– This may be the most comprehensive affiliate marketing video that you’ll find on YouTube ’cause in this video, we’re gonna be going through systematically the top questions people have about affiliate marketing, whether how to get started, how to get your account approved, how to actually make more sales, as well as doing some Q&A live, as well. But if you’re here on the replay and we’re just meeting, my name’s Sean, and my passion is bringing you the best tips and tools for building your influence
with online video.
We do a lot of tech gear and camera reviews, and then we also do a lot of strategy videos like this one to help you make money online, build you influence online, and ultimately go faster than ever before building your brand. But just wanna say what’s up to Heather, Sassy, Zombies are Real, Vera, good to see you on Boxing Critic. Thanks so much for being here, and let’s dive straight into it. What we’re doing is an affiliate marketing Q&A, and we’re actually gonna be giving away a couple of copies of “YouTube Secrets,” and so we recently launched “YouTube Secrets,” Benji Travis and I co-wrote this book, and we were blessed to have it hit number one in Social Media and Business on Amazon. And if you wanna be entered to win a copy of “YouTube Secrets,” all you gotta do is just make sure you Like this video, make sure you’re subscribed here on THiNK Media, and leave a comment below with the question, “Have you started affiliate marketing yet?” Where are you at? Have you started making some money? Are you still trying to figure out on your journey, let me know if you’ve
started affiliate marketing, and that’ll get you entered to win.
Now (clears throat), this video you’re watching, excuse me, is Part Four in our affiliate marketing series. And so I hope you’ve been enjoying on THiNK Media. If you haven’t, we’re not gonna really do review. I’m sure we’ll touch on some of the concepts. But that whole series is free on YouTube for you to watch at any time. So down below, you can see that in the comments or the description, there’s a link to this playlist. Watch this whole series, that’ll really help you. But in this video, we’re actually gonna be talking about some general affiliate marketing marketing questions that we’ve been capturing
during the series.
We’re gonna talk about some Amazon affiliate marketing questions as well as social media, share some the results from people in our community, and we’ve got a lot more going on, as well. If you have a question, post it in the LiveChat, and Melissa on the THiNK Media team is gonna try, will answer those at the end, and she’ll deconflict them with all the questions that have been coming in from you in the THiNK Media community so far during this series. So Part One, let’s dive straight into some general affiliate
marketing questions.
So before we do, check this out, this is the THiNK Media crushing, you guys, THiNK Media community crushing some results. So let’s see what people have been doing with affiliate marketing. Lester, “Affiliate marketing is definitely “the way to go on YouTube. “I have achieved close to $300 a day “with affiliate marketing using Facebook and now YouTube.” Great job, Lester. Joshua, “I’m so pumped for this video. “I’ve already made my first sale. “Can’t wait to scale to $100 daily.” Great job, Joshua. Megan, “I made my first 88 cents on Amazon affiliate links “thanks to your tips.” Great job, Megan. And you know, that’s so funny because if you remember in the three-part series, I mentioned my first affiliate commission, which was $1.60 or so from Amazon. And no matter where you are on your journey, I wanna encourage you, it’s proof of concept if you make 88 cents. Because once you’ve made 88 cents, that’s 88 cents more than your neighbor made on affiliate marketing last night. You know, that’s 88 cents more than your brother, who doesn’t even believe
this stuff is real, you know, that’s 88 cents, that’s proof of concept.
Your next question, Megan, is how do I scale? How do I increase my sales, my profits, and the money I’m making, and that’s what this Q&A is all about. So let’s dive into the first couple of questions. “How many subscribers would you recommend “before trying to use affiliate marketing?” And, “Do you have to have a certain amount “of subscribers to become an affiliate?” Great question, and doesn’t have an exact answer, but here’s a few tips. Number one, you do wanna establish a professional online presence. So affiliate marketing with most companies is most probably being reviewed by a human. Now, another tip is that a lot of times to get approved for an affiliate program, it’s best to have a website or a blog. And so you’re like, “Well,
Sean, how would I do that?” Figure it out, Charlie.
I’m just making that up, I don’t know who Charlie is. You know, figure it out, Sarah. Like, just Google it. But think about, you could use Wix, you could use Squarespace, you could use WordPress. But a lot of times, affiliate programs are more into approving you if you have a website and not just a YouTube channel. Now, I’ve noticed YouTube has evolved, and they approve YouTube channels, but they just love it if you have a website or a blog, and when I say a professional online presence, what I mean is one of the
things you wanna think about is if someone lands on your channel. Now, let me give you an example. If someone lands on this channel, clearly, this channel is established.
But if we were to go to, like, Growing Your Greens, even when it was just starting, John Kohler, now his photography and video quality is not super fancy. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a professional online presence that’s like, okay, yeah, this is, like, a gardening channel. Okay, this makes sense, he’s consistent. He’s got some videos up. And when I land on this page, you want the person reviewing your site to be, like, “Okay, this looks legit, it’s professional.” I don’t mean it needs to be fancy, but it’s a little bit of like when I was doing tech early on, which is how I got started, you saw four videos, Best
Lighting, Best Camera, How to Use a DSLR.
And so Amazon approved me early on. So that’s just one tip first and foremost, and that is professional online presence. Number two is you wanna have some momentum. I will give you a figure, this is kinda arbitrary, but it’s a good target. I’d recommend 500 subscribers and 50 to 100 views per video. That’s just kind of a range for a baseline to apply for an affiliate program. But the bigger point is momentum. If you’re already getting views, then that way, you know you can drive some sales, you already have some traffic. And so at some level, even though we’re talking about affiliate marketing and making money right now, you still may be a month, two months, three months away where you should focus on getting views, growing your channel, getting people to your blog, or whatever it is first, momentum. And then you can scale after that. Okay, Million Reflections, “What are the pros and cons “of affiliate marketing through your YouTube channel?” Pros, you can make
money, that’s a good one.
Help people find good stuff. That’s what I love about affiliate marketing is a lot of people do it sketchy online, I’ll admit that. And there’s a lot of, you know, kinda internet marketing types that give it kind of a bad name. But affiliate marketing done right is a very awesome setup. You are essentially meeting somebody at a point where they have a question, they’re trying to decide
between two products.
And you’re hopefully bringing them wisdom because you’ve tested it. Like look, I need my friend Techno Dad to tell me which TV to buy, ’cause I’m not gonna test 40 TVs. He’s a home theater guy, he can lead me right to the best information, and then, when I click his link, it’s not like the price is higher on the product. He just gets a cut from Amazon that goes to him, and I’m glad it does because we need content creators that are supported in their craft. So a pro is you make money, you can help people find good stuff, it’s free. This is why if I think affiliate marketing’s the best way to get started making money, I mentioned it might take a while to build some momentum, but YouTube ads, gotta get approved first, you gotta get those a
thousand subscribers, 4,000 hours of watch time.
If you create your own product, which you should do, but that’s gonna take energy and time. Affiliate marketing you can start immediately, it doesn’t cost you anything, you don’t have to have any inventory, you don’t have to deal with customer service, you don’t have to do, you know, and you’re able to monetize by basically being a middleman or a middlewoman in the equation. It’s the easiest way to start making money online. It’s the way that not only I was able to completely go full time doing this, but even early on, it was the way that I made the most money, 50 extra dollars a month, 150 extra dollars a month. Let’s talk about the cons. Some people may not like it. Like, look, some people might critique you for doing it or say weird stuff, but that’s life, man. You’re never gonna make everybody happy. So you just have to make a decision, like, hopefully do your best to add value and put out good videos, but sometimes people will be like, “Oh, here comes the affiliate marketing guy.” Whatever, man, not everyone’s
gonna like you anyways, so who even cares? You know, like, just gotta do it.
Some people may not like it, but I think if you build your brand with integrity, I don’t see that as a big issue. It’s not as fast as other income streams. So what I mean is, it’s not as fast to generating $50,000 a year or $100,000 a year. It definitely can start making you money quickly, but a lot of times, you need a high volume of traffic, a lot of views, to make, like, pay-the-rent money. So sometimes in a lot of our courses in our community, if you wanna go full time faster, affiliate income might just be one of your income streams. But it might be hard to build it up to, like, a river that’ll support you and your family. So it could take some time. And you are potentially sending people off of YouTube or wherever, and so that’s the thing. If there is a link in your YouTube description, we’ll talk more about this later, and someone clicks it, they leave YouTube. YouTube never wants people to leave YouTube. Makes sense, YouTube’s goal is to keep people on platform because they get more advertisers,
people stay there longer.
So we’ll address that later, but that’d be some of the cons. Those are some pros and cons. At the end of the day, though, to me, it’s all pros. I think it’s totally worth exploring if it fits well with your niche. Jeremy, “Hey, Sean, question, at one point, “do you recommend starting affiliate marketing “for someone who’s just starting out, “less than 100 subs, and trying to build an audience “and community in their niche? “I don’t my audience to get the wrong idea “that I have those affiliate
links in the description “just to,” and then it gets cut off.
So again, I don’t think your audience will get the wrong idea. You also don’t have to make a huge commotion about it. Like, you could put affiliate links in the description. A lot of people do just in case there’s that one curious person that’s wondering what camera you use. 101 that anybody can include in their description is My Gear. What gear do you use on your YouTube channel? Put affiliate links to that and make sure to disclose somewhere in your description, put a disclaimer. And so I think that your audience would only get the wrong idea if you’re oddly pushy to the link, if you got a weird vibe. And again, that one troll or this guy over, like, who cares about that guy, you know, that’s trolling or being weird. I think just always do it with integrity, and there’s no reason why you couldn’t start right from the beginning. But another way to put when you should start is, you know, the tagline of our channel Video Influencers is helping you build your influence, your income, and your impact with
YouTube and online video.
There’s a reason they’re in that order. They go in that order. Look, you can’t make money if you don’t have influence, if you don’t have views, if no one’s following you, if no one’s watching your videos, it doesn’t matter what income stream you have. You’re not gonna make money. You gotta build your influence first. And even if it’s a little bit of influence, you need that first because there’s no way to get income. You’re not gonna get AdSense if you don’t have views. You’re not gonna get affiliate income if no one’s watching. You’re not gonna sell products if nobody knows it exists, whatever it is. So then income comes next, and then, ultimately, impact, because we believe that life is more than followers and fame and fortune. We believe it’s about making a difference. Besides impacting the
lives of your community and the people watching your content, making impact for us, we really, the tribe we’re kinda building is, like, purpose-driven entrepreneurs.
So we care about giving to causes, to nonprofits we support, to giving to our church, to making a difference in the world. Our company, THiNK Media, partners with Compassion International to support 15 kids right now, and we’re trying to move that up to 20. That’s impact, but again, look, if I can’t pay my rent, and I’m starving today, it’s gonna be hard for me to impact others. So that’s why we wanna encourage you on this workflow, focus on building your influence. Get views, get subscribers, hone your craft. Put out that good content. You know, study YouTube, master the best practices. Start generating some income, and then ultimately, you can make a greater impact. So at what point, I mentioned the 500 subs, get some momentum, but that’s definitely the workflow at first. And one other thing I’d say is, you know, on Video Influencers, we were blessed to be in a position where it was a side project, and we already had THiNK Media, and Benji already had his
other YouTube channels.
So we were in a good position to not need to monetize right away. But I’ll tell you this, even though we could turn on YouTube ads, we didn’t for, I think, two years. Talked to my friend Lewis Howes, School of Greatness podcast. He did two years of episodes, valuable content, building an audience, building his influence, serving people before he
started getting show sponsors. So I don’t know how long that is for you, but I just know this.
