YouTube is the world-leading video sharing platform and it’s also one of the biggest sources of income for affiliate marketing. YouTube affiliate marketing is regarded as one of the best ways to make money online.
Ordinarily, when users are watching videos on YouTube, the YouTubers are earning money from the ads that are displayed. This is the fastest and easiest method of earning cash on the platform. But with YouTube affiliate marketing, affiliate companies can track marketers’ personal links. So basically, if anyone purchases products on the affiliate company’s website, the affiliate marketer gets a commission from the sale.
As of mid-2020, the YouTubers earning through ads was around $18 per thousand views. And with YouTube having over 2 billion users worldwide and daily streaming of over 1 billion hours of videos, affiliate marketers can’t afford to ignore the potentials YouTube offers to earn.
YouTube Affiliate Marketing
This is very similar to traditional affiliate marketing in terms of how affiliates earn money. The major difference here is you earn by creating video content. The content you create for YouTube encourages viewers to buy products from third-party websites that will earn you the commission.
YouTube affiliate marketing is an online marketing business where affiliates generate revenue by adding affiliate links for products or services they recommend to videos they create and upload. These links are placed within annotations or in the video ‘Description’ area.
With YouTube affiliate marketing, your product reviews, recommendations, tutorials, and others are now made into a video format, instead of the regular article style. You then link out to a specific affiliate marketing program.
The monetization process remains exactly the same as other affiliate programs. You earn a commission anytime a viewer makes a purchase via your referral link.
Can I Make Money With YouTube Affiliate Marketing?
In simplest terms, the answer is ‘Yes’. However, getting from zero to earning cash depends on your dedication and the quality, and relevance of your video content. To monetize your affiliate channel, you’ll require a lot of work, patience, and perseverance.
Creating quality content is your biggest chance of earning serious money with an Affiliate YouTube channel. The YouTube platform itself makes it easy to grow your audience by implementing a few steps:
- 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 by requesting your viewers to subscribe, share, and click on the affiliate links.
Available Affiliate Offers on YouTube
YouTube is just a platform that allows you to interact with an audience regardless of your chosen niche. They also allow affiliate programs to virtually all affiliate offers.
There is a wide range of awesome affiliate programs that cover various topics spread across multiple affiliate networks. And you are sure to find an audience on YouTube.
Getting Started with YouTube Affiliate Marketing
Getting started with YouTube affiliate marketing isn’t a complex task. It requires the following four simple steps:
- Picking a niche to work with as an affiliate.
- Selecting an affiliate program platform to work with. Affiliate offers abound literally everywhere. Many companies manage their affiliate programs while most use 3rd parties known as Affiliate Networks.
- Set up your YouTube channel and start creating the required video contents
- Pushing video content out to gain traffic.
Of the four steps, two require lots of work, patience, and practice.
Creating the required video content
This is the most tedious aspect of any affiliate program; creating the right content. Your entire YouTube affiliate business solely rests on the success of the content you create. Let’s quickly mention some basic requirement for creating quality videos:
- Create a studio space in your home or office.
- Light your studio so it’s bright enough to showcase you and the products at the same time. Natural light can work sometimes, but ring-light is a very useful tool.
- Shoot videos at times when the ambient street or apartment noise is at a minimum or sound-proof your studio.
- Invest in some gadgets like body microphones, pre-set boom microphones, cameras; smart-phone, a DSLR camera as well a tripod stand.
- By investing in tools, you’ll appear more professional on YouTube.
- Write a script. If you’re shy about speaking ‘off the cuff’, a script will keep you on track, and on-topic.
- Use editing software; there are usually free trial versions to be had. Once your budget allows, invest in these programs for future use.
On a side note, you as a presenter should try as much as possible to be engaging as well as excited about the products. The product itself should be clearly displayed from different angles and without any confusion as to how to use it. We will discuss how to gain more traffic on your video content further in this article.
Pros of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- YouTube has large traffic. Its platform reaches millions of people across the world are they spend tons of hours watching videos.
- With millions of viewers comes growth. YouTube’s own revenues have grown from an estimated $1 billion in 2012 to $15 billion in 2020. Some prominent YouTubers get more views per day than mainstream TV channels.
- Only a few niches such as gaming, tech, beauty, and fashion have stiff competition. Other niches are available to operate in and build a massive following.
- Affiliate marketers have the freedom of choosing any niche they want. Well, except for gambling and adult content.
- YouTube’s organic traffic is still genuine. Unlike Facebook where organic traffic is a pay-to-play scenario.
- If you give good content, viewers who like your content can “subscribe” to your channel. This means that viewers will get your new videos in their “Subscribed” feed without you needing to do any promotion.
