Once you’ve got your blog up and running, are regularly posting quality content, and have started to build a readership, you may want to start actually earning money from your blog. There are several ways to leverage a blog for revenue, which we’ll be featuring here on AmpliFound this month.
Today’s post is all about affiliate programs.
What is an Affiliate Program?
In a nutshell, an affiliate program is a program where a blogger or any online publisher (the “affiliate”) can earn commission by helping a company generate revenue.
How do Affiliate Programs Work?
It’s fairly simple. Say you’re writing a roundup of your favorite cooking tools and wanted to feature this molcajete (mmmm, guacamole!) from Williams-Sonoma. You’d just link to the product, as I did, using this link:
But if you were a member of an affiliate program, whether directly through the retailer or through a third party (more on that later), the program would provide you with a special link, like this, for example:
But wait – don’t we want to link to Williams-Sonoma? What’s Shopstyle? And what are all of those characters in the URL?
Well, that link will automatically redirect to the molcajete on Williams-Sonoma.com, so that anyone who clicks on the link will end up on the product page. But Shopstyle is an affiliate program and those characters are used for tracking. So, while the user experience is pretty seamless, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes:
- When the link is clicked the user is redirected through the affiliate program.
- The characters in the affiliate URL track where the link is coming from (your blog) and where it’s going to (the product you linked to).
- That tracking is used to attribute clickthroughs and/or sales to the publisher, and awards commissions, which can vary greatly from program to program.
Even though the basics of affiliate programs are similar across the board, there are several ways to actually earn money.
- Some programs award a flat commission. If you’re a member of a program that works this way, you’ll get a predetermined percentage of every purchase that is made via a link from your blog. For example, if you were in a program that awarded a flat 2.5% commission from every sale, you’d earn $1.25 any time a user clicked through to Williams-Sonoma and purchased that molcajete.
- Other programs award a varied commission, which works similarly to a flat commission but the amount you earn per purchase may vary based on a lot of different factors (price, retailer, type of product, etc.).
- Another way to earn money is cost per sale, where an affiliate program may offer a flat rate per sale instead of a percentage. So, instead of earning 5% of every sale, you might earn, say, $1 per any sale made through your link.
- Some programs work on a cost per click (CPC) or a cost per impression (CPI) model, where a blogger will earn money based on how many clickthroughs instead of actual sales. Most of these models actually pay out as cost per thousand impressions (CPM) model, so for every thousand clickthroughs, the blogger will earn a predetermined amount of money.
How Do I Join an Affiliate Program?
There are lots of different affiliate programs out there. Some require an application and to be accepted, but for others, you can join automatically. The best way to figure out how to join up is to visit the website of the program and investigate yourself.
Where Can I Find an Affiliate Program?
There are tons of them out there. I’ve listed a few popular ones below, but you can find even more through Google searches, affiliate program directories, or though recommendations from bloggers.
Additionally, if there’s a retailer you’d like to work with, check their website to see if they offer their own affiliate program, either independently or through a third party.
If you feel like you’re ready to earn some money from your blog, here are some well-known affiliate programs to check out:
- ShareASale
- Amazon Associates
- ShopSense
- RewardStyle
- Conversant (formerly Commission Junction)
- LinkShare
- Fashion Traffic
- eBay Enterprise
- SkimLinks
- Viglink
A Quick Note About FTC Regulations
If you’re new to blogging, you may not be aware of this, but the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has some guidelines in place to ensure that bloggers disclose their relationship with a sponsor or company.
We’ll be delving into these guidelines in greater depth next month, but as far as what this means for affiliate links, it means that bloggers need to let their readers know that they are earning money from their links. For more information on affiliate disclosure, check out this helpful resource from iPage, and see this example of how I disclosed the affiliate links within my own blog posts:
Are you currently using affiliate links, or do you have plans to do so? Share your experiences in the comments below.