The longer you hold out on any kind of aggressive monetization, the better. You wanna build trust first. You want people to know you’re, that’s what you care about first. You have to pay the bills. If you wanna do this full time, you need money. So never apologize for that, but if you can hold out and focus on influence first, influence will serve you for life, and impact and income will flow from it. So always just, you know, you got 98 subscribers, Jeremy, at least at this screenshot. Keep building, keep hustling, and again, if you put some affiliate links in your description, it’s not like you’re selling hard core. You can scale it up, and then maybe the right video pops up where you’re like, “Man, this is really synergistic “for affiliate marketing, “and that’s the video that you do.” Neal Fox, “Great video series, one question. “Obviously, when you review a product, “do you need to have the product in your possession? “This can get quite expensive. “When you’re reviewing cameras, for instance, “did you have to buy ’em, or do you get loaners? “How does that work, thanks.” Great question, number one, I
started with the gear I had.
2010, 2009, I start a company called Clear Vision Media, and actually, one of my kind of first YouTube channels, it was actually my second or third. The first YouTube channel I ever managed was for my church in 2007. Talk about a progressive, early adoption church, since churches are usually behind. But this is my Clear Vision Media channel, so I shot this video for Phil Smart Mercedes. I was doing different stuff with YouTubers. This is back when I met Benji and Judy, so I produced a whole series for them, and I covered events. And so when I started my media company, I was working at Red Robin to pay the bills, and I actually took out a loan of about $10,000 so I could invest in a Canon 7D camera, the DSLR revolution. So when I started, this is actually one of the biggest pieces of advice, if you’re a freelancer, a photographer or videographer or a YouTuber, you should be making videos about your setup regardless because it’s just another opportunity to add other income streams. So I started with what I had, and it was real organic because I just had bought a bunch of gear, and then what I realized was I’m either gonna pay that off through doing video production work, or I’ll just pay it off through waiting tables, and I’ll chip away at that loan because I had a vision that
I was in this thing, man.
Come on, let’s grow this, let’s, this isn’t overnight success. This is brick by brick, patience, perseverance, and persistence. And so that’s where I started. Secondly, though, is then as I went, I started leveling out my gear as I went, you know, invested more. But I’ll give you another tip. You don’t need to own the product. You really actually don’t. I’ve seen some great channels that, take around Black Friday. They will go to the leak sites, the sites that have the list of what’s gonna be on Amazon or Newegg, lots of different affiliate programs, Best Buy online has an affiliate program. BH, B&H Photo, Newegg, Amazon. They go to those sites, and maybe they list the top five sales coming up on Black Friday. And all you did was sit here like this. Maybe you could share your screen, show the website, and then put the links in the description below. So if you get creative, you
don’t have to own the product.
Now, I wouldn’t bank on that forever because at some point, they’d be like, “Okay, well, are you ever gonna test it out?” But if it’s pure information or if it’s, it’s pure deal spotting, pew, pew, pew, you’re good. Just go straight to the deals, so that is one way. There’s, you know, I reviewed the Canon M50 or I did a video about it from the Canon Rumors website before I had the camera in my possession, and it wasn’t out to link to, but I could definitely link
to it in the description, or link to other videos, as well.
So technically, no, you don’t need to own the product. Number three, you could rent stuff, borrow stuff, or resell stuff. My friend Dave at Kinetika, he actually just has built up enough of a little bankroll to buy every new camera that comes out, I mean, a couple grand, use it, review it, test it, and then flip it. So if you wanted this to be, like, a system, you could buy it if you have the margin to do that, use it for a while, and
then flip it on eBay.
Now, I would never recommend you do something that is sketchy. Some people, I don’t agree with this, some people actually just buy stuff on Amazon and return it. I don’t suggest you do it, but they also just do that, it’s return it after using it. Borrow it, you know, who can you get around that has other stuff? I’ve learned because I’ve done interview shows that I’ve done whole, like, walkthroughs of someone’s setup, like, you know, show me through your setup on my channel with my affiliate links the description about their gear. So you can collab with somebody and ask ’em what gear they’re using, but then it’s your channel. Link to it with your affiliate links, and then you could also rent the gear. Borrowlenses.com, and this is just for tech, but ask yourself how you can get your hands on anything. And then one other deal is, Neal, I even see you got 7,000 subscribers. So once you get going, you should start getting some free stuff. Like even at your size, I
think whatever your niche is, I see a piano, I think a lot of companies would probably wanna give you software.
I have a friend who has a music site, music YouTube channel. He reviews Ableton Live software. He’s done, like, MIDI keyboards. And it’s also his hobby, so he spends a lot of his own money on his own home studio and monetizes it by doing videos and tips around affiliate marketing. But he’s also got a ton of free software, and sometimes, like, Ableton is $500 on Amazon. So I don’t know what the commission is. It could be as high as 10% because it’s software, it’s digital, and there’s no reason it needs to be as low as tech. But, like, if someone watches his video, clicks through, and buys this, boom, that’s a $50 commission at 10% on software or whatever it is. So he could get software and plug-ins for free, so that’s another thing, that once you start building some influence, products can start flowing to you. And that’s definitely the case here at THiNK Media. You know, we just borrowed, or
we got a loaner of the a6400. I’m gonna buy it with my own money for those who watch the content here.
But we did get our hands on it, we got to borrow it for a while. Some companies send us free gear to keep, sometimes we have to send it back, sometimes we just get to borrow it. We buy a lot of gear. It’s kind of a mix of all the above. So I think that should help. Next question, “What types of affiliate “can someone do in their niche “that doesn’t involve a lot of products? “I’m running a voice acting channel, “and I wish to do affiliate marketing to earn income, “but I’m not sure what I can look for “that relates to my niche.” So number one, affiliate marketing may not be an ideal income stream for you. You’re on this training, you’re like, “I’m ready. “Come on, Sean, give me some good news.” You may not be in an ideal niche for affiliate marketing. I gotta disclaimer after that, but, like, it’s not all things that work the same. I’m in a perfect niche
for affiliate marketing.
Tech couldn’t be better, highly searched, expensive stuff. Beauty lifestyle, perfect niche. Pets, you know, anything, there’s different things where maybe people are looking for different products. You have to determine that for yourself. And on a macro of your vision for your company, your brand, your personal brand, you’re a hobby YouTuber, you can’t, like, force something into a niche that just doesn’t fit there. You might be better off if you really care about this repositioning yourself into an ideal position for maximizing affiliate marketing. However, every niche and industry has tools. So the other thing is not every video needs to be about affiliate marketing. We’re not talking about, like, every upload needs to be about it. It might only be one a month, one a quarter. So you might be helping with voice acting, and you do weekly videos two months. You got eight videos
out, but your ninth video is like, hey, people been wondering, “What webcam do I use, what mic do I use, “or what software do I use to improve my,” you know, I don’t know, for voice stuff.
And so you either might not be in a, a completely irrelevant niche for affiliate marketing, which is very unlikely, there’s always probably something. Or it just might not be, like, a major focus of yours, and you need other income streams. We teach on 10 different ones here in “YouTube Secrets” and in some of our training. So you always wanna pick the best monetization strategies for your individual niche when you’re building out your brand. “As a vlogger, what type of products would you link? “I don’t see big family vloggers doing this,” Teddy asks. Andrew, “Do you have any strategies or ideas “on how vloggers can make
use of affiliate marketing, “maybe a different technique “or a different way of going about it.
“I would love to hear your opinion “in regards to vloggers.” So similarly, it’s not perfect for every niche. You don’t see big family vloggers doing because it doesn’t necessarily work that great, why? Here’s the word I want you to write down if you’re taking notes. Intent, audience intent. And make sure to watch the three-part series if you haven’t because we touch on that. When someone’s watching a vlog, typically, it’s for entertainment. The reason we watch a daily vlog or a weekly vlog from somebody is we sit down, and we love that person, we love their family, we are there for entertainment. When I go to the search bar and I say, I just did this the other day. In fact, I’ll just show you. So I bought the Viper. It’s a roller that just vibrates, man, weird. It’s like crazy, (Viper humming) listen to that. So it’s a roller for, I use it for my arms ’cause I have RSI, repetitive stress injury. I use it for different things. This thing was also super expensive. So when I go and I go best, let’s just see, completely
on the fly here.
Best roller for workout, so it’d be, like, best workout roller, maybe. Ab roller, so kinda the same thing, right? But if someone heads out to look for the best ab roller workout, they’re not in entertainment mode. They’re in wait, what was that device that that person asked, and I learn about this from a friend. Your goal with YouTube is to be someone’s friend online to help them find the Viper roller review, boom. Now, let’s look at this, using a little plug-in tool here. You know how many people wanna see the Viper roller review? Well, let’s see, 10 people a month. Viper roller, 210 searches a month. Viper foam roller, 260 searches a month. So if you rank for this, two years old, this homie right here reviews it, here’s his affiliate links. Boom, he’s got some Geniuslinks in there, takes you over, this is a 200 frickin’ dollar roller, man. You gotta be Paul Lynde to have this (laughing). It really works, though. And so but nevertheless, that guy, then, is that ranked video, and he’s making money
off of whatever it is. This is all related to vlogging.
I’m on a mission to find a roller. I’m on a mission to find a camera. I’m on a mission to find which is the best-tasting flavor of a protein shake or some health food. Whatever it is, a million things you can do. And so the key thing is that, number one, it might not be the best thing to do for you as a vlogger. However, the way I would do it is not all the time, but occasionally, if I’ve got a devoted audience, I might be vlogging, and one day, I’m, like, in my
kitchen with my wife, Sonia.
I’m like, “Hey, guys, we’re trying to get healthier. “It’s a new year, new me, you know, come on. “And we just bought a new blender. “And we’re lovin’ it, it’s actually, “we’ve been using it for two weeks now. “If you’re thinking about getting a blender, “couldn’t recommend this enough. “We actually sent two back that we tried out. “They sucked, they broke. “I’ll link to it in the description below “if you wanna check it out.” But anyways, what we’ve been using with the blender, so what we’re talking about is native integrations with intentional calls to action periodically in your vlogs. Hey, if you’re curious what I’m using, or maybe in one episode, we’ve been getting a ton of questions about what camera we use, I’ll always link to it
in the description below.
Educate your audience about it. What you might learn is that that’s never gonna probably produce life-changing money because the intent is not aligned. But it could create a trickle. On the flip side, if you really wanna crush it with affiliate marketing, you wanna reverse engineer your whole plan. Like, are you in a good niche? Can you have consistent content? That’s why product review videos, product review channels, are inherently stacked to perform very, very well as it pertains to affiliate marketing. Hey, if you’re enjoying this live stream, can you smash Like? We are just getting started, friends, and just wanna say hello,
thanks for being here.
And let’s keep jiving right in. All right, “What are a few basic companies “you suggest for starting out? “Thanks again, Sean, for your assistance.” Let’s dive in. Okay, so I took a little screenshot here from a different training, and here’s just a couple. You could go Target Affiliates, did you know that Target
has an affiliate program, Nordstrom, I just Googled these things. The Home Depot Affiliate Program, Cabela’s Affiliate Program.
In the middle here, you could be a reseller of Dropbox, that’s software. Wine.com, come on, somebody. You could be a ButcherBox affiliate. A friend of mine is making over six figures a year with bacon, ButcherBox. As an affiliate, he is profiting, he’s got a big audience, but he’s profiting selling bacon through ButcherBox, over six figures profit
a year, it’s insane.
