About 78.8% of marketers say that YouTube is the most effective marketing platform.
In other words, YouTube is a gold mine for businesses.
And for content creators, this means that there’s plenty of money to be made.
But how?
Besides rolling in-stream ads or creating sponsored content, there’s another method that offers a promising earning potential — affiliate marketing.
What Is Affiliate Marketing on YouTube?
In short, this is an online business model where you generate revenue by adding affiliate links for the products/services you recommend in your videos.
For example, you could place these links in the description box, within annotations, and in pinned comments.
After that, you’ll be paid a commission for each viewer that purchases the product through your referral link.
So why does this method seem promising?
The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
As a content creator or a soon-to-be content creator, you’ll likely have a loyal following. And if your channel covers a specific topic, your viewers may see you as an expert within that niche.
Sounds familiar, right?
Yes, you’re like an influencer!
That said, viewers will most likely trust you, and you’ll have the power to influence their purchase decision.
Consequently, you and the company you’re collaborating with will generate revenue.
Besides, affiliate marketing is excellent for scalability. The more viewers you have, the more people will click on the link and the more income you’ll potentially generate.
What’s more, as opposed to other built-in ways to monetize your content, affiliate marketing offers you direct control over the products you promote.
This gives you more freedom in content creation, which can increase the effectiveness of affiliate links.
But, being successful in affiliate marketing is not just a matter of posting a link in the description box and waiting for the money to roll in. You’ll need to put in a little more effort.
So how can you promote affiliate links effectively on YouTube?
Let’s take a look.
How to Promote Affiliate Links on YouTube
1. Find the Right Partners
First off, you have to find the affiliate partnerships that fit you and your channel the best.
There’s no point in trying to promote something that’s not relevant to your audience. You’ll most likely not generate significant revenue, and chances are that you may even receive a bit of backlash from your followers.
There are plenty of websites that have affiliate programs. So finding something within your niche shouldn’t be that hard.
For example, if your channel is about cooking, you can open Google, type “cooking products affiliate programs,” and go from there.
Or, you can sign-up for Amazon Associates. There are millions of products on Amazon, so you’re bound to find something for your channel.
2. Create Relevant Content
Promote, don’t advertise!
Users can generally tell whenever you’re trying to sell something, and they know that you’ll stand to gain profits from the sales.
That’s not always a bad thing. But, you don’t want your viewers to think that you only want to make money off of them.
That said, after you’ve chosen the product you’d like to promote, you should create relevant content around it. You need to bring value to your audience.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of how you can do this.
Product Reviews
If your channel focuses on product reviews, you can create a dedicated video where you’d rate the product you want to promote.
Or you can make a product comparison and explain to your audience why you’d choose one over the other.
Be honest, though. Inform your audience of the product’s pros, cons and explain why you like it. Also, mention that you’ll earn a commission if they decide to buy the product.
If the video brought them value, the audience would be happy to help you out.
In other words, you want to help people make educated purchase decisions, not convince them to buy the product.
You can also include “Best Of” videos where you’d rank multiple similar products. This way, you’ll manage to showcase your products as being the best in the market.
Make sure to save the best for last, though. This will keep the audience engaged throughout the video, and your promotion will have a more powerful impact.
Tutorials
Tutorial videos or how-to guides are another effective way to promote affiliate links.
Let’s stick with the cooking channel example.
Let’s say you’re making a video teaching your audience how to cook specific recipes. Of course, this means that you’ll use multiple cooking utensils in the video.
So why not post affiliate links that lead subscribers to the products you’re using in the video?
By doing this, users are more likely to buy the products you’re promoting. That’s because followers will not only trust you, but they’ll also see the products in action.
Unboxings
Everybody likes unboxing new stuff!
That’s one of the reasons unboxing videos are so popular. They tap into the juvenile feeling of opening gifts on Christmas day.
This makes unboxing videos fun, engaging and sparks the users’ curiosity.
That said, consider creating unboxing videos of the products you’re promoting.
This can work exceptionally well during the holiday season.
3. Add Affiliate Links Correctly
There are plenty of places you can post your affiliate links.
But, before you do that, make sure to shorten the links. Otherwise, they may look off-putting and determine users not to click on them. To do this, you can use tools like Bitly, for example.
Furthermore, you’ll have to associate your website with your YouTube channel. This will allow you to create cloaked links.
When posting links in annotations, YouTube will only allow you to drive users to your associated website. But with cloaked links, you can redirect viewers from your site to the affiliate one.
After that, you can post the link via annotations, in the video’s description, the “About” section of your channel, pin it in the comments and the community.
But, make sure that the links are accompanied by a strong call-to-action (CTA). This will increase your click-through rate.
That said, your CTA needs to be bold, clear, and compel users to follow the link, like “Click Here to Get My 25% discount,” for example.
4. Drive Traffic To Your Videos
Next, you’ll need to focus on driving traffic to your videos. After all, the more viewers you have, the more money you’ll earn from the affiliate links.
Thumbnails
For starters, we’ve talked to a few experts from a custom website design company, and they said that thumbnails play a vital role in a video’s success.
That’s because users will look at the thumbnail before reading the video’s title. In other words, thumbnails are essential for making an excellent first impression.
That said, they need to grab the users’ attention, be relevant to your content and encourage people to watch the video.
Consider adding a human face to your thumbnails. This will allow you to build a strong connection with the viewer, stopping him from scrolling as a result.
Also, include text to deliver context. Use contrasting colors and appropriate fonts. Most importantly, you’ll need to make sure that your thumbnails are in the correct size.
Ideally, they should be 1280 x 720 pixels, with at least 640 pixels in width. Furthermore, the popular aspect ratio in YouTube players and previews is 16:9.
SEO
Many SEO firms recommend doing a few tweaks to boost your videos’ visibility.
First off, you’ll have to do keyword research. Keywords are what users type in the search bar when they’re looking for something.
That said, you’ll need to find the right ones.
Start by creating a list of the popular keywords you’d like to use.
If you’re out of ideas, type something that covers your niche in the search bar, and YouTube will automatically suggest terms related to the words you typed in earlier.
And here are your keywords!
What’s more, the words YouTube suggests you are terms that users look for frequently. So you won’t have to worry whether the selected keywords are popular or not.
You can also check your channel’s analytics. YouTube will provide you with a report regarding your traffic sources. This includes the terms viewers used when searching for your videos.
That’s only one part of the job, though.
After you’ve made a list, you’ll need to select the ones that have low competition.
You can do this by searching your keywords in Google. Type in example keyword site:youtube.* in the search bar, and you’ll be given a list of all YouTube videos that use the said keyword,
Check the top of the search engine results page, and you’ll see how many results your search query has. The lower the number, the less competitive your keyword is.
After you’ve found the best keywords, insert them in your video’s title, tags section, and description box.
Final Words
All in all, YouTube is an excellent platform for promoting affiliate links. Compared to blog posts, users are more engaged when watching a video.
This makes them more receptive to the message you convey. Thus, you’ll have better chances of getting viewers to click on the link.
But, remember to choose the products you and your audience care about, create relevant content around them and focus on optimizing your videos to attract more traffic.
