YouTube currently experiences more than 2 billion active users in one month, who collectively consume almost 250 million screen hours daily. Similarly, the time that it would take you to read just this sentence, hundreds of new videos would be up on YouTube in the time being. If you are shocked by these stats, you would be even more surprised to know that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google.
All these stats are the literal explanation of why YouTube should be on the top of your affiliate-marketing list.
In this article, we will discuss what YouTube affiliate marketing is, why should you do it, how much you can earn from it, and some pro tips to attract traffic to your videos.
What Is YouTube Affiliate Marketing
YouTube affiliate marketing is the process of creating videos with affiliate links for specific products and offerings. However, it is best to create videos that are related to the affiliate marketing links that you are including in them. You can either strategically place the affiliate content in your video script or add the link in the description below. Affiliate links can either direct the users to the product page, where they can add things to the cart, or a signup link.
YouTube has a diverse set of content, including tutorials, reviews, and even sponsorships, which means that, are multiple opportunities for you to create videos. With YouTube affiliate videos, you can earn a commission on each sale generated via your links.
This is as simple as it gets. For example, you can create a video demonstrating how to install a word press theme. When you are uploading the video, you can simply add an affiliate link for a paid theme in the description. Here is an example of how you can do it.
You can also use an alternative approach and talk about your affiliate link in the video; you do need to add a disclaimer that you will get a small percentage from all the links.
For example, skincare by Hyram is a YouTube channel that always adds an affiliate link in the description, but he also talks about them in the video. Here is an example of how you can do it too!
In the end, all your efforts come down to one goal; you need to redirect enough traffic to your website!
What Type of Videos Can You Make to Generate Affiliate Revenue
There are several different niches for you to dip your toes. However, other than the niche, you also need to make different types of videos. Since YouTube is a fairly popular platform, here are all the types and their examples for you.
How-to Guides
Demonstrating the functionality of a product along with how to use it in your content can pave one’s way to becoming an effective affiliate marketer. The below-mentioned examples all have three key characteristics in common. They’re well-acquainted with their product, they have a charismatic approach towards their video, and they provide valuable product information to the audience in an engaging way!
Makeup tutorials are one of the most famous video categories on YouTube. For instance, with over 1.4 million subscribers, Daisy Marquez is one of the most successful YouTubers in the competitive world of beauty product videos with 1.4 million subscribers. This example of her demonstrating a trend-setting makeup brand Maybelline has over 1.5 million views: One Brand Makeup Tutorial: Maybelline | Daisy Marquez.
Similarly, in this video, Joshua Weissman expertly teaches viewers how to season and restore cast iron cookware while adding the links redirecting to products and services in the description: The Easy Guide On Seasoning and Restoring Cast Iron.
Reviews
An effective affiliate marketer adopts a specific product and chooses to focus and research its minute details solely. This effort contributes to making the marketer stand-out from the average marketers’ pool. In essence, reading the product’s manuals and then using it provides the marketer with something to say about it. Moreover, if there are little details or technical quirks that are easy to miss by a novice, utilize the opportunity and assert yourself as an expert.
Here, Shane Starnes gets to the point right away without too much pre-amble: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 / Note 20 Ultra — TOP 10 FEATURES!
Also, check out how he has added the link in the description.
Kai W gives a charismatic ‘man on the street’ review of Canon products. With high energy, London scenes, and a good sense of humor, he holds the audience captive: Canon EOS R Hands-on Review.
Unboxing
A simple video featuring an affiliate removing a product from a box and explaining their encounter to their viewers can quite absolutely be categorized as successful content marketing. The popularity of these videos has baffled tech journalists. Millions of viewers, strangely enough, find eagerly watching someone taking a product out of its wrapping and narrating what they see, appealing.
It is usually the first encounter of viewers with a new product outside of a highly managed marketing campaign in practical terms. The presenter is, just like an average person, sharing in his excitement over acquiring a coveted item in real life.
However, watching a real person in a casual setting take a new article out of a box brings the product into a whole situation and can inspire the viewers to purchase it for themselves.
There is an element of excitement and birthday-present vibe when done in an entertaining way, such as this video from DJ TLM TV.
He creates a charismatic presentation of media player equipment with many links and options in his captions: DENON DJ SC5000 & X1800 PRIME UNBOXING.
Gear Lists
Directing videos following the format used by sites like Wirecutter, Kinja Deals, and The Strategist does in written form, gear list videos can keep an audience’s attention static to stay curious about what the next product will be throughout the whole clip.
This format is a helpful way to promote multiple items in one video, a listicle of recommended products for a specific topic, such as Teck X’s camping gear: 7 Cool Camping Gear 2019 — You Should Know About.
