Affiliate Marketing Without Social Media: 3 Top Ways to Do It!
There are many ways to make money with affiliate marketing. Organically posting on social media is just one of them!
So, if social media isn’t your cup of tea, then this guide will teach you a few ways you can do affiliate marketing without social media!
The Pros and Cons of Social Media for Affiliate Marketing
Many affiliate marketers are running wildly successful businesses, both with and without social media. Some of our most successful subject matter experts teach courses in Spark on sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and even TikTok!
Social media for affiliate marketing has many pros, but it can also have a few cons that would steer a marketer away from social as their primary marketing channel.
Let’s take a look at both the pros and cons to see if social media is right for you in your affiliate marketing journey!
3 Pros of Social Media for Affiliate Marketing
Social media is one of the key channels used by affiliate marketers in 2022. Here are some of the biggest reasons why.
1) Endless Opportunities
Every social media platform has evolved to attract a unique set of targeted audiences. Based on the product/service you want to promote, social media makes it easy to define your target audience and choose a platform to reach them faster as part of your affiliate marketing strategy.
It is easier than ever to find potential buyers with the help of social media – it’s almost like they present pre-packaged groups of audiences for you.
2) A Side Income for Influencers
Social media has become more than just a communication channel. Many ‘social media influencers’ have emerged on both Facebook and Instagram to help brand meet prospective buyers, thanks to their mass following.
For influencers, affiliate marketing through social media can be a great way to generate additional income directly.
3) Easy Traffic Generation
Social media is an effective tool used by many affiliate marketers to pull traffic on their personal websites. It allows them to better reach their targeted audience, showcase ads to relevant prospects, hence, generating better ROI.
3 Cons of Social Media for Affiliate Marketing
Contrary to popular belief, even though social media has many benefits, it is not the only tool modern affiliate marketers have in their toolbox!
Some affiliate marketers, in fact, prefer not to use social media at all. Here are the main reasons why.
1) Shorter Content Lifespan
Unlike blog articles, YouTube videos, white papers, and other digital content, there’s a very short content lifespan on sites like Facebook and Instagram posts.
From strategy to creation and publishing to engagement, the entire lifespan for a social post may be just one day, and sometimes within just a few hours (especially on Twitter)! This leaves only a limited window to get value from your content, which could prevent a strong ROI per post.
2) Need for Constant Content Creation
A shorter content lifespan directly translates into a need for diversified content published more frequently on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
This can pose as a challenge for folks who are short on time. Additionally, since social media content demands higher creativity, you may see wildly inconsistent results from post to post. People who aren’t as creative may quickly hit a wall and run out of decent ideas for social content.
3) Limited Control
Since social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are third-party, the amount of control you have is dangerously limited. Lack of control can impact your ad relevance, your publishing, your reach, your user experience, and even the way you promote your content.
Plus, using social media as a primary affiliate marketing channel would mean that your entire business is built on a third-party platform. If the platform were to disappear one day, so would your business.
These reasons can be scary for many. But there’s no reason to worry – there are multiple ways to build a successful affiliate marketing business without social media. Let’s take a look!
3 Ways to Do Affiliate Marketing Without Social Media
1) Build an Affiliate Website/Blogging
The affiliate marketing business model is evolving. Unlike a few years ago, people are MUCH more cautious about their online privacy! Users are also more aware of their buying habits and less impulsive, which is leading affiliate marketing to become much more trust-oriented and relationship-oriented.
For affiliate marketers, this means you should be building recognizable, trustworthy brands. And the first step towards building such a brand?
You guessed it: building an affiliate website!
Informed Buying and Trust Building
As I mentioned earlier, people are investing time and effort into making informed buying choices. This means that every time a buyer comes across an interesting product, one of their first impulses will be to Google it. Ranking for specific keywords and phrases could be the thing that helps you get an affiliate customer on – or conversely, lose out on one.
