50 Sharp Affiliate Marketing Tips And Tricks To Skyrocket Your Sales

Not all affiliate marketing tips and tricks will increase your online revenue.

Testing different affiliate marketing hacks when you’re just starting is part of the process of becoming a true marketer.

Once you pass the dreadful newbie phase, though, looking into affiliate marketing pro tips is unavoidable.

Affiliate marketing is a billion-dollar industry.

Cutting a bigger piece of such a lucrative pie should be your end goal month after month.

But how do you do that?

Starting with affiliate marketing on the right foot helps, but it’s nowhere near enough.

Then what is?

Implementing tried and tested affiliate marketing strategies that work without fail.

This article contains affiliate links – see my disclosure.

Is Affiliate Marketing Still Profitable In 2021?

Well, I’ve just mentioned that it’s a billion-dollar industry.

However, that statement is a bit too broad.

Working with specific numbers is second nature for every professional affiliate marketer.

Let’s do that, shall we?

At the end of 2019, affiliate marketing was worth over 16 billion dollars.

Compared to the previous years, you’re looking at a growth of a staggering 10%.

Why do I talk about 2019 and not about 2020?

Here is why:

If the affiliate marketing revenue is growing by 10% until 2020, can you imagine how much is growing right now?

Ever since the whole world has to adapt to a new life that is mostly happening at home, online shopping has reached a level that has never been touched before.

In short, there is no better time to become an affiliate marketer than right now.

Seeing the affiliate marketing trends 2021 will convince you even further:

While no one can say what the numbers will be at the end of 2021, it’s a sure bet that they’ll surpass the ones from 2020 – to say at least.

Numbers don’t lie – they never do.

And affiliate marketing is far from dead – no matter how hard some people are trying to convince you otherwise.

How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Earn?

Look at you, wondering about numbers and already going into the right mindset of a real affiliate marketer!

The average income of affiliate marketers worldwide vary.

I know that’s not what you would like to read, but it’s the truth.

Some marketers make a couple of dollars each month, others earn thousands, and some people earn six figures.

Many factors come into play here.

For example, how long a person has been doing affiliate marketing, their level of expertise, how hard they’re working, etc.

When you’re just getting into the field, you can’t expect to earn tons of money overnight.

At first, I was making $130 per month!

Affiliate marketing is a valid business model with enormous income potential.

But you can’t approach it as a get-rich-quick scheme.

That will set you for disappointment, and it’s one of the most common mistakes many newbie marketers make.

With that said, if you want to see numbers, there you go:

According to PayScale, affiliate marketers earn over $50,000 per year on average.

Keep in mind – this is a stream of passive income, otherwise known as money earned while you sleep.

How To Do Affiliate Marketing For Beginners

Before I share with you my list of affiliate marketing tips and tricks that will increase your sales, let’s clarify a few things first.

There is more than one way to do affiliate marketing.

Two of the most popular ones are by creating a website and by not having one.

Many beginner marketers are going for the second option.

By escaping all the hassle of starting a blog, they focus their whole effort on the promoting part.

This affiliate marketing strategy has plenty of advantages.

Concentrating on working as a marketer without becoming a blogger certainly makes the job as easy as it can get.

If that’s what you would like to do, the learning curve will definitely be much shorter.

Programs like 12 Minute Affiliate will teach you how to start earning over $400 per day in affiliate income without a blog.

While this way of doing affiliate marketing is easier, it’s not the best solution if you want to be a lifelong affiliate marketer.

Meaning, if you’re serious about earning six figures from affiliate commissions, you’ll need your own platform.

Why is that necessary?

Well, because if you start a site and develop it further, you’ll own your audience.

You’ll never have to depend on platforms you can’t control to bring you traffic – you’ll be able to do that on your own.

Affiliate Marketing Tips And Tricks – 50 Strategies To Skyrocket Your Sales

OK, we have a lot to cover, so we better get started.

A quick heads-up first:

All affiliate marketing hacks I’m about to share are strategies that work for me and my business.

Without knowing the type of business you have or the way you do affiliate promotions, I can’t guarantee all of them will work well for you too.

At the same time, most of these affiliate marketing pro tips are universal, so there will be no harm in trying them out.

1) Research Your Competition

To find success as a marketer, doing research must not be something you do from time to time.

Instead, it has to become a habit.

One of the most beneficial affiliate strategies I’ve learned is to research my competitors constantly.

Think about it – what will bring you better results?

Sitting down, brainstorming content ideas, and trying to imagine what your audience is interested in buying?

Or finding out what affiliate offers are bringing the most money to the bloggers in your niche?

You don’t have to read every article from every marketer who attracts the same audience.

Focus on the biggest and most successful players in your field instead.

Spend time on their websites and take notes:

• What products are they promoting?
• Where do they place affiliate links through the post?
• How many affiliate links do you see in a single article?

Eventually, you’ll notice a repeating path.  Use it as a blueprint when you’re creating affiliate-heavy content.

Pro Tip:

Reading blog income reports helps a lot.  Many bloggers like to share the amount of money they’re making each month.

Having access to this data will assist you when trying to decide what affiliate offers you should promote next.

