YouTube Ad Affiliate Marketing: Turn $100 into $1000 Today

As a YouTube user, do you know that there’s something called YouTube Ad affiliate marketing? 

Well, if you don’t, it’s your lucky day as this article is to center on what YouTube Ad affiliate marketing is and how to leverage it.

It is possible to make money from YouTube usage in different ways. Yes, and ad affiliate marketing which is what I will be discussing in this article is one of those ways. 

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a process whereby an affiliate (an advertiser) generates income when a customer clicks on a URL that leads to a specific company or store’s profile.

The process is very straightforward. The process goes thus:

• An affiliate displays an ad or a link for a particular company/store on his YouTube page
•   A customer clicks on the ad or link
• The customer is directed to the company/store’s page through a tracking link
•  The customer makes a purchase
•  Affiliate’s network records purchase and details of the transaction
• The purchase is confirmed by the company/ store as a valid transaction
• The transaction is credited to an affiliate
• The affiliate gets paid his commission

How To Register And Kickstart

YouTube is also a part of Google. This means that the YouTube ad affiliate marketing campaign setup is the same as that of Google Ads.

You can read about it in all the detail here. Here is a quick summary of what the entire process looks like:

Step 1: If you do not have it, get yourself a brand new Google Ads account.

Step 2: Log in to your Google Ads account and choose the type of campaign you want to run.

A Google Ads app campaign is an automated campaign type that enables you to drive both installations and in-app conversion actions.

As far as placements go, an app campaign connects you to users across Google Search, Google Display, YouTube, and Google Play for Video or Discovery, or go extra crazy and run Display ads not only for YouTube but for the entire Google Display network.

Step 3: Select your pricing strategy: here’s where you decide if it’s bids, conversions, or impressions you’re after.

Step 4: Define your financial estimate. Although I feel you should have done that already. So just type in the number!

Step 5: Select where you would like your campaigns to appear (i.e. a web traffic ): whether it is all of YouTube, search results only or related websites.

Step 6:  Determine your ideal target audience: depending on the campaign you choose to run it may be local or can be open to the whole wide world.

Step 7: Invest in a tracker. Every successful affiliate will agree that a quality ad tracker like TrueView will help you not only track every aspect of your performance but also optimize it for higher profits. 

Step 8: Gather the data and ensure that use it. Try out different angles and decide which seems to be the best offer-traffic source combo. The results may surprise you!

Step 9:  Optimize. You have to stay open to an idea of a change. People upload over 500 hours of video every minute on YouTube, so things change quite rapidly. You need to be ready to adapt.

And just like that, you should be ready to start your very own Youtube ad affiliate marketing campaign!

Types of YouTube Ads

In simple terms, there are four main kinds of YouTube ads:

Skippable video ads

These YouTube ads are ads that are not forced on people, mainly because of the length of the videos.

Viewers have the option of skipping these ads after watching for a few seconds.

Non-skippable video ads

These ads do not last long, so viewers are forced to watch them. They last for about 10 to 15 secs, and they cannot be skipped by the viewer.

This could be the reason these types of ads get better engagement rates, however, they are known to have the worse abandonment rates.

In-stream ads

These are the ads that you see at the start of your video content. It has been proven that YouTubers generate a lot of views from in-stream ads. You might want to try this for your affiliate marketing.

Overlay ads

These ads are mainly for your YouTube channel growth.  The overlay ad usually appears along the bottom of the video as a bar.

These ads are captivating to the viewers.

How Do You Get Your Affiliate Link?

Most known companies or single brand have an affiliate program. Yes, the likes of Amazon, so Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy. Other places you should check would be CJ.com, LinkShare.com, ShareASale.com, and ImpactRadius.com.

The list continues on and on and on, and they all have affiliate programs. So you can generate money when your YouTube viewers click on your link.

Where Do You Find Those Opportunities?

The above-listed brands are like the affiliate networks or the powerhouses that habituates all the different brands inside.

So you can find Best Buy and the Linkshare or whatever inside those networks.

So once you get approved for their service, you can just start applying to any of them through the right means.

How Do You Include Affiliates As a Constituent into a YouTube Video Naturally?

