How to Start YouTube Affiliate Marketing | Step-by-Step Strategy and Useful Tips

1. TemplateMonster Affiliate Program: Important Details to Keep in Mind
2. How to Earn Immediately with TemplateMonster?
3. The Best of the Best: Some Examples from Our Partners
4. Just Mention TemplateMonster Marketplace and Its Products in Your Video
5. Make a Comparison Video That Makes It Easier for Users to Choose the Best One
6. Create a Helpful Tutorial for Your Subscribers

Believe it or not, the second search engine is YouTube, after Google, of course. All YouTube users are actively looking for answers to a wide variety of questions, for example, “how-to” and “what is.” Thanks to these requirements, provide the perfect framework for successful YouTube affiliate marketing.

While trying to promote your landing page on Google is usually a battle for the best SEO, ranking on YouTube is much simpler. Some easy optimization steps can improve the number of your views and get a bigger audience.

In this guide, you'll learn how to get started with affiliate marketing in a few steps. Also, I´ll share with you some useful and important tips.

But before we get started, let's learn something about YouTube affiliate marketing in general.

What Is YouTube Affiliate Marketing?

The YouTube affiliate program is an exceptional service that allows the authors of channels with exclusive content to monetize their videos. It is possible to make money by placing advertisements in the videos themselves, which the user subsequently sees and on which the user can click.

Many companies have affiliate programs for which you can make a commission. According to the statistics, over 80% of U.S. bloggers and publishers work with affiliate programs. So, you have a job and help other companies to get customers.

In other words, YouTube affiliate marketing is just making a video about some products or services with a link on it. So, your subscribers or viewers can go via a link and buy this product. After the successful purchase, you will get your commission. Besides, you are monetizing your videos from AdSense too.

The process of applying for an Adsense monetization connection is pretty simple. The main thing from the author's side is to fulfill the channel's requirements and then send a request in a few clicks.

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For applying for an Adsense monetization, you need:

• To have over 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours for the last year;
• Go to the YouTube settings;
• Open the "YouTube Studio" section;
• Click on the subsection "Monetization" and then a button "Start";
• Accept the terms of the YouTube affiliate program;
• Sign up/log in with your Adsense profile;
• Wait for approval.

As an affiliate, you can publish useful information, practical tips, your own experiences, exciting insights, personal recommendations, and much more. Thus generate good views and affiliate sales.

In general, this is good news for all affiliates who would rather create videos than write articles. Also, YouTube has a significant advantage in that the personal level works particularly well there. This is also the reason why you shouldn't sell on YouTube but inspire. Viewers who trust and feel positive are much more likely to buy a featured product. On the other hand, it's not so easy to persuade to buy.

Now, what do you need to start YouTube affiliate marketing?

Choose Your Niche and Pick Suitable Affiliate Programs

Let's face it: if you start a blog today, expect a lot of competition. According to Oberlo, the number of users continues growing, and by 2019 it was over 2 billion. On this basis, every second business owner creates content on YouTube to present its product.

1. It pays to focus on a niche.

The big wide web world out there is full of content. Choosing a niche topic that isn't covered in great detail on YouTube is an excellent opportunity to make your content stand out.

Pick a specific category, something that interests you. For instance, the subject of "web design" is a vast category. Instead of dealing with it, try something more specific, such as WordPress themes. So, you can build a target audience and rank higher on YouTube without using SEO tricks.

Of course, later, when you've built traffic and covered most topics of this category, you can expand into other areas.

Don't worry if you're not an expert in the field. Just tell what you've learned and show your experience. People love that way and trust such information more. 

2. Find an affiliate partner from this niche.

The advantage of participating in affiliate marketing as an affiliate is that you skip finding your topic’s idea. You can choose from ready-made options that your heart is in and get to work during the day.

Start from one, and in a while, join more. Usually, every blogger uses three affiliate programs in his blog. You can choose any product. If someone created it, then there is a demand. That is, you can find an audience.

As an example of a working affiliate program, I would like to present our own

 — TemplateMonster Affiliate Program.

It is a universal opportunity for bloggers, YouTubers, web studio owners, and various related services to increase their income. All you need to do is advertising our products and services from the TemplateMonster website to commission sales. A unique feature is that we provide a personal manager for every affiliate partner.

At the moment TemplateMonster marketplace contains 54,000+ products. 

The affiliate program also operates on ONE Membership. In the beginning, the percentage of the purchase after clicking on your link is between 10% and 30% for sale. If you get lots of sales, your commission can grow up to 95%! And remember, the affiliate cookie expires 60 days, which increases the chance of success.

How to become a partner of TemplateMonster affiliate program

And it doesn't matter who you are by profession. To become a TemplateMonster partner, you will need to register. Once your account is active, just select a product and start promoting it. 

It is worth remembering that you will receive from about $ 27for every sale through your affiliate link.

How to become an affiliate partner:

1. Sign up for the program;
2. Share your unique referral URL;
3. Generate a referral URL and share it on your YouTube blog;
4. Check the statistics;
5. Earn commission.

Free promotion tools for your YouTube affiliate marketing:

• Free content for your video blog;
• Quizzes;
• Giveaways;
• Personal affiliate manager;
• Statistics and sales information in the affiliate dashboard;
• Ready-to-use posts for Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.

Payments of commission 

1. You can get earnings on PayPal, WebMoney, and Bank / Wire Transfer. 
2. The commission is paid within 5-10 business days from the moment of the partner's request.  
3. The minimum amount is $100. You can also use your commission to purchase products from our site with a 20% discount. 

