So you’ve decided to incorporate affiliate marketing into your business. Or maybe affiliate marketing IS your business. It’s one of the easiest ways to begin making money online because you’re simply referring other’s products, rather than having to manufacture and store your own. Odds are, you’ve jumped in excitedly, signed up for products, started sharing your affiliate marketing links everywhere you can think of – only to find crickets chirping. 

The problem is, you can’t simply start sharing links everywhere possible. For example, if you’ve been attempting to share links on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, you’re probably not going to generate a lot of buzz. People aren’t typically on those platforms because they want to buy something from you. They’re there because it’s relational, because they’re trying to engage with their friends. 

So how DO you start generating income with affiliate marketing? How do you get people to click on your links?

In this blog post, I’ll provide eight different methods you can start using today to effectively share your affiliate marketing links. 

1. Share A Review

Whether you’re doing podcasts, creating YouTube videos, writing for your blog, or sharing from your website, you can effectively share your link through a review of a product. Personally, I use YouTube as my main channel. To use this as an example, I shared a quick review video about using the email marketing system ActiveCampaign. This particular video wasn’t designed to go into deep details about ActiveCampaign, but rather to provide a basic overview for people just getting introduced to email marketing. I shared value with my audience via this overview, then offered, “Click the link below if you want to check it out! You can access a free trial through my affiliate link.”

A very important note: always note that you may receive a commission via your link. This allows you to provide a “disclaimer” and be upfront and honest, which will only do positive things for your reputation and audience trust. 

At the end of the day, affiliate marketing is really about creating a win-win situation. You can share a great product with a customer, your affiliate partner gets a customer, you get paid, and everyone is happy. 

2. Do A Deep Product Tutorial

To borrow from my previous example, I could now take ActiveCampaign and break it apart in an hour-long workshop video. This is all about getting in deeper for your audience members who will really be interested in the product you’re offering. You can also provide a mini-course and break up your long video into several short ones. 

When you’re offering tutorials, one option you can consider is sharing the pros and cons. I shared a tutorial video with the pros and cons of Hootsuite versus Buffer. My goal wasn’t necessarily to push one over the other; I simply wanted to share the information so that others could make up their own minds in the end. I can then share a link for these products, and if my audience signs up, I get a commission. 

In the end, you can provide tutorials on almost anything. People love information and problem-solving. As an affiliate, your goal is to be someone with answers to your audience’s problems and a product to help them solve it. 

3. Put Your Link In A Blog Post

If you do have a website and you like to write about the different products you recommend, you can put your links into your articles. One affiliate marketer I follow, Spencer Mecham, offered a review on the 10 best affiliate marketing books out there. He provided a short review on each different book, linking each title or cover photo to the product’s Amazon page. This way, if one of his readers purchases a book from his list within a certain time frame (usually 24-48 hours), he gets the commission. 

*A cool perk of receiving commissions through Amazon: if your customer has additional items in their cart they’re purchasing as well as your own affiliate item, you get commissions based on the total cart value. How awesome is that? 

4. Promote Your Links Through Your Email List

As you build your email list, you can also use this to promote your affiliate links. Perhaps this might be via a specific campaign, targeting an audience subset you know would be interested. Or perhaps it would be better for your strategy to share about a product in your weekly newsletter. Whatever method you choose, you can direct people to the platform you want (for me, it’s YouTube, but it could be a website, podcast, blog, etc.), expand on the product or system in detail, and share the link. Finally, if you have a very solid offer, you could include the link directly in your email. You’ll have to consider these options in light of your audience and relationship.

5. Create A Resource Or Tool List

On my own website, I share a collection of my favorite tools and systems (you can check out the example here). Visitors to my site can check out these products and my recommendations, and the link will take them directly to the product. Sometimes it is a trial and sometimes it is a direct membership; other times it is a software system or similar product.

6. Share A Digital Product

You can also promote your affiliate marketing links via a digital product, such as an ebook. One of my ebooks provides a resource list for my audience (combining recommendations #5 and #6 here). Another ebook is focused on helping my audience start setting up their affiliate marketing business in four easy steps. While this example is content-heavy rather than being focused on my links, it does include affiliate links to some of the tools I use. Again, it’s worth noting that I also include a disclaimer, explaining that I may receive a commission for some of the products listed there.

7. Focus On Providing Value To Your Audience Through Your Primary Channel

Whatever method you choose, make sure you’re providing value to your audience. I use YouTube as my primary channel, and in one of my videos, I shared about YouTube tools on a budget and what I’d recommend. I wanted to share with my audience that it was possible to begin their business without spending a great amount of money – this was my focus. But because I was recommending products I believe in and have affiliate marketing links for, I was also able to share these links at the end of my video. I also include my disclaimer about receiving commissions from them. 

8. Use Social Media (CAREFULLY) To Share Your Affiliate Marketing Links

Yes, you can share links on social media – but you cannot throw them out there “willy-nilly”. When I first began doing affiliate marketing, I thought this was how I was supposed to do it – I’d even purchased training that told me to do this! But this is spamming, and I’m disappointed now that I – even as unknowing as I was at the time – used this method. So I want to save you from doing this! 

To use Instagram as an example, let’s say you post about your business and some of the different strategies you use. Maybe you’re passionate about using ClickFunnels and talk about that a lot in your content. You can go ahead and link to ClickFunnels in your bio description and let your audience know it’s there (with a disclaimer). It also doesn’t have to stay there forever – you can do “stints” for a few months and move on to something else. Just have finesse when you share about your links – don’t simply “toss” them out there and hope people will click on them. 

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, there are many different viable and ethical methods for sharing your affiliate marketing links with your audience. At the end of the day, you want to share your links by creating valuable content that’s worth something to your audience. 

At the end of the day, you want to share your links by creating valuable content that’s worth something to your audience. 

For people to buy from you, they need to know you, like you, and trust you. And when you’re first entering the affiliate marketing world, it can feel discouraging in the beginning about how long it takes to build this rapport. But the more you’re “out there”, showing up for your audience and providing value for them, the more they’ll know you, like you, and trust you – and then buy from you. Be willing to invest the time and energy this will take – you need persistency, consistency, and tenacity to succeed in this business. But if you’re willing to pursue it, you can find success! 

You’ve got this!