All the stats associated with YouTube are similarly mind-boggling: the world’s second largest search engine, over 1 billion users, larger reach than any US cable network, etc.
So, of course, affiliate marketing on YouTube is a thing – and a wildly profitable one at that.
Who does it? How do you get into it? And is it actually worth investing in YouTube affiliate marketing?
What is YouTube affiliate marketing?
YouTube affiliate marketing is creating videos to be hosted on YouTube with links and information that lead to the products being promoted. The content you create for YouTube encourages viewers to buy products from the third-party websites that will earn you the commission.
YouTube is the third largest search engine in the world, and one of the top five most visited websites with over 1.5 billion logged in users per month.
As the affiliate marketer, you have the potential to earn a good amount of commissions if you are dedicated to creating YouTube content people want to see. An affiliate does not need to manufacture, stock or ship products. The barrier to getting started is relatively low compared to that of the actual businesses you are promoting
YouTube affiliate marketing is the process of creating Youtube videos and placing affiliate links to products related to the topic of the Youtube video via annotations or in video descriptions.
The content created on Youtube promotes the affiliate marketing offers through tutorials, reviews, or just sponsorship and will earn you a commission for each sale generated.
You find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a piece of the profit for each sale that you make through your affiliate link. You can get affliate links by signing up with amazon associates, CPA networks, clickbank, digistore24 … ect. You can create a review, tutorial, unboxing or a how-to video about the product you are promoting in your channel. You will need to put your affliate link in your review video description. When your video visitors click on the link and make a purchase, you earn a commission.
Just don’t be salesy, sketchy, or not knowing the product you are reviewing.
I too have couple Youtube channels where I promote affiliate products to earn commissions. Check them out and subscribe (Be Well and Wealthy, Springs of Eden, Natural Remedies, Food Gardening, Inspiring People, Funny Fails) and let me know what do you think by leaving a comment there.
That’s as simple as it gets. Just as you might write a blog post on “how to install WordPress” with an affiliate link to ThemeForest, for example, you can create a video showing the WordPress installation process and include an affiliate link in the description:
Here’s an example of a link in the video description:
And here’s one in an annotation (sometimes called an overlay):
Whatever methods you use, the objective is the same: redirect traffic to an affiliate landing page.
(Or you can also direct users to an email sign-up form if you have a more nuanced funnel that promotes affiliate products).
Who Is Doing YouTube Affiliate Marketing?
Everyone. Or nearly.
If you’re a serious content creator on YouTube, there’s a good chance you have at least one affiliate offer somewhere in one of your videos.
YouTube is so massively popular – among creators and consumers – that it just doesn’t make any sense not to.
However, it’s probably worth making a distinction here between casual marketers and professional marketers.
In the first category are serious content creators who happen to place the occasional affiliate link in their videos. For them, affiliate marketing is one more way for them to make money, not the only way (these folks often make money with ad views, platforms like Patreon, and sponsored content).
For instance, the StartUp Survival channel usually shares useful survival tips. In some videos, however, it includes affiliate links directing people to reviewed products.
This can be replicated for almost any niche. Think travel, weight loss, SEO or just about any other niche you would build a traditional authority site in.
How-To Guides
Creating useful content with links to the products demonstrated is one of the most effective ways to be an affiliate marketer. These examples all have a few key elements in common: They’re experts on their product, they are engaging personalities, and they are fun to watch while offering information that is valuable to the audience beyond a simple ‘click to buy’ link.
Reviews
The affiliate marketer chooses one product to focus on and do a deep-dive into the product. Delving into the details of a product is a great way to stand out from the crowd. Be the person who has read the manual, used the product, and has something to say about it. If there are little details or technical quirks that are easy to miss by a novice, assert yourself as an expert.
Gear Lists
Putting into video what sites like Wirecutter, Kinja Deals, and The Strategist do in the written form, gear list videos can keep an audience’s attention to see what the next product will be throughout the whole clip
Fitness Gear
Part motivation video, part product recommendation, these videos have an upbeat vibe that motivates the viewer to buy products and get moving.