So your question is there’s probably an affiliate marketing program for everything. The Adobe Affiliate Program, I use Creative Cloud. That one’s been good for us because I use Adobe Photoshop and so I think in the description of this video, a lot of times you’ll see, it’ll say, “This video was edited on Premiere,” and that’s an affiliate link to Adobe, right? But then there’s also networks. There’s places like rewardStyle or ClickBank or FlexOffers. And what those are is, there’s kinda both. You could have the direct affiliate program, or you could go to, like, a FlexOffers, and what you do is you sign up and you get approved for them. And then you would be a publisher. So there’s 1200 advertise, you’d be an advertiser. I don’t know which one you’d be. And let’s see if we can
get some screenshots.
Nike, eBags, Happy Socks. Look, careers, consumer electronics, business. Friends, it’s a deep rabbit hole, it really is. Right now, we are active in about 20 different profitable affiliate programs. It doesn’t happen overnight. Little by little, we built up ranked videos, built up other programs, thought about what’s aligned with our audience. Some do better than others. Whatever it is, but those are a couple of different ones that you could get started out with. Here’s a tip, if you wanna go look to see what brands might have affiliate programs, here’s the equation. Brand name plus affiliate marketing program or ambassador program or partner program or referral program, and so what I would do is you might say the Nike affiliate program. Now, what we just learned was that it was a FlexOffers thing. Click this, there’s VigLink, and then here’s all the details, like sign up, which
countries, Austria, Italy, view the project.
And VigLink is another network. See, we just typed in brand name plus affiliate marketing. Now, let me see what else we use. We use Slack for internal communications. So maybe, in fact, mark my words we will probably do this in the future. And I would say that we’ll, if we did a series here on THiNK Media to serve our entrepreneurial audience about all the tools we use in our business, Slack, Dropbox, Google Docs, not really for sale, or, you know, whatever things, so then let’s just look. Is SlackSocial what it’s called? I don’t know if this is actually what it is. This is different, yeah. So by the way, it might not
have an affiliate program or I just might wanna keep looking.
Oh, here it is. So Let’s Work Together. Slack partners, this could be the start of it. Apply to be a partner. And so then you just start filling out this detail. I’ve never even thought about being an affiliate for Slack. We just have been loving it over the last couple of months, and it’s how our internal team communicates. So use that equation, and then, here’s Part Two, is then also maybe search in the website footer for where to sign up to be an affiliate. So you could say Walmart Affiliate Program, and Google that, boom, affiliates.walmart.com, sign up. Or if you were to just go to Walmart.com, a lot of times you could scroll to the bottom of the page, insert brand, product you
love, software you love, subscription box you love.
Scroll to the bottom, and you might be able to find the affiliates tab, may or may not be able to find it here. And so I’m not seeing it. And I think actually things like subscription boxes are great, I mentioned that. So we’re gonna keep going in this video with some crazy ideas, but there’s so many different things that you may not have even considered yet. And so use those equations to go search out if it has an affiliate program. “So when you start getting ad revenue “and affiliate marketing sales, “do you need a business entity officially “in order to file taxes? “Can someone explain how that works? “It’s a huge barrier in my mind. “I wanna get the idea of how it works.” “Do you need to make a separate bank account on PayPal “when reviving or receiving your money “from my products that I’m selling “from affiliate marketing and other sources of income?” All right, couple of things. Number one, you don’t necessarily
need a business entity.
Typically, they’re gonna ask for a Social Security Number or an EIN. Second disclaimer, I’m here in Vegas, I live in the United States. Wherever you are watching from the world, in fact, let’s do a roll call. Let me know in the comments or the LiveChat. Where are you watching in the world? Shout me out, I’ll try to say hello. And so you gotta look at your local laws. The general answer is this, though, that a lot of times, you just make it as a sole proprietor. You will get 1099’d by Amazon, 1099’d by Adobe if you’ve made a certain amount of money. Even if you haven’t made
a certain amount of money, technically, the IRS here in America, if you make $300 under the table, they want you to disclose that.
So if you made $100 on Amazon, I think 600 is the limit for getting a 1099 officially. You’re still technically on the hook for claiming that. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a tax professional. But just a couple of things, it’s income. All it is is income. Like if Amazon sends you a check for $100, it doesn’t matter if shot photography for them, it doesn’t matter if you spoke at their event. It is because it’s income, so it’s the same as anything else. But in the back end, they should hold your hand and walk you through that process. What’s up, Atlanta Toasty, what’s up Canada Half Bricked. What’s up, Hex Vision, Fish in Tokyo, William in Taiwan. Thanks for being here. Fortunate Adventures, Huntington Beach, super great seeing you. Thanks for being here. Tien in California, appreciate you. Do you need a separate bank account, no. The answer is no. Now, some companies only pay out in PayPal. So I think PayPal is just a modern account. Like, if you’re doing online
business in 2019 or 2020, you need a PayPal account (laughing).
I mean, I just, a PayPal is something that is integrated into a lot of different things. And some companies, that’s just the easiest way. We actually have an affiliate program for our own digital courses. We pay people through PayPal. And so but a lot of times on the back end, you’re either gonna connect a bank account, connect a PayPal account, or they’ll mail you checks, or you’ll get gift cards or something. And so this is, we’re not gonna go super deep in this stuff, but pretty much dive in
and read the fine print.
I understand that some of that stuff might be intimidating, and it’s the stuff I hate the most. As a creative, I just wanna make videos. I don’t wanna set up all the back end stuff, but I did it, I did the discipline of making sure I crossed my T’s and dotted my I’s because I wanted these income streams to be set up right and because our passion here is helping you rank videos, helping you get videos showing up in search and suggested videos so you get views while you snooze. So I just wanted this income to be passive, so I wanted to make that all the accounts are set up. And I’ve got a big list, so I can always go through and kinda do maintenance on making sure everything is set up. And you know, ’cause we’ve moved, we’ve moved over the years. So you gotta change the back end address and, you know, eventually, we moved from a Social Security Number to a business EIN. Just cross your T’s and dot your I’s on the back end, and you should do great. Online Outdoorsman, “Driving
people away from YouTube “seems to hurt video performance.
“So how should I balance that “if you’re more focused on building an audience? “Or should I put affiliate on pause “until I get a larger base?” Two tips, you don’t need to do affiliate marketing in every video. So you’re right, but it’s not like every single video should be, like, “So right now, click the affiliate link, “leave YouTube.” Like, you might do four videos that have nothing to do with affiliate marketing, and then that fifth one sends people away, that’s fine, whatever, it’s up to you. Two, second tip, don’t worry too much, because most people won’t leave anyways. Isn’t that the case? I mean, how many, it’s always the same spiel from all of us on YouTube. “Hey, by the way, there’s links in the description.” And I’m like, “Cool, well, I’m not actually shopping today, “so, like, thanks for the tip.” And I watch the video and consume the content. So I’ve learned that, like, it’s not like you must mention
links in the description, and everybody leaves, you know, like, there they go, you know.
So maybe just don’t worry about it too much. Don’t give calls to action away from the platform in every video, and you should be fine. The last thing I would say is that it’s up to you. I would acknowledge that maybe my YouTube strategy and my business model is different than somebody who just kind of is purely about algorithm subscribers and growth. But I’m also about business, I’m also about, like, other projects we have and live events and things we’re doing. So it’s a trade off. Yes, if you can keep people on YouTube forever, that is the best strategy if all you care about is YouTube. And if all you care about is YouTube and YouTube views and maybe brand deals, then
that might be a good idea. Never send people away.
It’s my belief, though, that I also don’t want all my eggs in one basket, so we try to grow our email list. That’s one reason why we give away a lot of free, valuable stuff like a YouTube checklist, ’cause we also send out a valuable newsletter. And here’s the thing, if we, if YouTube’s algorithm just crashes, you know, just no longer is favorable, maybe if subscribers no longer see videos, I hope you’re on the THiNK Media email list so we can stay in touch. So I do like to send people away. I do want people to be on our website, I do want people to be able to watch trainings elsewhere. That is a strategic decision, and all of us need to make that decision for ourselves. But you ultimately don’t need to affiliate market in every video, and I wouldn’t worry too much because people, when they leave, they’re leaving ’cause
they’re on a mission.
They’re like, “Thank you, good video. “You mention the link, “I wanna make sure I get the exact right thing, “appreciate it, I’m going now.” But that’s probably only like one out of 100 people, one out of 1,000, who knows. Let me know what you think in the comments. “What opportunities are there for channels “without tangible, purchasable goods to promote, “like movie facts in my case?” Well, if I had a movie facts channel, I would look up the MoviePass Affiliate Program, which I did. So look, MoviePass Affiliate Program, one-day cookie duration, what’s a cookie duration? That means when someone clicks on the link, your affiliate link, for 24
hours if they make a purchase, it’s credited to you. Some people have 365 day cookies.
They click on a link one time, and if someone buys anything on that website from the same device that year, it’d be credited back to you. And Amazon is 24 hours, as well. It’s a one-day cookie duration. One day meaning they click on your link, they saw the yoga mat you recommended in your video, but they waited four days and they bought it four days later, you wouldn’t get credit. So it’s within the cookie duration. But if I had a movie channel, I might look into MoviePass. I might look into Netflix. This is older, I’m not sure if they still allow you to do this, but of course the Netflix
affiliate program, I would look at stuff like My Geek Box.
You could do an affiliate there. Or Loot Crate, if it’s related to kinda like the movies, and so subscription boxes, and almost like adjacent, write this down, adjacent aligned products. So don’t think so literal. You’re not talking about cameras, but what are the things that your audience are into? Cool, geeky stuff, figurines, movie paraphernalia, posters, a movie pass, subscription boxes, you know. Or if it ever turns into physical goods, maybe they want physical 4K Blu-rays. So around Black Friday this next year, you’re like the top five 4K Blu-ray deals, and then again, your channel might not be perfect for affiliate marketing at the highest levels, but I think this should help, showing that there’s definitely some things you could do, and this is how I want you to be thinking. Now, one thing to, this is one thing to remember, is affiliate marketing does not work if you don’t get views. And so all of this stuff is good for optimizing and helping, but if you’re actually not getting traffic to your YouTube videos or to
wherever your social media is, you’re never gonna get that high of sales.
So I just wanted to take a moment here to remind you that we just uploaded our viral video checklist. That’s at viralvideochecklist.com. It’s totally free. You enter your name and email, and we email to you, along with the three-part video series that includes how to get more views on your videos so you can get more traffic, how to monetize in a few different ways. And I actually take you with me in the other room here to do a deep dive training. I just wanna put this on your radar, viralvideochecklist.com, link in the description below because again, all the affiliate marketing strategies in the world, without
views, are not gonna help.
That is our transition from Part One into Part Two, so let’s do some community love. David, “I just signed up for Audible on Amazon. “Gonna begin using them on my podcast,” great job. “I started two weeks ago, and I already made 81 cents, “ooh, yeah,” way to go, Sarah. Come on, let’s scale that. Josh, “Thanks for this video. “I’ve been already making side income “with affiliate marketing, “but this video pushed me to want to do more “through my content to build up everything I possibly can.” So thank you, hey, if
you’re getting value, we just covered Part One of this Q&A where we did some general questions.