2) Find Out What Social Media Channel Your Competitors Drive Traffic From

That’s probably the easiest one of all affiliate marketing tips and tricks you can master.

While doing your research of affiliate revenue sources, keep tabs on the Social Sharing icons of your competitors as well.

More often than not, you’ll be able to see specific numbers.

Pay attention to where that particular post is shared the most:

• Does the article have thousands of shares on Pinterest?
• Is Twitter the main source of social shares for that blogger?
• What the numbers look like on Facebook?

Why does that matter?

If a blogger promotes the same products as you do and that blogger reaches a large audience on one Social Media channel, that’s where you’ll need to grow a presence as well.

After all, if their content is performing the best in this one place, your content promoting similar offers will do too.

Maybe your competitor is kicking ass on Pinterest, and you haven’t created an account there yet?

Now is the time to learn how to drive traffic from Pinterest.

You can always change your direction once you start making a solid affiliate income.

3) Start Growing A Business Presence On One Social Media At First

What if your biggest competitors are equally popular on more than one Social Media platform?

Shouldn’t you try to grow your business everywhere as well?

No, you shouldn’t.  At least, not just yet.

Don’t compare yourself to people who have become marketers long before you have.

As a newbie affiliate, you’ll have plenty to do about your promotions and not enough time.

Instead of wasting hours to chase shares on every Social Media, put your effort into what matters the most:

Improving your affiliate marketing skills, choosing valuable products to promote, writing better copy, etc.

Trying to conquer every Social Media channel is a time-consuming process that won’t deliver the best return for your effort.

That’s why it’s better to focus on one Social Media platform for now and increase brand awareness there.

Once your affiliate income becomes a passive one, you can look for a new audience elsewhere.

4) Discover Which Posts Are Driving The Most Organic Traffic For Your Competitors

Quite frankly, this is one of the affiliate marketing tips and tricks I wish I’ve known about earlier.

Being aware of how beneficial using one free tool is will make such a difference for every newbie marketer.

I’m talking about Ubersuggest.

When you run a site’s homepage address through this tool, you’ll get instant access to tons of useful info.

The one I want you to look into is Top SEO Pages.

It will show you which articles are driving the most organic traffic to the site you’re researching.

Why do you need to know that?

Chances are, some of those posts will be product reviews, promoting the very same offers you’re planning to promote yourself.

Knowing that these articles are driving thousands of pageviews is priceless information you should use to the best of your advantage.

And that brings me to the next tip:

5) Learn To Outrank The Competition

To be fair, outranking your competition is incredibly hard to achieve when you’re site is still relatively new.

Your blog’s DA (Domain Authority) is probably low, and Google is not paying much attention to your business yet.

Still, you need to try to outrank your competitors.

Let’s have a look at a likely scenario you might be facing right now:

An article from a competitor of yours is currently sitting at page 1, position 1-3 on Google, ranking for its respective keyword.

This article drives thousands of pageviews to the site monthly (sometimes even daily).

What can you do to push this post out of your way and place your own in its place?

Basically, there are many things you can do to achieve your goal.

The one I would like you to consider is Brian Dean’s strategy – the Skyscraper Technique.

A Skyscraper Technique is a strategy to outrank your competition by writing a much better piece of content.

You’ll target the same keyword as your competitor has, and you’ll create an article that is better by all counts.

For example, you’ll make your post longer, much more detailed, and you’ll cover topics your competitor hasn’t.

Brian will explain the process much better than me, so I strongly encourage you to learn from him.

With that said, let’s talk about the other way to outrank your competition:

6) Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

While Brian’s strategy is brilliant, it’s not the only technique you should rely on to reach great rankings.

Even if you decide not to use the Skyscraper Technique, you can still rank higher on the search engines than your competitors.

And you’ll achieve that once you master the art of SEO.

What is SEO?

It’s the process of optimizing your content in a way that will increase your blog’s visibility online.

Make no mistake, developing and improving SEO skills is a hard, long, and complicated process.

However, there is no way around it.

Getting your site more visible in the search results will help you drive more traffic to its pages.  More traffic will improve your chances for affiliate sales.

Here are some of the SEO skills you’ll need to master:

• Researching and understanding the competition (we already covered a big part of that)
• Optimizing your website
• Learning how to do keyword research
• Publishing content on a regular basis
• Understanding how to use Google Analytics
• Link building

I know – it looks like a lot, and it most definitely is.

I suggest joining this incredible teaching platform that will help you learn for free.

7) Interlink Related Content

Since I’ve just mentioned building backlinks, let’s talk about another SEO technique – interlinking your articles.

In case you’re a complete beginner, interlinking is when you connect a blog post to other relevant posts on your site.

To clarify, keeping Google happy is not the only reason you should often revise your content and do more internal linking.

No, there is another reason – one that makes more sense for you as a marketer.

It may be hard to see it now, but interlinking is one of the most powerful affiliate marketing tips and tricks ever.

How will interlinking improve your odds of earning affiliate commissions?

I’ll answer this question with another question:

Have you read an article that leads you to another article –  and you end up buying something you weren’t planning to buy in the first place?

