4 Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Marketing Earning Potential

Hopefully your blog or website has taken the leap from being a hobby to becoming a business, which means that it is generating income. Or, maybe your goal is to take your website to the next level of profitability. While there are many different ways that your blog can earn income, affiliate marketing is certainly an area which often has missed opportunities. Take a look at our suggestions for increasing your affiliate marketing earning potential.

Know Your Audience

As a general rule, you should always write with your audience in mind. If they respond well to posts about DIY projects, then create more posts in that niche. Another very important thing to know about your audience is their price range. Are your readers willing to spend $1,000 on a jacket or do they tend to be more thrifty, opting to spend $100 max? Knowing what range your audience is comfortable spending can help you when using affiliate links, suggesting products, or providing similar products. 

If you don’t know how much your audience likes to spend, consider providing a “Save” and “Splurge” option for each product suggestion to help you better gauge which types of products your readers are drawn to. Once you know their spending habits, you can offer more product suggestions in a single price point, which will increase the likelihood that they find something to buy.

Review Your Current Retail Partners

Networks are adding new retailers on a daily basis, which means that some of your favorite brands could now have an affiliate program. Besides routine checks on each network’s list of new partners, there are also a couple key areas in the interface or pieces of information that you should pay attention to:

New Programs
This category within ShareASale’s Merchant Search function is the easiest way to view the most recent brands to join.

Power Rank
This search category shows affiliates our top performing brands on the network. With the change of seasons and merchant additions to the network, this list does periodically change, so check it out every once in a while to see which brands are doing well! 

EPC
EPC stands for earnings per 100 clicks across all Affiliates in a Merchant’s program. This metric can give a snapshot of how well a Merchant’s program is performing for other affiliates.

Another way to make your life easier when using affiliate links is to periodically clean up your list of current programs joined. Delete any programs from your account that are closed – and don’t forget to replace any of their affiliate links with similar products or brands!

Optimize Past Posts

We’ve said this before, but past posts are often a forgotten or missed earning potential. Adding affiliate links, updating links, or expanding on an already reader-favorite post with more links can create new opportunities to drive a reader to purchase.

Before creating new content, take a look at your evergreen posts and look for ways to update it with more money making opportunities.

Incorporate More Affiliate Links

While this should be a no-brainer, try increasing the number of affiliate links that you incorporate into your posts as well as the type of affiliate links. If finding affiliate links seem to be a hassle for you, try out our Product Discovery Bookmarklet tool, which allows you to grab affiliate links on the fly. 

Different types of affiliate links to try:

Short Links

Personal Images

Make-A-Page

Product Showcase

We hope that these suggestions can help you reevaluate your website to find more ways to make more money through affiliate links. What other steps are you taking to bring your blog up a notch this year?