies usually have an ‘active period’, which varies depending on the site.
Cookie duration is an essential part of blogger affiliate marketing, but it’s often overlooked! It means that when a user clicks on your link, a cookie is placed on their browser. If they then purchase within the cookie’s active period, you earn a commission.
Common Cookie Terms
- 24 hours: Seen in programs like Amazon Associates. However, we don’t recommend this duration as it’s really short.
- 30 days: Generally, this is the most common cookie duration, and the one network and individual programs will most likely offer you.
- 60-90 days: More likely for more established blogs, giving the affiliate a larger window to earn commissions from potential sales.
- Lifetime cookies: A lot less common, but means that you can earn a commission on all future purchases by the referred customer, not just the first one (ideal!).
4. Generating Your Affiliate Link
Once you’ve joined an affiliate program or network like the ones mentioned earlier, you can generate your unique affiliate link.
In WordPress:
- Go to Tools > Links > paste the URL of the tour or page, or search the field for the correct tour.
- For tracking reasons, you should add a campaign code.
- Generate the URL; this link will contain your unique affiliate ID.
- Copy the URL and share it in your blog article where you want to promote the product.
Note: The process works similarly for all the affiliate platforms and networks.
5. Affiliate Link Distribution
Lastly, strategically place your affiliate links in your blog posts. While it’s tempting to fill your page with as many affiliate links as possible, you have to balance your monetization efforts with quality content.
Too many affiliate links can make your page look overly promotional or commercialized. In fact, you’re more likely to convert if you prioritize the reader’s experience and trust. The more traffic you then drive to your blog, the higher the chances are that visitors will click on your links.
Top Tips
Spamming your page with affiliate links doesn’t mean you’ll make a lot of money. It’s crucial to maintain a balance that prioritizes the reader’s experience and trust. Here are some quick tips on ensuring that your content is engaging, valuable, yet converting well:
- Create valuable content. Your content needs to be relevant to your audience and align with the products you’re promoting. Write from your own experience, as your readers and Google will notice when it’s not.
- Quality over quantity. While it’s tempting to increase your content output to boost monetization, prioritize the quality of each piece of content. High-quality content is more likely to engage viewers.
- Monitor and analyze. Regularly review your content’s performance to see what works and what doesn’t. Then, update accordingly.
- Diversify your income streams. The more quality traffic on your website, the better the affiliates will work for you. However, when you start, it’s good to have a few different revenue means, mainly to make your content feel anything but overly promotional. This can be ads, sponsored content, merchandise, digital downloads, and so on.
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