how to incorporate affiliate marketing into your digital products business

I'm all about financial independence, so when there's an opportunity to earn MORE passive income, especially with not much extra work on your part, girl you know I'm about to spill all the tea 🫖

consider the TEA SPILLED 👇

what is affiliate marketing?

affiliate marketing is when you sign up to promote a brand, and you become eligible to earn commission on qualified sales. to do so, you must incorporate some sort way to track the sale, typically generated within the affiliate marketing platform, share that with people, who in turn click your trackable link. if they make a purchase within the cookie window (the length of time after clicking that a potential purchase is eligible), then you will be able to earn the commission percent agreed upon in your affiliate program contract terms.

who can sign up to become an affiliate marketer?

technically anyone can, but different programs come with different terms, so you will need to determine if you are eligible to participate in each of the affiliate programs you're interested in joining.

why incorporate affiliate marketing into your digital products business?

you're already using a variety of different tools on a day-to-day basis. these same tools are what other people who want to break into the digital products space will also need to use to run their digital products business. this is HIGH opportunity to share tools you like and use with others, who can sign up based on your recommendation.

and if they sign up using your referral link or affiliate link, you can earn commission from new signups for those tools that have an affiliate program.

so now let's get into HOW!!

how to incorporate affiliate marketing into your digital products business

step 1: determine what affiliate marketing programs are available from the tools you use

think about the different tools you use each day to work on your digital products, and write them all down in a list.

google each of them with the phrase "affiliate program" to see if they have a program, and how you go about signing up.

for me, I use a lot of tools, so I'm just going to share a few examples here.

👉 one tool I use called High Level - this is where I:

• built my website for my digital products business

• set up all my automation to deliver my digital products to buyers when they purchase from my site

• added all my lead magnet forms for people to download my freebies (and receive them)

• and so much more!

👉 another tool I use is called eRank - this is where I optimize my Etsy shop and my digital product listings using real data and real insights into my store's performance (and my competitors)

👉 in addition, I found a cool link in bio tool called Pensight - you can use this to list all your digital products for sale, to add to your TikTok or Instagram profile

step 2: determine what types of affiliate marketing programs you want to sign up for

once you've determined what tools you use, and then also which ones have affiliate marketing programs, next you need to decide which you believe are a good fit you and your business

technically you can sign up for any that will approve you, BUT I recommend selecting the ones that you know, like, and are excited about telling others about. people will be using what you say to determine whether to sign up for these tools, spending actual money.

your job as an affiliate is to help them understand what the tool is and how they will benefit them if they sign up for it.

take your list from step 1 and narrow it down to the ones you're most excited to promote, then move on to the next step.

step 3: sign up for affiliate marketing programs

submit your application to join the affiliate marketing programs you want to promote! simple as that!

(you also typically have to get approved, so don't move on to the final step until you're approved)

step 4: begin promoting your affiliate marketing programs

once you're approved to become an affiliate for a brand, the fun begins!!

now you need a strategy to successfully incorporate your new affiliate program into your overall marketing efforts

you need to determine:

• what content you already have that you can update to incorporate affiliate links

• what content you want to create to include mentions of the new affiliate program

• what channels you will use to generate and convert leads -- email marketing, social media, ads, etc.

with any affiliate marketing program, you need to read and abide by the affiliate program rules!!

👉 if the program states you are allowed to promote via certain channels, figure out how you can leverage them
👉 if the program states you cannot promote affiliate content via certain channels, do not use them, as you will not get commission since it is not a qualified sale.

if you don't want to actively promote the brands on social media (keep in mind, sharing them on social media is NOT a requirement, it's just generally the first way people think of promoting an affiliate brand and is generally very widely accepted by affiliate programs), then you can use a few other ways that are less vocal or salesy, like promoting the brand in your email marketing newsletter, or adding affiliate links throughout your website or blog.