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6 Easy Ways to Increase Affiliate Marketing Sales

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize […]

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your blog and make money online. Plus, it’s passive income which means that you can make money while you sleep—who wouldn’t be interested in that? But making affiliate marketing sales isn’t as easy as posting a review and watching the cash start rolling in.

If your blog or affiliate marketing site isn’t making any money, you know the struggle all too well. You’ve probably tried several different strategies to boost traffic to your site because after all, the more traffic your website has, the more money you’ll make right? Well, not necessarily.

Another benefit to affiliate marketing is that you don’t need a huge amount of traffic in order to make money, you just need an audience that’s interested in reading your product recommendations. So, while you do want to grow traffic to your site eventually, there are other ways to optimize your site to start making more money from the audience you already have.

Ready? Okay, let’s get started. Here are 6 easy ways to increase affiliate marketing sales.  

1. Promote relevant products 

First things first, if you want to increase your affiliate marketing sales you need to promote relevant products to your audience. You might be tempted to promote any and every type of product on your affiliate site to make as much money as possible. But, this strategy can hurt your affiliate marketing sales.

The most successful affiliate marketing sites are highly targeted to their target audience. For instance, take a look at the successful affiliate marketing site Nerdwallet. 

increase affiliate marketing sales

Nerdwallet’s niche is consumer finance so they promote financial products like credit cards, mortgages, insurance, and more. You wouldn’t find them promoting gardening tools or home appliances to their audience because their readers turn to them for help making financial decisions. If Nerdwallet promoted gardening tools, it would only confuse their readers.

So, pick a niche and stick to it. Promoting products that are relevant to your niche and to your target audience will make your site more credible, build trust with readers, and boost your sales.

If you need help to determine your target audience, create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal audience. It includes details like their gender, age, profession, pain points, goals, and more. You can easily create a detailed buyer persona using Digital Marketer’s buyer persona template. Knowing who your audience is inside and out will help you learn what type of products and content they’re likely to be interested in. 

2. Add tables to your blog posts

Of course, to promote your affiliate products you need to provide valuable content to your website visitors. But, let’s face it: Most people will only skip your blog posts. In fact, according to blogging statistics, 73% of visitors skip rather than read the blog post thoroughly.

So, if you want to boost affiliate marketing sales, you should add tables to your blog posts. Adding tables to your blog posts will help readers find the information they’re looking for quickly and they can compare products easier as well.

Here’s an example of a helpful table that displays affiliate products: 

increase affiliate marketing sales

Notice how easy it is to compare each product in the table and there’s also a clear call-to-action (CTA) users can click on to buy the product instantly.

You can create tables similar to this very easily if your affiliate site is built on WordPress. WordPress has a built-in feature that lets you add tables to your blog posts with just a few clicks. You can also use a comparison table WordPress plugin like AmaLinks Pro or TablePress.

By adding a visually appealing and helpful comparison table to the top of your blog posts you can give readers exactly what they’re searching for immediately, which lets them head to the checkout sooner.  

3. Create a resource page

Another way to increase sales and make your affiliate products easy for your website visitors to find is by creating a resource page. A resource page is simply a page on your website that lists all of your top product recommendations. Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com has said that his resource page is the most profitable page on his blog and it accounts for about 50% of his total income.

When creating a resource page for your audience, make sure it includes everything they need to get started. For instance, if your website is about helping people start a blog, your resource page should include product recommendations for website hosting, website builders, keyword research tools, visual content creation tools, email marketing services, and so on.

You can include free tools on your resource page as well. The goal of your resource page is not only to boost your affiliate sales but to help your audience reach their goals. The more helpful your resource page is, the more successful it will be in the long run. 

4. Build an email list

Building an email list is one of the most important steps to increasing your affiliate marketing sales. With an email list, you can send a message to thousands of your most interested and loyal readers to promote your affiliate products. Because your email subscribers are your biggest fans, they’re the most likely to purchase the products you’re promoting.

To start building an email list, you need to add email opt-in forms to your website. An email optin form is a simple form that lets users enter their name and email address to become subscribers. If you want to encourage more of your website visitors to sign up for your email list, you can create a valuable and relevant lead magnet like a checklist or PDF guide to give to users in exchange for their email addresses. Offering a lead magnet is a great way to grow your email list quickly.

Then, create engaging and helpful content to send to your email subscribers. Remember, don’t be pushy about promoting your affiliate products—you don’t want to come across like a salesperson. Instead, provide quality content and add affiliate links sparingly. This will help you build real relationships with your subscribers and make them excited to read your emails each time one lands in their inbox. When your subscribers feel connected to you and they love your content, they’ll be more likely to buy products via your affiliate links. 

5. Convert abandoning website visitors with a popup

Did you know that over 70% of all web visitors leave without taking any action? And guess what? Most of those abandoning website visitors will never return to your site again. That means you’ve missed out on a ton of potential affiliate marketing sales. Don’t worry though, you can convert abandoning website visitors with an exit-intent popup on your site.

An exit-intent popup is able to track when a user is about to leave your site and send them a targeted message at exactly the right moment. You can create an exit-intent popup on your site to promote your affiliate products and encourage visitors to stick around and buy.

For example, Top 6 Digital created this exit-intent popup to promote their affiliate links and it increased their affiliate revenue by 30%!

increase affiliate marketing sales

You can also create slide-in popups, floating bar optins, or inline forms, which are embedded into blog posts, to promote your affiliate links and increase conversions. 

6. Display social proof

Have you heard about social proof? Social proof is a psychological and social phenomenon where people look to the actions of others to decide what actions they should take in a particular situation. For instance, if a website visitor isn’t feeling confident about buying a product but then they see glowing product reviews from happy customers on your site, it encourages them to purchase the product for themselves.

So, if you want to increase affiliate marketing sales, use social proof by adding reviews and testimonials to your website. According to social proof statistics, a single good review can increase conversions by a whopping 10%!

If you’re promoting Amazon products, you can simply use the reviews and star ratings that are already there. You can also search sites like Trustpilot to find reviews for non-Amazon products.

And don’t forget to display reviews and testimonials for you and your site too. If one of your readers said something nice about you on social media, ask them if you can display it on your site.

Aside from displaying reviews, you can also show social proof on your website by displaying the number of subscribers or social media followers you have, showcasing media mentions, and showing off your most popular posts. 

Over to you

Get ready to increase your affiliate revenue with these actionable tips. Remember to experiment with different strategies and find out what works best for you. Soon you may be able to double—or even triple—your affiliate marketing sales. One day, you might even reach the level of success Jason Stone has. Stone, known as the Millionaire Mentor, made $7 million in affiliate marketing revenue in a single year!