Please don’t neglect to visit your account. If you have not logged in within 12 months, there is a chance that we will close it and withhold unpaid commissions.

Get Your Channel Ready

To create your video content and add your affiliate links to it, you must first register with YouTube. If you already have a Google account, you can use it to log into YouTube. Now simply upload your video in the Creator Studio and start optimizing your content.

The necessary little things are the following:

• Channel cover picture
• Channel description
• Link to other platforms
• Welcome video

If you already have a working channel with subscribers, then you are lucky. Because then there is a high probability that they accept your promotional content and will buy what you recommend to them.

At this point, a logical conclusion is to include affiliate links in your content and recommend products that you believe in.

#1 You can create content from anywhere

A big advantage of YouTube is that the content doesn't always have to be perfect. Of course, videos stand out with good light and sound quality. But actually, a smartphone is enough to record your videos too. If the content is right, a simple video can still rank alongside big YouTubers.

#2 Users are looking for your advice and recommendations

Studies have shown that 68 percent of YouTubers watched a video to make a purchase decision. The most successful video categories are tutorials, product reviews, and top lists. All these types of content are great for recommendations and inserting affiliate links.

SEO

Although users upload hundreds of hours of video content to YouTube every minute, anyone has the option to land on page one. You have to be willing to put in a little effort. Optimizing YouTube videos is currently quite simple. To correctly tag your videos' metadata, there are some successful methods for optimizing your videos on YouTube.

1. Do your keyword research.

Just like creating SEO content for your blog or website, a similar keyword strategy works for YouTube.

Make sure you use the main keyword in the title of your video. You can then include other related keywords in the tags of your video and the first sentence of your video description.

2.  Put the content of your video into text.

If you've used many keywords in your video, try to transcribe them. This step may seem superfluous to you at first, but since many content creators do not do transcription, you use it to highlight your video. Moreover, with transcription, YouTube can better understand your content, which better recognizes your keywords.

3. Link related videos.

Once you've got the ball rolling and uploaded several videos to your YouTube account, you can link them together. It helps to increase the visibility of your content. The best way to do this is by creating a playlist of related topics.

4. Add a detailed description of your video.

Treat the video description as if it were a small blog. A good amount of words are from 200 to 500. Both YouTube and Google use the video description to rank and understand your topic.

Tip: Do not use your keywords too often throughout the video description. Otherwise, it will make only worse, and you will be the last in the ranking.

What Videos Make Sense for Affiliate Marketing?

Achieving maximum efficiency in selling affiliate products is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. The main thing is to highlight the main benefits and advantages that the client will receive if he buys the product. The client should see the solution to his problems in a possible purchase.

Here are suitable types of video for affiliates: 

Review videos

Video review is one of the most effective formats for advertising various products. You present a product and report, just like in a normal text review, about features, areas of application, advantages, disadvantages, and so on. This type can work well, and people should buy the product. This format works great, as the client has a complete picture. Place your affiliate link in the video description. Users will follow it and become your referrals. In the future, you will earn on them.

Tutorial video

Video instructions on how to solve a problem or something similar are more difficult. You describe the problem or goal and then go step-by-step through how it works. The fact that a product is then also used is not so obvious advertising. But viewers will want the product if it works well within the scope of this guide.

Tell in your video about the product from your experience. For example, try talking about a bug or new feature you found recently. The more of your emotions and sincerity the viewer sees, the stronger the return, trust, and attention you will receive. As a result, the growth of authority, and after it, the profit from such advertising of a product.

Unboxing video

Unboxing videos are no longer as popular, but this is definitely interesting for new products in certain niches. You just describe your impressions about using a new product.

If the product or service you are promoting is already covered in detail, there are several options you should try:

• Find out how you can build your video around a so-far little-discussed subject;
• Find out which videos of other users that deal with a topic similar to yours;
• Watch the most popular videos in your niche;
• Find if they missed something that you can further cover or better explain in your content.

Where to Place Affiliate Links?

1. Link in the description under the video. You should refer to the affiliate links only if it fits video content. You can do this by simply saying that viewers can go directly to the product via the link in the description. Or you can write it as text in the video.

 2. Comments under the video.

3. Overlaying a graphic image of a link in the editor on the video. The main disadvantage is that the link is not clickable, which means that customers will have to type it manually.

4. On video end screens. Here we use the YouTube hosting tools to do it. In this method, there may be minor issues with the placement of external links. The fact is that YouTube allows posting such links only to those who register in their affiliate program. Unregistered users do not have this opportunity.

To avoid video blocking, be sure to convert your long URL to a short format. Bitly.su or any other services will help to solve the problem of long unreadable links.

Important: Add also some other information. For example, you used tools, such as the camera for video recording, and affiliate links for this. But you shouldn't overdo it and include 50 affiliate links. Otherwise, YouTube recognizes this as spam.

An Example to Sum Up

Here is a great example of how to be a YouTube affiliate partner. Have a look to understand how to be professional.

Earning money as an affiliate on YouTube is certainly not that easy. You have to ensure coverage and attract enough subscribers.

Nevertheless, then affiliate marketing offers a good income source, which can work very well with skillful use and good videos.

The most important thing is always that you add value for your viewers and answer a problem or question from your viewer in your video.

I wish you every success in your project with YouTube and, above all, enjoy creating the videos.

Don't be confused by the fact that your first videos might not come across as professional yet. Practice comes with time. Only those who persevere will get a reward!

YouTube Affiliate Marketing FAQ