Affiliate Marketing With Youtube: A Step-by-Step Guide
Can you really make money from Youtube if you’re brand new and have zero subscribers?
100% Yes… but not in the way most Youtuber’s do it.
I’ll share how you can make money from Youtube as a newbie in a moment, but first let’s talk about how most Youtubers make their money.
John Crestani made $436 in one month
This income was from Youtube serving ads on the video content he posted on his channel.
John has over 175k subscribers with 200+ videos and still hasn’t crossed $500 in monthly Youtube income.
This is what most people try to.
It’s a slow grind and in my opinion, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
There is a better way.
In today’s post, I’m going to show you EXACTLY how to make money with Youtube as an affiliate.
I’ll show you both Free and Paid methods in a moment but first you need to know this.
The money you can make recommending products is way more than you can get from Youtube serving ads on your videos.
John Crestani makes over $20k per month recommending a hosting provider.
I’ll tell you exactly where to get affiliate offers like this in a moment.
This is a powerful way to earn passive recurring income but first I want you to really understand how John would be so successful at this.
The key is to recommend things people need and will buy anyway.
For example, if you’re in the online niche you need hosting to put your website online.
His niche is affiliate marketing so he shows people how to get their affiliate website online.
Then he recommends they use Bluehost and gets a commission.
Quick Question…
What would your life be like if you could create simple videos that consistently brought in more income every month than the out-go from your bills?
And what if you could do that in less than 3 hrs per day?
Imagine going to bed, and making more money while you slept than a full week on your job.
How awesome would that be?
Well, you’ll be glad to know that this is not a pipe dream.
In fact it’s very realistic and being done by thousands of regular people every day on Youtube.
Some are kids!
That might feel impossible right now but I’m going to share a 5-Step Free Method to help you do exactly that.
Maybe this sounds more like you right now…
– You’ve tried a bunch of other stuff and nothing has worked
– You’re so broke right now it’s hard to even ‘pay attention’
– You’re not a celebrity with a massive following so you’re skeptical about if you can do this
Maybe you’re about to throw in the towel and give up on this entrepreneur thing.
Maybe get that second job you’ve been thinking about.
If you nodded yes to any of that, then this may be the most important post you read.
Period!
The Step by Step Methods of Youtube Affiliate
Marketing are all here in this post.
Even if you’re brand new and you’ve never created a video before you can take these steps and start implementing them today.
Affiliate marketing using Youtube Ads has all the ingredients to provide the ‘perfect life’ we all dreamed of.
You know the life I’m referring to…
The passive money life.
The life where you make money in your sleep.
The life we read about in the book that made Tim Ferris a household name (4 Hour Work Week).
The laptop life where you lounge at the pool on your MacBook Air
or PC
Side note: Do people still use PC’s? Haha. Kidding.
Photo Credit: Imgflip.com
Not hard to tell I’m a diehard Apple guy.
Haven’t used a PC since 2006.
Anyhow, back to that ‘perfect lifestyle’ thing…
The life where you ‘work’ from a remote island while you sip on your beverage of choice and reflect on how amazing your life is.
Ok you get the point.
Most people who sell affiliate marketing training portray it as simple as pressing an Easy Button.
Photo Credit: Staples, Inc.
We all know by now (hopefully) that nothing worth it is that easy.
It’s gonna take a little elbow grease and effort but it’s sooo worth it when done right.
Personally I’ve made hundreds of thousands from affiliate marketing.
I know first hand how well it works.
I also know first hand that it wasn’t easy.
Entrepreneur.com wrote an interesting piece about the 5 Signs Of Being an Entrepreneur
Later on I’m going to give you a Jump Start on exactly how to use Youtube Ads for affiliate marketing profitably.
But first, what exactly is Youtube Affiliate Marketing?
What Is Youtube Affiliate Marketing?
Youtube Affiliate Marketing is done by using the video sharing platform of Youtube to promote someone else’s products or services for a commission.
There are many ways to promote products and services and earn affiliate commissions.
Affiliate Marketing itself is a very broad topic.
Since this guide will cover mainly using Youtube for Affiliate Marketing you can check out what Wikipedia had to say about it.
How To Make Money With Youtube Ads?
You basically have to put the right message in front of a targeted audience to be successful with affiliate marketing.