Personally, I have no idea how many times I found myself in such a situation.

So, what do we have here?

We have smart marketers making affiliate sales from people who had no intention of buying at first.

Those people end up spending money just because the marketer was clever enough to lead them to more content relevant to their original search.

8) Regularly Update Your Content

As you already know, interlinking is quite beneficial for every affiliate marketer.

Do you know what’s even more beneficial?

Updating and improving your older content.

This affiliate marketing strategy will work best for bloggers who have a decent amount of articles published.

I started updating my content when I had 60 blog posts. But you can begin with fewer than that.

How updating your older content will increase your affiliate sales?

It’s pretty simple, actually:

When you’re just starting to blog, you don’t know much about SEO.

Subsequently, many of your articles are probably nowhere near the first page of the search engines.

After gaining SEO skills and implementing them while updating previous posts, you’ll be able to:

• rank for many other keywords than the core one
• build backlinks from authority sites to that post
• interlink it with more related content

If you do it properly, updating your content will not go unnoticed by Google.

Your articles will start ranking much better than they did before.

Better rankings = more traffic = more affiliate sales!

9) Republish Content

Updating older content has to happen at some point in your blogging journey – you already know that.

Once you master this technique, eventually you’ll have to get busy with a new one – republishing content.

What republishing content means?

Well, it means that you’ll upload the article you’ve just updated with a new date.

Why do you have to do that?

Can’t you just stick to updating blog posts and keeping their original publishing date?

You can, but it’s not that effective.

Google loves fresh content.  

A brand new content will deliver the latest and most up-to-date information to the readers.

Republishing content will boost your organic traffic a lot.

Keep in mind – the articles have to be at least one year old.

Some bloggers do it at the six-month mark, but I prefer to give it a bit more time.

Also, the change to the blog post you’re ready to republish has to be significant if your want this strategy to work.

For example, you should make it longer, take new screenshots, write a new meta description, etc.

10) Delete Low-Performing Or Outdated Content

Most newbie bloggers are terrified of the thought of hitting the delete button.

Honestly, I was too.

But at some point, you’ll have to do it.

Why do you have to delete low-performing content?

Because Google will rank your website based on its overall performance and not on a single article.

Meaning, even if some of your blog posts are ranking pretty well, the ones that don’t will pull your whole business back.

When it’s necessary to delete content?

In my experience, you’ll have to delete articles when they:

• target keyword that doesn’t make any sense
• won’t rank no matter how many times you’ve updated them
• don’t make sense for your niche or your target audience

Maybe you have a review of a product that doesn’t exist anymore?

Then hitting the delete button is unavoidable.

Now, what’s the best way to go about deleting your content?

You’ll have to use your best judgment here.

You can create a new article that is well-optimized, targets a similar keyword, and publish it.

Then delete the old one and redirect it to the new one.

Or you can just redirect to a relevant piece of content.

Pro Tip:

Always check your Google Search Console first to make sure the article doesn’t have any backlinks.

If it has, don’t delete it.

11) Delete Zombie Pages

Deleting zombie pages is one of the affiliate marketing tips and tricks I borrowed from some of the biggest marketers these days.

What is a zombie page?

It’s a page that no longer delivers any value to your business or your audience.

For example, a zombie page is a page you don’t display on your blog anymore because you’ve created a better one.

Also, it could be a page that leads to an outdated or expired webinar, landing, or sign-up page.

I can personally guarantee that getting rid of zombie pages will have a positive influence on your traffic and, therefore, on your affiliate sales.

As soon as I’ve learned this strategy, I deleted all of my zombie pages.

In the next couple of days, my organic traffic spiked by 20%.

Was that a coincidence?

Quite frankly, I don’t think so.

12) Regularly Check Your Website For 404 Errors

With all this talk about deleting content, it seems like a good time to discuss 404 errors.

Again, deleting low-performing posts, and pages will increase your visibility online.

But you have to handle it properly.

What happens if you don’t?

Then, you’ll fill your blog with 404 errors and that’s the last thing you want to see happening to your business.

Why you can’t afford 404 errors:

Generally, when readers click links on your site and arrive at 404 errors, you’re delivering an awful user experience for them.

Chances are, you might lose them forever.

Broken links affect the flow of link equity on your blog, and that will cost you rankings.

The good news is, you can take care of that problem by checking for 404 errors regularly.

Use the Dead Link Checker to identify broken links on your site and fix them immediately.

13) Design A Professional Website

So far, we mostly talked about the work you should be doing inside your blog.

And what about the work you need to do on the outside?

Should you work on that at all?  Does it really matter what your site looks like?

Yes, it matters – big time.

You’re probably wondering what your blog design has to do with your ability to earn affiliate commissions.

Here is what:

A professional website is a crucial ingredient you must add to the mix to achieve the ultimate marketing goal – great user experience and the reader’s trust.

People don’t buy from individuals they don’t trust. Likewise, they won’t trust your business if your site:

• looks spammy
• takes forever to load
• goes offline every other day

Designing a professional blog is especially important for affiliate marketers.

You want people to see you as an expert, turn your business into a brand, and become an authority online?

Then start working towards this goal by designing a professional website.