Why should YouTubers consider affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing has some great benefits for YouTubers:
- Smaller YouTubers with less than 1k subscribers can monetise their channels
- Bigger channels can ‘double up’ with view-based and CPA-based revenue
- Using affiliate marketing can open up direct partnerships with relevant brands
- It gives brands a chance to support content creation
Adtraction works with large and small YouTube channels. Unlike other forms of content-based advertising where maximising conversion rates is key to success, YouTube channels have such a direct connection with their audiences they can generate conversions from a relatively low amount of engagement.
For the larger YouTube channels, YouTube ads is the key source of ad income. But these channels supplement with affiliate relationships because it converts well and gives them the chance to build direct relationships with a brand.
Affiliate marketing also complements rather than disrupts video content. Nobody wants their sing-along to a favourite tune rudely interrupted by a Midroll Ad halfway through!
How can advertisers work with YouTubers in affiliate marketing?
While many YouTubers will be receptive to brands looking for partnerships, here are a few tips for advertisers that want to make YouTubers a part of their affiliate strategy:
- Don’t expect relevant YouTubers to find your brand or already be part of your affiliate network. Advertisers, agencies and networks need to put in the legwork to find channels that are relevant and willing to work with them
- Offer something better than money. A basic CPA-based relationship may not be enough to entice a YouTuber to work with you. Think about offering a product so they can experience your brand first-hand
- Consider offering the YouTuber a unique discount or marketing code for their audience. This not only helps with audience engagement, but is another tool to track the number of conversions referred from the YouTuber’s channel
- Think about how your brand can partner with a YouTuber to help enhance their content, particularly if your brand is really relevant to what they are doing
Most affiliate ads on YouTube are link or text based. They will normally be placed in the video’s description or comments.
How Do You Get Traffic To Your YouTube Videos?
Google Organic Search
One way to get traffic to your YouTube videos is to rank in Google organic search.
For certain queries (such as the one below for “apple cider vinegar dosage”), you can see that YouTube videos occasionally rank.
You can use Ahrefs to come up with ideas for what posts you should make videos for. You want to develop videos for keywords that already have videos ranking.
To find out what keywords have videos ranking, you can use Ahrefs
Start by putting your site in the Content Explorer.
From there, you can navigate to organic keywords.
Once you get here, it is simply a case of clicking “Features” and selecting the “ Video” option to reveal all of the search queries that you rank for where a video is also ranking.
You can make this more effective by also filtering for “Position” so that it only shows videos that are ranking on Page 1 of Google.
Not only can you do this for your own affiliate site, but if you are choosing not to launch one, you can do this for sites that would be competitors if you had your own website.
From this, you should have an endless stream of content ideas and a way to get traffic to them because you know that type of video ranks for a specific keyword.
Pro Tip
Remember to do keyword research so that you know if there is sufficient search traffic. It is probably not worth your time to create a video for a search query that only gets 20 searches per month.
Subscribers
The best way to get traffic to your videos is to build up a base of subscribers.
The top account on YouTube, PewDiePie, has over 56 million subscribers.
Every time he releases a new video, each of these subscribers can see in their subscription bar that there is a new video available.
As you can see on the left-hand side of the screen, there are a number of channels with numbers beside it who have released new videos.
On top of that, there is the added bonus of the recommended videos.
YouTube will recommend videos similar to the ones that a viewer regularly watches to them on their homepage.
As you can see, channels that I have subscribed to “MSNBC” and “Copa90” are featured prominently.
YouTube Related Videos
YouTube makes money through ads.
The more videos that you can get your viewers to watch, the more ads they will see. Similarly, if you can get users to come to your channel from other sites, such as Facebook, and have a long session viewing many videos, YouTube will give you more prominence in related videos.
YouTube wants you to attract as many users as possible back to YouTube to start a new session and wants them to watch as many videos as possible.
If you can do that, YouTube will work with you to promote your content as it is beneficial to them.
