Affiliate marketing might be one of the simplest methods for making money online, but achieving success with it isn’t just about randomly spamming a few affiliate links on your website or social media and calling it a day.
In today’s fast-paced and competitive affiliate marketing industry, if you don’t find a way to stand out and capture people’s short-lived attention, you’re dead in the water.
One of the best ways to ensure maximum exposure and customer engagement, establish yourself as an authority in your niche, and boost the efficiency of your SEO efforts, all at once, is by leveraging videos.
In this article, I’ll explore the basics of video-based affiliate marketing and provide some tips, tricks, and best practices on how to use videos to take your affiliate venture to the next level.
Let’s take a closer look.
Why use videos in affiliate marketing?
It’s undeniable that nowadays, the average internet user would rather watch a 5-minute video than read a 1000-word text. According to TechSmith, 83% of consumers prefer watching a video over reading text or listening to audio.
Moreover, this report published by Wyzowl in 2023 reveals that:
- 89% of people were convinced to make a purchase after watching a video
- 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool
- 95% of marketers claimed that video boosted their brand awareness
- 87% of brands supported that video marketing increased their sales
- 91% of website owners said videos helped them grow their traffic
Furthermore, based on Invisia, people retain 95% of information shared on a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. Also, the human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text.
In addition, embedding a video on a page or article can:
- help you acquire rich snippets, which can in turn increase your click-through rate by over 50%.
- boost dwell time by an average of 40%. A longer dwell time is directly correlated with higher search engine rankings.
I could go on and on about the hundreds of additional ways video marketing could positively impact the overall performance of your affiliate business, but I think you’ve already got the point.
Now that you’re fully aware of its benefits, let’s take a closer look at how you can start using video content to boost your affiliate marketing game.
Best Affiliate Marketing Courses
Best Affiliate Courses
How to use videos for affiliate marketing
There’s no shortage of ways you can start incorporating video marketing into your affiliate efforts.
For example, you can record short videos of yourself reviewing the features and benefits of the affiliate products you promote. You could also do videos where you review and compare multiple similar products so that viewers decide for themselves which would suit them the best.
Moreover, you can create how-to guides, tutorials, FAQ sessions, VSLs, interviews, social media stories, live webinars, skits, or even repurpose content you’ve already published elsewhere to appeal to audiences that might have different content preferences.
When it comes to producing videos for affiliate marketing, it’s crucial to always keep in mind the needs of your target audience by asking yourself the following questions:
- what information are they looking for?
- how can I help them achieve their goals?
Once you have a pretty solid idea of what kind of video content you’ll be publishing, it’s time to figure out how you’ll be producing it.
1. Get a good video creator
Back in the old days, video production was rather time-consuming and expensive. For example, having a small team produce a short video with minimal equipment could set you back several months and a few thousand dollars.
Thankfully, today, putting together a video is simpler and more affordable than ever. All you have to do is invest a little money in a video maker, spend some time getting the hang of its mechanics, and you’ll be able to start making video content before you even know it.
A good video creator should be user-friendly and offer a wide range of features (e.g., basic editing tools, animations, special effects, etc.) that would enable you to create high-quality videos with relative ease even if you’ve never used video editing software in your life.
2. Start distributing
Once you’ve created your first few affiliate videos, you’ll need to start distributing them via as many marketing channels as possible, such as:
- social media
- YouTube
- forums
- your blog
- etc.
Distributing your videos on YouTube and your blog is pretty standard practice.
According to Business of Apps, YouTube had more than 2.6 billion monthly active users in 2022, placing it as the second most visited website in the world after Google. Therefore, neglecting YouTube means leaving a lot of money on the table.
Also, embedding videos throughout your articles could have a significant positive impact on the overall performance of your blog including total traffic, time on page, search engine rankings, conversion rates, CTR, and more.
However, when it comes to social media make sure that you focus the majority of your efforts on the platforms your target audience uses the most.
For example, if the majority of your target group consists of Gen Z, you should prioritize sharing your video content on Instagram and TikTok. Similarly, if your affiliate promotions are geared toward millennials and baby boomers, zeroing in on Facebook would likely yield the best results.
Scattering your effort across every single social media platform available could prove to be highly counterproductive, especially if you’re a complete beginner.
3. Track, analyze, and optimize
Tracking, analyzing, and optimizing are essential components to identifying underperforming areas and making the required adjustments to ensure maximum yields of your video production efforts.
For example, if your tracked metrics indicate that some of your videos perform much better than others, you could analyze them, draw data-driven conclusions, and adjust your video content strategy accordingly.