With that said, you don’t have to spend that much to achieve your goal.

In the beginning, invest in top-notch hosting and a premium website theme.

• DreamHost – an excellent hosting company that will get you the right features for your blog.  Even the most basic plan will get the job done, and it will cost you less than $5 per month.
• Thrive Themes – premium themes that will increase your conversion rate.  As an affiliate marketer, that’s what I care about, and that’s why I’m using Thrive Themes on my site.

14) Design Your Site With Your Target Audience In Mind

In my opinion, this is the most overlooked of all affiliate marketing tips and tricks you’ll ever read.

But it matters quite a lot.

Creating a professional blog is a must – we’ve already established that.

Now, we need to take the conversation up a notch and discuss the connection between design and the target audience.

How will your design affect the way your readers react to your business?

Here is how:

When you’re trying to attract readers, you don’t need just any readers.

Instead, you want visitors that are most likely to make a purchase based on your recommendation.

To see this happening, your readers must feel like they are at the right place to solve their problems as soon as they land on your site.

Alright, what can you do to achieve that?

Ultimately, you need to know who are the people you’re trying to convert from readers into buyers.

Are they stay-at-home moms?  Then use relevant images and warm colors.

Maybe you’re targeting teenage girls who are interested in make-up?

Great, go with age-appropriate photos that will speak to them.

I’m sure you’re getting the idea already.

15) Constantly Make Improvements On Your Site

Having a cool-looking and professional website is just one step in the right direction for affiliate marketers.

What other steps should you be taking?

Well, there are plenty of things you can do to increase the results of your business.

Making improvements on your blog is the best way I can explain the majority of them.

What do I mean by making improvements?

Depending on the type of business you’re building, improving it will entail different actions from marketers.

Still, here are a couple of ideas that will work for everyone:

• test placing your affiliate links in different parts of your articles and landing pages if they don’t convert well
• add videos where possible
• reduce the number of popups (if you have too many)
• have an exit-intent popup that is about your main affiliate offer – this is a tested strategy that will work more than well

Keep in mind – this is a long-term project and not something you need to finish overnight.

Work on it every time you find a free minute.

Most importantly, do a lot of testing until you discover what works the best for your business.

16) Create Videos

Since I’ve just touched on the subject of videos, allow me to elaborate further on it.

You can’t call yourself a marketer if you don’t know that YouTube is the second biggest search engine.

Are you taking advantage of this fact?

If you’re not, now is the time to start.

Why do you need to create videos and upload them on YouTube?

Firstly, because millions of people are searching for content by typing queries into YouTube’s search box daily.

Not providing videos to satisfy some of those searches is a missed opportunity for an unbelievable amount of traffic.

Secondly, engaging with your audience in the comments section of your videos will advance your marketing efforts further.

Helping people solve their problems will increase your affiliate sales – YouTube will allow you to place links in your video’s description.

Lastly, you can monetize your business with a new income stream by adding ads to your content.

Once you develop your channel and gain the necessary number of subscribers, you’re good to go.

Starting a YouTube channel doesn’t have to be an intimidating experience.

It doesn’t have to be an expensive one either:

There are many editing programs like iMovie you can use free of charge.

And if you’re camera-shy, you can still make it on YouTube.

Showing your face is not mandatory.  Plus, products like Speechelo will turn your text into voiceovers.

So, you don’t even have to do the talking yourself!

17) Always Have A Click-Worthy Headline

OK, it’s time for my affiliate marketing tips and tricks to cover what many people consider details.

First and foremost, crafting a clickable headline is anything but a detail.

It’s not a secret that 60% of the blogging labor goes into creating the article’s title before the writing process begins.

Why do bloggers work so hard on their headlines?

Because they know that getting people to read their content will win half of the marketing battle for them.

Of course, that won’t matter if the content you’re offering is mediocre at best.

But if you combine a high-quality piece of content with a super clickable title, you’ll get the pageviews.

With that said, mastering the art of creating click-worthy headlines takes time.

Running your ideas through a Headline Optimizer will assist you through the process.

18) Focus On Publishing Helpful Content

Quite frankly, this is probably one of all my affiliate tips and tricks that may seem redundant.

I mean, helping the audience is what every affiliate marketer is doing, right?

While that may be true, not all marketers go about it in the right way.

To be successful at affiliate marketing, you always have to work by a simple rule:

Being helpful comes first – making a sale comes second.

You’ll be surprised how many marketers operate in what seems to be the other way around.

When you’re genuinely trying to help your readers solve their problems, it will affect the way you write your content.

Your articles will feel more natural and less sales-oriented.

That’s what your visitors need, and that’s what they’ll appreciate.

More importantly, having the reader’s respect will make that person open to your product’s recommendation.

In other words, by being truly helpful, you’re removing the roadblocks on your path to earning affiliate commissions.

19) Create Engaging Content

As you already know, publishing helpful content is the primary goal of affiliate marketers.

However, being helpful is not the only characteristic you should care about where the quality of your content is at stake.

On the contrary, being engaging is equally important.

Why writing engaging content matters?

Because no one wants to read a blog post that sounds like a history lesson.