I think one of the less strenuous ways to go about it is precisely when you’re planning to do a review video.

So if you’re reviewing a particular product, you should link to that product so your viewers can go purchase it as well, majorly if it’s something that you cherish.

Adding the link while making the review video is probably the easiest way to include affiliate links to a YouTube video. 

And it’s also a great way to convert any video that’s not sponsored into money. So any time you have an item you love or your favourite products or reviews, you can put in an affiliate link to help your viewers know where to find the product you’re talking about.

Where Is It Ideal To Put the Affiliate Links?

Can you put the affiliate links in the description of the video?  Yes! Affiliate links can be added below in the description.

But be very careful on how many links you put in the description because one of YouTube’s main goals is to keep people on YouTube.

The concern from an SEO perspective is that YouTube’s goal is to keep people on YouTube for as long as possible, watching as much content as possible, engaging with as many videos as possible, seeing as many ads as possible. 

And so if by watching your video, the viewing session for a viewer ends; they watch your video, then they click on that link and go to that company’s website and buy the product, that’s a good thing for you, but your video could in reality not perform.

If everyone who watches the video follows it up and clicks on the link to that offer, your video could potentially not perform as well as it could have.

But that’s for improvement and balance. For example, if you are developing an audience, you also need to make it sustainable.

So sometimes it is indeed business-wise for you to go ahead and use an affiliate link in your videos.

And other times you might ask yourself if  you need to make an affiliate market out of the video? 

I suggest you take your time to pick/choose between making money or engaging an audience on each video that you put out on YouTube.

“Should You Be Worried About Legal Disclaimers and Those Types of Things. Is this something to worry about? How does this work?”

Ask yourself these questions and answer them as honestly as possible.

Yes. Well, it’s a smart idea to add it somewhere in your description that you might be using affiliate links, kind of like your FDC disclosure, but it is more like an affiliate link disclosure.

I think that’s a smart thing to do. Although YouTube has not come out to say you need to do that, basically you should, just to play super safe.

And it also builds trust with your viewers. Your viewers know what’s going on. Other disclosures, I think that’s it.

Do You Have to Change certain settings?

Is there a little checkbox? Do you have to check that one? Like under the Advanced tab, you don’t have to check for affiliates?

No, it is not necessary.

Do You Have To Announce About The Affiliate Relationship To Your Viewers?

What about in the video itself? Do you need to announce to your viewers in a “Hey, guys, I have an affiliate relationship with XYZ company. If you buy it, I get a certain commission. Thank you for supporting me” format?

 You could. Although I think it’s more of loyalty and a trust thing. You don’t have to.

No rule says you must do it. But if you want to, you totally can.

It is advisable to be on the side of being as transparent as possible about your relationship with any company or brand.

So if they gave you a free product, and you are not getting compensated for it, you can just say that.

If it’s an affiliate relationship like they have no idea who you are, and that you are even talking about it, but you do get a small percentage of the sale, thank you.

You should just try personally just to be– because trust is the main key, like currency with your viewers that is most important. 

What About The Payment?

Another important thing to note about YouTube ad affiliate marketing is that the payout percentages as well as how these companies and brands track your viewers who are clicking on these links.

Every time a viewer clicks on one of your special tracking affiliate links, a little cookie is put onto that person’s computer to track the exact thing they purchase. 

The best part about the cookies is that if the link directs your viewer to a specific product, they do not necessarily have to purchase that product.

Anything they purchase on that website, you get some cash for as a sort of commission.

What is the Commission Rates Like?

Every company and brand have their unique commission rate. So Wal-Mart’s will go up to 20% depending on how many products you sell in a month.

But some brands will only do 10%, and some will do 40%. Some will do 5%. So you’ll have to look at the terms and conditions of that affiliate program to see what kind of commission they offer and whether you want to work with them or not.

Conclusion

So for the knowledge gotten from this article not to be forgotten, I would love for you guys to think about using YouTube ad affiliate marketing as a way of selling other people’s stuff. 

But you can make a dedicated channel about product reviews and things also. Or just consider making your products that you’re going to sell as well. Not every video gets sponsorship. Not every video should be sponsored.