This guide continues our affiliate marketing 101 series, where we guide you through the basics of home, life, auto, health, and solar affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing has long grown into one of the biggest online marketing avenues, with 80% of companies using affiliate campaigns to drive sales. And why not? Affiliate marketing is easy to execute and, if done wisely, perceived naturally by the audience.
Indeed, creating compelling affiliate marketing strategies doesn’t have to be complex, and it all starts with creating and tracking your affiliate links.
Without any further ado, let’s dive right into it.
What Are Affiliate Links?
An affiliate link is a custom URL that helps an advertiser attribute consumers who click this link to their affiliates.
Here’s how the affiliate links are used in practice:
- A business (merchant, vendor, or advertiser) creates an affiliate program and assigns unique links to each affiliate (publisher, partner).
- The affiliate promotes the merchant’s products or services using this link. They can post affiliate links on Instagram, Facebook, their website, etc.
- The merchant uses tracking software to see how many users click the link and perform a target action.
- Once the system tracks the target action, the publisher gets the payout.
It’s easy to track affiliate links since each of them contains unique identifiers that allow the merchant to monitor the traffic source, such as:
summer-collection?ref=affiliate1=source-instagram
An important nuance is that merchants usually specify where affiliates are allowed to use affiliate links within the merchant’s affiliate program. For example, social media traffic or gambling traffic may be forbidden.
How To Create Affiliate Links in Three Simple Steps
- Join an affiliate network. If you’re an insurance or solar advertiser, Profitise might be the best affiliate network to drive qualified leads to your business.
- Set up your affiliate program and integrate the link tracking system with your website so you can automatically track affiliate links.
- Generate affiliate links. With most affiliate networks, you can do it automatically with a single click, adding affiliate identifiers and UTM parameters to your links.
Let’s examine each step in detail.
Step 1 – Join an Affiliate Network
The first step is to choose an affiliate network that will match you with the affiliates that can provide the traffic you’re looking for. Generally, the bigger the affiliate network, the easier to acquire the traffic you need.
Consider these factors when choosing your affiliate network:
- Niche and size
- Commissions size
- Link tracking software and creative materials
- Track record
For real-time affiliate link monitoring, you have to integrate the affiliate link tracking software with your website.
Step 2 – Set Up an Affiliate Program
It’s worth mentioning that you don’t necessarily have to join an affiliate network to run an affiliate business. Alternatively, you can create and manage an affiliate program on your own, which, though, may be quite time-consuming and less effective.
On the other hand, an affiliate network will likely provide all the infrastructure you need to run your affiliate program, so you can create in just a few minutes by setting up your commission structure, cookie length, eligible affiliates and traffic sources, and other terms & conditions.
Speaking of cookies, look for software that allows for an adjustable cookie window. In industries like insurance or mortgage, clients need more than 30 days to make a purchase. So, it’s better to look for software that allows you to widen that window.
Step 3 – Generate Affiliate Links
As a member of an affiliate network, you can create any number of unique affiliate links for your affiliates. For this, log in to your affiliate network and, upon starting a new affiliate campaign, provide the URL of the page where you want to send traffic.
- Most affiliate platforms let merchants create SubIDs, a special custom tag used explicitly for tracking. If you target specific audiences (e.g., with a Facebook ad or using affiliate links on Pinterest), leverage SubIDs to see where your traffic comes from.
Your affiliate links will have a unique affiliate ID and additional parameters like campaign ID and UTM tags to define the traffic source, keywords, and other marketing data. Then, you can share these links with your affiliates.
Importantly, your affiliate links should be tailored to your audience so they look reliable and are memorable. You can use text that describes the product, event, or promotion:
Instead of /?aff=1234, use /free-trial-offer-from-Vanessa
This way, potential clients will feel safe when clicking on your links. Using a link shortener that hides the actual domain may result in fewer clicks due to safety concerns.
Last but not least, after creating the links, send them an onboarding email that provides all crucial information, including commission rules and the best places to promote affiliate links. Whenever you modify the program, make sure to warn all your publishers.
Where To Promote Your Affiliate Links
As an advertiser, you might want to recommend the best promotional channels for your affiliate links based on the historical and real-time traffic insights you might have.
All other things being equal, one of the best ways to promote affiliate links is to use the power of social media. One of the latest Haley Kalil posts is an example of how bloggers can post brand links on Instagram:
Influencers can also use their bio to promote affiliate links:
Once the user clicks on the URL, they will see the page that is full of advertised products. Hailey’s link has custom tags that allow the brand to track how many people clicked on her link, and how many of them actually ended up purchasing the product.
Source: Scentiment online shop
Buy and Sell Insurance and Solar Leads with Profitise
The Profitise affiliate network might become your best place to monetize insurance and solar leads or – if you’re an advertiser – purchase high-intent leads for your business.
Here’s what Profitise offers:
- Selling or buying insurance and solar leads at the best price
- Connecting to the biggest pool of insurance and solar advertisers and affiliates
- Customizable lead generation forms
- Around-the-clock support from an affiliate manager
Sign up as an affiliate or advertiser to start selling or buying leads with Profitise. For questions, contact us at info@profitise.com or call 888-400-4868.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where to promote affiliate links for free
The most common places to post an affiliate link for free are blogs, emails, social media, and forums like Reddit. As an advertiser, you can choose where you want to allow affiliate links; as an affiliate, you should follow the advertiser’s guidelines.
What is the best place to promote an affiliate link?
The best place to post an affiliate link is the target audience’s preferred platform. For example, if they like videos, you can use YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. If they prefer long texts, look for affiliates with SEO-optimized blogs.
What is the best way to promote an affiliate link?
Focus on creating valuable, relevant content like tutorials, reviews, and how-to guides. Tailor your promotion strategy to match your audience’s preferences for maximum impact.
