This question comes from Scott, who says, “I’d want to try my hand at some affiliate promotions and have chosen an ebook to promote.” I’ve heard that your affiliate promotions work best when you email your list, but I’m not sure if I should email that affiliate link or lead them to my own site where I review the ebook. I’d appreciate your advice on how to advertise an affiliate product.
This is a wonderful topic from Scott, and I’d want to address it today by providing some insight into when you should perform each of the alternatives he suggests.
Read more:
What is an affiliate promotion?
If you’re thinking, “What is an affiliate promotion?” read my post 12 Tips for Affiliate Marketing for a solid introduction. Affiliate marketing is the most popular method our ProBlogger readers tell us they make money; it’s one of my key income streams and one I recommend you investigate as one of your first if you’re thinking about monetizing your blog.
The simplest way to describe affiliate marketing is that you as a publisher get compensated for advertising another company’s product or service by receiving a commission when someone clicks on a link on your blog and then purchases anything.
What Links to Use in Your Emails?
Today, I’d want to discuss where the links should point when you send an affiliate product promotion email to your list.
If you’re marketing an affiliate product in an email to your list, do you:
a) Distribute the affiliate link, which points straight to the product creator’s sales website.
b) Create a blog article on that product and include a link to it in your email?
There are some compelling reasons to choose either strategy.
Affiliate Link direct to Sales Page
The following are the reasons why you should consider utilizing an affiliate link that links straight to the product’s sales page:
It brings your reader closer to clicking the add to cart button. It can be used to delete a click if desired. If you send visitors directly from your email to the product sales page, you avoid the need for an intermediary page. That always raises the likelihood of them adding that product to their cart and checking out. Work completed.
When the sales page is good – well-designed, well-optimized, and with strong calls to action – it is more likely to convert, thus your duty is to direct your reader/potential customer to the sales page.
If we don’t need to conduct a lot of pre-selling in the email we’re sending out. If we’re sending out an email and we believe the sales page sells the product itself, we’ll generally simply send a brief email saying, “Look, you can get all the details here,” and then give them the link.
Last year is an illustration of this. Every year, we run a ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ promotion on Digital Photography School. We were offering a course that we had previously marketed, we knew it converted our audience, and the sales page was just wonderful as one of the promotions we ran throughout those 12 days.
The sales page had a wonderful video, well-written material, and effectively marketed the goods. We knew it was a good fit for our readers, and we knew that all we had to do was get our readers to view that page, and a good number of them would buy that product. I had no reservations about connecting straight to that sales page. Because the sales page itself did such a terrific job, there was no need to provide a link to a blog post that subsequently defined what the product was and everything. This is my ideal situation.
Alternatively, if we conduct the pre-selling in the email itself and there isn’t much else to convert, we may drive clients directly to the sales page.
Link to Your Own Blog
There are situations when you should redirect users away from that landing page and toward another location, ideally your own blog:
If you’re advertising a product with a sales page you don’t believe does a good job of selling the product.
For example, I’m not going to identify the product, but I recall promoting one a few years ago on Digital Photography School. It was a digital book. The ebook was fantastic; it was a wonderful fit for our demographic, and the product itself was fantastic; but, the individual who wrote the ebook was a better ebook writer than a marketer. As I glanced at their landing page, I said to myself, “No, I’m not convinced this page is going to sell this product very successfully.” I might need to do a little more pre-selling on the goods.” Instead of directing my visitors to the landing page, I posted a product review on my blog. That review served as its own landing page. In the review, I discussed who the product would be ideal for, and what it was about, and went over some of the ebook’s sections. I believe I even utilized a screenshot or two from the ebook with the author’s permission. I displayed the table of contents and discussed the book’s virtues and cons (naturally, there were more positives than cons). This review piece served as a landing page as well as a testimonial of sorts. People were ready to buy by the time they clicked the affiliate link to get to the sales page. The landing page didn’t need to persuade them all that much. If anything, it would definitely dissuade them because the design wasn’t the best, but ideally, my review warmed them up enough to acquire that product that they didn’t pay much attention to the landing page itself.
If you believe a review will help sell the product.
Sometimes the sales page is excellent, but you believe your readers would respond more if you go into greater detail about the product. This is something I’ve done a little bit on ProBlogger over the years, where I might provide a walk-through of how I use a tool that I’m also an affiliate for on ProBlogger. Now, the reason I would do that instead of directing them right to the affiliate link is that I believe that demonstrating the product and how I use it would increase the likelihood that they will purchase it as well.
This can be a really good way to promote an affiliate product. This shows that you genuinely use the product and gives your readers some tips on how to use it themselves, which will be helpful to them.
If you’re going to advertise that product over time using a variety of different emails, If I’m marketing a truly fantastic course, program, or ebook, I might perform a multi-pronged campaign promotion.
Instead of just sending them an email and stating, “Buy this stuff. This is a fantastic product,” I could send them two or three emails over the course of two or three weeks. Each email will be treated differently.
First email: Introduces the product and the offer to my target audience.
I constantly make an effort to secure special discounts for my readers. That email may say something like, “Here’s this ebook. I’ve arranged for 50% off and this bonus for you.” That may be all I do in that ebook. Of course, I’ll explain what it is and some of its characteristics, but that’s about it.
Second email (a week later): “Here’s a product review.”
They’ve already heard about this product, and many people have undoubtedly purchased it – our quick-thinking readers, the individuals who buy everything we recommend because they trust us. However, another group of readers will be interested in learning more. They want to hear the benefits and disadvantages, consider the options, and maybe witness it in action.
Alternatively, we interview the product’s inventor and publish the results as a blog post.
Alternatively, we ask the author of that ebook or the developer of that product to create a guest post for us to publish on the blog. The second email may just link to that review, interview, or guest piece, or it could do both. “Hey, as a reminder, here’s this product we’re promoting,” it may say. It’s a bargain for you. You might also be interested in our review.” That email might include links for both those who just trust your suggestion and those who wish to learn more.
Third email (week 3): final opportunity reminder
“Forty-eight hours till this bargain expires,” for example. Again, this would go directly to the landing page.
You can see there that a multi-pronged campaign will communicate different things over time, and there is a time and a place inside that campaign for linking to different destinations.
In Summary
For me, it’s really about looking at the product, looking at the landing page that you’re given as an affiliate, and determining whether that landing page will sell that product well to your audience or whether you, getting involved in the middle and adding that extra click into the process—which is risky in some ways—is worth it. If that extra click increases the likelihood of customers purchasing those goods, I believe it is worthwhile to include that extra click.
Ideally, you want as few clicks as possible between when you send your email and when they click “Purchase,” but occasionally an extra click will put your readers in a better position to make that purchase.
