In this case study, we are showing you how Spencer Mecham was able to make more than $50 000 in Bitcoin from the Coinbase affiliate program. Coinbase is a platform that makes it easy to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more. Its affiliate program pays $10 in Bitcoin as affiliate commissions for each referral.
Proof of Earnings
The screenshots below show Spencer’s Coinbase account and it pays the commissions in Bitcoin (BTC) which is equivalent to $10.
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Let's dive into this article...
Finding the Opportunity
Spencer discovered this opportunity from Google Trends 4 years ago. With the explosion of Bitcoin, many people were interested to learn what it is and how to get into Bitcoin investing and trading.
After discovering the massive interest from Google trends, Spencer saw it as an opportunity to make money by promoting affiliate offers centered around Bitcoin. That was when he joined the Coinbase affiliate program.
Promoting with YouTube
Instead of creating an affiliate site or landing pages, Spencer chose to use Youtube as the medium of promotion. The reason why he chose Youtube over Google is that Youtube search has the potential to get him traffic much faster than Google search.
Google always takes months and sometimes years to validate a website and give it proper rankings on search. Google search prefers ranking old websites that are tested and validated rather than new ones. On the other hand, Youtube search displays a combination of both new and old videos that are relevant to the search keywords which is good if you want to catch up on a topic while it is still trending.
You can see on the screenshots above that when you search with Youtube, you receive videos that are recently made which isn’t the same as when you search with Google.
Spencer went ahead to create his Youtube channel Wealth Hacks, whereby he uploaded weekly videos explaining Bitcoin and how to get started with cryptocurrency investments.
He placed his Coinbase affiliate links in the video descriptions and with time, his channel grew and he started to get traffic.
Spencer started by making videos on:
- How to make money with Bitcoin;
- How to make money with Bitcoin;
- How to get a Bitcoin wallet.
Spencer says that the 2 main reasons why he always recommends using Youtube for cryptocurrency promotions are:
- Youtube has the traffic of people who are looking to buy something immediately. They always have their credit cards at hand and are just searching for tutorial videos to guide them through the steps.
- Youtube gives new affiliates a chance to make it rather than Google which leans more towards the old, big, and major blogs which give new entrants a small chance.
Making Youtube Videos
YouTube requires its users to make more than one video for it to identify what exactly your niche is so that it can deliver better results. Youtube tries to link your videos and when people watch 5 or more videos of yours in a row, Youtube will start recommending your videos to other users interested in the niche.
Out of those 5 or more videos, Youtube tries to blow up the one that gets more engagement. This is exactly what gave Spencer the traffic boost at the start.
So with Youtube, you can never know which video will blow up but having multiple videos around one topic is the number one way to let the algorithm favor you.
Filming Youtube Videos for Affiliate Marketing
Spencer says that it is important to have videos that go straight to the point and have no fluff. The very first 30 seconds are important and they must be used to talk about what is mentioned in the title and video thumbnail.
If you spend 3-5 minutes in the beginning to make introductions that are just whittling around, people are gonna leave your video and YouTube does not like that. So it's very important to start showing viewers the steps of what you promise on your title for them to get hooked and to keep watching.
Once you deliver your content, it’s also important to recommend your affiliate program and then end the video immediately. There is no need to add more fluff and telling them to subscribe because that will take away their focus from clicking the affiliate link to browsing more stuff on Youtube.
Building the Thumbnails
With this promotion, Spencer aimed to get Youtube search traffic. So his videos thumbnails had to show the exact phrase that the users search for.
If the video is about answering the question of how to make money with Bitcoin, then the thumbnail must be saying how to buy to make money with Bitcoin. Thumbnails need to say exactly what users are searching for. This is what helped him to top the search on his keywords.
Affiliate Links in the Description
Adding links in the video’s description is the most important part of affiliate marketing on Youtube. Spencer created 100s of videos on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like Etherium but he made sure that he places his Coinbase affiliate link in the descriptions of all the videos. This means that all of his Youtube videos were sending traffic to only one link.
“In all of my videos, I always tell them where to go and this is the Coinbase affiliate program. I say hey I'm gonna show you on screen how to do whatever the title is about and the easiest way to do it is by using Coinbase. Click the link in my description”, Spencer explains.
Whenever the viewers click and make any deposit on Coinbase, Spencer would then get a $10 commission.
Spencer says that it's pretty easy for him to get conversions because most people looking for how to buy Bitcoin videos are actually looking for a tutorial video to follow in order to make their first purchase. So it doesn’t require him to use a lot of convincing power and theories to get conversions but he just shows the people the steps to follow and then he provides them with the link in the description.
Tips from Spencer
Spencer recommends the following tips to affiliates who want to quickly monetize trending topics with Youtube:
- Make as many decent videos as you can on that trending topic.
- Add your affiliate link in the description as often as you can.
- Wait and watch until one video blows up.
In Spencer’s opinion, he somehow got lucky because almost all of his Bitcoin videos blew up because there weren’t as many videos out there at that time since the trend was new. He kept making lots of decent videos on the trending topic and his channel and commissions exploded to the point where he was making over $50 000/ year passively from Youtube traffic.