Right Message + Targeted Audience = $$ In The Bank
To do this we use distribution channels.
A distribution channel is simply a way of getting your message in front of prospects.
Youtube is an awesome distribution channel.
It’s the second largest search engine in the world behind Google.
As of this writing, Youtube gets almost 5 Billion video views worldwide every day!
That’s Billion with a ‘B’ and that happens DAILY.
It’s safe to say that no matter what you choose to promote, chances are you can find your perfect audience on Youtube.
Ok so let’s get into the guide.
Ways To Make Money With Youtube
On the surface it may look like there are many ways to make money with Youtube.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll realize they all fall into just 2 simple categories – Free & Paid.
1. Free Methods:
These all involve creating video content and ranking in the Youtube & Google search engines.
There are different types of videos – review videos, comparison videos, how to videos, top 10 videos etc
2. Paid Methods:
Creating video ads and paying for them to be shown to your prospects while they browse Youtube.
Most people get started with the Free Methods.
Free vs Paid Methods: Pro’s & Con’s
Free Method PROs – free, low barrier to entry
Free Method CONs – slower (takes time to rank videos and get traffic to them organically), you usually need to be on camera, lots more competition due to the low barrier to entry
Paid Method PROs – faster (get your message/ads seen almost immediately), massive audience access,
Paid Method CONs – costs money, usually need to be on camera,
I happen to prefer the Paid Methods over the Free Methods but in this guide I’ll go over the steps needed to do both methods successfully.
You can then decide which one makes more sense based on your specific situation.
I’ll show you Step by Step how to earn money from Youtube for free in a minute but first…
I need you to understand the power in knowing why people come to Youtube…
And how to use it to your advantage.
PRO Tip:
When utilizing any platform for advertising you should ask yourself why are the users/prospective customers here.
What was their original intent when they decided to hop on the platform? What is their mindset when they see your message?
Doing this will put you miles ahead other marketers because you can target your message to meet the user ‘where they are’ mentally then make a smooth transition to your recommendation.
Why Do People Use Youtube
We all know why we individually go to Youtube. There are literally a ton of reasons but they can all be condensed into 4 categories.
The 4 Mindsets of Youtube Users
When we use Youtube, at any given time we’re in 1 of these 4 modes/mindsets
Understanding the different modes people are in while using Youtube is a game changer.
You can target your message to appeal to that mindset.
It can be the difference between success and failure with Youtube Affiliate Marketing.
Now let’s dive into each one of these mindsets a little more.
#1 Enjoy What I Like Mindset
This one is by far the most common reason people head on over to Youtube.
Outside of playing music from my playlist, the next most common thing I do is checkout content I enjoy.
I look at a lot of motivational stuff – the likes of Tony Robbins, Les Brown and ET The Hip Hop Preacher (Eric Thomas Ph.D.)
I also love soccer so I’m always watching game highlights from my favorite team FC Barcelona as well as some other big teams.
#2 Learn More Mindset
Another massive reason people use Youtube is to learn more about specific topics.
No matter what you need to research, Youtube is probably a great place to find some great informational content on the topic.
It’s literally like an encyclopedia with videos instead of text.
I use it all the time when I do homework with my son. This video teaching kids all about animals had over 8.5M views
#3 How To Do It Mindset
The people coming to Youtube with this mindset are looking for video instruction on how to fix, build or create something.
Lots of DIY people use it in this manner.
For example, how to fix a leaking pipe.
So let’s say you’re a guy, back in high school.
Somehow you get the hottest and most popular girl in school to go to the prom with you.
Photo Credit: Dreamworks Video
Calm down, this is just a hypothetical situation ok!
You got your suit and on prom night you realize you never tied a tie before.
You stare at it the tie and begin to cold sweat…
Then you remember this is the age of technology.
You jump on Youtube and search “how to tie a tie”.
And what do you know.
The number one video in the search engine has a whopping 62M views. Yikes!
Not only that but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th videos have 37M, 22M and 26M views.
Looks like there were a lot of guys in your hypothetical situation.
You were not alone.
#4 What To Buy Mindset
The mindset of what to buy is the final mode people are in when they use the Youtube.
People in this mindset are already certain they want to buy something.
Now they’re doing some due diligence so that they make the best purchase.