How do you write content your readers will find engaging?

There are many things you can do about that.

Such as:

• write as you talk to a friend – show the audience that there is a real person from flesh and blood behind the words.
• be transparent – let your readers know if you’re using affiliate links.
• share personal experience – you don’t have to share more than you’re comfortable sharing.
• show your face – hiding your true identity doesn’t command trust.  Add at least one photo of yours on your about page, so your readers will know who is talking to them.

Pro Tip:

Never finish an article without addressing your audience in your final words.

Ask them to leave you a comment and share their opinion of your work.

Everything that will keep the conversation going will result in an engaged audience.

20) Learn To Write A Powerful And Well-Structured Product Review

One of the most common affiliate marketing tips and tricks is to publish many product reviews.

This piece of advice is still relevant today.  In my opinion, it always will be.

Why should affiliate marketers focus on creating product reviews?

Nowadays, people think of product reviews as personal recommendations.  That’s what makes them the most effective form of content.

More often than not, shoppers take the time to read a product’s review before buying it.

Ultimately, when a reader checks a product’s review, that reader is at the end of the purchasing cycle.

Meaning, the reader is already familiar with the product, believes that it will solve a problem, and does one last check.

To sum up, that reader is one step away from making a purchase.

And that’s where you need that person to be.

How to write a powerful review that will convert?

Here are a couple of ideas:

• use the product first, so you’ll have an insight look into its qualities
• do plenty of research and cover everything the reader has to know about the product
• don’t just mention the advantages but the disadvantages as well
• add data to support your opinion
• offer alternatives

Don’t skip the last point – offering alternatives will increase your credibility in the audience’s eyes.

Not to mention, it will make you look less eager to make a sale.

Pro Tip:Publish not only product reviews but list-type of articles as well.

After all, lists are an extended form of product reviews.

But instead of reviewing one product, you’ll be offering information about 10, 20, and even more.

That will multiply your chances of making sales.

21) Conclude Your Product Review With A Take-Home Message

Chances are, you might already know that, but let me mention it just in case:

The last paragraph of your product review matters a lot.

Writing down something like “this is it for today” won’t make enough of an impact.

Instead, make sure that you end your content on a powerful note.

Your final paragraph should be the place where you:

• speak your mind without any filter
• share your honest opinion about the product
• encourage your readers to ask you questions, or leave you a comment

Pro Tip:

Words like “free of charge” and “try today” can do wonders for your affiliate offers.

Don’t forget to place them not only in your last paragraph but through your the article body as well.

22) Learn To Write With Intent

By all means, being able to write with intent is one of the most valuable skills an affiliate marketer can develop.

What writing with intent mean?

It means what you think it does:

Before starting an article, you need to know why you want to publish it.

In short, what are you hoping to achieve with this particular piece of content?

Are you working on it because it will:

• bring you a large amount of traffic?
• make you affiliate sales?
• get you more email subscribers?
• all of the above?

No matter what your reasons are, you need to know them from the start.

This way, you’ll have a clear vision of how to construct your post and present it to your audience.

23) Publish “Recommended Resources” Page

The next in line of affiliate marketing tips and tricks that work well for me is having a recommendation page.

Basically, this is a page where you’ll collect all of the tools and resources you use on your blog.

You can include anything that helped you build your business and develop it further.

For instance, write about your:

• hosting service
• website theme
• blogging/affiliate marketing courses you’ve taken
• plugins
• email service provider

Depending on what you’re using to run your business, the entries will vary.

Why having a recommended resources page matters?

Because each link that will lead your readers to the tools you’re talking about will be an affiliate one.

Needless to say, you’ll earn affiliate commissions just by adding such a page to your blog.

24) Use Tools To Increase Your Affiliate Sales

As you gain more experience and develop marketing skills, your affiliate income will increase over time.

But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to boost it constantly as much as you possibly can.

After doing affiliate marketing for a couple of years now, I know this for a fact:

Most people earning a full-time income as affiliates are using professional tools in their working process.

Why do you need tools to advance your affiliate marketing business?

Well, because it will give you a huge advantage that will place you in a better position compared to your competitors.

Some tools will allow you to be the first to know when a highly profitable affiliate program appears.

Others will notify you what exclusive products will launch next month.

Having access to such information will help you create effective marketing campaigns faster than anyone else.

On that note, I suggest looking into these two tools – Niche Marketing Kit and Affiliate Bots.

Both are very effective marketing tools that will boost your affiliate earnings.  Plus, they are more than affordable.

25) Believe In The Product You’re Going To Promote

Alright, here is where my affiliate tips and tricks will get into the serious stuff!

Promoting only products you trust seems like such a no-brainer.

Then again, you’ll be surprised by the number of marketers ignoring the number one rule in the affiliate business.

Here is the deal:

Your content, voice, and personality are what will attract a loyal audience at first.

With that said, your credibility and integrity as a marketer are what will keep your visitors coming back to your blog.

That is something you always have to consider when you’re choosing a company to partner with.

Putting your audience before the chance for a sale is what will allow you to achieve your marketing goals.

At the end of the day, your name, brand, and integrity are on the line.