We’re gonna go into some Amazon questions next, so smash Like to keep my energy high. Water break for Part Two. All right, you ready, I’m ready. Like button smashed, and also, we’re giving away a couple of copies of “YouTube Secrets.” I’ll put the, I forgot to put the deadline. I think this’ll go for about two weeks, and then we’ll send these out. All you have to do is just make sure you’re subscribed, Like the video, and answer the comment “Have you started affiliate marketing yet?” And we will hit you up, you’ll be entered to win a copy of “YouTube Secrets.” Part Two, Amazon Affiliate Questions. Here we go. “How to actually get the money off of Amazon, “’cause I see the money in there, “but I don’t know how to claim it.” So you’re making money
with affiliate marketing, but you want to get it out of the account. Number one, most affiliate programs want you to verify your identity. So typically, when you sign up these days, they might send you a text message.
Come on, you know the spiel. You sign up, verify you’re you, they send you a text, you enter the five-digit code, whatever. That’ll help. Make sure you fill out your mailing address. They typically want some sort of a mailing address. Make sure you fill out your tax info, your EIN or a Social Security Number, and then select your payment type, check, PayPal, direct deposit, or gift cards. Heather Torres, on our team here, she’s making, I feel like
100 to 150 every month or every couple of months just from her homeschool channel.
The way she gets her money is Amazon Gift Cards ’cause she knows she’s gonna invest back in books and more homeschool supplies. So you can pick different methods, but what I would encourage you is just go in your back end, make sure everything is filled out. The dots are connected to how you’re gonna receive payment, and they have all the information. And most affiliate accounts have, like, a big red thing, like information needed in order for you to get payment. So just do your due diligence on the back end, and you should be good to go. Camera sample, “How many subscribers or views per video “should I try to register specifically for Amazon “to get approved because if I get approved, “how many sales do I need to have “because I heard they can cancel affiliate, “your account if you don’t make it.” So I went into our Video Ranking Academy private Facebook group,
and Dennis said this.
“When I first applied last year, I got rejected. “I reapplied three months ago, and was recently approved. “It took me one month to get my first three sales.” This is kind of always changing, but that’s what they want. You sign up, you gotta get three sales. Hugh said this, “When I joined back in August, “I had to drive three sales in my first 180 days “to stay an affiliate.” So it’s usually something like that. And let me tie that to a strategy. This is why I want you to establish a professional online presence, one, and two, get momentum. Because if you’ve got a baseline of your channel, some decent branding, people like, “Okay, cool, “this is, like, a fitness channel, so it looks legit.” And then I want you to get some
subscribers and some views, have some momentum, and then maybe think about, all right, over this next 180 days or this next couple of months, I’m gonna release at least four videos related to affiliate marketing. I’m gonna review the hyper Viper roller.
I’m gonna review some exercise bands, and I’m gonna review this vegan protein powder that I love. Maybe not every video, but maybe like over the next couple of days. So then, then you pull the trigger, you’re ready to go. You apply for the Amazon
program, and you get to work. Start hustling to get those views, start hustling to promote it out there ’cause you wanna get those three sales so that your account gets locked in. And one other thing I would say, and do this, of course, with integrity.
But, like, just like putting out a YouTube video and linking to it in the description and saying, “Hey, if you wanna buy this thing, “link in the description below.” And that could drive some sales. You know what else could drive some sales? (imitates phone ringing), Hey, mom, yeah. So I’m, like, trying to get this affiliate account started, and I know you shop on Amazon all the time, yeah. So before you ever buy anything on Amazon, could you just do me a favor and stop by one of my YouTube videos? Here, actually, come over,
come over to my house.
She walks in, hey, Mom, let me show you. Just open up the description, see these links? Just click one of those before you buy something. Or ’cause affiliate marketing, you need to disclose it. So a friend of yours needs to buy some gear. So you go, “Hey, friend, I’ll recommend you some gear,” and you send them links. When I used to work for a church, and I would totally disclose this, people would hit me up all the time. “What camera should I buy, what microphone should I buy “for our church news?” I made ’em a list of affiliate links, and then I sent it to ’em and said, “This is exactly what I’d recommend.” It was almost like hand-to-hand
affiliate marketing.
So when you start thinking out of the box, if you just need to drive sales, you could do it, just be scrappy, and don’t ever be deceptive, you know, just be transparent. Like, you’re doing the work of putting together, it’s kinda like a consultant. I was, I was a consultant of a list of video gear from the person who had tested the stuff, sent directly to another church that was ready to buy that list, and looking for a shortcut, looking for a friend to help lead them to the right products. So you start thinking this way, you could send out an
email, put it in your P.S., you could send it out on social.
We’ll talk about it later, but be careful on social because you just wanna make sure you have disclaimers. So I typically like to send out social links to YouTube videos with affiliate links in the description and a disclaimer in the description because if you put it on social, you could always put parentheses, affiliate or something, and that’s what you would do. But I think it’s cleaner, in my personal opinion, to just go social to YouTube to affiliate link with disclaimer. And we will do some live Q&A as we get through this, so please keep posting your questions, Mel is capturing them while you post them. “What happens when someone clicks “on a bunch of different people’s Amazon affiliate links “and buys something, who gets the commission? “I also like to know any affiliate suggestions “you may have for people focused on film and filmmaking.” Cool, so I did a couple of
the recommendations early for the MoviePass stuff.
If it is film and filmmaking, it’s kind of a lot like THiNK Media, although we’re more for like YouTube creators. We don’t call ourselves filmmakers because we’re like, look, man, this is about you making money, you growing your small business, you growing your hobby channel. It’s less about color
grading for six hours, and we’re into that, too. But, like, most people don’t need that.
But in filmmaking, you could sell LUTs, recommend LUTs and color grading and software and cameras and lenses, if that’s what you’re doing. But as far as if someone clicks a bunch of links, I think the most important term to know in affiliate marketing is last click, last click. Most affiliate programs work by giving credit to whoever, whatever link was the last link they clicked. So when someone clicks a bunch of different affiliate links, it doesn’t matter, who did they click on last before they made their purchase? That’s typically the biggest thing. And then you can go deep in the affiliate marketing world, and sometimes, there’s, like, sticky clicks where the first click is the thing they get. That’s not Amazon, though, and so it depends on the program you’re a part of. “Hi, Sean, I started affiliate marketing “after watching your videos, it’s been a month. “Luckily, 11 items sold,” great job. “My question is, does OneLink work for YouTube videos, too? “I mean, if I add the link in the description “for amazon.com, “do I have to have UK and CA?” So first of all, what is OneLink? Well, OneLink is cool, but on Amazon, you can now apply for
Canada, Mexico, Japan, UK, I believe Amazon Australia.
You get approved, Italy, Germany. You get those affiliated accounts set up, and then you get them connected through OneLink. Link up your accounts, link your U.S. account with your international Associate account, click there to link. Then you get one code, and then, you’re right, if you put that OneLink, doesn’t matter if it’s on YouTube, your blog, social media, they click the OneLink, but then Amazon is smart enough to say, “Oh, that person’s in Japan, “we’re gonna take them to the Japan Amazon site.” And this works pretty good, but the thing I’ve learned is that it’s very rare that products are aligned. Like, a lot of times, that exact SKU, that exact product, isn’t in Japan, or it
is, but it’s overpriced. However, we get checks. We get checks from Canada, UK, because it’s a little bit different. They’re not even direct deposit, they go through, you know, whatever, so they just come in the mail. That’s the way we have it set up.
And so OneLink is really cool, and I highly recommend it. It just allows you to potentially make a little bit of extra income when doing that. “I get a lot of clicks, but not a lot of sales “Also, how do you manage items that go off Amazon. “One day, they’re available, next day, they aren’t.” Good question, so if you’re getting a lot of clicks, hey, first order of business
is great job, you know? Secondly, I would ask, you know, what is your actual percentage of income? And so, you know, on any given day, my click-through rate is around two, and if it’s awesome, it’s at 4%. We’ll look at yesterday on THiNK Media, 7,500 clicks, 239 items. Here’s the conversion rate, 3.9%, okay? I made 476.38 yesterday off Amazon, cool.
So the conversion rate is 3.9%. So what I would first tell you, getting back to the question on how to, is you need to get 100 clicks based on my math to get three sales. So I’m not sure how many clicks you’re getting, but that’s pretty typical. Most online conversion, one, 2% is great, 5% is, like, legendary. And if you’re climbing up to like six, 7%, you are epic. So get more clicks, and if you’re, but if you’re getting 1,000 clicks and no sales, then you got a problem. So that would be the thing I would manage first. Second thing is I don’t know what you’re recommending, but if it’s available one day on Amazon and the next day it’s gone, it happens quite a bit on THiNK Media where, again, we put up a SKU to some lights, video’s out for three months, and then, I’m like, crap, they changed it around, and now this says product’s
no longer available ’cause they rebuilt their store.
What that means is I think you gotta stay on your game. This is, I hope your ambition, in fact, let me know if one of your ambitions is to be a full-time content creator because that’s part of our mission. We are here at THiNK Media, we wanna help 10,000 people create a full-time living doing what they love and make a difference with online video. So if you wanna be a full-time content creator, and I just wanna encourage you, you gotta stay on your game, man. Eventually, you’d be doing this full-time, you know what I mean? So, like, keep your links updated, and if you’re a side hustle right now, then on the weekends, I’d go back, and some weekends, all I’d do is just go re-optimize old videos to make sure that the product’s still linked up. Because again, that’s gonna stop conversions. If someone clicks through, and they’re like, you can’t even buy it, clearly, it’s not gonna make a sale. So you wanna make sure you’re
fixing it, you’re working it.
King of Yorkie, “Thanks so much for the super chat.” And so that’s what I would recommend. And then one other thing, and just because as I was preparing for this deck, I just am here to answer questions in the Q&A, but we do have an affiliate marketing course. It’s called Video Product Review Profits. You can get access to it at videoreviewprofits.com. It’s actually on sale right now, and so it is normally 67, but we have it on sale for 27. And that goes into the five elements of how to make the perfect product review video. At 27 bucks, great investment. Not even trying to, like, push it hard. I just wanted to put that on your radar because that’s probably the best information for how to actually get more sales, and here’s what I mean. A couple of things that I’ve learned. If you do the best video ever and people trust you and you’ve tested the product, but they click through, and for some reason, the link on Amazon, the product on Amazon, has
three and a half or less stars, something’s wrong.
And it’ll hurt conversion. Now, you might, it’s just, it’s human nature. You gotta think about the whole workflow. They search for it, they found you, and you’re like, “It’s good,” but then they click through, and who knows if they got trolled. Does that make sense, though? Once they land on Amazon, what do they see next? Does it have positive reviews? Does it have, it is congruent all the way through the funnel? That’ll hurt conversion if, for some reason, even if you discover that it wasn’t as bad as people thought it was, they’re not gonna buy it if there’s a whole bunch of negative reviews. So I like to audit, before I even press record, I like to think things through. I don’t even wanna start shooting a video if I don’t think that it can make it all the way to the end of that funnel, unless there’s some reason that I want you guys to know about it anyways. But you know what I’m saying? So that would be a tip
to increase conversions.
Another tip to increase actual conversions is actually encouraging people to go read the reviews. So what you might say is, towards the end of your video, your product review, you might say: So you saw the pros, you saw the cons. I love this product, but actually, don’t just take my word for it. A lot of other people who are using it in different ways love it, too. And if you click in the link in the description below, it’ll take you over to
Amazon, and read the reviews. Because don’t just take my word for it.
This product’s truly great, and a lot of people love it. See what I did there? You then are sending people over, reinforcing the social proof of the product being legit. I like to only review products that are legit unless they’re so bad I want you to know not to get them, you know? And so those are a couple of things, and that’s a little bit, we actually just go through a whole framework to basically stack your product review videos. If you wanna figure out how to make profitable product reviews, that could be comparisons, how-tos, we cover that in Product Review Profits, link in the description below, just in case you wanna
check out that training.