Some of the most crucial metrics you should pay close attention to include:
- views
- watch time
- percentage viewed
- engagement
- conversion rates
- & click-through rates
Guiding your actions according to insights drawn from actual metrics will save you tons of time, effort, and money you could otherwise waste on potentially inaccurate, ill-advised, and counterproductive guesswork.
Affiliate marketing FAQs
Affiliate marketing is an online business model that involves promoting products or services created and distributed by third-party online merchants in exchange for getting paid a commission for each sale you refer.
In layman’s terms, affiliate marketing is the process of being compensated for helping businesses sell to more customers.
Here’s a bird’s eye view of how affiliate marketing works.
- You join a merchant’s affiliate program
- The merchant gives you a unique affiliate link that points to their e-shop
- You promote your unique affiliate link online (blog, forums, social media, paid ads, etc.)
- Every time someone clicks on your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase on the merchant’s e-shop, the merchant pays you a commission
There are thousands of successful affiliate marketers all around the world. Some of the most well-known ones are:
- Pat Flynn
- Matt Diggity
- Matthew Woodward
- Doug Cunnington
- & more
You can check out a roundup of my 17 favorite examples of affiliate success and their backstories right here.
- Billion-dollar industry
- Very low startup & operational expenses
- Huge income potential
- Flexible & versatile
- Passive income
- Simple to implement
- No technical background
- No customer support
- No physical setup
Affiliate marketers can be divided into five main income groups:
- Total beginners: $0 – $20,000 per year
- Low-level affiliates: $20,000 – $50,000 per year
- Intermediate affiliates: $50,000 – $100,000 per year
- High-level affiliates: $100,000 – $500,000 per year
- Super affiliates: $500,000+ per year
According to PayScale, the average annual income for affiliate marketers in the US is over $54,000 per year. Statistics reveal that 13% of affiliates earn more than $75,000 per year.
Some of the factors that influence how much you earn as an affiliate marketer include:
- seniority
- target niche
- available resources
- previous experience
- marketing efforts
- & overall mindset
Here’s a rough income growth timeline of a typical affiliate marketing business:
- months (0-3): no earnings
- months (3-6): first affiliate sale
- months (6-12): $100-$500 monthly
- months (12-18): $1000 monthly
- months (18-24): $3000+ monthly
This timeline isn’t a guarantee of future performance but rather a mere approximation of the income growth of an average affiliate business. Your own timeline could be shorter or longer than projected.
Over the years, I’ve seen aspiring affiliates striking a gold vein just a few months into the industry. On the other hand, I personally know people who’ve been struggling to grow their affiliate revenue to $1000 per month for several years.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most affordable money-making models out there.
Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to get started as an affiliate marketer along with their associated costs:
- web hosting & domain name: $2.95/month (Bluehost)
- keyword research tool: $49/month (Jaaxy)
- expert guidance: $49/month (Wealthy Affiliate)
- email autoresponder: Free for up to 1000 subs (MailerLite)
Please note that on top of expert guidance, Wealthy Affiliate also provides free access to hosting and a keyword research tool so you don’t have to purchase them separately.
Yes, you can do affiliate marketing without a website by promoting your affiliate links on other marketing channels, such as:
- Social Media
- Paid Ads
- YouTube
- Podcast
- etc.
The process of getting started with affiliate marketing can be broken down into the following four simple steps:
- Pick a niche
- Launch a blog
- Build an audience
- Promote affiliate products
No, you don’t.
Affiliate marketing is very simple to get started with by virtually anyone regardless of age, education, background, available capital, tech-savviness, professional network, etc.
In fact, most 6-figure affiliate marketers were no more experienced than you currently are when they first ventured into the affiliate marketing industry.
Nonetheless, being knowledgeable in fields like marketing, sales, content production, business management, etc., could help you reach your financial goals somewhat faster.
Conclusion
The benefits of using videos for affiliate marketing are just way too impactful to ignore.
From increased engagement and conversions to better SEO rankings, more credibility, and higher traffic, there’s no denying that leveraging videos could be a game-changer for your affiliate business.
The process of producing videos might sound troublesome and pricey but those days are actually long gone. Nowadays, you can leverage video-making tools that cost no more than $20 per month toward putting together professional-looking short videos in mere days with relative ease even if you have no previous experience.
To ensure the highest returns on your video marketing investments, it’s crucial that the content you produce delivers substantial value to your target audience, is distributed on the right channels, and is consistently being tracked, analyzed, and optimized for maximum performance.
If you have any additional questions, leave a comment below or drop me a line and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
All the best, and stay safe,
Harry, Founder & Creative Director at dearboss-iquit.com
