Youtube Affiliate Marketing Ultimate Guide on the Affiliate Marketing on Youtube

Gone are the days, when you could spam the comments with the affiliate links. If you want to make 10$ it’s fine but if we are speaking about real cash then you are welcome to our ultimate guide that is going to lead your way in the vastness of YouTube. 

Today, YouTube is the most popular video hosting all over the world owned by Google Corporation. Millions of people visit the service every day; thousands of videos are being added to the site every minute. A whole life wouldn’t be enough to watch all of them. Just imagine how vast the space of Youtube is and how innumerable the opportunities an affiliate obtains in that video space. 

We should mention at once that YouTube has its own Partner Program but here we are speaking about working on Youtube for yourself through the affiliate marketing and using the CPA model as they are for sure the best ways to make money on the hosting.

Moreover, Youtube Partner Status awards an affiliate with more responsibilities than opportunities. A partner is required to work in the strictest compliance with the principles of the Youtube Community. Once you lose your good reputation, Youtube may limit the functions you may use or impose other sanctions. But let’s get back on track.

Applying to the video hosting affiliate marketing is the development of video content with an indication of affiliate links right in the video or in the description to the video. An affiliate link is a link that will redirect a viewer to some product, service or website, where a user will be able to subscribe or to purchase something at once. Each time a person commits an action (lead, order, purchase, subscription) you as an affiliate receives your commission for your participation in the deal.

It may seem difficult from the first sight but actually, the technical part is quite an easy one. It is much more effort and time-consuming to create really valuable and thus profitable content as well as to attract your audience. If you’ve got a really bright idea you have all the chances to achieve success as an affiliate on Youtube with your videos shot with your iPhone and edited with the iMovie.

How to Start Doing Affiliate Marketing on Youtube

If you are not throwing your weight around but really considering starting a career as an affiliate on YouTube you can create a channel and upload your first videos even within an hour. Another case is the quality of what you are creating. First, we would like to give you the list of things that you will certainly need to run your own channel:  

• Obviously, YouTube Account - It’s easy, free and takes just a couple of minutes to sign up. After that, you will get an access to the Creator Studio where you will be able to upload videos, to write descriptions to them, as well as to upload thumbnails. This is the place where you will spend much of your time analyzing what works and what does not and what you can do to change the situation to the better.  

• Video Editing Software - Nowadays, the digital space may offer a lot of different video editing software programs. Some of them are free, many have trial versions but almost all of them are user-friendly. Here you have some video editors you may try: Lightworks, Shotcut, Corel VideoStudio Pro X10, CyberLink Power Director, Vegas Movie Studio, Adobe Premiere Elements. 

• A decent computer and large hard drive are better to have. Microphone and WebCam are optional as well. As we have already stated above, good idea is the most considerable foundation for a successful advertising campaign. 

Internal Content Management on YouTube

Tell me what the content of your blog is and I will tell you if you are going to make money on it. If you are at the very beginning of your affiliate way, it is important not to make at least a really big mistake that may discourage you, for example, to get banned at your first steps.

Consequently, we would like to mention that blackhat niches have their right to exist but we would not request to place emphasis on them as Google takes the regulations on the content extremely seriously. So we would like to offer you the inoffensive video content formats most suitable for the CPA-model on YouTube that at the same time will not put at risk your channel that you created and brought up so hard.

CPA business-model is a set of content (videos, photos, pictures, banners, texts), creatives (presentation of the content, its design), offer (product advertised), and traffic (methods to attract buyers). 

The idea that can intrigue a consumer to such an extent, that he or she will certainly watch a video to the end, or will get interested in the product advertised and follow the link, is at the heart of a profitable Youtube business model. We would like to distinguish 5 Youtube content formats that have already proved their sustainability and high conversion.

1. Unboxing

It is surprising, but it is the least native but at the same time the most popular monetization model on Youtube. You will agree that it is weird that in the conditions of constant advertising noise people purposefully search for the videos about the goods. 

While bloggers are trying to promote goods and services as inconspicuously as possible, making it be more like recommendations and pieces of advice, here the authors directly show what you can now buy in stores. In the vast majority of cases, we are speaking about the so-called ‘china shops’ - online stores of the goods made in China (AliExpress, Tmall, Gearbest, etc.), that are famous for low prices, unpredictable delivery terms, and the same unpredictable quality (however, we should note that the vendor rating system ensures the safety of buyers from defects).

2. Review of Goods (both physical and digital)

Just like in case of unpacking videos a user watches the video purposefully to get a closer look at the goods. It differs at the following points:

• The product is not a surprise. A certain product or a service is being considered. For the purpose of better SEO, the title of the video should be the name of the product.
• The author is trying to examine the product as thoroughly as possible as well as to make an objective assessment of it. 
• If the audience coverage is large the blogger may get the goods for review for free and even before the official market launch.
• The blogger should be at least a direct experienced user of the product, at most - an expert.

3. Compilation of Goods

The blogger chooses the relevant theme makes compilations of goods from one or a number of advertisers. That can be ‘best dresses for your prom’, ‘best hair products’, ‘100% natural products for vegetarians’, ‘top low-cost road bikes’, ‘2018 top-of-the-line smartphones’ and many others. Such a format is cool as you can work in any niche - starting from credit cards and hotels of Barcelona and finishing with garden tools and novelty books.

4. Instructions

From the very name, it is clear that the blogger gives a step-by-step guide so that a user could something him/herself. Correspondingly, the advertised goods become the means to achieve the goal. If a blogger tells how to build a camper van then you will find the links to the building implements in the description. The content of such a type is considered to be the most useful and longest-running - it is going to be relevant for a long time and is capable to become a passive income source thanks to SEO traffic (the important thing is not to forget to actualize the affiliate links).