All right, “I’ve tried Amazon links in the description, “but I’m also using something like Kit, is it effective? “Should I actually link to everything in the description?” So a couple of things here. Number one, if you link in the description, it’s linking the description to Amazon, so it’s a shorter funnel, basically. I like that, excuse me. Link in the description to Amazon. If you link to Kit, there’s a link on YouTube to kit.com to Amazon. I like both, and I’ll show you what kit.com is for those that are new to it. So I just mixed it up for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes when I do a whole, like, list video, as you’ve seen, one
Kit link is much better because there’s like seven things in the whole Kit I’m talking about.
If I’m ever talking about one product, I don’t need to just go to Kit. I like to just do the one link directly to Amazon. Additionally, remember when we talked about the cookie. You click the link, it’s valid for 24 hours, so one of the best things you could have going for you is people clicking links, period. What I’ve learned, and you just saw some of our numbers, you know that we’re doing multiple six figures in affiliate marketing a year, is I’ve learned that when you just have more clicks, links, out in the world, and if you start building now, like, it’s good you’re
watching this training, you start positioning, ranking videos now, leveling up your game now, you get ready for fourth quarter, and you’ve got ranked videos with affiliate links in the description.
What ends up happening is people are just researching, they’re looking online. They’re watching videos, they’re clicking links, and then what they end up doing is just buying other stuff completely unrelated to what you recommended. About 50% of the income we make, it’s not because of a camera I recommended. It’s like someone bought some, like, Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and a shawl, and they bought, like, a grill, and then they bought some candy and some digital music. It’s all over the place. They just happened to have clicked on one of my links in the last 24 hours. So therefore, my personal favorite is just Amazon.com, Christopher. Now, I love Kit. Let me just take you guys over to Kit. It’s a great resource, too, if you ever wanna see my Kit ’cause we’ve done, we’ve gone to a lot of work to put together great Kits that are, like, for instance,
our recent drone video.
So we just did best drones with Aldrin, and he, I don’t know as much as he does, so it was really more about, like, his expertise. And then there’s all the drones to it, and people can say View on Amazon, and it takes them over to it. Now, one cool thing that I think you kinda need, like, a level of a pro Kit account, but watch this. If I go to Edit Pro File and I go to Monetize, input your affiliate codes, Amazon, BH, Newegg, eBay. What’s cool is sometimes, when you link up the other sites, I got my BH, B&H, I
got multiple countries, United Kingdom, U.S., Canada.
Kit gives you one link, and it potentially takes you either to the right country, or even a different site like B&H or Newegg. So there are some advantages to Kit. By the way, you keep 100% of the money. You just insert your affiliate codes here. At the same time, I trust
Kit at the highest levels, but I’ll tell you what I trust more, not sending people to Kit.
So I do both, that’s kinda the answer, right? So I like them, you know, our 4K Kit. It’s organized right here, you can watch the video. It’s a great way. And for some people, by the way, this will happen. Sometimes a professional business owner, somebody calls us, they’re like, “Look, man, “just tell me what to get.” What’s cool is, check this out. You could just click one button, Buy All on Amazon, boom, that’s a gnarly cart right there. And so this complete kit right here, if you were to literally buy this, would be $7,885. But it’s nice having it out there ’cause maybe someone’s like, “I want the exact THiNK Media setup “that you guys are using,” and that’s All in One button on Kit, and it could be even international sites, or maybe they do it on BH or somewhere, B&H or somewhere else. Are you getting some value, man? Are you having fun, I
hope that you’re seeing some great value, good to see you, Eric, good to see you, Fish Visions.
Youth Man, always great to have you on the stream. Let’s keep going. All right, we’re talking about Like and Share, hey. If you’re getting value, sharing is caring, thank you so much. If you haven’t smashed Like yet, I hope you’re, I hope, I’m trying to bring some fire, so if you got that gratitude, that’s the best attitude, click Like. Viral Video Checklist, if you wanna scale those views. Community crushing, and we’ll go into Part Three here. We covered general affiliate marketing questions. We covered some Amazon questions. We’re getting to your live questions, as many as we can, but we still got Part Three, and then in Part Four, we’ll answer your questions. But let’s see how the community’s doing. TJ, “Sean, this rings true. “I made a video last holiday season for Cyber Monday. “It wasn’t even that good, “but I knew that I needed it to be out there “before Cyber Monday. “I made $570 in ad revenue
in three hours,” that’s sick, “with 36,000 views, “and over $14,000 of product revenue “from my Amazon affiliate links.
“This year, I’m definitely planning on more content.” TJ, I love it. I wanna encourage you, and one of the reasons we’re sharing this is ’cause one, they were shared by you guys in the THiNK Media community. But two, I want you to see this as possible. It’s not that it’s easy, it’s not that it’s gonna be a walk in the park. But when you’ve got a good strategy, you’ve got a good plan, you’ve got the right information, you level up your content game, and you keep workin’ this,
it works if you work it.
And it’s not just us at THiNK Media. People around the world are crushing it with affiliate marketing. So TJ, thanks for sharing your story. Freeley, “I made my first $16 through affiliate marketing. “And I’m super pumped to see that number grow.” I also wanna encourage you that not everyone’s gonna make a million dollars in affiliate marketing, but would it change your life if you just had an extra
$100 a month coming in in passive income, around your hobby, in something you love to do and you’re getting free stuff? Of course, it would.
Make an extra $1,000 of income a month. This has practicality at a lot of levels. THiNK Media’s not a get-rich website. It’s not a get-rich-quick brand. It is a website, we believe in hard work, but we do believe in modern marketing in this new era of entrepreneurship. This is not a joke, this is not a scam if you can do this with integrity. But when you put in the work and work it, it’s happening globally, right? It’s a real deal. So I do wanna encourage you, you know, I can relate to years, you know, I had a side hustle. And I’d upload a video, and I’d hope it did better, and I hoped I made more, but I was making 50 bucks and 25 bucks. There’s a lot of persistence
that comes along with this.
But keep workin’ it, keep posting, keep grinding, and keep learning about the little nuances that’ll help you go further faster, ’cause it all definitely matters. Which brings us to Part Three, Social Media Affiliate Marketing Questions. Here we go, “What’s the easiest way “to do affiliate marketing on Instagram? “And I would like to know it “because I have an Instagram account “with a high amount of followers, “and I’m thinking about starting affiliate marketing, “and I’d really appreciate
if you answered my question.” Well, The Trailers Factory, happy to.
Number one, not every social media platform is good for affiliate marketing. The easiest way to do it on Instagram is link in bio. And you do wanna make sure that there’s some level of disclosure. What I like, is that’s why I like YouTube the best because you have a description, and you can always put that disclaimer in your Instagram caption. But not a lot of people wanna leave Instagram, you know. Going to link in bio’s kind of hard to do. You could always do a swipe-up on Stories. But what I would recommend, to be honest, is I actually would recommend you build an email list or some kind of an insider’s community where you could share content more directly with them. So friends of mine have done favorites lists. Like, “Do you just wanna be on my insider’s favorite list?” So if you use your Instagram to build an email list, then from time to time, one author I like, Ryan Holiday, he built up an email list of just his favorite books. He’s a great author, and he’s a reader, and massive people wanna
hear the books he recommends.
It’s an email newsletter, you only get it through email. And he recommends usually five books at a time. And they’re just Amazon affiliate links. But he’s got, like, I think, 100,000 or plus people on his email list. So I might try to build an audience somewhere else with a better, more aligned way of monetizing it. YouTube is the best, in my opinion. And then also realizing that on Instagram, brand deals, kind of sponsored posts, or using your influence there to send people somewhere else. But the hardest thing is I’m on my phone and I see your post, but my intent, I’m just not there, you know, or I see. Here’s the problem. I see a product you
recommend on Instagram, and I’m like, “Cool, set my phone down, “go over to my computer and type it in “’cause I’d prefer to shop that way.” So that’s not trying to discourage you, but it’s just the reality of it.
That’s why you wanna reverse engineer your whole strategy, right, about which platforms you’re choosing to leverage. But a couple of things, link in bio, build an email list, send traffic elsewhere. And then look at other monetization. If you got a big audience, a high amount of followers, you could be selling sponsored posts, as well. That might be more profitable than affiliate marketing is for you. Kevin, “Look forward to your next video. “My question is, what drives the most traffic “and conversion for a sale? “Is it YouTube or other social media or a website?” YouTube and blogs are the best. So I’ve just learned, you know, yes, you could tweet here and there. I prefer to tweet a YouTube video. A lot of people have good blog followings. Podcast is another one because you could do your show notes. But again, not a lot of people are going from listening, and “Hey, I’ll list everything in the show notes.” Well, how often do you
go to the show notes? I’ve gone a couple of times.
I just don’t go all the time. If you have an avid, blogs are huge because blogs, you can have embedded, it’s even better because blogs and websites can be hyperlinked. YouTube is the actual link. The blog can say, “My favorite mascara,” and the affiliate link is embedded in that link. Always do your disclaimers above and below or wherever. And we have a video out with my friend Tim Schmoyer in our affiliate marketing playlist that goes into a lot of the FTC disclaimers and things like that if you haven’t read that. Even that video, you need to do your own due diligence. But here’s one of the things I like to look at. If you just go to somebody like a Casey Neistat, a lot of times in the olden days, Casey, MKBHD, they didn’t disclose nothin’, man, and because it was maybe
the early Wild West to some of this stuff, but now, you can just check.
Like, you go to Casey’s website or the YouTube channel and look at him talking about, like, the OSMO, and then, of course, he links to it. Here’s some stuff, a couple of Amazon links. These are affiliate links. And then he says, “Above are affiliate links. “So if you click and buy, I get a small commission. “This video was not sponsored by DJI or GoPro.” And I’ve actually adopted some of that language because I want our community
to know a couple of things.
These are affiliate links, and people say this sometimes in the comments. “Oh, man, I bet Sony paid you a lot of money “for our latest M50 versus a6400.” Well, Frank, I don’t know who the person was, they didn’t pay us nothin’, bro. We, you know, we care about our integrity, and so, but I get it, people just, they just searched and found it. They don’t know us, so they don’t know our brand. So I like to put in the disclaimer. These are affiliate links. This video is not sponsored. And if it is, this video is sponsored, but all of our opinions are our own. But yeah, take it from Casey, you can see a disclaimer right there in his description. If you wanna go over the MKBHD, a lot of times what he’ll do is maybe not even disclose an affiliate link, but what he’ll do is link to his gear. So let’s check it out, completely raw and spontaneous. Video gear I use, boom, kit.com, he’s using Kit. So when you get here, you don’t need to disclose because Kit is taking
care of that for you.
They probably say it somewhere, I don’t know where, but you’re safe because it’s kinda third party. So that’s a link there, and then check this out. Tech I’m using right now, this is his Amazon Influencers page. Depending on, and look, “MKBHD earns money “from this storefront,” that’s a disclaimer. “If you click on the link and buy something, “I’ll earn money.” You know, like, you just wanna make sure that’s out there. And if you have some influence, apply for the Amazon Influencer program, and you can actually make your own store. You don’t even need a kit.com. You can sign up here, create a storefront, share products, and then that’s cleaner because again, they’re doing the disclaimer for you. That disclaimer is right there on the page. Plus the person’s already on Amazon, so it might make sense that, you know, it’s commerce or whatever else. That’s a couple of tips that I think could help you. But saying that, YouTube, blogs are the best. And you can definitely do this on other social platforms, but I recommend, I think
YouTube’s the best, period, for a lot of reasons, but it’s the second largest search engine, so many advantages, we’ll talk about that.