Don’t compromise them for any affiliate payout, no matter how lucrative it may be.

Once lost, your audience’s trust will be gone forever.

So will your chances to earn consistent affiliate commissions.

26) Try The Product Out For Yourself

Trying the product for yourself is a must if you want to promote it effectively.

Having your own experience with it is necessary for so many reasons.

How are you going to write a powerful review if you don’t have an insight look?

Purchasing the products will build your credibility in the eyes of the audience.

Sharing your honest opinion is what your readers will appreciate the most.

Adding images or videos of you testing the product will prove that you know what you’re talking about.

Now, I know that buying every single product you want to promote is not always possible.

If you can’t purchase a product for whatever reason, but you want to promote it, you can still do it.

Research the hell out of that product.   Find every piece of information about it and make sure your sources are credible.

It’s not a perfect situation, but you’ll have to face it from time to time.

27) Choose A Profitable Affiliate Program

Selecting the right affiliate marketing program for your business is not the easiest thing to do.

With so many options available, how are you supposed to make a choice?

There are a couple of guidelines that will point you in the right direction.

Depending on your strengths as a marketer, focus on the affiliate programs that make sense for your niche.

Having enough marketing experience will allow you to influence your audience to the point where you’ll be making sales.

Ideally, you want to join affiliate programs offering high payouts for promoting a valuable product.

Pro Tip:

Look for affiliate programs of products with low competition.

Following this strategy will increase your chances of converting your readers into customers.

28) Select Affiliate Programs Paying Recurring Commissions

Quite frankly, I’m surprised that not too many articles on affiliate marketing tips and tricks are covering recurring commissions.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, in my opinion.

After all, one of the best things about affiliate marketing is that the business model allows for building a passive income stream.

Just think about it:

Working with affiliate programs that pay recurring commissions will put you in a position to make money while you sleep.

To clarify, a recurring affiliate program will keep paying you over a long period of time for a customer you referred once.

While not every affiliate program offers a recurring payout, you can always find at least one that will work for your niche.

29) Create Landing Pages For Your Main Affiliate Campaign

Ask affiliate marketers who have been working in the field for a couple of years, and you’ll hear the same thing:

No matter how many products they promote, most of their marketing efforts go to one main affiliate offer.

In other words, they are trying to influence their audience to purchase one particular product way harder than anything else they’re promoting.

If you don’t know what your main affiliate offer should be yet, just pay attention to your audience.

Sooner or later, you’ll notice which product resonates with your readers the most.

Once you know, create landing pages for that product alone.

Landing pages are tools all marketers use because they know how powerful they are.

A professional and well-executed landing page will boost your sales in a way no product review ever could.

Pro Tip:

Don’t forget to perform A/B testing on your landing pages.

You’ll never know which landing page outperforms the others unless you pit them against each other.

30) Hit A Pain Point

Heads up – this is one of the most important affiliate marketing tips and tricks on my list.

Let’s say that you’re promoting a product you consider perfect for your audience.

Meaning, that product is the best solution to the problems your readers have.

Now, what’s the best way to sell the product to your visitors?

Is it showing the features of the product and how well they work?

Or is it focusing on the problem, amplifying it, and offering the product as a solution?

If you guessed the second option, you’re already a better marketer than you think.

By all means, the key to affiliate success is emphasizing the pain first, then offering the solution later.

How to make sure that you’ll always hit a pain point?

Follow this blueprint:

• remind your readers of the problem – problems are usually painful, that’s why people prefer not to think about them.  Reminding them about the problem is your first step as a marketer.  You can’t sell a solution for a problem people don’t know exists, can you?
• tell your readers how their life will improve once they solve the problem – your second step is about showing the benefits of getting rid of the problem.  Here, you’ll redirect your audience’s attention from the pain to the possibilities.
• sell the solution – if you did a good job with the previous step, people are already visualizing how their life is improving after the problem is solved.  You need to interrupt their daydreaming and remind them that the problem still exists.  Then, you offer the product as a solution.

Follow these steps when you’re creating your affiliate campaigns, and you’ll get your affiliate commissions.

31) Always Voice The Drawbacks Of The Product

As outstanding as the main product you’re promoting might be, it’s not perfect.

We all know there is no such thing.

Therefore, don’t be afraid to show your readers the drawbacks of that product.

One of the most common mistakes newbie marketers make is showing the product in a way more favorable light than it deserves.

OK, this might help you sell it, but what happens when the customer realizes the product is not as good as you made it seem?

Well, your credibility will be damaged in that person’s eyes.

Likewise, you can forget about this reader trusting you ever again.

To avoid this happening to you, be honest when you’re writing product reviews.

Show not only the advantages of the product, but the disadvantages as well.

Let your readers make their purchasing decision freely while having the whole information.

Since people know that every product has its flaws, voicing the drawbacks will convince them to use your affiliate links if they decide to buy it after all.

32) Add Your Own Incentives

One of the most precious affiliate lessons I’ve learned so far is that you can always improve your campaigns.

Even if they’re working remarkably well!

If you would like to implement the same affiliate strategy, I suggest starting with adding your own incentives.

Be as creative as you wish while you’re working on that.

