So, is affiliate marketing worth it? Not too long ago, I received an email in which I was invited to promote Digital Course Academy (DCA) as an affiliate. Because this is a program that I have personally purchased and found to be excellent, the opportunity to make some extra money from it was an absolute no-brainer for me. I was excited to make this happen.
However, at the moment I didn’t yet fully understand how the promotion would work out for me. My email list was relatively small and not targeted toward creating online courses (Digital Course Academy teaches how to create online courses). So I didn’t have my hopes up too high. I knew that I could end up making absolutely nothing.
Nevertheless, I went all in and ended up earning over $6,500 in a period of two weeks. I would have made more if there were no refunds, but I was still really happy with the result. For some this amount of money is A LOT, while for some affiliates this is a rather poor result.
This blog post is not to brag or to impress you. Instead, it is to help you and show that it is possible to make money with affiliate marketing. It’s for those still wondering is affiliate marketing worth it or not.
If you have never participated as an affiliate in a product launch before, or you have but with no success, this post is for you. I will share with you the process of how I did it, as well as the things that could have been done better. I want to be as transparent as possible.
Invitation to be an affiliate
As stated above, this launch started with an invitation to promote the program. Because I bought it in the past, I was given the opportunity to promote it during the upcoming launch.
To become an affiliate, I needed to apply via an online form, stating that I have read the terms and guidelines.
In some cases, to promote a product or program, you need to specify your website and the ways in which you are planning to promote the product. It is up to the product’s owner to decide whether they want you to become a partner or not. In this case, I was accepted.
Creating content on the subject
Because I have a blog, the one that you are currently on, my biggest strategy was to market and promote through the content that I create.
In other words, I first looked for popular keywords around the online course creation subject. I found keywords, such as: how to create a digital course, how to create an online course, online course creation, etc.
Performing keyword research is essential in content creation, especially when you are trying to promote something.
Recommended: What Is Keyword Research? – How to Grow Your Blog Efficiently
The whole purpose of creating content around keywords is for people to be able to find you via Google search. If someone is interested in creating an online course, they might search the internet using the keywords given above, and hopefully, find your blog post as the number one result in Google.
Now, whether you will actually be the number one result is a whole different story. It depends on how old your blog is, how authoritative, how good your SEO strategy is, etc.
You may actually never end up “winning” that first spot, but as they say – If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. Besides, being second or third in the search results is still very good, especially for a very competitive keyword.
Click To TweetIf you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. – Nora Roberts
However, the most important piece of content that I created around the subject of online courses was the actual review of Digital Course Academy itself.
By writing a review of DCA, I attracted people that are interested in creating online courses, but I also attracted people that wanted to know more about this specific program. These people know exactly what they are searching for, and I was giving it to them.
That is why it is so important to promote products and programs that you have personally bought, use and like. This way, you can say a lot of good things about the product, and it will be coming from a very personal and genuine place, as it was for me in this case.
You can find the review here: Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy Review – Honest Thoughts
Finally, I also made a review of DCA in the form of a YouTube video. Not everyone wants to read; some prefer to watch. So if a person like that comes along, I have it in video format as well.
In the case of the YouTube video, I have my affiliate link there also in the description of the video, as well as in the pinned comment. You must place your special affiliate link wherever it makes sense.
Social network promotion
One thing to keep in mind is that if you have decided to be an affiliate for a product launch, then be sure to go ALL IN!
In the past, I would send an email here and there, make one blog post about the product and that would be it. The results, as you can imagine, were also comparable to the effort I put in – not good.
In this case, I wanted to see what kind of results I am able to achieve as an affiliate if I work really hard. I really wanted to know is affiliate marketing worth it. Bottom line, I was ok with making no money if it doesn’t work out – I just wanted to go through the process and learn for the sake of future launches.
One strategy that I actively put into use was promoting the program via social networks. I used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Most serious affiliate programs will give you pre-written text copies, images and promo videos that you can use in your social networks to promote. So you don’t even need to waste time creating your own if you don’t want to.
Besides using my social network accounts and pages, I also used my Facebook group to promote DCA.
The FB group is not about digital marketing or creating online courses; it’s about self-development. Moreover, I don’t allow members to promote their products or services in that group. But because I knew that many of the people there want to start their own online business, I would be doing a disservice to them if I wouldn’t introduce Digital Course Academy.
Again, because I felt so confident that the program can change the lives of people in the group, I had no problem sharing it with them. That’s how you feel when you promote products that you genuinely appreciate.
Live videos
I am aware that not many feel comfortable going live on Facebook and Instagram, but the rule of thumb is: the more work you put in, the better results you will get.
Live videos don’t need to be long. I usually did one Facebook and one Instagram live video a week, five to ten minutes long. For me, that was enough to cover a small portion of a topic related to creating online courses.
At the end of the video, I would let the audience know that if they are interested to learn more, they can click the link in the “bio” section of my Instagram account. With Facebook, I would simply leave the link as a comment to the video.
And don’t worry that you may have no viewers watching your live stream. You can save the stream so that people will be able to watch it later on. Everything counts.
Sending out emails
As an affiliate, you will be sending out plenty of emails to your subscribers. As a matter of fact, email marketing is the number one way for affiliates to make money. For that reason, it is crucial that you start collecting emails as soon as possible.
I often point out the fact that because my blog niche is very broad (self-development), it is harder for me to attract subscribers. I write about business, health, motivation, spirituality, technology, etc.