We talk about it all the time. All right, the community crushing it. “I’m making $50 a week with affiliate marketing. “This is the best way to make money,” great job, Amy. Handsome Gadgets, “I’m gonna make it rain “with affiliate marketing. “But honestly, passive income is where it’s at. “I just made $50 this month “for products that I reviewed last year. “The reviews work for me “even when I’m not working on reviews.” That’s what I love to hear. The reviews are working for me even when I’m not posting new ones. If you want to learn how to set that up and learn how we’ve done that, check out the Viral Video Checklist. If you’ve known our spiel for a while, we believe in ranked videos. YouTube’s a search engine. Some people critique us. Look at the numbers, man. Like, it’s working, it’s working in 2019. I just got done with the
Stream My Video Influencers showing it working three days ago.
So if you wanna learn at the highest levels how to rank videos, get in search and suggested, Viral Video Checklist, it’s gonna be a free checklist, link in the description, that’s gonna help you crush. Three free videos that you’re absolutely gonna love, and then, “Sean, is there something for sale at the end?” Yes, our product called Video Ranking Academy, and I stand behind it because it’s absolutely the best training on how to rank videos on YouTube. It’s world class, but here’s the cool thing, man. If you go through the whole
training and whatever else, you don’t gotta buy anything. There’s zero pressure in our brand.
Zero coercion or manipulation. We give a lot of free value here on YouTube. We give even more free value in our master classes and our checklists. Then there’s also products and programs that you can be a part of so that you have a proven guide with results, so that you have a step-by-step roadmap to follow. You’re never gonna try to go through the jungle without a map. At least, a GPS on your phone. Our courses are just a GPS to help you get to your destination faster. You can go the route of trying to look for free information and digging around over here and looking at a lot of untested stuff by people you don’t really know if they’re fronting or they’re lying or whatever
it is they’re doing.
Or you just go through having a mentor, having a community ’cause we have private Facebook groups and stuff, so you have a higher level of support, support from our whole team. I’m just laying out our whole business model for you, so you can just know that, like, we’re completely transparent. We are unapologetically proud of the educational courses that we make available because we put our heart and soul into them, and they are just the right steps in the right order that you can follow along, that anybody can do. And our students, in fact, let us know in the LiveChat or the comments below if you’re part of one of our programs. We’ve got this stellar reputation online because we have all these testimonials, all these success stories. And that’s also not to say that that’s the only way to do it. Look, to each his own. Like, we hope you watch this training, and you go take action right now. Download the free checklist, watch the free video series, take action, and go make 50, 100, $1,000, and then if you wanna reinvest because you’re grateful and you wanna even go
faster, then do it, or don’t.
Completely up to you, we give without expectation. Love of the Pets, “I do Amazon affiliates, “and it’s going okay. “My channel is a pet channel, “and one time, someone bought a $700 mattress “through my link.” Cool, so they have a pet channel, but they sold a mattress. Proof that I mentioned, right, a lot of times, just by having links out there, you’ll end up getting sales. It reminds me of the $1600 gold coin. I didn’t know Amazon sold gold coins. Back in the day, I woke up
in a tough season of my life.
I mean, waiting tables at Red Robin, trying to pay the bills, my wife was going through some health challenges, we’re losing our house. I’m trying to make side money, and I remember I would wake up and I would look at what affiliate transactions we’ve made. And I was talking about, like, a point and shoot Canon camera. It was about the only video I had out there, just a few videos, like gift ideas videos. And I remember I saw this $1600 gold coin, and I was like, “What,
Amazon sells gold coins?”, first thought. Second thought, “My commission was $186?” I’m like, come on, somebody.
I was asleep all night, woke up $186 richer because of doing this consistently, doing it, applying the best practices, and doing it over time and putting out patience ’cause then, you’ll sell mattresses, man. You’ll sell gold coins, you’ll sell, who knows, you know? You just gotta jump out there and do it. All right, we’re at Q&A, Part Four. Melissa’s been pulling the most relevant questions that we haven’t covered. Depending on when you’re joining this, and smash Like if you’re having a good time. Re-watch it because we’re not
gonna repeat any of these.
She’s filtering these for me, and so I’ll tackle these one by one right now. Kat, “I’ve seen you talk about Google Trends and tent poles. “I’m curious about how much earlier “you would post an affiliate marketing video “before it happens?” So let’s look for it. Number one, don’t overthink it. I remember a couple of years ago, I would be, like, man, Black Friday’s one of the best ways to make money with affiliate marketing. And then it’d be, like, Thanksgiving, you know? And I’d be with my family, and I’d be, like, “Can I, shoot,” I’d be, like, “I gotta make a video, Black Friday’s tomorrow. “I should make a video.” And then sometimes, I’d set up a light kit, and I shot it, like, after Thanksgiving dinner. Bad idea, tryptophan,
you’re like sleepin’.
Or I’d get up in the morning of, and I’d try to go live. There’s a good way to do things, you know. I a lot of times will go live just like this because it’s real-time content, and I might build out the links ahead of time. So what I actually did this last, here’s a great strategy. This last year, I built out a deck just like this one, organized my best Black Friday deals. This is a good example of not needing to own the stuff. Now, I do, so or some of the things, so I could speak to it authoritatively. But all I actually did here was show my screen. I guess I held up a few cameras and recommended. And then, what I did was I had the links in the description around Black Friday, okay? So if you ever are late,
late is better than never.
And always do your best to get ahead and, you know, with timing. But if you use Google Trends, go in like this, go to Google Trends, type in Black Friday, and then here is when I would say, whatever the search term is, what, when I would recommend doing it, okay. So it starts ramping up, Black Friday, this next year, will probably start ramping up around October, the last week in October. But it’s a little too early, okay? Even November 4th through the 10th, it’s still too gradual. Here is, right here, though,
you can see the 10th, look, boom, then it shoots up. So right at the shoot-up point, so then here’s the answer. The week of November 11th through the 17th would be the ideal time to maximize your Black Friday traffic and views.
Now, you might not have enough information by then, but that’s when I would say it’d be a hybrid. So if I didn’t have anything else going on and I wanted to capitalize
on Black Friday, I would jump on this week and say, “Okay, is there enough leaked sales, “is there enough information? “What can I put together to help people?” And then I would try to publish that between the 11th and the 17th. But here’s the answer, too, you know.
I guess that’s only one week’s time, and then it’s at its peak on the week of. The 18th, it’d still be fine, too. You’re still gonna be, like, seven days before it, and then there is too late, though. Too late would be, you know, December 1st, like, that ship has sailed, or whatever. And then you could jump on Cyber Monday next. And so this is generally true, too, for not even affiliate marketing-related stuff, or maybe affiliate marketing. Maybe there’s a cool site that sells Halloween costumes, and so you go Halloween costume, here’s what we’re gonna be able to do. We’re gonna be able to see when people are shopping for their affiliate marketing, or for their costume. So as early as September
or kind of in here, and then it definitely drops here.
So I might wanna be even like mid-September, being like, “Okay, cool, five Halloween costume ideas.” And if you did that, you also might recommend thrifting, you recommend this, but then, you recommend a couple of things. You’re like, “Dude, I found these freaking glasses. “They shoot lasers.” And by the way, if you wanna, these are, I know, everyone needs
a pair of these glasses, link in the description. So maybe like the majority of your video is not even about, it’s not all products.
But there’s two or three things that you’re like, “Dude, everybody, these sick glow sticks “that you should wear at your Halloween parties.” I’m just making stuff up, right? But that would be what I would say related to maximizing the tent pole of when it blows up, and that website right there is trends.Google.com. How To Automotive, “Thanks
for the super chat.
“I’m getting a lot of free products “from companies to review. “What is your tips to get them to pay me “to review their products?” I think once you get more traffic, I mean, how many subscribers do you have? If you’ve got 5,000, you could jump straight into famebit.com. And famebit.com is a good way to start. And then you could also just go direct to companies. The other thing is, I’ll
give you two answers. Base it on busyness.
So here, let’s quick go into FameBit. If you’re in famebit.com, and you are in how-to automotive, we could go to Other. We’re gonna go, hey, look at this, there we go. All right, so this is a coat that will last on your car 25 days, up to $10,000, and that’s up to. So depending on the size of your channel, though, you might say, “Look, I mean, I’m only gonna charge you “like 300 bucks ’cause I’m just growing.” But that is right here inside of famebit.com, F-A-M-E-B-I-T, you need 5,000 subscribers to get an account there, but then you can get direct, it connects brands with creators. And they’re gonna give you
that actual product for free. They’re gonna give you money, and then maybe in your video, you’ll probably have a trackable link that you’d have to link to for them.
But I like to put that link right up top to serve the brand, collect my money, collect my YouTube ads, put that link right at the top, lower in the description, put the Amazon link to that exact product. And you got free product, that’s the four levels of monetization when you do, like, a FameBit video. YouTube ads, paid by the brand, free product if you count that as an income stream, but it’s cool to get a free product. And then affiliate marketing for other links in the description related to that. So I think that would help. The second tip is generally is just raise your standards and raise your prices as your brand elevates. So this has happened for us to where, in the past, we are inundated now. Like, we’re busier, we’ve
got our Live Event coming up.
I hope you can make it, it’s coming up later this year. Grow With Video Live here in Las Vegas. We’re planning that. We’ve got, you know, a team, we’ve got other things to do. So our prices have had to go up. And it’s a decision, How To Automotive, how busy are you, how much bandwidth do you have? Right now, it’s almost like, and I say this contextually, but it’s almost like time is more valuable than money, depending on, that’s, you either have one of two things, time or money. If you got a lot of time on your hands, hustle to do a lot of free work and whatever, but then eventually, you have way less time on your hands, but hopefully more money. So we’ll just say, it’s like, hey, brand, yeah, to do a video. And by the way, I also don’t like doing paid product reviews. It’s something I personally avoid doing. I like doing tutorial videos, this video is brought to you by Canon. I’m gonna show you how to use a camera. You won’t see a sponsored
Canon video on THiNK Media.
You’ll see Canon sponsored, like, five of our videos, but they were all about how to shoot photos, how to use the G7X. Just a personal tweak because a paid product review insinuates bias. You can say you’re not biased, but you’re literally being paid just to review it. So my preference is to do a tutorial, and I like to do product reviews. I’m fine to get the product free, then I just say, “Hey, Rode sent us out the podcast, “the RODECaster, and we’re reviewing it.” No strings attached, they didn’t send us a letter, they didn’t give us any, we’re gonna say whatever we want about it. And we’ll link to it as an affiliate because you might wanna
check it out, good or bad.
But I don’t like doing paid product reviews. But as you get busier, raise your prices. Therefore, someone’s like, “Can we do, get a video on THiNK Media?” We just might be like, “Five grand, 10 grand, no.” Okay, well, we got plenty to do anyway, so we don’t even, but then if they’re like, “Yeah, we can do five,” you know, and we’ll be like, “Does that fit in our wheelhouse, “okay, cool.” And then maybe, though, it’s
a season that’s not as busy.
I’m super pumped, and I wanna get my hands on the product anyways, and we do this all the time. We just got a MOZA Air 2 Gimbal. They didn’t pay us any money, but they did hook us up with the Gimbal for free. Huge blessing, but it ties
into some of the projects we’re working on right now. And not to, I don’t want this to come from an entitled place, but, you know, you get, it’s a blessing to be a YouTuber. You know, right now, technically, us covering a product on our channel, it has real value. I mean, it does for a brand. So if all they give you is a free product, here’s what I’m trying to say.
