How artists (and other smart people) can make money in affiliate marketing

When you put a company's link on your website or blog and someone clicks on it and then purchases something, you get a percentage of the sale or a flat amount for sending them a lead.

OK, but how do I sign up for this?

There are 2 ways you can sign up for affiliate programs. Sometimes a company will manage their own affiliate program in-house. Emealz meal planning plan and The Couponizer are 2 affiliate programs I am in that are done that way. (By the way, if you have any site that has anything to do with shopping, frugal behavior, or food, those are 2 great affiliate programs!) For these in-house affiliate programs, you will need to visit each site and look around for their affiliate program information. If there is a site that you are interested in, don't be shy -- just pop them and email to ask them if they have an affiliate program.

The other way is through an affiliate network, like those I have listed/linked on this page. Commission Junction, PepperJam Network, etc. On these networks, you sign up with the network first, then you are able to browse the companies in the network and apply to those you are interested in. The great thing about networks is that they help you become aware of companies you may not have even known existed (aha...another reason the companies use the affiliate network, right?) - I also like that you can look at the companies by Category. That can really help when you are just starting out.

Either way (or both) that you decide to do this, the next step will be to identify what links you want to add to your site and where. Insert the links into your website or blog. See what works and what doesn't. Be careful not to overdo it. If you remember seeing a webpage full of ads, you can probably also remember being turned off by it. There should be a good balance between USEFUL CONTENT and ads. The ads should complement your content. Keep the reader's interests and needs in mind as you add advertisements.

Visit the affiliate pages or affiliate network site regularly to see what has been working. There are usually reports you can check -- for example, Commission Junction gives me a report of "Invalid Links Generating Traffic." These are links that I fix right away. There's no need to have people clicking on old/expired links when they could be clicking on good links that generate income for you. I generally replace inactive links with new similar links. The links become inactive when the advertiser stops paying the network or the link just goes out of date.

Psst: Did you notice how I cleverly included my affiliate links in this page about affiliate programs? Yes, I will make a little money if you purchase something through these links, so thanks in advance! :)

It is free to sign up on affiliate marketing programs. You don't have to create anything, store anything, inventory anything, do any paperwork (other than the initial sign up online), buy packing materials, or ship anything. You are making money by helping sell someone else's stuff.

By affiliate marketing, you direct customers to products and businesses, helping both in the process. You get either a lead commission or a percentage of the sale. This is an advertising expense for the company to promote itself.

Leads are usually .75 cents or $5 each. Seems very small, but it can add up - and keep in mind, for you to make money for a lead, the person usually just has to fill out an online form, not necessarily buy anything.

Percentage of sale affiliate amounts can also vary, anything from 1% to 15% is typical.

Keep the prices of the items sold by a company in mind as you evaluate which to join. If the product being sold is expensive, then that seemingly measly 2% commission can be a lot of money!

Your art blog or website probably already has what you need to start generating extra income. The purpose of this page is for me to share with you what has worked for me.

I'd also like to encourage you to give it a try. It's not as hard as you might think, and once you get started you will probably really enjoy it.

As you can see in the screen capture from Commission Junction, some days are really good and other days only bring in 35 cents! It's important to look at the overall picture. Although some days bring in nothing or next-to-nothing, the days that are good more than make up for that. Keep in mind that even $1 a day will come out to $365 over the course of a year...and you didn't pay anything to do this!



If you join the Art.com Affiliate Program, you will receive a portion of sales that are generated through your links. You can see how it works on my site here. Really looks nice and it's instant content too!

Add links to whatever you think will be of the most interest to your site visitors or blog readers.

Suggestions:

*The Dick Blick free art catalog offer (when someone orders a free catalog and they make a purchase within 90 days using the 'Source Code' on the catalog, you still get 10% of the sale before taxes and shipping.
They have great catalogs, so this is something really nice to offer.

*Art instruction DVDs/Videos
I think these links will do best if they are related to the kind of art that you do. If you do watercolor, for example, link to DVD instruction for watercolor specifically and the content will help enhance your site's content at the same time as it works as potential income earner for you.

*Art books
See Selling Art Books (on this page) for more information and advice about selling art books.

*Gift items. If you are an artist who works from photos like I do, then photo-related gifts like photo books from Shutterfly may do very well for you.

*Pet Products. For a lot of people, their pets are their babies, and if your art is in any way related to animals (pet portraits) then the right pet gift items can be a good match. I would suggest you linking to pet health products (like vitamins), except in your links pages.

I'm not in the business of selling people on affiliate marketing, so I'm not going to give you fantastic claims that I'm making thousands upon thousands of dollars a month or anything like that.

Not that that's not possible, I just don't think it's likely that the average artist will make that kind of money in affiliate marketing.

However, as artists, each of us have a niche market that we can use to present products and companies and make money in the process!

When I first started putting affiliate links on my websites and blogs, I would get $6, then $12, then $25 another time. My payments would generally come to me on a Quarterly basis (with most affiliate programs, you generally set the base amount for your account to reach before they send out a check.)

Well I don't have to tell you, those amounts didn't knock my socks off. However, if you look at the big picture like I did, I noticed that the amounts were at least going up! I also reasoned that I hadn't spent a dime to join the affiliate programs, so it was nearly pure profit - my only cost was a bit of time.