According to a study published by Hubspot, 47% of buyers will view 3 to 5 pieces of content before making a purchase decision. Additionally, they expect companies to create content in order to gain their interest in any form.
Creating an affiliate website allows you to create content that is targeted at thousands of people and introduce them to a range of products that your website has to offer. Blogging with honest, authentic reviews, detailed buying guides, unique listicles on your affiliate blog have the power to not only build unbreakable trust with people who read it but also sell them more than one product, more than once!
Long-Term ROI from Content
When your affiliate website/blog follows marketing recommended SEO , the content published months ago can still attract plenty of new people interested in buying unlike posts published on Facebook or Instagram. Apart from that, these blogs can be individually advertised to churn out higher ROI from the same content.
Adding your affiliate links to this content will automatically translate into affiliate commissions for you; but make sure you have an affiliate link strategy in place so that you don’t lose out on these commissions!
A 2021 statistic blog published by HubSpot also mentioned that 56% of marketers who invested in blogging said that it’s effective and 10% say that it is the type of content creation that generates the biggest ROI.
2) Run Facebook Ads/Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are digital ad campaigns where you pay every time a potential buyer clicks on your ad. Investing in PPC ads is one of the easiest ways to boost visibility of your brand and generate sales.
You should know that some “media buyers” are so successful that their entire affiliate business is paying for ads and capturing the difference between their ad spend and how much they generate in commissions!
Quick Traffic Generation
Whether you’re an affiliate or a seller, it’s virtually impossible to generate more sales without increasing total traffic. The very first step of a sales funnel is traffic generation, and PPC helps you do that quickly. When prospects click on your ad to land on your lander or affiliate bridge page, they go from being cold traffic to warm leads.
The PPC model for affiliate marketing is designed to quickly convert prospects into buyers, which directly translates into more commissions for you!
Understand Buyer Behavior
PPC campaigns enable you to engage in A/B testing and take a magnified look at people’s behavior. A/B testing in PPC refers to creating two same ads with only 1 key difference to see how the change impacts the clickthrough rate (CTR) and overall conversions.
You can test out different types of copy, different designs, as well as different paid traffic sources to shortlist ones that generate the highest qualified leads. Most successful media buyers will test dozens of combinations of headlines, images, and copy to optimize their PPC ad campaigns and maximize their ROI.
3) Grow an Email List
Email marketing is one of the oldest and most most effective forms of digital marketing. In fact, some statistics show that email marketing will generate as much as a 42X ROI on your original investment, making it arguably the most powerful marketing channelsin the affiliate marketing space.
Highly Cost Effective
Compared to other forms of digital marketing, email marketing is cost effective. Given the lower price point and a highly targeted approach of warm prospects and existing buyers, email marketing can be one of the best ways to begin your affiliate marketing journey.
Especially if you don’t have a massive marketing budget from the get-go, email marketing can help you generate an impressive ROI, as long as you’re willing to put in the work to build up your list.
Segmenting Your Audience
One of the key factors in successful affiliate marketing campaigns is segmenting new target audiences in your existing pool. Email marketing is unique in allowing you to incrementally grow different segments and personalize each one with email automations and more.
Building optimized affiliate email marketing campaigns can also help you add or target a new set of audiences on a much bigger scale and implement it much faster than any other marketing channel.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking to start affiliate marketing or already have a business going, you should be aware of the affiliate website, PPC, and email marketing channels. Not only will they help you succeed independently of each other, but combined, they’re a powerful way to grow your audience and promote affiliate products at scale over the long term.
However, your affiliate marketing efforts will reap even more benefits if you’re willing to deep-dive into recommended affiliate marketing strategies before you invest too much in any one tactic.
If you’re looking for an epic place to learn, grow, and ultimately earn your own affiliate commissions, check out ClickBank’s new education platform, Spark. Using Spark, you’ll pick up the fundamentals of affiliate marketing and be on your way to earning your first paycheck!