This comes in the form of watching;
– Product Review Videos
– Comparison Videos
– Top 10 Videos
– Unboxing videos
Let’s say you’ve been letting yourself go more than you’d like to admit and now it’s time to get back in the gym.
You need a new pair of earphones to workout.
You want the new wireless earphones that won’t get tangled up on you in the gym.
But now pretty much every electronics company on the planet now has at least one of these.
Photo Credit: Rtings.com
Of course every company says there’s is the best thing since sliced bread.
So now what do you do?
You head on over to Youtube and type in “best wireless earphones”.
Up comes this review/comparison video with 4.5M views
Also the video creator thoughtfully puts his Amazon affiliate links below this video.
After watching the video you know which earphone you want to buy.
Now you can simply click the affiliate link, be over at Amazon in a jiffy and get your earphones.
While the video creator earns a commission on what you just purchased.
Now that we know exactly why people go to Youtube let’s use that to earn.
Step by Step: How To Become A Youtube Affiliate
Using PAID Methods
Step 1: Select Audience
Remember the 4 mindsets we discussed earlier?
Which one do you think is the most appealing for targeting with ads?
You can actually target people in all of the 4 mindsets but it gets a little more tricky to do so with mindset 2 and 3.
Mindset 4, the ‘What To Buy Mindset’ is the straightest line between an ad and a sale.
The other mindsets can be targeted as well but you need to be more inventive.
For example, a ‘Buy Now’ Call To Action will most likely not perform well when dealing with a Learn More Mindset (#2).
Giving away something of value (known as a Lead Magnet) and building an email list would have more than likely perform better for this audience.
You can nurture them with a pre-written email autoresponder then move them towards the sale.
I advise you to start with those in the ‘What To Buy Mindset’.
Step 2: Target The Right Audience
The way we target the correct audience is by using Google Adwords.
We can target people who have shown a well established interest in a specific topic.
How to Target the ’What To Buy Mindset’ Audience on YouTube
These people are in the shopping mindset.
To make your ads effective you’ll need to target prospects who are in buying mode that have also shown an interest in buying your product or service.
Here are 3 ways to target the ’What To Buy Mindset’ Audience
i) In-Market Audiences
Generally, this audience of people are usually close to making a purchase and are prime candidates for your ads.
They show their intent by the search history and website online behavior usually within a 7-14 day time span.
For example – If you live in Ohio but you’ve been searching for hotel resorts, rental cars and flights, in Orlando FL Google will more than likely that you as In Market for a vacation.
Disney here we come!
ii) Website Remarketing
Ever checked out a product on Amazon then saw it wherever you went next on the web?
This is called Remarketing/Retargeting.
Google allows you to target people who have already visited your website.
To take it a step further you can target them based on specific URL’s visited.
Think about how your message (ad) will be different if you’re addressing people who visited a checkout page for a product as opposed to someone you went to your home page.
iii) Video Remarketing
This is the same remarketing but instead of targeting people based on URL’s visited, you can target based on those who looked at your Youtube videos.
With the right message you can get them to get ‘off the fence’ and make a purchase.
PRO Tip:
Layering Targeting Options
To get really laser targeted you have the option of overlapping different target audiences.
Theoretically this group should be more targeted.
You’ll want to keep in mind that when you do this you reduce the size of your target audience.
Step 3: Create YouTube Ads For the ’What To Buy Mindset’ Audience
At this stage of the buying cycle you really don’t need a lot of persuasion copy.
The goal is to present the viewer with a simple and direct offer that matches what they’ve shown interest in.
Give them a reason to act now and not procrastinate.
That reason can be a deadline or scarcity (if applicable).
You can also incentivize the viewer by sweetening the offer with a discount or bonus.
If you do this successfully you will reignite their desire to purchase and they’ll take action immediately.
Where To Find Affiliate Offers?
Affiliate offers are literally everywhere.
Some companies manage their own affiliate programs while others use 3rd parties known as Affiliate Networks.
OfferVault is a great place to find Affiliate Offers & Affiliate Networks
Affiliate Networks are another topic altogether and cannot be covered sufficiently in today’s post.
When you’re just getting started I’d suggest using easy affiliate programs like Amazon Associates.
The type of affiliate offers you go after will depend on what niche you choose.
Remember John who was making over $20k per month recommending website hosting?
He was referring his subscribers to Bluehost.
