Navigating your affiliate deal

Have you ever heard a YouTuber say, "Click my link for a great deal"? That's an affiliate link.

If you create content online, whether it's streaming on Twitch, videos on YouTube, photos on Instagram, or running a blog or website, you could be earning money from affiliate links. Designed to send traffic to a certain website, companies will pay influencers and content creators to promote their website in various ways.

(Source: Pixabay)

Finding an affiliate deal

Think of your brand and what you represent, then go into detail. If you're a beauty vlogger, you have every makeup brand to approach, but also the entire beauty department: hair products, nails, razors, expanding even further there is anything that suits the lifestyle brand like set pieces and furnishings, subscription boxes, etc. Start with what you do and expand into what your audience will be interested in.

Brands like Raycon, Raid: Shadow Legends, NetBet slots, Dollar Shave Club and many more all have affiliate programs for creators to take advantage of.

There are a few different websites to help you find a deal, including Aspire IQ, which takes into consideration all your platforms, Influence.co which offers paid collaboration with brands and Brandbacker which is a favorite among bloggers and can offer free and paid campaigns within and out with the US.

Following the rules

Contracts differ. You may be given a set of guidelines to follow or be free to go your own way.

You can be asked to simply put a link in a blog or speak for a certain amount of time on a video about the product. You can be asked to review the product, or be given a script, created a story or Instagram post around the product. Some brands offer coupons or discount codes to the viewer.

You could also be asked to ensure the specifics of the affiliate link. Some brands ask for posts to be up for a certain amount of time, or a certain amount of posts. They can determine how long or detailed a promotion is, the means in which you go about it, etc.

Through the use of cookies, businesses can track who is clicking the link and review traffic to their site.

How are you paid?

As popular as affiliate marketing is, that creates a lot of different means of doing something. Getting paid can come in three main forms.

Pay per sale is the standard where the viewer must buy the product before the creator can be compensated and they must do it through the link. The brand pays the creator the sale price of the product as a result of the affiliate deal.

Pay per lead deals see the creator committing a call to action: persuading their viewer to do something, be it filling out a contact form or signing up for a trial or subscribing or downloading.

Pay per click is as simple as they come. With the incentive to drive traffic to a certain site, cookies monitor the traffic to the site and the creator is paid on the basis of the increase.

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