When you think of affiliate marketing, you might think of blogs, YouTube, social media, and other marketing channels. But if that’s all you think about, you’re missing out on a gold mine: email marketing.
Email marketing is often seen as an old-fashioned marketing method that was popular years ago, but it is still one of the most effective ways to reach customers.
Why not combine affiliate marketing with email marketing to create a powerful strategy? Affiliate email marketing is exactly that. It’s a great way to generate income with minimal ongoing effort.
What is Affiliate Email Marketing?
Affiliate email marketing is easy to understand if you already know how affiliate marketing works.
Affiliate email marketing is when you use your email list to send affiliate links to people who may want to buy a product or service. In this situation, you earn a commission for every conversion (such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up) generated through your referrals.
This is an example of a template for affiliate email marketing:
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Why Choose Email for Affiliate Marketing?
Email marketing may seem like it’s beyond its prime, but it’s still the best way to sell, outperforming social media, SEO, and other marketing channels.
Affiliate email marketing has proven to be more effective than many other channels for the following reasons.
It Reaches More People
Some people say email is the Internet’s currency because almost everyone has an active email account. There are far more email users than Facebook and Twitter users combined.
It Has a Higher CTR
According to a survey by Monetate, an e-commerce software company, email marketing is the strongest channel for affiliate marketers looking to drive purchases. It has a conversion rate of 4.24%, which is much higher than search engines (0.49%) and social media (0.59%).
Users Find It More Acceptable
According to MarketingSherpa, email is the most preferred way for potential customers to receive news and deals (60%), which is 40% more than social media.
Ways consumers prefer to receive promotions
That’s why affiliate marketers need email marketing. Of course, other channels like social media affiliate marketing are also important and useful.
How to Build Your Email List for Affiliate Email Marketing?
Email lists are like social media followers for affiliate email marketing. You can only start building a close relationship with your audience if you have an active email list.
The first thing you should do if you’ve never done email marketing before is build an email list. Here are some tips to help you get started.
Step 1: Pick an Email Service Provider (ESP)
If you’ve decided to start email marketing, the first thing you should do is choose an email service provider (ESP). The main reason is that an ESP helps you manage your lists, which saves time and makes your work more efficient.
You can also take advantage of customized templates, campaign automation, tracking, and reporting features.
Here are the Top 12 Best Email Marketing Services:
Always make sure the email service provider allows affiliate links and that you follow their rules and guidelines.
Step 2: Give away a lead magnet
Asking people directly for their email address can feel intrusive, and you may not get many sign-ups.
Think about what would motivate people to share their email address. The fastest way to grow your list is by offering a valuable incentive, also known as a lead magnet.
You can offer different types of incentives, such as:
You can present these incentives using pop-ups, opt-in forms, or a signup button on your website or social media profiles.
Step 3: Keep giving out useful information
Once you have collected email addresses, you should begin sending follow-up emails and keep your messaging consistent.
The first follow-up email should be well written and explain what subscribers can expect, including content type and email frequency.
For example, a welcome email from Medium clearly explains what users will receive after signing up.
After that, you need to meet subscriber expectations by consistently sending valuable, engaging content.
Tips to Launch a Successful Affiliate Email Marketing Campaign
You can now start your affiliate email marketing campaign after you’ve built your email list and consistently created engaging content.
An effective affiliate email marketing strategy helps you build trust, increase brand visibility, and drive more sales.
Here are some tips to help you succeed.
Tip 1: Don’t Hard Sell
No matter which affiliate marketing channel you use, always remember this:
You’re not selling; you’re sharing.
This means creating valuable content, providing helpful information, and earning trust instead of sending spam.
If you promote too often, your audience may feel annoyed and unsubscribe. You should sound like a friend sharing something useful, not a salesperson trying to sell something.
Avoid placing affiliate links everywhere or making your emails sound too sales-driven. A good rule of thumb is 80% value-based emails and 20% promotional emails.
Tip 2: Segment your email list
Dividing your audience is a crucial part of marketing, and affiliate marketing is no different.
You should segment your email list based on factors like location, industry, interests, or behavior before starting your affiliate follow-up sequence. This helps send the right message to the right people at the right time.
You can collect this information through opt-in forms, lead magnets, or by using your email service provider’s segmentation tools.
Proper email segmentation leads to higher click-through rates, better conversions, and fewer unsubscribes.
Tip 3: Add affiliate links the right way
There are two ways to include affiliate links.
The first method is adding them to existing emails. If you already have an email sequence with strong open and click rates, you can insert affiliate links naturally without creating new emails.
The second method is adding them to a dedicated affiliate email sequence. While the first approach keeps affiliate promotions subtle, the second can be more impactful. As mentioned in Tip 1, your sequence should still focus more on educational content than selling offers.
The Bottom Line
If you follow the recommendations above, making money from email marketing as an affiliate isn’t as hard as it sounds.
Just remember that being honest is the key to turning prospects into customers. Pick the things you genuinely believe in, tell people who need them about them, and the rest will happen.
