How to Get Customers as an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog. It involves partnering with brands and retailers to promote their products and services, sending traffic their way and getting a commision for it. For example, you could become an affiliate marketer for an ecommerce company like Amazon or an advertising network like Google AdSense and send traffic their way in exchange for a commision on any sales that result from your efforts.

However, affiliate marketing isn’t as easy as it sounds. You can’t just sign up with one partner and expect immediate results. As with any type of business venture, becoming an affiliate marketer requires time and effort to build trust with potential partners, gain visibility in the industry and establish your personal brand. Here are some useful tips that will help you get customers as an affiliate marketer:

Be transparent about affiliate marketing costs and requirements

Affiliate partnerships will vary from brand to brand. Some companies may only require you to send them a lead; others will require you to make the sale and send traffic to a landing page, while others may want you to send the traffic directly to their checkout page (highest level of commitment).
You should be transparent about the costs and requirements of each affiliate marketing relationship you engage in. If a potential affiliate partner is requesting you send them traffic directly to their checkout page, you’ll want to make sure your website and hosting are set up to handle a high volume of sales.
You’ll also want to make sure you’re meeting all the legal requirements for affiliate marketing in your country. For example, in the United States, affiliate marketers are required to disclose their relationship with the merchant by including an “affiliate disclosure” link with their content, typically at the end of an article or in their bio.

Know your audience

Affiliate marketing is all about making sales, so before you start reaching out to potential partners, you’ll want to make sure you know who your target customers are. What products and services are they currently buying? What are their pain points and desires? How much are they willing to spend on these items?

To get an idea of who your target audience is, create a survey and send it out to your email list. Once you have this information, you can start reaching out to potential affiliate partners and see if there’s a match. If a match is found, you’ll want to consider how you can help these partners convert their current customers into long-time, repeat customers.

Build a quality website and content portfolio before launching affiliate marketing campaigns

Affiliate marketing is a form of performance marketing. You’re not just getting a one-time sale. Instead, you’re seeking to establish a long-term relationship with your customers. You want to engage them with consistent and relevant content on your website and social channels.
In fact, you should strive to create the highest-quality content possible to help establish your authority in your niche and establish yourself as a trusted affiliate partner. This will not only help you generate more sales, but it will also help you recruit other affiliates (more on this later).

Use email marketing to grow your brand and network while you’re getting started

As you’re building an audience and growing your authority with consistent and high-quality content, you should also be reaching out to potential affiliate partners to let them know you exist.
You’ll want to offer your services to them, letting them know you’ve built a following, cultivated an audience and can help them generate more sales.
If they’re hesitant, offer to provide them with a free report or some other type of lead magnet in exchange for the chance to work with them. This will help you build your network of potential affiliates and get your name out there in the industry.

Develop relationships with influencers in your niche by sponsoring podcasts, Webinars, etc.
Besides partnering with brands that sell products related to your niche, you can also partner with other influencers in your space.
To do this, you’ll want to research podcasts, Webinars and other events your target audience is participating in and consider sponsoring them.
A great way to do this is by partnering with an ad network. With one of these networks, you’ll be able to place your affiliate link in the hands of thousands of influencers across the world.
You’ll be able to choose which event your ad will appear on and the type of offer you’ll be promoting.

Leverage email drip campaigns to nurture leads and build trust

When you start acquiring affiliates, your relationship with these partners won’t happen overnight. You’ll want to nurture these relationships, so they can see the value in working with you.
To do this, you’ll want to set up email drip campaigns. With these campaigns, you’ll want to start by simply introducing yourself and letting your partners know they’re welcome to reach out to you at any time.
You can also send these partners a few of your most popular blog posts to let them know you’re actively building a following and creating high-quality content that their customers will love.

Give potential customers a way to opt-out of receiving future emails from you

You don’t want to be spammy, so you’ll want to make sure you’re respecting your partners’ wishes when it comes to communication. You don’t want to be a pest, and you want to make sure your partners know they don’t have to respond to your emails if they don’t want to.
What you can do is create a section in your email drip campaign where partners will be able to opt-out of receiving future emails from you. This will give them control over the relationship, but it will also let you know who might be interested in working with you and who might not be.

Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog, build authority, and make money from your passion. It involves partnering with brands and retailers to promote their products and services, sending traffic their way and getting a commision for it.
You can’t just sign up with one partner and expect immediate results. It will take time and effort to build trust with potential partners, gain visibility in the industry, and establish your personal brand. It’s important to be transparent about the costs and requirements of each affiliate marketing relationship you engage in, know your audience, build a quality website and content portfolio before launching affiliate marketing campaigns, use email marketing to grow your brand and network while you’re getting started, develop relationships with influencers in your niche by sponsoring podcasts, Webinars, etc., and leverage email drip campaigns to nurture leads and build trust.