The Endless Adventure goes into detail while listing their favorite travel items. Their affiliate strategy offers coupon codes and referrals: Our Top Travel Items & Gadgets After 4 YEARS OF TRAVEL! — 2019 Travel Packing Guide.
Fitness Gear
Part motivation and part recommendation make these videos a cult favorite among viewers. They will help you kill boredom and get some workout in, in the process.
Obi Vincent has the energy and knowledge of a personal trainer while motivating the audience to buy workout gear: MY GYM BAG ESSENTIALS | MUST-HAVES.
Best of Videos
Establishing yourself as an authority in the field would lead your best of videos to get good viewership. The real value comes from building yourself as an expert on the subject matter so your audience learns to value your opinion.
On the other hand, this post has over 7,000 views. Within the description, there are links to purchase each of the ten lawn mowers on Amazon.
It is easy to imagine similar round-up videos in various niches, such as:
Each of these has the potential to be a successful video that can generate substantial affiliate revenue. You can run a quick Google search to find other such videos in different vertices.
Do you think these videos help you out to choose the best product?
0 votes
How Do You Get Traffic to Your YouTube Videos
YouTube affiliate marketing is all about getting enough views. This is why your focus should be on generating enough traffic on your channel. You can do so by following some pro tips and tricks.
Google Organic Search
The best way to generate quality traffic is through Google organic search. However, this can be quite tricky as there are millions of links and videos ranking for the same keywords. For this purpose, it is best to carry out keyword research using a tool, such as Google Keyword Planner.
With tools such as these, you can not only search for trending keywords but also find all the little details about them that would allow you to make a better decision.
Remember to invest some time in carrying out though keyword research before each video. This would not only allow you to rank higher, but also give you enough insight into the popularity of the topic.
It is most probably not a good idea to create a video for a keyword that generates 10 searches per month.
Subscribers
Before you jump into the world of affiliate marketing, make sure that your channel has enough subscribers to generate enough sales on the link. Each time you upload a video, all your subscribers get a notification. This way, none of your videos go to waste and get at least a few views.
Your subscribers are displayed right below your channel name.
This guy in the screenshot has 496K subscribers and around 300K views on average on a video.
David Seymour also uploads videos with affiliate links quite a few times. However, this person has an interesting approach to his links. For an instance, he would always include a disclaimer in his videos that he will talk about something that makes him money.
Additionally, he adds an affiliate link in the description. Here is an example.
Optimize Your Videos
Optimize your videos if you want them to be found easily. This is why SEO should be on top of your list. Focus on writing keyword-centric video titles, tags, and descriptions along with a striking thumbnail. Your title should have words that will solve a problem. Such as this example:
However, make sure that you do not go overboard with too many tags and confuse the search engine. Focus on 10 to 12 quality tags and stick to them. Choose keywords that go with your videos and popular with search as well.
Descriptions are the trickiest part, as there is no way to formulate a winning caption. However, make sure that you do not sound too technical or that you populate it with too many keywords. When you start a new channel, make sure that you freely experiment with it and come up with the descriptions that best suit your audience.
This list of videos follows a theme with descriptions starting from I and following with what he is going to create in that video.
Similarly, the try guys have a couple of themes going on their channel, which allows them to use different descriptions for a different group of videos.
Another thing that would draw attention to the video is the thumbnail. Use bright and attention-grabbing thumbnails that are sure to attract an audience. Use pictures that you take in broad daylight or food pictures that are tempting enough. Alternatively, you can use Photoshop to create thumbnails.
Pros of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Large Clientele: It is an undisputed fact that the buzz around YouTube is huge and its traffic is growing every minute. It is a center for people all over the globe to browse through millions of video content for every topic under the sun. It certainly does not lack awaiting customers hungry to buy.
- Exponential growth: Youtube is second in the most visited sites. Video consumes the web. It is estimated that by 2020 Youtube has claimed over 800 million. YouTube’s revenues went up to 36% more from 2018 to $15.1 billion in 2019. Thus, you are bound to get a high amount of views on your videos, and not only that, since views determine revenue, your revenue will increase tenfold over time.
- Lower competition: A major upside is the huge variety of unique content. Including some important fields like (gaming, tech, beauty, fashion, etc.), video still has a large room for competition, which is very different from the web. You can build a very promising following if you have new and quality content that can help you create and dominate the arena.
- Freedom to choose offers: Once you have built yourself as a credible and serious channel, you have the luxury and the freedom to promote any offer or website, aside from shady deals. It is the closest to owning your website.
