You’ve seen a lot of YouTubers talk about how they make money on YouTube from their channel and many times you wonder how they do it. The most obvious means is through ads, but that is not a viable option for someone who just started.
To make a reasonable amount of money from ads on YouTube, you need to have the follower count. However, there’s a YouTube revenue model that suits both newbies and YouTubers with millions of followers. It’s called affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is simply the process of promoting the goods and services of another person and earning a referral fee or commission for each successful purchase. It’s one of the ways to earn money and there are lots of affiliate programs available for YouTubers.
Table of Contents - What is the Amazon Affiliate Program? - How Affiliate Marketing Works for YouTubers? - Amazon Affiliate Best Practices for YouTubers - How to Make Money on Youtube with Affiliate Sales
What is the Amazon Affiliate Program?
The Amazon affiliate program referred to as the “associates program” is an affiliate program where you earn a commission for Amazon products and program sales made based on your referral.
It is currently one of the largest and most popular affiliate marketing programs in the world. It is also trusted and reputable. It is easy to use unlike many other affiliate programs, has a huge catalog and global coverage.
Also, it’s a great option for all kinds of YouTubers from different parts of the world.
How Affiliate Marketing Works for YouTubers?
Affiliate marketing is a great revenue model for YouTubers and is one you can enroll for even at the start of your channel. You can include affiliate links in the description of all the videos you make while mentioning them in the video.
While it is not a stable source of revenue and you may be getting low conversion at the start, but as your channel grows, you’ll start to see an increase in the conversion rate.
Affiliate marketing works for YouTubers when they include their customized link in the description box and people make purchases using that link. As the YouTuber, you recommend a product you have used and tested to be good, and because you have built some level of following and trust, your viewers may decide to make a purchase.
This customized affiliate link is the essence of your marketing as it’s with this link the retailer can track purchases made as a result of your referral. Based on the tracking figures, the retailer will reward you with a specific percentage of the product purchased. This is what is known as a commission or referral fee.
The products you recommend can be based on:
- The products reviewed or used or mentioned in the video.
- The gadgets used to create the YouTube video.
- Personal products used by the YouTuber.
Amazon Affiliate Best Practices for YouTubers
Many YouTubers get scared about the Amazon Affiliate Program because they have heard about people’s accounts getting banned. Some are not sure as to whether they’ll make sales while others have a large audience but do not seem to convert a reasonable fraction of that number.
There is no magic trick to being a successful Amazon affiliate marketer neither is there a promise of a stable number of sales, but there are best practices you can implement to be better. They include:
- Be honest.
When recommending a product, your viewers can sense when you’re being honest or when you’re only focused on making sales. If you’ve never used a product before but you’ve used another product from the same brand and so believe it will be good, say just that. Don’t lie that you’ve used a product when you haven’t.
Avoid recommending random products as it looks tacky and might come back to bite you in the long run. Honesty helps to build much more trust and loyalty in your audience. It’s not news that everyone loves an honest and authentic person. - Use the correct Affiliate Program.
Amazon is a global platform but it now has stores in different parts of the world. There are currently 17 stores in different regions and each of these stores has its tailored affiliate program.
If you’re in the affiliate program of the global platform, Amazon.com, you will only be rewarded for sales made on that particular website and not for sales made on Amazon.ca for example.
If you’re a YouTuber with an international audience, you must have an idea of the regions where most of your audience are viewing and promote products using the appropriate links. - Consistent description template.
Creating a template for your video descriptions makes it easy for you to add, remove, and correct affiliate links. It is the best way to stay organized and helps you track how you’re sharing your links. - Build kits.
Instead of having to list out individual links for each product, you can make use of a site like kit.co to curate products for specific activities. This makes it easier for your viewers to see your recommendations and also for you to share them. It also gives you the chance to advertise more products with one click.
How to Make Money on YouTube with Affiliate Sales
YouTube is a great place to make money with affiliate sales because it gives you a platform to connect with a large audience. You can view it as a marketplace where you are the advertiser and there is an audience with purchasing ability waiting to hear from you.
There are different kinds of content you can use to introduce and promote products to your viewers but three of the most popular content types are:
Product Reviews
Product reviews are one of the most organic ways to promote a product. It is based on the observation of human behavior. Before you buy a product, chances are you want to hear from someone who has used it before and if there’s no one close to you, you hop on the internet to get reviews from strangers. You should know you’re not the only one who thinks that way.
Reviews help people make purchasing decisions and people would rather hear from consumers like themselves. You must strive to be honest in your reviews. Creating a track record of honesty will help you make more sales in the long run.
To make your product review video, you can talk about the product by stating the claim of the manufacturers and your experience while using it. You’re allowed to state both the pros and cons of the products.
To give a detailed review, some products will require that you state how long you’ve been using them. Answer all the questions you can about the features of the product.
You can also decide to make comparisons between different products and finally conclude with the best pick stating the reason(s) for your choice.
The goal is to answer whatever question they may have concerning the particular product so when they finally decide to make a purchase, they will still be on your video and can easily click your customized affiliate link.
Tutorials
In today’s world, whenever people have a question, even before they ask the people beside them, they’re on YouTube searching for answers. How-to videos are one of the most popular video content on YouTube and viewers always favor the most detailed explanations.
If you’re going to make a tutorial video, aim to make the best and most in-depth video. The better the video, the higher the chances of people watching it.
After watching a video, people will want to replicate the activity with the same products and items used by the YouTuber. This is your chance to mention those products and include your affiliate links in the description box.
“Best of” or “Top” Videos
Making “best of” or “top” videos is not hard to do. The first thing is to carefully curate your list and make sure there are special features in each that differentiate them from the rest. You can even have them in categories like ‘best battery life’ or ‘best price’.
Also, list out the pros and cons of each product. While making the video, start from the least to the very best to keep your viewers hooked till the end.
Include affiliate links for all the products you mentioned in the video.
Conclusions
Amazon affiliate program is a good revenue model for all YouTubers regardless of the stage of growth in terms of number. There is an entire community of amazon affiliates so there are plenty of resources to guide you.
Amazon also has a lot of resources publicly available to help you understand all their terms correctly. Affiliate marketing in general is a business so you must treat it as one.
Pay attention to the kind of videos you release and never miss an opportunity to promote products.
If you use Amazon FBA you should read this guide on how to handle shipping.