A visitor interested in business might sign up for my email list if I promise to send email updates about business only. The same goes for people interested in healthy diets. But how do I get a person interested in diets to sign up for my email list if they know that I will be bombarding them with emails about business as well? I hope you get the point.
I really need to emphasize that if you are only at the beginning of your online business journey, make sure to pick your niche carefully. Ask yourself, what kind of audience am I trying to attract? What will I promote? The more specific you can get, the easier it will be for you to market as an affiliate down the road.
So, because I have a very broad niche, I also had a relatively small email list, under 1000 people at that point.
In the past, I would also be afraid to market aggressively to my list, as I knew that it would lead to unsubscribes. The list was kinda small already to begin with…
But this time, because I genuinely believed it would help my subscribers, I did my best to promote the program. I sent plenty of emails, and the closer it got to cart close day, the more emails I sent.
At the very end of the product launch promotion, I would send out 2 emails a day. Moreover, I would change the subject line and send the same email to all those people that did not open it the day before. This is an option that most email service providers offer. It’s a great feature to get open rates higher.
Doing things the right way this time, as an affiliate, I learned two things.
First of all, only a few people unsubscribed despite my worries.
Secondly, the majority of people that opted in for DCA came from my email list. Verdict? Affiliate marketing via emails works best, especially when you are sending out A LOT of them!
People that weren’t interested in Digital Course Academy either unsubscribed or simply didn’t open the emails. Most went with the latter option.
Landing page + bonuses
One of the best strategies to get people to buy through your affiliate link is to offer them a bonus package.
What’s a bonus package? It’s simply something of value that you give people on top of the promoted product if they buy through your link. It can be an e-book, one of your existing online courses, 1-1 coaching, group coaching, etc.
Depending on how expensive is the product that you are promoting, the bonuses must be of perceived value to the customer. In other words, the person must really WANT to get those bonuses.
In the past, I would not even consider creating a bonus package because of my limiting beliefs. “What can I possibly offer?”, I thought to myself. But because I knew that all successful affiliates offer bonuses, I decided to go for it as well, even if they might not be so great.
I created a separate landing page describing all of the bonuses that people would get if they purchase DCA through my link.
I then promoted the link to this landing page in my emails, social networks and blog posts related to creating online courses. Also, if someone would google for “digital course academy bonuses” (which many people do), they would come across my page in the search results.
Depending on how good your bonus package offer is, it can be the single most powerful way to make sales as an affiliate.
Facebook ads
I have successfully used Facebook ads before with affiliate marketing, but this time I was willing to spend more money. I also spent a lot of time watching tutorials and learning how to maximize my reach with ads while spending the least amount of money.
The result was that I got cheaper clicks than I ever had in the past.
Is affiliate marketing worth it? What could have been done better?
Bigger-better email list
I briefly stated above that email marketing is the most effective way to promote as an affiliate. Because I was able to make over 6,5k with a small list, I can only imagine how much I could have made with a large one.
I also stated that my email list was not really targeted towards the “online course creation” topic, and as a result, many people didn’t care about the emails I was sending them. So what could have I done differently?
Well, there are two things.
1. I should have begun collecting emails through my blog in advance, targeted only for people that are interested in creating online courses.
For example, I could have created sign-up forms with the following text: “If you are interested in making money by creating an online course business, sign up here to get more info on how to make it a reality..” Something of that sort…
This would guarantee that the people that signed up would be more likely to buy DCA.
2. I should have segmented my existing subscribers.
Instead of emailing my whole list the entire time, I could ask everyone that is interested in creating a “digital course business” to click a special link inside of the email that would automatically transfer them to a different email list group, dedicated to creating online courses only.
This way, I wouldn’t need to annoy all those that don’t care about creating courses.
Note: I would have actually segmented the list this time, but unfortunately, it’s not that easy with the email service provider that I am currently using.
So I recommend that you look for automatic list segmentation features when choosing your email service provider.
Recommended: How to Create an Email List for Your Blog (And Which Tool to Use)
Improved Facebook ads
As an affiliate for an upcoming product launch, I should have gone deeper into Facebook ads long before it all started. As I said, Facebook ads can be really powerful (and cheap) if you know what you are doing.
Note! Despite having all my ads manually approved by Facebook, I got banned from their platform. They banned me after I already stopped all of my promotions, without any prior warning.
I don’t know if I will ever be able to promote via Facebook again. Therefore, make sure you take the time to go through their terms and policies. You don’t want to be violating anything unknowingly.. although I am still not sure what I violated since they won’t say.
So is affiliate marketing worth being banned from running facebook ads? Your call.
Could have found people to interview for the launch
Apart from creating content around keywords and making reviews of the program, I could have interviewed people that already have a successful digital course business.
This is also a very powerful way to attract buyers since it validates the idea that you really can make money with online courses. In other words, it’s social proof. People come, they read/watch, they are impressed by the results that others have, and they are more likely to buy.
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More, more, more emails
Finally, I could have been even more aggressive with my emails.
Many of the subscribers didn’t open my emails even once. I should have analyzed the situation a bit more, changed my subject lines and tried harder. Many affiliate marketers can send three or even four emails a day without feeling guilty. This may sound like much, but hey, it converts.
This was it for today! Is affiliate marketing worth it? Hopefully, now you have an answer to this question. If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment down below.
Thank you for stopping by and good luck!
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