Everyone loves free stuff, so take advantage of this fact.

A well placed incentive will motivate your readers further to buy the product you’re promoting.

With that said, adding incentive to every single article you have might not be possible.

Use your own judgment while choosing which blog posts will benefit from incentives the most.

Pro Tip:

Whatever incentive you’re planning to offer, make sure that it won’t increase the additional cost for your readers.

I’ve seen this happening, and it’s something you should definitely avoid.

33) Tap Your Email List

Since we’re already on this subject, let’s discuss it a bit further.

These days, affiliate marketers are promoting their offers on plenty of channels.

Their email list is one of them – on many occasions, the most important one.

People who subscribe to your email list are your most devoted fans.

They already enjoy your content and are engaging with it.

Marketing your products to them is quite easy at this point.

Considering your subscribers appreciate everything you have to say, selling to them comes with the territory.

If you haven’t started to build an email list yet, you have to do this as soon as possible.

ConvertKit is probably the most beloved email service provider for millions of bloggers.

I’m using it myself, and I chose to go with it mainly because it offers a lot and it’s so easy to work with.

There is a free trial, and you can take advantage of it through this link.

34) Follow-Up A Couple Of Times About Targeted Products

In my opinion, creating smart email campaigns will advance your affiliate marketing career big time.

That’s why we’re still talking about them in this article about affiliate marketing tips and tricks.

Why do you have to follow up more than once about your targeted products?

Because less than 3% of all affiliate sales happen on a first try.

What this basically means is that 97% of your prospects one won’t buy unless you try to market the offer multiple times.

Many experts say that over 70% of their sales are happening after at least five follow-ups.

So, the solution here is simple:

Follow-up about your targeted products a couple of times.

ConvertKit will allow you to create email sequences.

Use this opportunity to follow up with your subscribers for a few days about the affiliate campaign you have going on.

Furthermore, something as simple as sending the same email twice will most likely double your conversion rate.

35) Always Have A Backup Offer

As I’ve previously mentioned, every affiliate marketer needs to focus most of its attention on one main offer.

However, having a backup offer is a must as well.

Why do you need to have a backup offer?

Well, because not everything is in your control.  Since you’re promoting someone else’s product, many things can go wrong at any moment.

Imagine how negatively your affiliate income will be affected if:

• the main product you’re promoting cease to exist
• its value decreases drastically
• a similar but much better product arrives online
• thousands of other affiliates start promoting the same product, and your conversion rate drops

Hopefully, none of this will happen to you any time soon.

But if it does, you need to be prepared.

And the easiest way to do that is to have a backup offer in mind.

For example, let’s say that you’re heavily promoting BigScoots.  You believe that this company offers the best hosting services for bloggers (I share that opinion).

While BigScoots are awesome, it wouldn’t hurt if you are promoting DreamHost as well (another example).

DreamHost is just as good where the quality of web hosting is being concerned.

Being able to promote both of these products will keep your commissions coming in, even if one of the companies suffers a major setback for some reason.

36) Link To Relevant Offers On Thank You Pages

Linking to relevant offers on thank you pages might sound like one of those affiliate marketing tips and tricks that are way overcomplicated.

In reality, it’s not at all.

Think about the process your prospect goes through just to get to your thank you page.

Usually, that person has to enter an email address, confirm it, download your incentive, and then reach your thank you page.

Your prospect must be what’s called a warm lead to go through that much trouble.

So, use it!

Not presenting that person with a relevant affiliate offer will be a huge hit and miss on your part.

Pro Tip:

If you want this strategy to work, the affiliate offer you’re showing has connect to the incentive your prospect has just downloaded.

Pushing products that have nothing in common with your freebie will have the opposite effect.

37) Keep In Mind That Payout Isn’t Everything

All affiliate marketers prefer to work with highly profitable affiliate programs.

Putting tons of time and effort into marketing a campaign has to be worth it, right?

Sometimes, though, promoting a product that offers a huge payout is not the best strategy.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try – I’m saying that you have to do your own research.

Do your best to find out why the program you’re interested in pays so much to its affiliates.

More often than not, you’ll find an answer among these lines:

• the affiliate campaign is highly competitive
• too many marketers are promoting the same offer
• conversion rate is pretty low
• ranking for the targeted keyword is extremely difficult

Long story short, in some situations, it’s OK to promote affiliate programs with low payouts.

It’s better to sell hundreds of products that will earn you $5 each than never selling a product that will earn you $1,000 in a single commission.

Want to make commissions like these?  Read my Free Guide to learn how!

38) Do More Of What’s Working

Above all, this advice is not for newbie affiliates who are just getting into the field.

When you’re just starting, you’ll go through a long process of trial and error.

Once you have plenty of experience, you’ll be able to tell what you’re doing right and wrong.

If you pay close attention to your audience, you’ll see clearly which ones of your marketing campaigns are doing remarkably well.

On that note, you can always check your bank statement and discover which products are bringing you consistent sales.

From there, the path you should be following is clear:

Repeat the campaigns that are already converting, and promote the kind of products your audience is buying the most.

In other words, find out what’s working and do more of it.