You need to know your worth. If you’re just starting, you need to hustle and build your credibility, build your worth and build your brand. But once you’re further along, you need to know your worth and know that, like, dang, MOZA’s getting a good deal even if they gave us the product for free. I don’t wanna diminish the fact that a $600 gimbal is a huge blessing, but how much marketing dollars would it cost them? It didn’t cost them $600 to make that gimbal. So it’s a case-by-case basis. I hope some of that adds some value about making those decisions for yourself based on where you are. 30 Day Reviews, “Thanks for the super chat. “Can you talk about disclosure when you’re not paid “but you get a product from a company?” Disclosure 101 is simply disclosing the material relationship
with the company, whatever it is.
So technically, and actually probably one of the best things to study is the UK right now in Europe ’cause it’s mayhem. Article 13, influencers are getting cracked down on. Their standards are way higher, right now, than the U.S., but I think it’s a picture of where things could be going. And they just want you to disclose everything including, you might say, like here’s what happened two weeks ago. I couldn’t go ’cause I
was speaking at an event, so we sent Omar to a Sony event.
Nobody got paid, that we know of, to go to that event. But it was, they flew out Omar, gave him a hotel room, and they let him use the Canon, the Sony a6400 for a day along with the other creators, and you may have seen some of that coverage. So technically, a couple of things. One, you would probably be able to say, “I’m just trying out this product today.” Here’s what Europe would say you need to say right now. You need to say, like, “Sony flew us out here. “They’re not paying us, “and we’re just gonna be sharing our honest opinion, “but it is really cool that they gave us this trip.” And here’s why, because, that again, if they’re wining and dining you, and they didn’t, really,
but you know what I mean.
Like, it’s sick, they flew him out. They just wanna know, what is the material relationship with the company? So a lot of times, I’ll just say, “Rode sent out this product for us to review,” and so I could probably do a better job, ’cause what Europe, that’s good enough, it seems these days. And I’ll put it in the video, “This video’s not sponsored” in the description. But Rode did give us a complimentary review unit. In Europe, you need to say, “Rode sent me this product for free, “and I don’t have to send it back, “and I did get to keep it.” But you know what I, like, they want you to literally say exactly what the relationship is. So as this industry evolves, I think the key is to just include it in your culture. One of my favorite things that I love is Phil DeFranco. I love his show. He’s, like, “This episode, ‘Today and Awesome,’ “is brought to you by SeatGeek.” He discloses that there’s that relationship, or he’ll disclose if
there’s not a relationship.
And that’s kinda what it is. At the end of the day, you just wanna be transparent and open. I realize some people, I don’t actually think most influencers or YouTube creators, I don’t think they’re malicious, I don’t think they’re, I don’t they know this stuff. It’s hard to friggin’ keep up with it all. You know what I’m saying? So at the end of the day, it’s just disclosing the material relationship. And then the flip side is kinda weird because a lot of stuff, if we don’t say anything, we bought it, you know? And then someone’s like, “I bet somebody paid you,” and you’re like, “No, we
bought the camera, bro.
“We bought the lenses, we invested in the stuff.” And so it’s hard to really know what’s happening out there, but here’s the punchline. Being transparent and open and literally just doing your best ’cause I don’t even think, I know you guys, you don’t expect perfection, you don’t expect me or anybody else not to make a mistake. But you do want us to be transparent, honest, and open to also let you know if the review could be colored or biased in any way. Our commitment to you and what we want and strive to do here on THiNK Media is always give you the real truth, the raw truth, the full truth. And frankly, it doesn’t matter if we get paid, not paid, if we got the product free, we just want you to get the information. We’re gonna do our best to continue to evolve. And let me tell you this. If you wanna be a professional content creator, a full-time influencer, a full-time content creator, you need to commit to
studying this continuously.
Not like every day, but you have to stay current. That’s why you should come to Grow With Video, go to conferences like VidSummit or VidCon. Because this is your industry, so you should know about the nuances of your, if you’re just chilling and this is a hobby, cool. But like, makes sense right? It’s like knowing compliance. My dad does electrical contracting. He’s gotta read guides and compliance books and get his newest certification to do installs in California and new licenses and all that kind of stuff. For us as influencers, we’re responsible for that, as well, to stay updated in our industry. The Boston Gamer, “What’s the biggest risk involved “with affiliate marketing?” You know, the biggest risk could be, the FDC is, like, that’s here in America, is like “You’re doing it wrong.” And here’s probably what could happen. Take the video down. Or your affiliate account gets shut down. If you were doing something sketchy and black hat, and that does happen, my friend Roberto Blake got his account shut down, and I’ll tell you one of the
things that I’ve learned.
Why, and actually, Video Influencers got their affiliate, our Video Influencers got our affiliate account shut down. Here’s one of the reasons why. You are not allowed to say that if someone clicks on your links, it supports you. Like, hey, these are affiliate links, and if you click on ’em, you’ll support the channel. Real weak, dicey, but in the past, I would say, here’s my disclaimer. “This video and description contain affiliate links, “which means if you click on one of the product links, “I’ll receive a small commission.” I used to say, “This helps support the channel “and helps us keep making videos like this.” It was never a problem for me on THiNK Media, but language kind of like that is where it broke down, and then Roberto got his account shut down. Same thing happened on Video Influencers. And maybe it was the age of the account. So what they actually want it to be is a little more cold, like, this is my understanding. “If you click on the link, I get a small commission.” Not “And it’ll support us and help us.” It’s just, “I get paid if you click on the link.” Let’s, you know, if we look at MKBHD’s thing, it was like, “MKBHD makes money from this storefront.” So it’s being literal, and what Amazon apparently, and it gets, I know it’s kinda nerveracking, but like, “Shoot, am I doing it right?” And I wish they were even
clearer with us, quite frankly, because it was hard to get information.
But they don’t want you, here’s the punchline, kind of trying to incentivize, that’s the language. They don’t want you to incentivize viewers to click. You can just educate, “There are affiliate links.” There are links in the description, there are affiliate links in the description of this video. I don’t know if there is, but
there’s, for sure, a Kit link.
There are affiliate links in the description of this video. That’s it, not, “Go look at it now, “and if you, that’s, how you get in the giveaway “of the book,” you know what I mean? So if I incentivize you, somehow push you, not just educate you and make you aware of. So that’s a couple of things. I don’t wanna cause worry with that, but you gotta stay on your game. Other than that, though, as far as risks, I don’t think you need
to be, have, like, fear, things that could happen.
It happened to us, it’s frustrating. Affiliate Video Influencers, affiliate account got shut down. We gotta start a new one. We need to optimize and update our videos. It’s the name of the game, man, it’s the kind of stuff that potentially happens, and always do your best. And evolve, I’m evolving as I go. So now my description, I’m trying to do it perfect, according to what they would want. And if you wanna use that, just go to a recent THiNK Media video, look at that, go to Casey’s videos about a product, use his. And by the way, nothing in this video is legal advice. It’s pretty good advice from someone deeply experienced, but I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a legal expert. So always do your due diligence. And so Casey probably doesn’t
have the perfect legal copy, nor do I know if I do, either.
However, here’s one reason why I mentioned Casey ’cause dude, if you got 10 million subs, you are in the limelight of being a target. So I like to look at the big guys to say, hey, if they’re cool, and if what they’re doing, not that they are the gold standard. Don’t get me wrong what I’m saying here. I’m not saying they’re right. I’m just saying if someone, when I think risk, if they’re gonna go after somebody, they’re gonna probably go after somebody big and probably not you. I don’t think they’re gonna go after me. I feel like MKBHD and Casey are gonna get in trouble before I get in trouble, and that helps me sleep at night. So then I say, what are they doing? I wanna be doing it at least
as good as the big guys, or better, as far as in my due diligence. Brain in a Box, “Does Amazon OneLink work in YouTube descriptions,” it does. It’s only one link.
It’s in the back end of Amazon, so you still only have one link, amazon.com if you’re in the U.S. But in the back end, it’s connected to the OneLink. So it doesn’t matter if it’s on a blog, a YouTube channel, or anywhere else. Happy Mad Scientist, “Does Amazon only count links “from sites when you apply? “Like if you put YouTube as my site “but links to another site that Amazon knows nothing about, “does it count the links?” Yes, so for instance, one of the original accounts I got approved, back in the day, was actually our blog for Think International, an old project we used to work on. We got approved, that’s why I said, professional presence and establish a blog first, or a website, if you can, ’cause it really helps
with getting approved for affiliate programs, especially as you move into other sites.
Impact Radius, that’s an affiliate network. A lot of times, they want a website and not a URL, so somewhere in your content creator journey, be thinking about creating a home base. There’s other reasons to do it, too. That should probably be a future Think video. But be thinking about having a blog or a website. But then once you have that affiliate link, I didn’t establish multiple accounts. In our blog posts, we used the affiliate links. If they were relevant on social media, we used the affiliate links. In YouTube videos, we used the affiliate links. If someone asked me directly
for a list of products, I sent them the affiliate links, got it? So I only had the one account.
I DJ it out, I had my personal Tumblr at the time. But it got approved for the Think site. Please do your due diligence. You know, I think, my idea, that’s all under the same brand. And what I say is due diligence is, I don’t know if that was actually right or wrong, but it was the entity, is what I’m trying to say. Like, our overall entity was approved, based off a website, and then the brand, though, distributes content on multiple places. When you sign up for an affiliate account, a lot times, it’ll say, “How
are you gonna get traffic?” Like, if you sign up for FlexOffers, they’ll say, “How do you get traffic?” And there’s usually a huge list.
Paid ads, email marketing, content marketing, whatever. So that’s based on one strategy. The point is, usually, all of those things are okay. They’re just curious, which way are you doing it? You know what I’m saying, ’cause there could be, like, 30 different ways to get traffic to an affiliate link. YouTube just happens to be one of them. Okay, we’re gonna take, like, a couple more questions, just a few other things to know about here. Some resources to help you go further, faster with affiliate marketing. Here’s the recap, if you wanna check out our program Video Review Profits, you’ll love that. Huge discount right now, and that’s just a great jump start course if you’re like, “Okay, I’m loving this, I wanna invest in my future, “invest in my learning.” For the price of a meal at Red Robin, you could, I worked at Red
Robin for 10 years, by the way.
Come on, Bottomless Fries, mm, that mud pie, Royal Burger with the egg on it. Sorry, vegans (laughing). Things you say. And so but, great deal if you wanna take your affiliate marketing learning, I encourage you, dive into that, videoreviewprofits.com, link in the description below. And then specifically, this is all about how to make that ideal product review video. There’s some tips in there about getting free products. It’s worth far more than
you’ll invest in it.
And then, of course, everything’s backed by a good return policy, so everything investing with us is risk free because you could dive into it and see if you enjoy it or not, but I know you’ll love it. If you feel like this is something you really wanna go deeper on, so that’s one resource. And then Viral Video Checklist, again, cool, you got a blog, cool, you got YouTube channels, optimizing everything, let’s get the views, though. You gotta build your influence first, and then the income can flow after, so let’s grow your audience, let’s get more views. This is new, updated, fresh for 2019. I know you’ll love it, and so it’s totally free, viralvideochecklist.com,
enter your name and email.