As I've gained experience working with my affiliate marketing, it is getting easier to do - taking less time and increasing the profitability of doing it.

I've found that if I stick with only one or two affiliate programs, the income is better because it's like dropping pennies into one bucket instead of into several. By doing that, the account reaches the minimum payout level more quickly and I get paid!

Now my affiliate marketing is on the upswing. I get checks in amounts anywhere from $60 to $150 nearly every month.

Initially, I had a small goal - I wanted the affiliate marketing to at least pay for my website ($12) each month, but now my goal is to get at least $300 in affiliate money each month. (Update: by the end of 2008, I was making $250 per month in affiliate income)

WHICH SITES SHOULD I LINK?

Because many of my site visitors are artists, the company I have linked through Commission Junction that is doing the best for me is DickBlick.com. Another art supplier's links I have tried is MisterArt.com. I have purchased from them myself and Misterart is a good company with good customer service. However, the MisterArt links have not done as well for me. I think it is because they have a relatively high shipping fee in relation to the prices of the products, which are discounted. So I noticed that more people look but don't actually go through with the sale with MisterArt. I would like all the affiliate companies I link to do well, but shipping and ease of shopping features are definitely factors in whether a link will do well in the end.

Read on for some tips on getting started.

One thing's for sure, if you find a way to have more income, the IRS wants to know about it. If you make $600 or more through an affiliate network site, you will receive a 1099-MISC form. It's a statement of income that you will need to file with your taxes. It's similar to a W-2. Make sure you report this income to the IRS. For the 2011 Tax Year, I received 3 of these forms.

When you blog about a product, new FTC rules are that you need to tell the reader that you make money from the links. It is as simple as saying, "if you decide to buy anything through this link, I make money -- so thanks!" Whenever you use an affiliate link on Twitter (or other social marketing sites), you can use "(spon)" to let the reader know the link is a sponsored link. It is only fair to your reader. By the way, if you use the links on this page, I make money too, so thanks!

I think one of the first keys to choosing which company or ads to place is to know who is visiting your site or blog. It's something good to know whether you are doing affiliate marketing or not!

The best way to know this is to add a hit counter. You can get a free one to put on your site from Google Analytics. You'll be able to see what keywords people are using to find your site. That clues you in to what they were looking for when they ended up on your page, which allows you to tailor the ads on the page more closely to the people who are visiting.

By using a sitemeter, I was able to see that my blog was attracting artists, even though I initially thought my blog would be for potential clients! So knowing this, I not only changed the ads on my blog away from gift item ads to ads for art supplies and artist magazines. I have been more successful by doing this.

A second key is to make sure the ads you put in match the market you are targeting, even if it doesn't match your current site visitors exactly.

I recently visited a pencil portrait artist's website and the art was beautiful, and I mean beautiful! But on the sidebar were the most tacky and distasteful ads that flashed, advertising everything from dating sites to how to get out of a traffic ticket. It was a real turnoff. You don't want to put ads in that aren't in line with the sensibilities of your typical customer. I always remind myself that I made my site for customer's needs first. If the ad I want to put in doesn't serve my client, then it doesn't go in. Period.

AffiliateFuture offers many different advertisers in one place. I'm new to AffiliateFuture, but it has been pretty easy to do so far. As of 4/10/09, they offered affiliate programs from PhotoWorks, ScanDigital, ScanCafe, UrbanPosters, Lollipop Animation (art gallery) and more.

The PepperJAM Network is a new affiliate networking site. It's free to join and new companies you can link are being added every day. It was really easy to sign up and so far I have really liked the ease of use. I have been able to add several links into my website just within the last hour. It's probably one of the easiest to use of all the affiliate networks I've joined. If you want to try it out, just click the banner below.

Many of the companies within the affiliate networks carry how-to art books. Amazon has an affiliate program (they call theirs the Amazon Associates Program) but it's really the same thing.

Amazon has a lot of customizable options for the links - and that makes it really nice and easy to add to your site. But keep in mind that Amazon isn't the only affiliate choice to sell books and DVDs on art. Dick Blick Art Supplies, available for linking through Commission Junction, offers 10% of all sales, including art instruction books and DVDs. So for example, if a site visitor clicked on your Amazon link and purchased How to Draw Lifelike Portraits from Photographs by Lee Hammond, you would get about .66 cents. A customer purchasing through a DickBlick link for the same book would mean $2.50 for each copy of the book sold. It pays to be aware of the percentages.

I have been an affiliate through LinkShare for several years now. There are over 500 major online retailers to choose from on LinkShare. MisterArt is one of the art supply companies available. Quick to join and free.

Here is a link to Share A Sale. ShareASale has several advertisers that have interesting and unique gift items that are a nice match for an artist's website.

What do you do if you apply to an affiliate program and you are declined? Think about how you would be able to use that company's links. Do you really have a plan of how you could get those links to work well and profitably for both you and the advertiser (the company you signed up for). If you think you have good ideas about how you would use their links, look for the email address of the person who manages the company's affiliate program. I have had great success doing this. There is a real person behind each company's affiliate program. I've emailed and explained how I planned to use the links and showed my interest. Almost always, I am accepted. They just have to know you are serious and will really work to try to generate traffic to their website with the affiliate links.

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