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Post At A Glance
YouTube. If you haven’t used this platform then you are probably living under a rock. Online video consumption has been growing rapidly since the launch of YouTube in the year 2007
More than 94% of adults in the United States watch YouTube at least once a month and with over 3 billion global users, YouTube justifies itself as the second most popular site on the internet. And therefore a great place for affiliate marketers like you to drive traffic and revenue.
People use YouTube for all sorts of things.
From watching movie trailers, gameplay videos, product reviews to web series, and a lot of things. And this is the reason why a lot of people are trying to grow on YouTube so that they can capture that audience and monetize it.
But you as an affiliate marketer can also make good money from YouTube if not then at least generate free traffic and build a good quality audience.
Top affiliate marketers like Pat Flynn are leveraging YouTube to,
And you don’t want to miss out on this money making opportunity.
What Is YouTube Affiliate Marketing?
Using native YouTube features like descriptions, cards, comments, community posts, etc to plug your affiliate links and then driving traffic to relevant landing pages is YouTube affiliate marketing.
It’s the easiest and simple strategy you can use to significantly increase your affiliate bounty. It’s a business model that is used by the top YouTubers out there.
YouTube affiliate marketing (in action!)
This might seem a little intimidating if you don’t have a visual experience with these types of strategies. So to make up for that we have assembled some real-life examples from YouTube itself.
#1 Akshay Hallur
Akshay hallur is a big name in the blogging and online marketing world. He is the founder of the website BloggingX where he blogs about all things marketing.
You see Akshay has recently started to push his YouTube channel with lots of fresh content. This includes tips & product reviews.
In this video Akshay is reviewing a product called NeuralText.
So this product basically does AI content optimizations much like Surfer and Frase. So what Akshay did is he published a detailed and thorough review and then asked his viewers to buy the product from his link in the description.
If his viewers enjoy his review then surely they are going to purchase the product from his affiliate link.
#2 Marques Brownlee
MKBHD is one of the biggest youtubers in the tech game. He has interviewed tech titans like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates etc.
He puts out a lot of tech reviews and then makes sure to put his links and ask his viewers to buy it from “the link in the description”.
Heres an example;
#3 The Tech Chap
Tom aka “The Tech Chap” is another tech YouTuber who puts out stuff on android mobiles, TVs, and PC accessories. He also uses affiliate links cleverly on his “best of videos” whilst disclosing them as affiliate links.
Heres an example;
He too puts out good quality stuff.
Now we hope that was enough visual display of this strategy in action.
Pro’s And Cons Of YouTube Affiliate Marketing
Pros:
“It takes almost a year to rank on Google. Whereas a well-optimized YouTube video might rank within few weeks.”
Neil Patel
Founded kissmetrics, crazyegg, hellobar
Interested in starting a blog? Then read this guide.
Cons
You can though fight for your rights if you think you haven’t done anything wrong with YouTube’s copyright team. More on this here.
YouTube VS Others (In Affiliate Marketing)
Remember YouTube and just a website have their Pros and Cons.
Actionable Ways You Can Do Affiliate Marketing On YouTube
#1 Use Affiliate Links in Descriptions
This is a classic YouTube affiliate marketing strategy. Everyone who features a product or two in this video plugs his/her affiliate link the description and asks their viewers to check it out.
We are pretty sure you might have also encountered this while watching your favourite YouTubers videos.
Here is an example,
#2 Use short branded domains as a tactic
Umer Qureshi from GuideBlogging does this really well. Instead of using link shorteners like Bitly and genius Umer uses his own custom short domains. For example, instead of using bit.ly/go-semrush he uses Umer.at/sem.
People often avoid clicking on Bit.ly links because of suspicion. He then uses this link natively in his video.
Here is an example;
#3 Email marketing never dies
Email marketing is still an effective affiliate marketing strategy. You can ask your viewers to go to your website or your substack and sign-up for your free newsletter or something like that.
Then you can send them emails promoting affiliate products. It is essentially a blogging email marketing strategy but it can also be used as a YouTube tactic as long as your viewers sign-up for your incentive.
#4 Offer bonuses
Create things that your users would want after they are done watching your video. For example, we publish a video on the topic “SEMrush tutorial”.
