Make Money from Your GradBlog with Affiliate Marketing

In addition to offering your own products or services, sharing the efforts of others can be a profitable way to monetize your GradBlog. It is often referred to as passive income as you don’t have to work or administer a product or service to earn from it.

Affiliate marketing is when you earn commissions from promoting products or services. 

These commissions are offered by the seller to preselected promoters and are not directly paid for by the purchaser. Most affiliate programs will pay promoters for sending traffic through a specific link but each has their own requirements and responsibilities.

Your first responsibility, of course, is to your own audience. Honour this by clearly disclosing your relationship with the seller. Not only is this regulated for American audiences by the Federal Trade Commission, this authenticity can lend weight to your recommendations. 

Why should someone have to face your trials when you can tell them about a tool that helped you overcome those hurdles?

Another way to honour your audience is to promote those products and services you use or support yourself. Doing so will allow you to speak from your own experience and point of view and may actually benefit your audience. 

Tip: Further demonstrate authenticity by supporting products and services that you don’t have an affiliate relationship with, too. 

Finding affiliate opportunities in the most likely of places. 

One of the most common affiliate marketing opportunities is Amazon. With so many products available on their site, it should be easy to earn advertising fees. They are a well-known and trusted brand and, here at GradBlogger, we use GeniusLink to tap into links for international markets. 

However, for any affiliate program to work you need someone willing to click and buy. Amazon Affiliates will terminate your membership in the program without the requisite traffic. Other programs are a little more forgiving. The point being: don’t put all your affiliate eggs in one basket.

Begin by looking for affiliate opportunities with those organizations you use on a regular basis. 

Did you know that even WalMart offers an affiliate program? So does Target. And Staples.

Start by creating a list of those businesses, products, and services that you use on a regular basis. Finding their affiliate program can be as easy as a web search. These can include your web hosting service, website plugins, software, email marketing services and more.

Some businesses choose to use an affiliate platform instead of building their own program. These platforms, such as ShareaSale or Clickbank,  provide a one-stop-shop for marketers and affiliates.

You can also find another source of affiliate income by endorsing brands and companies, often called influencer or referral marketing. This may come about as a simple referral to a trusted collaborator who thanks you with a gift card to your favourite coffee shop. Some brands will approach you with gifts or a financial exchange for product demonstrations. You may also approach brands to pitch a relationship, trading your audience’s attention for the chance to use the company’s products or services. 

Become a trusted source with a wealth of knowledge.

As mentioned, to be successful in affiliate marketing, you need someone willing to click and buy. That means earning trust, driving traffic, and providing value.

• Provide value by choosing your promotions wisely and communicating how much the product or service can enhance your home or work life.  
• Drive traffic by sharing your love on all of your available media – it isn’t enough to write a simple blog post so be sure you are using tools such as email, social media, audio and video to send your audience back to your blog and/or the product or service.
• Earn trust by being transparent in your business relationship and your use of the product or service (which loops right back into providing value!) 

Tip: We share our favourite resources on our Resource page, many of which are affiliate links.

If you’re uncertain about the legalities of affiliate marketing and your online presence in your country, find a lawyer in your area who understands online business. They will be able to assist you with all the necessities as well as your Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions of Use for your website. We recommend Corinne Boudreau for Canadian GradBloggers. 

In reviewing this article, it becomes obvious that passive income does actually require work. Yet, the work is not as constant as providing services or as rigorous as creating your own programs or products. Affiliate marketing does allow you to diversify your income which is a benefit to any GradBlogger.

Where have you found success in affiliate marketing? Have we missed any important tips for those new to the field? Please share your stories in the comments section below.