5. Lifestyle Blog

Here the blogger tells about him/herself and his or her lifestyle: hobbies, job, time management, achievement of the goals, etc. The most popular topics are a healthy lifestyle (sport, beauty, proper nutrition), maternity and child-rearing, traveling. E-travel gives quite a good conversion (offers from tour operators, airlines, hotel booking), healthy lifestyle (natural cosmetics and foodstuff, sportswear, shoes, and fitness clubs), good for kids and their parents.

The blogger here is tightly connected with the advertised brand, so there is not always a place for bold experimentation over the format and content. Blogger has to be extremely careful in what he says as love and hate swings back and forth. These are two sides of the same coin: on one side the loyalty of such an audience is extremely high, but if the audience does not like something, the wave of anger may not only destroy the loyalty but stop blog monetization.

Of course, the author's imagination can go far beyond the given list but our experience shows that they are the best to be converted into sales. To start working with CPA on YouTube you should choose mass consumption goods and one of the working models and only then explore your style: experiment with the formats, test offers, follow the statistics and of course do not forget to attract traffic and constantly increase the content quality.

Here you have the tips on the format and form of your video:

• Make a clear plan before making a video. It should be well structured just like a movie - ‘play script’ is the very thing that will make the basis for the structure.
• Don’t drift over the topic. If you choose a niche don’t go far beyond it. Your audience comes to listen to and to watch what you promised them.
• Say ‘NO’ to infinite introductions and countless repetitions. 
• Take care of the footage. 720 HD is minimum. 1080 HD is better.
• Sound quality is no less important. Low sound quality will make your visitors go away immediately, so take care of a good microphone as well.
• Show your personal interest in what you are talking about.
• Make a video 8-15 minutes long - experience shows it is the best timing to rank high.

‘Sweetie paper’ of any video on YouTube is made of heading, preview, description, and tags. They are the most important points for SEO. We request you to pay due attention to the following tips:

Heading

• Should be concise - no more than 70 characters as longer headings are being automatically shortened in the Google search results.
• Should not directly call the audience to watch the video
• Should have keywords as close to the beginning as possible
• May contain square or round brackets (increases click-through ratio)

Preview

• Should not contain main YouTube colors (red, white, black)
• Should contain short text (no more than 25 characters)
• Should comply with the actual content of a video
• Should reflect the most attractive and the brightest shot
• Should be of the high quality and should be properly demonstrated from different devices (check it beforehand)

Description

• Should contain main reliable information in 100-200 words (longer descriptions rank higher but don’t go too far)
• Should contain a link to your website in the first 1-2 sentences
• Should contain relevant keywords
• Should contain links to your social media accounts

Tags

• Should contain important keywords placed first
• Should contain key phrases 
• Should contain long keywords
• Should contain the same keywords as the Top YouTube videos

External Content Management on YouTube

1. Communicate with your audience by means of comments, Twitter, Facebook and whatever. Don’t be lazy to answer questions - they are useful not only for those who ask them but for you as well as they can become a really good source for further content management.
2. Keep on uploading.
3. It is not enough to upload just a couple of videos and wait for revenue to come from nowhere. Organization of your work requires much attention as well. Schedule the uploading of your videos and try not to be late as your subscribers will be waiting for your videos at the certain time and will certainly check their subscription boxes.
4. Create an accompanying website where you will share your videos.
5. You may concentrate your attention on the channel only but an accompanying website may help in attracting new subscribers. Therewith, the more times a video is shared, the more YouTube will consider the video to be popular and rank it higher. 
6. Don’t miss the opportunity to share your content on related sites
7. The key word is ‘related’. There is no need to spam everywhere. Look for the places where there can be the audience that might be interested in your content/ Again more sharing - higher ranking.

Best Assistant to an Affiliate: VidlQ Vision for Youtube

VidIQ Vision is a perfect extension for Google Chrome that helps to promote videos to the top. The extension lets see competitors’ tags and their rating as well as analyze statistics of any video and many other things.

Signing up to the VidlQ service is standard. First, you go to Vidiq.com and fill in all the suggested fields: name, e-mail, password, and confirmation of the password. Further, you will need this data again.

Now you have to install the extension for the Google Chrome. You will easily find it in the Google Store. When you add the extension, next time you go to YouTube you will see an additional window where you will have to enter your registration data: login (e-mail) and password. Here you are, the registration and installation is completed.

Video Statistics is the feature that is of the highest interest for an affiliate

In this section, we can see the main information on a video: views, likes, dislikes, subscribers, when a video was unloaded, revenue from the channel, etc. Moreover, an affiliate may see and copy all the tags added by the author to the certain video. You can also see the rating and the keywords by which the video is found on YouTube. 

You can carry out such an analysis both with your own videos and competitors’. In such a way you can choose relevant tags from the Top YouTube videos then optimize your own videos and add those tags to them. You should agree that such a feature considerably eases work and helps to promote your content to the top.

At the very beginning of the video promotion, it is highly recommended to make some investments to get positive results faster. Use paid YouTube promotion services, especially on the first days after uploading. If your video attracts enough audience and is regularly viewed, YouTube will notice its popularity among the users and will award your video with a higher ranking and our recommendations stated above will assist you in doing so. 

Nowadays, when the number of tools, instruments, methods, technologies, and types of marketing is reaching a hundred (maybe even more), it is quite difficult to determine which one is the most profitable for your business. Many international companies conduct research on marketing and their results show that video content now takes the leading position and will continue doing so next 3-5 years. It means that it is high time to think about promoting high-quality content and make money on it.

When we are speaking about the Internet and video His Majesty YouTube is the first thing to come to our mind as it is the most popular video hosting in the modern world.

Create valuable content, play with the formats, try different strategies and share your experience in the comments!

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