There is clearly more to gaining prominence in the related video section than that, but it is definitely a good place to start.
YouTube Organic Search
YouTube is the second largest search engine, behind Google.
Ranking in YouTube organic search can be an incredible source of highly targeted traffic.
YouTube organic search is the same in principle to Google organic search. There are various ranking factors, tips and tricks that can help you rank.
However, because of the different platforms, these ranking factors are different.
I’m not going to profess to be an expert on how to rank on YouTube organic search but there are plenty of people out there who can teach you how to do this.
Tips and tricks for making YouTube affiliate marketing videos
Study the examples shown above, then take a deep-dive into the YouTube world connected to the products you want to promote. Noticeable in these videos is an attention to detail and technical expertise. The presenters are engaging, excited about the products, and well-lit. The products themselves are clearly shown from multiple angles, without any confusion as to how they’re used.
While some affiliates have fancy animation and motion- graphics, that is not necessarily a must-have to get started. Especially when beginning on a budget and working for commission, you’ll want to have some basic tools at hand.
Keep the overall feeling of your affiliate videos conversational, friendly and candid. The audience will want to feel like they are not watching an advertisement, but rather having a chat with a trusted friend about a product they’re interested in learning more about. When it comes to earning an audience’s attention span, authenticity is the key.
For example, if you’re promoting gym gear, having the energy of a personal trainer will create excitement around purchasing the product with the aim of using it in the near future. The personality aspect of your performance when talking about products is an important part of your channel. Practice being in front of the camera to get comfortable and ask your friends and family for their opinions before launching your videos.
The review portion of your video will combine calls to action with a friendly and knowledgeable vibe. This is where you’ll not only mention how to purchase in your monologue but also add in links within the video portion as a visual tool.
The lighting, sound and overall quality should be as professional as possible. Take note of some affiliate youtube videos that fall short of this mark. By comparing and contrasting good quality to bad, you can easily learn what mistakes stand out, and how to avoid them yourself.
Think carefully about how long your video needs to be. Extended introductions or personal stories are not going to hold an audience’s attention so be quick to get to the heart of the matter, the product. If you’re demonstrating the product’s use, be as clear as possible in your explanations and don’t assume your audience’s technical expertise or familiarity is at your level.
Best practices checklist for your first videos:
- Create a studio space in your home or office that is clean of excess clutter.
- Light your studio so it’s bright enough to showcase you and the products at the same time. Natural light can work sometimes, but it’s also a good idea to invest in an affordable simple lighting set-up. A ring-light is a very useful tool.
- Do your best to sound-proof your studio. If this isn’t possible, shoot at times when ambient street or apartment noise is at a minimum. Sometimes this means shooting your videos late at night. Body microphones such as lavaliers (body mics) and preset boom mics are available at reasonable cost and also reduce ambient noise.
- Take the time to learn how to use your camera. Be it a smart-phone, a DSLR camera, or the best video camera money can buy, the more familiar you are with the tools, the more professional you’ll appear on YouTube.
- When it comes to sound quality, use a good microphone!
- Use a tripod. Shaky-cam never works, unless you’re in the Blair Witch Project.
- Write a script. If you’re a little shy on speaking ‘off the cuff’, a script will keep you on track, and on-topic.
- Editing software can be expensive, but there are usually free trial versions to be had. If iMovie isn’t advanced enough, find a trial version of Final Cut or Adobe Premier. Once your budget allows, invest in these programs for future use.
When you’re ready to upload:
- When uploading, go with a bare minimum of 720HD, however the higher in resolution, the better.
- Write robust video descriptions. Descriptive captions can be keyworded and used in searches.
- Link to the products featured in the description in the first 1-2 sentences.
- Choose a strong thumbnail to feature as a still-image before the user hits play.
Pros Of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Massive audience: I won’t repeat the statistics again, but you already know this: YouTube’s traffic is massive (and growing). People across the world are watching millions of videos on every topic under the sun. You won’t find any industry that doesn’t have a hungry audience waiting to buy.