- As an affiliate on YouTube, all you require is good content and in a workable niche. Also, a microphone and either webcam or screen recording software to get started. Very minimal investment.
Cons of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
- Creating video content isn’t easy. Unlike written content where you can hire a writer for $15. You have to create informative, compelling, and interesting videos to get any views.
- Every Niche has its own specific challenges. Take, for instance, the “tech how-to” niche and a topic like “how to uninstall Windows”. All that is needed is screen-casting software and a microphone. But for niches like DIY wiring, you’ll need to invest a lot in tools, time, and effort.
- A ban or restriction can result in your channel being deleted, along with all your uploaded contents. Unlike personal websites, YouTube remains the owner of the platform while you only lease your channel from them. Simply put, you don’t own the platform.
- According to Google “If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another website, it will likely violate our spam policies”. This creates a linking restriction.
- The numbers of lucrative niches are limited and the competition is stiff there. Some of these niches are swamped and require new players in them to think way well out of the box.
Video Contents that Generate Affiliate Revenue
The truth is that there are almost infinite ways and formats you can use to create your affiliate videos. Your best bet is to look for formats that present the opportunity to promote goods and services via an affiliate link.
In general, each of these video formats has the potential to generate substantial affiliate revenue for marketers. As previously stated, choosing the right niche is equally as important as working with the right affiliate program.
We will observe a few formats that have proven to be very useful and successful over the years on YouTube. These formats can also be applied to affiliate marketing on the platform.
Product Review Videos
Statistically, 62% of consumers reportedly watch reviews online every single time they make a purchase. Also, 52% of customers are prone to purchase a product that has been featured in a YouTube product review video.
This simply translates to lots of viewers potentially clicking on your affiliate links. This in turn increases your chances of earning some nice chunks of affiliate commissions.
The trick to this is that; the affiliate selects a product to focus on and creates a comprehensive guide into the product. By creating detailed content of a product, you stand out from the crowd. Provide the complex and minute details; provide the pros and cons of such a product. And if there are shortcomings of the product, assert yourself as a professional.
By creating a review video on a single product, you get to talk more about the product rather than coupling numerous products together.
To summarize, product review video contents rake in a high and healthy dose of conversion. Simply be the expert and link to awesome affiliate programs for maximum earnings.
Unboxing Videos
Next to product review is user experience and unboxing videos. This type of content simply documents how other users felt when they received their product. When it comes to affiliate marketing, it is regarded as one of the simplest pieces of content to create.
It entails an affiliate literally removing a product from its packaging and explaining to the audience what they encounter as they unbox. Don’t forget that users often view new products from a highly choreographed marketing advert. An unboxing video allows users to view such a product without the effects of marketing appeals.
The affiliate is just like everyone else. Only this time, they share their experience and excitement with millions of viewers. By creating unboxing videos, you can appeal to the physic of viewers and inspire them to purchase the product.
Unboxing videos are becoming more and more popular by the hour and have continued to baffled tech journalists. It brings along an element of excitement and a positive vibe when done in an entertaining manner.
How-to guides
This type of video is the perfect example of videos that can be informative and educative as well as serving as means of recommending products.
Creating quality content with links to the products demonstrated is one of the most efficient ways to be an affiliate marketer. It’s all up to the affiliate’s decision on what products they want to feature, and which affiliate programs they are signed up to.
With this video, affiliates can easily place affiliate links in the description section of the video. To maximize the benefits of this type of video, demonstrate each product in a video separate video.
Viewers of How-to guides consider the presenter as an expert on the product, who is offering insightful information that is valuable to the audience.
Gear lists
Gear list videos are an interesting way of retaining the audience’s attention to see what the next major product will be throughout the whole clip. Just imagine turning into the video the contents on websites such as Wirecutter or The Strategist.
Another plus side to this format is that it allows for the promotion of a number of items in one video. It serves as an all-in-one list of recommended products for a specific topic in one video. Talk about optimizing your content!
Similarly, you can create roundup review posts on your gear list. You could just as easily do round-up videos on other popular niches. The key is to be an expert in whatever niche you chose.
Where to Place Affiliate Links on YouTube?
We’ve learned about some of the types and formats of video content that can drive conversion on YouTube. I am sure your next question is where can I place my affiliate link on YouTube for effective conversion?
To answer that, there are a number of places you can actually place your affiliate links to increase visibility. They include:
The Description
Always, remember to include your affiliate link in the description. It’s also advisable to include a call to action in the video itself. This should always encourage viewers to actually look at the description at some point in your video.
You can place a cloaked affiliate link; a link that is redirected through any domain associated with your YouTube channel. You can also directly place naked affiliate links in your video descriptions.