And then report back to us because we’ll send you the download, and you’ll get access to a free video series, and it’s gonna help you, 100%. People are loving it, and then at the end of it, you’ll learn more about some of our other things, but even if that’s not right for you, let’s get you some views, man. Let’s get you some, let’s grow your channel right now, come on, 2019, we’re not sleeping, we’re not resting here. We’re ready to crush it because we’re living through an era of massive opportunity with this stuff, right? This is life changing. I am a small-town kid from Arlington, Washington, an hour north of Seattle. I grew up with goats, and my horse Little who I hated and never asked for from my parents. One day, they’re like, “We got you a horse.” “What, I didn’t ask for a horse. “I don’t wanna be ungrateful, Mom, “but why did you get me a horse? “Meanwhile, why did you get me a discount horse?” Little’s purpose in life
was trying to bite me, A, and B, we had a crab apple tree, trunk, tree branches, those tree branches were at the perfect height of me sitting on the back of Little.
So Little could run right under the tree, but I would get clipped off by the tree branches. That happened, one day, I’m losing control, the bridle falls off, and Little just clips me underneath the crab apple tree. Small-town kid from Arlington, Washington, right? Boom, I hit the ground. Years later, I don’t have anybody in Hollywood, I don’t have any connections in media. I don’t know anything about anybody in, even to make money online or, like, really even much of entrepreneurship. I mean, my dad is definitely a business owner and entrepreneur, stepdad. What’s my point? Dude, you can make videos from your bedroom with a webcam and a smartphone, and you can monetize them for free (laughs). Like, through affiliate marketing for products you don’t even necessarily have or touch? Dude, we’re living in a crazy time. And if that doesn’t make, if that doesn’t light a fire that says, I’m gonna go all-in on this, to learn everything, to practice, to level up my game, and to figure this thing out, for the guarantee of it working? Maybe not, for the chance? Like, past generations, our grandparents would kill to be sitting in front
of as much opportunity as we have right now.
And you might be like, “Oh, Sean, “but like, I’m in this situation or that situation.” I get it, you maybe aren’t starting with as many advantages that somebody else has, but what is, what can you do about that? Complain about it? You can’t change it, you only have with what, all you have is what you have right now. But you also have the internet. You also have, “Well, I can’t afford the internet.” Then go to the library, I’m not even kidding. Guess what I just learned. LinkedIn Learning, Lynda.com
bought LinkedIn Learning, and a lot of libraries have it for free.
All right, so there’s that excuse. You could go to the library, you could upload videos that you edit at Starbucks or somewhere else or at home on a laptop. “Where am I gonna get the laptop?” I don’t know, Joe. Get a job, make the money waiting tables like I did making tips, and invest it in your business as an entrepreneur, as a creative, as someone who’s taking this thing seriously. And then grow your frickin’ thing until you can pay for the internet, or pay to finally buy that laptop or get that hand-me-down laptop from some other family member. Edit that video, go to the library and upload it, watch a couple of hours of LinkedIn Learning to learn the skills of graphic design and video editing to level up your craft. Watch all of our free videos, and never spend any money with us, doesn’t matter. You could get really far that way. Or make more money, take the fast track, invest in some of our
courses and whatever else.
There’s so many different ways to go about it. I think the necessary thing is the mindset, is the relentless spirit that says, “I’m goin’ all in, man, come hell or high water, “I’m gonna figure out how to do this. “I’m gonna study it, I’m gonna, “Well, I don’t have the on-camera skills.” Neither did I. I started making videos in 2003, Tim (laughing), sorry. All these people’s names. Like, I started Affiliate Watch. I started, you know, making videos years ago, and your first videos are your worst videos, but I committed to the process. I’ve uploaded over 2,000 videos online right now, and the first 1,600 were probably pretty bad. They were for my church and other people and whatever else. But the last few hundred have been better ’cause I practiced a
lot, I put in the work.
I know I’m ranting, but I just wanna encourage you, now is the time to hustle, go all in with this stuff. And Unique or Enrique said it best right here. “The best investment is to invest in yourself.” So keep hustlin’, keep growin’, make sure to get the Viral Video Checklist. And make sure to enter this contest, too, ’cause hey, we wanna hook you up with some free books to help you go further, faster. So this contest to be entered, if you love this Q&A, by the way, can you smash Like? What niche or topic is your channel about? You’ve probably answered that in LiveChat. But come back and put
it in the real comments, and that’ll help us enter, but Mel will see your LiveChat, as well.
And we are gonna answer, like, a couple more questions. Dave, “OneLink is a script, how does it work on YouTube?” OneLink can be a script, but it is connected in the back end of your account, and here’s what I mean. When you get a link from Amazon, you can get the full link, which is, like, a gnarly link, or you can get a short link, got it? So when you connect it on the back end, this amz.to, that’s your shortened affiliate link, is connected to OneLink. The reason I know that
works is ’cause I get checks from Canada and UK, and I’ve only ever used those links, or our affiliate code on other sites.
I’m willing to be wrong, though, so let me know, Dave, if you find out something else. But that’s my understanding of OneLink. “Does Amazon only count clicks for sites “where you apply?” Okay, Youth Man, it’s my understanding that you cannot email affiliate links and get credit for them. So who knows, maybe that’s true. I don’t believe it’s true, but it depends on the email provider. I used to be on Mailchimp. In a day gone by, a friend
of mine created a course, put it on clickbank.com.
I signed up for it as an affiliate, I wanted to educate my email list about his course. I sent an email, and Mailchimp was like, “Yo, we’re about to blacklist your account.” I was like, “What?” And they said, “Because you’re sending out spammy “or promotional type of stuff.” And I was like, “Frig, I’m just trying “to promote my friend’s course, it’s not spammy at all. “It’s amazing, it’s helpful.” So I changed email providers. So it might depend on the email provider, A. B, again, this is why I love YouTube the most because you could send a link to a YouTube video, and then the YouTube video is the affiliate link. But see, when we’re sending out email newsletters, we’ll link to it, and we’ll either put a disclaimer right next to the link, or in the footer below. So we have a footer on all my emails that’s like, look, if we recommend something, either from Amazon or
even from somebody else, it’s highly likely that we’ll receive an affiliate commission.
It’s kinda just like a general blanket to just say, look, assume in our emails that if we’re promoting something, and we actually very rarely do. It usually just links directly to YouTube videos. But if we are, it just says, like, assume. So from my experience, that has, you’re right, I have seen that happen with my past issues. But I think some email service providers are okay with it. And what I’ve also learned is it depends on the site. Amazon’s pretty chill. Like, not a lot of people are trippin’ about Amazon links. And I don’t even know if most, like, correct me if I’m wrong, if most email providers or social media platforms know the difference between an Amazon link and an Amazon affiliate link. ‘Cause one is just longer and has your code in it, and one is just the product page regardless, as well. But maybe you’re thinking about kinda what I was doing, ClickBank, to be fair, is known for having some weird,
sketchy internet marketing type of products.
So Mailchimp was probably taking a conservative stance by not letting people email those links, and so I would dive into that and just definitely do your due diligence. Well hey, we’ve had some great time hanging out, I hope. Really appreciate you being here. LeAya, already got the book, thank you so much. Red Dread Redemption, love that. I wish I was further, I’m only 60% in the Red Dead Redemption 2. I plan on completing it during Christmas. And 2019 started, man, and it’s just, we’ve been hustling, and not that you’re even talking about that, but I like your name. “Right now, I’m in a dreadlock channel, “but eventually in gaming. “Saving up for the PC,” love it. Thank you so much for being here, really, really appreciate you. 30 Day Reviews, Youth Man, and Youth Man said, “I sent the email to my church “with some affiliate links “because they were wanting to buy some new camera gear. “Amazon didn’t pay.” So a couple things could
have happened, though.
Do you know they clicked on it and bought it from the same device? ‘Cause they might have been, like, “Oh, cool,” and they printed it and walked to another computer. You’re like, “Ah,” you’re like, “Come on, man. “You need to actually click the link.” That could have happened. Let me know what email provider you use. And they said you can’t send via email. By the way, I’m glad you said that, and this is why you’ve always gotta be learning. So Amazon doesn’t want you to send links via email. So that’s something we’ll take note of. But again, nine out of 10 times, my favorite thing to do is turn it into an email or turn it into a YouTube video and send people to the YouTube video. Secondly, kit.com would have solved that problem, Youth Man. You could have said, “Here’s the kit “that I want you to buy,” and you could have sent
them the link to that.
I like that we’re kind of talking about this at the end of this stream because those are the nuances. As you learn this stuff, you might be like, okay, cool. Well, I can’t send an email link through Amazon, but I could do a kit.com link, or maybe I’ll just create a Google doc, and I’ll put the affiliate
links in the Google doc and send them one link to the Google doc ’cause you live and you learn.
Trust me, let me give you a couple of painful stories to end. We had a blog and a YouTube channel for over a year where what I was doing was I didn’t understand that you needed your code in the link. So I thought that if you went to this Peak Design bag, I thought that, like, if you could just go to this link right here, which, look, it still works, and I don’t know what I was doing, but I would put the link
in all of our stuff, all of our descriptions.
And I just did something wrong with some weird formatting issue. So I saw, saw we got some traffic, but I was like, “Dude, no traffic, no sales.” Friends, I did my links wrong for a year and a half. And I probably would have, I only missed out on 100 bucks, a few hundred. But I was devastated. And you probably would be, too. You know, you did all that work to send that list to a church, maybe they bought $2,000 of gear, and you’re like, “Dude.” I wanna encourage you, the future is forward, you know? The master has failed more times than the amateur has even tried. You know what I’m saying? I’ve not made money on affiliate marketing on more videos probably than you’ve maybe
even put affiliate links on videos total in your career. My goal and our goal of our company is to always help you with the fast track. I want you to learn from my pain so you can go further, faster. I want you to get a shortcut, I want you to be subscribed here so you don’t have to go through some of the same mistakes I’ve made.
But I hope that also encourages you. Look, fail forward, you know? Like, you’re probably not doing everything right right now. Small tweaks lead to giant peaks. You live and you learn, this is a great call, Youth Man. And it’ll never happen again, you know what I’m saying? Like, now there’s times where I’m like, okay, we triple check links, I look in the back end. You always just get sharper by aggressively diving into whatever challenge is in front of you and learning as you go. And so hey, I saw Justin Dow, I see your question. Check out the replay, man, we answered that. And so there’s a lot of value. It’s pretty rapid fire ’cause we went through a lot of past questions as well as recent questions. I’m headed to dinner with my wife. It’s 8:22 in Las Vegas. Wherever you are, I hope you’re doing well. Smash Like to make sure you’re entered for “YouTube Secrets.” Our contest will end in about two weeks, and we’ll reach out on
the YouTube comments to get the winners.
Definitely check out the resources that we talked about right now. If you want to, check out Video Review Profits, link in the description below. You could research that a little bit if you wanna invest in that limited discount that we have on it right now. We’ve been running a special on that course. And then also our free Viral Video Checklist. Let’s get some views. That’s kinda one of your next things. I hope you got a lot of value out of affiliate marketing, but download the checklist so you can get more views, more impact. Youth Man, really appreciate the love. Modern Antifederalist, thanks for being here. Enjoy your night, Tracy. Enjoy your night, The Catalyst, or your morning, wherever you are watching around the world. Appreciate you, Stacy, thanks for being here. Keep crushing it, keep smashing it, and remember, this channel is all about bringing you really the best tips and tools for building your influence
with online video.
And so subscribe if you’re not subscribed. Check out the whole affiliate marketing series with the first three parts as well as some other great videos on affiliate marketing here on THiNK Media. And if you wanna check out another video from THiNK Media, click or tap the screen right there. Until next time, this channel’s all about bringing you the best tips and tools for building an influence
with online video. Keep crushing it, and we will talk soon..
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