- Steady and loyal following: Once people like and subscribe to your videos, they can easily watch new ones whenever you upload. This means you do not have to promote your content. A steady and loyal following, that can only grow, is a great incentive for the maker to keep producing quality content.
- Easy SEO (occasionally): Videos appear in 55% of keyword searches on Google. Eight-two percent of these videos are from YouTube. Because of lower competition on YouTube, it is relatively easy to get your video ranked at the top of the SERPs.
- More stability: Facebook is notorious for constantly changing algorithms, which can seriously damage the reach of businesses that have been built up by spending millions. However, YouTube’s subscriber system and a better search algorithm make this an unlikely thing to happen.
Cons of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Content creation: The actual thing you have to deliver and therefore, the hardest. You need to create captivating videos to engage your audience to stay relevant. You cannot hack your way out of this one. It is going to be especially harder if you are camera shy.
- Niche-specific challenges: You will find it is relatively easier to come up with how-to basic videos since they require little to no effort. The well-thought-out videos need proper execution with time and energy. This is why you will see there is more content on the easy stuff and less on the hard stuff, which increases the competition in the easier niches.
- Difficult to get traffic: If you make content for the general spectrum, the traffic you receive depends on the search engine traffic (either YouTube or Google/Bing). This makes it difficult to get a huge viewership.
- Linking restrictions: According to Google: "If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies". This should not be a problem if you have quality content, but if you have purely plagiarized content then you are in trouble. One has to adhere to the restrictions.
How Much Money Can I Make from Being a YouTube Affiliate
As with everything else, your income depends upon your viewership and the product you are marketing. There is no standard fee. Also, since most YouTube Affiliates do not disclose their revenue to their audience, it is difficult to estimate just how successful being a YouTube Affiliate is.
We can only gauge how much some Affiliate networks earn.
A commission of 3-5% per product sold is what Amazon Affiliates typically pays. However, your rate of conversion determines your total earnings. Your conversion rate is dependent on the number of viewers your videos get and then purchase your marketed product. It ranges from 1-8%.
Here’s an example: let us say you are advertising a product that is worth $60. Your commission rate is 5%. Your YouTube videos hit views of 50,000. Among the 50,000, you have a good conversion rate being 2%.
- 2% of 50,000 is 1,000.
- 1,000 x $60 = $60,000.
You earn 5% of $60,000 that is $3,000.
Therefore, you would make $3,000 off one video. These numbers are being very stretched indeed, but it allows you to have an estimate about how much other YouTubers make.
How Does Payout Work
Another thing about affiliate marketing is the payout percentages as well as how these people track your viewers who are clicking on these links. A cookie is attached to whoever clicks on your special tracking affiliate links’ computer to record what they buy.
The good thing about cookies is they are not specific to a single product i.e. you will get a commission for anything they might purchase from that site they arrived at using your link. Therefore, it is a win-win situation if they buy your product or buy anything else.
What Are the Commission Rates
Commission rates vary for different brands. Like how Amazon’s goes up to around 10% for every product sold in one month. However, some marketers will do 5%, etc. Therefore, it is up to you to research the advertiser you want to work with and find out what commission they make.
In short, it would be very beneficial to consider using affiliate marketing to sell stuff for other people. This is a better solution than just talking about a product for free, you might as well earn for it. Alternatively, you can set up a dedicated channel to just review products and then sell. You can always manufacture your goods to promote too.
Since you cannot always rely on video sponsorships to generate income, affiliate marketing is an incredible hack to keep on earning some money on the side.
Case Study
John Crestani is one of the most famous YouTube affiliate marketers on the platform, who earns more than $500 000 per month from just affiliate links. According to him, he makes around $225 to $500 per day because his videos are super optimized.
John offers a course on affiliate marketing, where he shared his dashboard and earnings. Here is a screenshot for some motivation.
Another YouTuber, Lawrence Systems also uses YouTube affiliate marketing as his primary source of income. He has a tech channel on his YouTube and shares technical videos.
In the first half of 2019, he made $13 000 with YouTube affiliate links!
Conclusion
If you are looking to use your YouTube channel for affiliate marketing, then now is the time. However, always remember that YouTube is a very competitive platform, and there are millions of videos to watch. This is exactly why you should focus on creating content that is both unique and is highly optimized.
It is a great idea to launch a YouTube channel for affiliate marketing but is best to build an audience before jumping the guns. Affiliate marketing gives you more options to monetize your YouTube channel. Just remember to choose a profitable niche, work on your optimization strategies, and you are good to go!
Are you also guilty of consuming too much YouTube throughout the day?
0 votes