After the viewers finish watching this video we can pitch them about a free resource on our website that shows the “5 Mistakes to avoid while doing Keyword research”.
Now if they are really serious about it they might click through and sign-up for the resource. Thus giving us their valuable email.
#5 Plug cards with context
Cards can be very powerful when used with the context in mind. Suppose from the previous example of the SEMrush tutorial, when we teach them about SEMrush we can plug in a card that might say something like “5 grave mistakes done by keyword researchers”. This card is enticing and worth a click.
Here’s an example from the Ahrefs YouTube channel;
Bottom line? Context is key when using cards.
#6 Buy To Win Offers
Entice your readers to buy a certain product to redeem a valuable free resource from you. In our example of SEMrush, we might give a free 1:1 tutorial of the tool. Many will fall for this, buy your product and hopefully be long-time customers.
Which Type Of Videos Generate The Most Amount Of Revenue?
Top 10s
Top X videos work well. They are easy to follow and enjoy watching. Nail the presentation and description and you can expect a lot of clicks to your affiliate link.
Here is an example from Geeksters Amazing Gadgets. A channel for skateboard enthusiasts. In a video titled “Top 10 Best Skateboards To Get” they link to amazon pages of skateboards for their viewers to buy.
Reviews
When a person is watching a review he/she is looking forward to buying a product and is just making sure it is a correct fit. And if you can convince them to buy it from your affiliate link then you are going to earn a lot from hot leads.
Here is an example of a SEMrush review. Here the host of this channel reviews SEMrush’s features in breif and then leaves a link to their website for people to sign-up.
VS
Similar to reviews consumers often search for these keywords when they are in the final stages of the buying funnel.
Here is an example of a showdown video “Asus ROG Zephyrus g14 vs HP Omen 15”. And as expected affiliate links to both products in the description.
How do you get traffic to your videos?
Getting traffic to your videos has an informational universe of its own. If you can’t bring traffic and views to your videos what’s the use of creating them?
Here we will mention a couple of tips and norms from the video marketing world. For more info read this guide.
Install a SEO extension
Video SEO can be a boring and manual process. Thankfully with the arrival of online marketing tools this process has been simplified. You can download a free chrome extension like VidIQ or TubeBuddy and then get access to things like:
- Tags
- Search Volume
- Engagement
- Competition/Difficulty
Of YouTube videos and keywords.
Scoop low competition keywords
Now that you have a Video extension installed you should look forward to finding low competition keywords and scooping them.
As YouTube is a very dynamic search engine low-competition keywords are much more easier to rank for then in Google.
Keyword Optimized descriptions & CC
This is an underrated strategy but through our experiments, we have found that this tactic works like a charm.
Attractive thumbnails
CTR or Click-Through-Rate is an important metric to track when doing YouTube affiliate marketing. CTR directly affects your video views. Also, attractive thumbnails help you to steal clicks on the SERPs and make sure all searchers watch and buy from your video instead of the hundred others.
You can use a tool like Canva or Snappa to do so.
Go For Trailer Styled Intros
This basically means instead of using a generic intro go for a trailer that shows highlights of your video. So that the viewer knows instantly what he/she is in for.
I got this from this very awesome and informational video from Paddy Galloway
Go against the tradition
The name pretty much explains itself.
For example, if everyone is praising a product then you find its cons and politely explain them to your viewers. Due to human psychology, this will give your viewers an impression of how good of a reviewer you are and thus build your credibility and trust.
What type of offers work?
Almost anything.
You are free to promote any type of offer as long as people are actively searching for it. This is the beauty of YouTube. You can promote anything and everything.
How to find some affiliate programs?
If you are new to these things here are a few places you should check out to find your first affiliate program:-
Check out this article for a detailed walk through on finding an affiliate program.
Wrapping Up
Affiliate marketing is a great way to kickstart your online marketing career. It helps you acquire skills that will heavily benefit you in your future projects. But as always this too requires hard work and grit. Especially the part of being consistent with your YouTube channel’s content production.
Hope this article helped you, if you have any question ping us on Twitter.
Until next time Adios!