39) Invest In Your Business

You have to give money to make money.

Time and again, we all have heard this saying, and we all know how true it actually is.

While you can start a business with little to no money, developing it will require some investments.

It all comes down to how fast do you want to achieve your goals.

Sure, you can always use only free resources to learn the business inside out for free.

Or you can invest in educational courses that will teach you what to do today.

Both strategies can work.

However, the first will take much longer than the second.

With that said, use your own judgment to decide which parts of your business could use investment right now.

Is a premium theme what you can’t do without?

Does your hosting service need an upgrade sooner rather than later?

Maybe you just have to take a specific course that will give you the right insides for the business you’re building?

Whatever it may be, investing in your business is unavoidable.

Here are a couple of courses I find invaluable.  Some of them are costly, but they are worth every penny, in my opinion:

• Super Affiliate System – that course is coming from John Crestani, a self-made millionaire and a household name in the world of affiliate marketing.  It’s expensive, but it’s proven to work by thousands of John’s students.
• 1K A Day Fast Track – it starts with a free webinar, so I suggest you watch at least that.  This training will show you how to start making at least $400 per day in affiliate sales fast.
• Commission Hero – Robby Blanchard teaches here, and he is the number 1 ClickBank affiliate in the world. There is also free training the course begins with.
• Human Proof Designs – not a course, but fully-developed businesses instead.  That company is for everyone who doesn’t want to work hard for years but prefers to invest in an already-developed affiliate marketing business.

40) Learn From Top Affiliates

The last entry on my list of affiliate marketing tips and tricks should not come as a surprise to anyone.

No matter how hard-working and ambitious you might be, you’re still a newbie at the start of your affiliate journey.

As such, you’ll need plenty of guidance on the way.

Learning from top affiliates who are already hugely successful is the smart thing to do.

It’s what I did a couple of years ago, and it’s a decision I would regret.

Especially considering the fact that my mentors have been in the business since 2005 and have made millions from affiliate commissions up until now.

Most importantly, they gave me the opportunity to learn how to develop a successful affiliate business for free.

That’s right – I launched this business without spending on keyword research tools, web hosting, or business training.

You can do the same as well.

As soon as you create a free account on Wealthy Affiliate, you can start building a business for free.

You don’t have to pay anything or upgrade if you choose not to – and you’ll still receive your first website for free.

Read more about Wealthy Affiliate here:

• How To Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate
• Success Is Happening In Wealthy Affiliate – Read The Stories
• Wealthy Affiliate Review – See The Facts

10 Extra Affiliate Marketing Tips And Tricks To Maximize Your Sales

Hopefully, you’re still with me!

I promised you a total of 50 affiliate marketing tips and tricks – here are the last 10:

1. Make sure that your website is fast – optimize images, don’t install too many plugins – you know the drill.
2. Get great blog hosting – the quality of your hosting service has an impact on your website, so don’t underestimate it.
3. Have a mobile-responsive theme – because most Internet users are browsing on their mobile devices.
4. Avoid pop-ups – at least, don’t place your main affiliate campaign in them.
5. Cloak your affiliate links – that will make them pretty and easy on the eyes!
6. Track your affiliate links – so you would know how your affiliate promotions are performing.
7. Create an affiliate disclosure page – and let your readers know that you’re using affiliate links within your content.
8. Place a privacy policy page – and reassure your audience that you’re not using their data in an unethical manner.
9. Forget about being aggressive with your offers – people love to buy, but they hate feeling being sold.
10. Don’t overdo it – not every single article of yours has to contain affiliate links!

Affiliate Marketing Tips And Tricks 2021 – FAQ

1. How Can I Become Successful In Affiliate Marketing? – there are no shortcuts to success in the affiliate marketing field.  You need to launch an affiliate marketing-based website, work hard on it, and improve your skills.  Follow the top affiliates in the world, and test their strategies for your business.
2. What Is The Strategy For Affiliate Marketing? – once you have a body of work, identify which articles are driving you the most traffic.  Then, place affiliate links in these top-performing pages, and keep working on attracting more visitors to that content.
3. Can You Really Make Money Doing Affiliate Marketing? – yes, you can.  Affiliate marketing is quite a lucrative industry.  To make money in it, you have to work hard on driving traffic and creating highly converting affiliate campaigns.  Most importantly, you have to give it time.
4. Is Affiliate Marketing Easy? – not really.  To learn a full-time income as an affiliate marketer, you’ll need to master the business model and have plenty of patience. Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme.
5. Why Do Affiliate Marketers Fail? – because they lack motivation, and discipline, and they’re not willing to work hard for years.
6. Is Affiliate Marketing A Good Side Hustle? – yes, even though it pays later on.  The business model can be much more than a source of side income – it can become a full-time income career if you commit to it.

My Closing

OK, after a few days of hard work, my list of 50 affiliate marketing tips and tricks is finally over.

I can only hope that they will be as helpful to you as they are to me.

Again, being an affiliate marketer is a constant work in progress.

So, don’t ever get too comfortable – you can improve your skills more and more.

Do you have any questions on today’s topic?

If you do, leave them in the comments section, and I’ll answer them ASAP.