Affiliate Links | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I know this has probably been hashed over in Yakezie but wanted to post it for those of us who want to chime in or have new insights/experiences.

Have you had any luck with affiliate links?  If it works, what do you do to generate sales? What has been your experience either way?  

I've found for the most part affiliate links have been "free advertising" on my blog with a few click thrus and no real sales.  The commissions are great (when they happen) but I haven't been actively promoting the merchants besides the ads in my sidebar…thoughts or experience with this?  

Haha MoneyInfant they are definately desperate

I do agree too that those types of ads generally do better than offering financial products, just from what I know with a few friends that own websites.

The payday loans and debt consolidation also are desperate and can generate some good affiliate cash flow.

In my experience outside of blogging it was just a matter of getting highly targeted traffic related to the affiliate program.  With a blog I think a lot of visitors will ignore sidebar ads, especially since they don't show up in rss.  As Eric mentioned, in-content affiliate links backed up by a personal recommendation will likely do much better.  I'll probably go more in that direction once my blog builds up better traffic.

Glen Craig – Free From Broke said:

Find an item that you already love and talk about how you use it (that has an affiliate).  When you know a product first-hand your readers will know.

Funny thing is, I think we know it as well.

Most people don't click on banners these days. They are all over the internet, and people tend to develope a blindness to them, so don't really see them. I would agree that generally a contextual affiliate link that is quality and relevant is the way to go. Regular readers will eventually learn to trust your recommendations if you keep pointing them to useful quality products.

I've got 1 Affiliate link on my site, and it gets quite  a few click through people but has never had a purchase :(

I just really got into affiliates later part of last year and thus far the best conversions happen when you're able to tell a story about the service or product.  I've had decent success with Credit Sesame, Credit Karma and Lending Club this way.  

Also, using a tip from Pat Flynn I installed the Pretty Link plugin that allows you to "mask" your affiliate links.   There's a free version that you can use.  It's super easy.  :) 

Post edited 2:25 pm – February 23, 2012 by KyleAAA

I rarely actually talk about specific affiliates in the sense that I almost never write a post with a particular affiliate promotion in mind. I will just include affiliate links to reputable vendors (usually vendors I've personally used at some point, but sometimes just vendors I've heard good things about from people I trust) in the content of the post. For example, if I'm writing about life insurance I'll say something like "you can compare multiple quotes online using xyz.com." Or if I'm writing about mutual funds, I might throw in something like "you can sign up for a free account at Morningstar and throw this group of funds into their portfolio x-ray tool for more insight," etc. You can do it either as an aside or directly within the context of the post. Directly within the context of the post is obviously more effective, but many times that''s too awkward to make work easily.

As multiple people have said above, sidebar affiliate links almost never work for anybody. You've got to pre-sale the offer if you want them to click and then follow through. If somebody is researching life insurance, chances are they'd find it useful to be able to get a few free quotes from various companies, even if it's just to see how much the premiums might be. That's an easy sell. Just don't pitch products that suck. Readers will see through this eventually.