Pinned Comment and Community tab
You can also safely add affiliate links in the ‘Pinned Comment’ of a video.
The “Community tab” is a good location to add affiliate links. Although it’s quite unpopular and many affiliates don’t use it when it comes to link placement.
If you actively and regularly engage with your subscribers, then this is a great location to place your link.
YouTube End Cards
YouTube End cards are non-intrusive notifications that appear at the top right corner of the video player. Whenever a viewer clicks on the icon, they are shown additional information like a link or a poll.
Using End cards is tricky since you can’t directly link to an affiliate offer from your ‘End cards’. Affiliates can only link to their own website or any other one that is associated with their channel.
YouTube on the other hand provides its users the ability to add up to 5 ‘End cards’ to each video. End cards should be included in addition to linking to the affiliate product in the description.
Note: it’s always a good practice to provide an affiliate disclaimer irrespective of where you place your affiliate link. A simple statement such as; “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post” or “Please note that this post contains affiliate links that provide a commission to me. It is at no additional cost to you”. Disclaimers like this help identify you as an affiliate marketer to any viewer.
Gaining Traffic to your Affiliate Links on YouTube
The next step in our quest to make money via affiliate marketing on YouTube is to drive traffic to your content. Let’s face the facts; traffic is the lifeblood of any affiliate program as they drive conversion rate and eventually your earnings.
Subscribers
Quality content drive subscribers and the best way to get traffic to your affiliate links is to build up a strong subscriber base.
Subscribing to a YouTube channel is a one-time action and after that, it’s up to you to keep them entertained and informed with quality content.
Building a subscriber base is not easy as it takes time and lots of effort. A new channel if properly managed can grow from zero to 100k subscribers within a year and it can also take longer.
Keeping your subscribers has benefits. Every time you release a new video, your subscribers are notified in the YouTube browser interface. They will also receive a notification on their phone through the YouTube mobile app.
Recommended and Related Videos
This has to be the most sort after “ranking position” on YouTube. It is the homepage of the platform.
Basically, your video is placed in front of a potentially large audience. Any channel appearing on the homepage should expect a significant surge in subscribers.
Likewise, the ‘Related videos’ sidebar is another way to drive traffic to your YouTube videos hosting your affiliate links.
These are videos shown to viewers because they are similar to the ones they interact with. But they are from creators the viewer isn’t currently subscribed to.
Getting into any of these two spots is a tough but yet achievable task. Here are some tips to help you:
- Create interesting titles but avoid using clickbait
- Optimize your title, tags, and video description for one keyword
- Consider linking your videos together via overlays or playlists
- Your thumbnails matter – design them with a book cover in mind
- Create engaging video content but keep your total video length around 10 minutes
Keep in mind that the goal of YouTube is for viewers to stick around and click on the ads they display in-between videos. If you capitalize on that and your videos generate enough sessions, with loads of engagement, YouTube will send you more traffic.
The higher the traffic you get, the more chances you get that visitors will click on your affiliate link.
YouTube Organic Search
YouTube organic search uses the same principle as Google search. Needless to say, YouTube is the second biggest search engine, just running shy of her sister company, Google.
To that end, ranking on YouTube can be a good source of targeted traffic to send to your affiliate links containing videos. There are various ranking factors that can help you outrank your competitors:
- Perform keyword research before creating content.
- Use the YouTube search autocomplete.
- Optimize your video description
- Encourage viewers to subscribe, like, comment, and share your videos.
- Increase viewer’s session time by engaging them.
Use other social media
Promote your content well on other platforms. Share it on Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram. You can as well email your affiliate links out or embed them in your blog posts on your website.
Google Organic Search
Google is the parent company of YouTube so they naturally give it preference in the SERPs for a wide range of keywords. One sure way to drive traffic to your YouTube video is to rank it on Google.
Conclusion
You might ask yourself; should I start doing YouTube affiliate marketing? The answer is YES! Considering the fact that video content is now quickly becoming an integral part of affiliate marketing, you as an affiliate cannot afford to overlook this.
Platforms like YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram is making video content more popular and with YouTube leading the way in video sharing, you are bound to make some cool cash from it. Presently, it makes total sense to start a YouTube channel in conjunction with an affiliate website. This helps you diversify your monetization and gives you adequate control over your earnings.
The key to success is to not get overwhelmed. Keep your targets realistic and be consistent. Always offer informative and quality information on the products you feature in your videos. Be relatable and honest, this will earn you the respect of viewers.
The truth is that affiliate marketing is a vastly competitive space and YouTube isn’t excluded from that competition. But by offering quality, and highly valued information with links to well-reviewed products, you’ll earn commissions and grow your affiliate marketing business. Always produce awesome content and your viewers will likely return to view your next recommendation.