They manage their own affiliate program and as of this writing they pay $65 for every customer you send their way.
You now know the exact steps to make Youtube affiliate commissions with Paid Methods.
Let’s move on to how to do this for free.
Step by Step: How To Become A Youtube Affiliate
Using FREE Methods
Before we get into the steps allow me to once again preface this by saying you can absolutely make money with the free methods but it’s just slower than the paid methods.
To make money with the free methods you will need to be patient and consistently do these steps because they’re proven to work.
The easiest, free way to get started with youtube affiliate marketing is to review products.
Most of us already use quite a lot of products the other people are interested in hearing honest feedback of pros and cons as well as buying recommendations.
The bottom line is this.
If you create a quality Youtube channel that CONSISTENTLY puts out engaging, awesome content that people want to see, you will eventually start getting more and more eyeballs on your videos.
More eyeballs will translate to more sales and commissions earned. It’s truly a numbers game.
That leads us to step 1.
Step 1 – Choose a niche
For this step I advise you to choose something you’re really passionate about and love talking about.
This will make the content you create and deliver a whole lot better.
People can tell when you’re passionate about something.
If you like reading, review books.
If you like organic, healthy lifestyle, chronicle your journey of trying different brands and products, review them then recommend the ones you like.
Step 2 – Choose an affiliate program
There are many affiliate programs out there but by far the easiest one to get started with is the Amazon Associate program.
You can basically review any products on Amazon then recommend them.
When someone watches your video then clicks your affiliate links and buy, you earn a commission.
Step 3 – Setup your Youtube channel
Setting up a Youtube channel is extremely simple.
Almost everyone has a gmail account already.
If you don’t then just create a gmail account and use it to log in to Youtube.
There are a ton of step by step videos showing you how to do that.
For this guide I’ll focus on the things that will really move the needle.
The stuff that’ll separate your channel and video content from the others and help you get more views.
Part A – Create A Professional Youtube Channel Layout
Pay special attention to the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) used in the Youtube Cover Photo.
It gives you his website and his USP which is “Marketing | Mindset | Motivation”.
PRO Tip:
As you grow your channel, I advise you to get a website ASAP.
You can begin doing things like building your email list as well as using website analytics to keep optimizing and improving your content.
Websites and email marketing are entire topics on their own and a bit out of the scope for this guide.
You can make money from Youtube without either of those but adding them increases your revenue points.
Earlier we used ‘book reviewing’ as an example niche.
The USP for that niche should be something like “I read them all so you can just read the ones you like”.
You get my drift.
Next, the Profile Picture should be a high quality photo of yourself. Headshots are the best.
Trailer video: This is the main video on your Youtube profile that auto plays when someone visits your channel.
This video should be relatively short depending on your niche. I advise 2-3 minutes tops. It should be an extension of your USP.
Organize videos by topic: As you create more and more content it is super important to organize your videos by topic.
This helps people with navigating to their topic of interest.
They’ll stay on your channel longer.
The longer people stay, the more likely they’ll take action and earn you revenue.
Part B – Consistently Create Content
Besides the fact that practice makes permanent and that creating more and more content will make you a better content creator there’s also another very practical reason to get this done.
The Youtube algorithm favors channels that consistently put out content.
As a professional content creator, you separate yourself from the wannabe’s who don’t publish videos on a regular schedule.
PRO Tip:
Choose a theme or topic to create video content on and then, instead of making one long video you can have sub-themes and make shorter videos around each sub-theme.
This will give you a lot more content that you can publish on a more regular basis.
Your subscribers will consume more of your content and keep coming back while the search engine algorithm gods also shine on you and give your channel more visibility.
Part C – Write Tantalizing Titles
If your title sucks none of the other stuff matters.
You can have the best, most engaging video content but no one will watch it if your title doesn’t pull them in.
Your video title has one job only and that’s to get the user to click on your video and view it.
Your video title works in tandem with your thumbnail to accomplish the task of getting the video opened and viewed.
We’ll discuss thumbnails next.
There are many ways to write awesome titles. One way is to utilize Incomplete Titles. Here’s an example: “This dangerous vacuum cleaner destroyed my…”
Part D – Attention Grabbing Thumbnails
Thumbnails are the still images for the video that you see before playing them.
The Thumbnail-Title combination can make or break your channels success so you need to get this right.