- High growth: Video is eating the web. It is estimated that by 2019, 80% of all content online will be video. YouTube’s own revenues have grown from an estimated $1 billion in 2012 to $9 billion in 2016. This means that not only will you get tons of views, your views – and revenues – will actually grow over time.
- Lower competition: Unlike the web, video is still largely devoid of competition outside of a few niches (gaming, tech, beauty, fashion, etc.). If you can get in early with some quality content, you can dominate the niche and build a massive audience.
- Freedom to choose offers: Outside of a few no-go niches (gambling and adult offers), you have pretty much all the freedom in the world to plug in any offer or website, especially after you’ve established trust by maintaining a non-spammy, high quality channel. It’s still not the same as owning your website, but close.
- More stability: Thousands of marketers spent millions building up Facebook pages only to see their organic reach go down the drain as Facebook changed its algorithm. This is unlikely to happen to YouTube because of the subscriber system and the more stable search algorithm.
- Can build a loyal audience: People who like your videos can “subscribe” to your channel. This means that they’ll get your new videos in their “Subscribed” feed even if you don’t do any promotion. This captive, loyal audience is a massive plus for anyone creating quality content.
- Easy SEO (sometimes): Videos appear in http://tubularinsights.com/2019-internet-video-traffic/ 55% of keyword searches on Google. 82% of these videos are from YouTube. Because of lower competition on YouTube, it’s relatively easy to get your video ranked at the top of the SERPs.
Cons Of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Content creation: The biggest hurdle by far. You can’t just hire a $10 writer and build up a bunch of pages. You actually have to create interesting, compelling videos to get any viewers. Doesn’t help that most people aren’t comfortable before cameras.
- Niche-specific challenges: It’s relatively easy to create content for the “tech how-to” niche (like “how to install Windows” or “how to use WinRar) – you just need a screencasting software and a microphone. For niches like DIY plumbing, however, you need significant time, energy and skills. This often compels marketers to flood the easier niches, increasing competition.
- 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 shouldn’t be a problem if you have quality content, but if you have a purely
- Difficult to get traffic: For a topic like “how to setup WordPress”, you will be entirely dependant on search engine traffic (either YouTube or Google/Bing). In such niches, getting traffic can be the hardest part.
Can you make money on YouTube?
The simplest answer, of course, is ‘Yes’. However, how do you get to that yes is the longer explanation. In order to monetize your affiliate channel, you’ll need a lot of patience, and perseverance.
Time well-spent on creating quality content is going to be your best chance of making serious money with an Affiliate YouTube channel. Focus on presenting yourself as a trusted, friendly voice that demonstrates and educates about worthwhile products and people will return to your channel.
Within the YouTube platform itself are many methods to grow your audience:
- Respond to user comments
- Reach out to other YouTubers for collaborations
- Create video responses to hot products and topics
- Give your audience a promotion or reward for sharing and interacting with your channel
Include calls to action in your videos with requests to subscribe, share, and go to the affiliate links. Make this easy for your audience by featuring easy-to-find buttons and links not only in the captions, but also throughout your video as it plays. Adding an annotation, or clickable link within the video, is a powerful tool that enables the user to keep watching your video while finding the product. Make it as easy as possible for a user to find the product!
In order to make money with your affiliate videos, you must drive traffic to your channel. People may find your channel through a number of social media platforms so it’s important to promote your content across these sites. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are key components in promotions. They will allow you the option to post video clips, and special promos to drive traffic to your channel.
There’s no need to get overwhelmed, even if affiliate marketing is a vastly competitive arena. Keep your goals realistic, be consistent, and offer authoritative, quality information on the products you feature.
By keeping your tone of voice relatable and honest, you’ll earn the respect of viewers. By offering them information of value with links to well-reviewed products you’ll earn commissions and scale your affiliate marketing business. Keep shooting good content and your customers will return to see what you’re recommending next.
Audiences appreciate quality, a human touch, and, most importantly, honesty. If you combine all these things with a consistent growth strategy you’ll be on your way to becoming a successful YouTube Affiliate Marketer.