In last week’s post I introduced the basics of affiliate marketing, and shared some of my top tips.
Today I’m addressing the question of finances.
Will Affiliate Marketing Earn Me Money?
Of course. And you’ll get a free unicorn when you make your first sale.
Seriously?
No, there are no free unicorns. And there are no guarantees you’ll make money with affiliate marketing. As with most things in life, there are no shortcuts.
As with any online venture, there is more to making money through affiliate marketing than posting a couple of links and watching the money roll in. In my experience, it’s not so easy.
There is more to affiliate marketing than posting links and watching the money roll in. I've found five relevant factors which influence affiliate earnings. #AffiliateMarketing #BookMarketing Click To TweetSome people earn a lot of money through affiliate schemes, but income depends on several factors:
- Website traffic
- Product value
- Commission value
- Relevance of the offer
- Promotion
Website Traffic
One of the most important factors in affiliate income is website traffic. It’s a game of averages. Let’s try an example:
If 1% of your website traffic is clicks your affiliate link and spends enough for you to earn $1, then you earn $1 for every hundred visitors. A website with 1,000 visitors a month will earn $10, and a website with 100,000 visitors a month will earn $1,000.
But if each click only earns you ten cents and 1% click through, then you need a million visitors a month to earn $1,000.
Links can also be share via social media. Some links can be shared via email or included in the back of an ebook.
However, that’s going to depend on the affiliate programme. Amazon has social share buttons for Facebook and Twitter, but doesn’t allow affiliates to share affiliate links via email (although Amazon Influencers can share their Shop link: mine is www.amazon.com/shop/iolagoulton).
Also, authors need to be careful about sharing affiliate links in ebooks. Some online stores will refuse to publish books containing links to other online stores—so make sure your Kindle book only has links to Amazon, not to Apple Books.
Product Value
Someone with a photography blog who reviews high-end cameras could easily earn $40 to $80 if someone clicks from their blog through to Amazon and buys a $1,000 camera and a few accessories. But a book blogger is only going to earn pennies per purchase by featuring or reviewing 99 cent books.
Sure, I sometimes get a bonus when a customer clicks through from a book then decides to buy new tyres for their car or some other higher-value item. But it would take me a year or two to earn the commission that photography expert could earn from one click-through from that single post.
Many high-ticket training courses offer affiliate programmes, and high-profile authors and bloggers like Joanna Penn supplement their income by promoting these high-ticket items.
Commission Value
Some affiliate schemes offer a percentage commission of each sale. Others offer a dollar amount. Some offer a combination of both. Amazon pays a percentage commission on most sales, but will occasionally offer a $3 or $5 bounty on specific products or services. For example, they sometimes have a $3 bounty payment when affiliates refer a new customer to sign up for a Prime trial or Audible subscription.
Commission payments may be a standard percentage, or may be tiered. For example, Amazon pays between 4% and 8% of the value of any purchase through an affiliate link, depending on the number of purchases made from the affiliate’s links. The more paying customers that come through the link each month, the higher the percentage.
Amazon’s 4% is at the low end of the commission scale, and reflects their business model of low prices and high turnover. Online products and services can have commission rates of 25% or more. But these are usually higher-priced items, so there are fewer buyers.
Some affiliate schemes only pay if the linked product is purchased. Others (including Amazon) pay for any purchase made through the link, not just the item the customer clicked on.
Relevance of the Offer
The final aspect is the relevance of the offer. Affiliate offers need to be relevant to your audience. If they’re not, no one will buy. And if you share too many irrelevant offers, your audience will stop opening your emails or reading your social media posts.
For example, I receive a weekly email from AppSumo, summarising all the current offers. I only share the offers I think my audience will be interested in. For example, I know several people in my audience love getting stock photos from DepositPhotos. AppSumo usually does a DepositPhotos deal once a year, offering 50 downloads for $49 (which is something like a 90% discount). I always share that offer (and sorry, but it’s over for this year).
But I don’t share offers that my audience won’t be interested in. For example, many of the AppSumo offers are aimed at large-scale online marketing organisations. I’m sure they’re great products, but they’re not relevant to my author audience, all of whom are solo operations.
Promotion
Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing. It’s not Field of Dreams stuff, not if-you-build-it-they-will-come. Like any marketing, it requires promotion. That means:
- Sharing your affiliate links on your website (e.g. on a Resources page).
- Sharing your affiliate links in relevant blog posts (keyword: relevant).
- Sharing your affiliate links in email newsletters (where the affiliate scheme terms permit this).
- Sharing your affiliate links on social media (but always remember to disclose that it’s an affiliate link).
Yes, affiliate marketing is still marketing.
It’s passive marketing, in that one link can be valid for weeks or months or years. But for affiliate marketing to earn money, you need to be consistently promoting posts and links that drive traffic to your website and to your affiliate links.
Conclusion
I am a member of a range of affiliate schemes, although the one I’m most faithful about promoting is Amazon (which has historically earned me around $10/year). Writing this post reminds me I can do better. After all, I sign up to affiliate schemes because I use and believe in the product or service. It therefore makes sense I’d want to share that information with my audience.
Can authors earn money through affiliate marketing? Yes, but income depends on factors such as website traffic, product value, commission value, relevance, and promotion. #BookMarketing #AuthorEarnings Click To Tweet