Your thumbnail is by default a random still shot from your video.
All professional content creators on Youtube design their own custom thumbnail images and then upload them to the specific video.
They do this because a thumbnail image with markups such as arrows, circles and authority logos increase the click through rate on your videos.
Part E – Professional Descriptions
There’s a formula to your video descriptions. You can get creative but this layout works like gangbusters.
First thing you want to do is place link or links you’d like people to visit “above the fold”.
These links can be your affiliate links, links to your website, social media profiles etc.
Above the fold means what people see before they need to school or tap ‘see more’.
Your video description is a great place to go after keywords you want to rank for as well.
Part F – Instruct Viewers to S.C.L. (Subscribe, Comment & Like)
You’ll be hard pressed to watch and professional Youtube video and not see instructions from the host to Subscribe, Comment & Like.
Check out this 15 second clip where the Youtubers tell the audience to comment in the middle of doing their video.
Click PLAY on the video below.
Video Credit: Collins Key
They do this for good reason. Your subscribers get a notification when you release new content.
The liking and commenting on your video helps you out in the search engine.
Be sure to do this at least once on every video.
Most people do it at the end of the video by during is ok as well depending on your niche.
Part G – Thoughtfully Placed Tags
Image Credit: ShoutMeLoud.com
Before you publish your video you have the opportunity to add tags. This is another way to help people find your videos organically. Most people put 2 or 3 broad categories here with putting much thought into it.
Don’t be one of them. Put a little extra thought and mix in broader keywords with longer tail versions of keywords as well to really boost your results in the search engines.
Example: ‘make money fast’, ‘make money fast with youtube’
Part H – Closed Captions
A lot of people leave these out but you should definitely do them.
You get extra SEO juice and it helps rank you better in the search engines.
Also, now it’s easier than ever to do. There’s an auto caption feature that you can turn on when you upload a video.
Though this feature works well I’d advise you to manually go through it, check for errors and make the necessary edits.
Part I – Tips For Producing a Winning Video
ATTENTION
– You need to grab the viewer’s attention in the first 3-5 seconds and get them hooked in to the video content.
– Start content with a question. Open loops keep people intrigued and their mind needs to keep going until they close the loop. Example: Are you struggling to lose weight?
– Bridge model – talk about the desired situation (where they want to be). Next, talk about where they currently are. Finally, talk about a bridge to get them from their current to desired situation
ANNOTATIONS
– Annotations are also known as Text Overlays.
– With annotations, you can put text and/or website links over your video.
– Annotations work well to increase engagement and Click Through Rate.
– Be careful not to go overboard with them though as they can have the opposite effect – make viewers close your video.
CALL TO ACTIONS
– Every successful marketing campaign uses Call To Actions.
It doesn’t matter if the medium is TV, Radio or Social Media so Youtube is no exception.
Call To Action is just telling the viewer what to do next. It’s usually the money making step.
Example “Click the link below to grab your copy”.
In this Call To Action Example Collin & Devin are prompting viewers to join their Keppers Club for access to exclusive bonuses and specials.
The key to an effective Call To Action is to make it short and to the point.
Don’t confuse the viewer with too many instructions.
A confused mind says no or procrastinates.
Step 4 – Add Your Affiliate Links
In the image above the guy is comparing two new cameras then he places his affiliate links in the description below the video.
The most common place to add your affiliate link is in the description and above the fold.
You can also add your affiliate links in annotations.
During you video or at the end, refer to the affiliate links so the viewer knows to look for them there.
Step 5 – Collect You Commissions/Rinse & Repeat
Collect your commissions and continue to optimize.
You can add in more advanced pieces as well like your own website.
When you have your own website you can supercharge your affiliate commissions by building an email list from your Youtube Subscribers.
Lot of people say email marketing is dead but they couldn’t be more wrong.
When people know, like and trust you, they look forward to your content and take action on your recommendations.
That’s All Folks…
You did it! You consumed this entire guide
You’re a Rock Star!
Now you’re ready to start earning Affiliate Commissions with Youtube
On a tight budget? Start with the Free Methods.
Remember free is slower so you’ll need to be patient and keep producing content to build up some traction.
Got a little cash and want to go faster? Test out the Paid Methods.
What was your biggest takeaway from today’s step by step guide?
Let me know in the comments below.
