12 Best Ways to Promote Affiliate Links That Get Clicks (2023)

So, you’ve signed up to all your affiliate programs, and have started promoting your affiliate links on social media and in your blog, but nothing is really working? Don’t worry, here’s our complete guide of all the best ways to promote your links to maximize your clicks and sales.

These are affiliate link promotional strategies the team at Lasso have personally used to earn millions of dollars, and I’ll personally include examples that I have used to earn money from, as well as great examples from other creators who are crushing it!

1. Product Reviews & Comparisons

Writing product review articles and product comparisons are some of the most profitable types of affiliate content.

The goal is to write in-depth, helpful reviews of products you use. By helping the reader understand if this would also help them, they may choose to buy the product using your affiliate link, and you get a percentage of the sale price.

I recommend that you review products with good commission rates and conversion rates, and therefore good earning per click (EPC), and that you can authentically recommend to help people.

Here’s a template for how to write a product review article:

Target keywords that have “review” in them, or “vs” for product comparisons. For writing VS articles, I also recommend you read our article on how to write a product comparison article.

But, simple text links just don’t convert, and people often skip past them. This was our biggest problem on our affiliate sites, so we built our custom affiliate displays to get more attention, garner more clicks, and make more sales.

For example, let’s say you wrote a product review about WP Rocket. Instead of promoting your affiliate link in the text, you should showcase it like this 👇

Our Pick

WP Rocket

Make your site load faster in a few clicks. WP Rocket is recognized as one of the most powerful caching plugins for WordPress. We use it specifically for image lazy loading.

🚀 Cache My Site Affiliate Program

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

It’s really easy to create these displays in Lasso:

2. In Your How-To Tutorials & Beginner Guides

Another way to serve your audience is to write tutorials on solving a specific problem, or on how to use a specific product.

For example, Andrew, Lasso’s founder, wrote about how to start a blog on his other site, which includes:

• How you will fail
• Takeaways & FAQs
• Its growth trajectory
• Your creation strategy
• Getting started (with tools)
• Website monetization best practices

Naturally, this article includes affiliate links to the tools Andrew uses to run his blog, such as WP Engine hosting. Then he earns money from any sales made from those recommendations.

For more information on these, we’ve also written about how to write how-to guides that convert.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the most reliable way to get in front of your audience and promote your affiliate links. SEO traffic can tank from an algorithm update, but your email list is always yours to contact.

If you run a website with traffic, you should have a lead magnet that collects emails. I even recommend having multiple, so you can test which converts best, and use different lead magnets on different pages where they’re best suited.

For example, here’s Niche Site Lady’s lead magnet on her site:

You can then include affiliate links in your welcome email series, and if you decide to email your list every week, for example with the latest updates in your niche, you can weave affiliate recommendations into those emails.

The trick is to be strategic, and not make every email a spammy ad. This will just make people unsubscribe, or stop opening your emails.

4. Podcast Show Notes

There are two main ways to promote affiliate links in podcasts:

1. In the show notes of the podcast, for people to click.
2. Read out your affiliate link with a special offer or deal, for your listeners to type.

For example, here’s how Pat Flynn adds affiliate links in the show notes of his podcast episodes with a full disclosure:

If you mention a product in your podcast, you can mention you have an exclusive deal in the notes, or even read out the link for them to type in their browser.

However, most affiliate links are long strings of random letters and numbers, and obviously, nobody will be able to remember that.

This is why cloaking affiliate links is essential. Affiliate link cloaking is when you use an easier to remember and more branded URL instead of the default one, and then when you click it, it redirects to the original location. 

If you use Lasso, it’ll automatically cloak all your URLs for any programs that allow this (Amazon does not for example, so we don’t cloak these links).

For example, if you were promoting Betterment, you’d say: “This episode is brought to you by Betterment. Visit listenmoneymatters.com slash betterment for a link in the show notes.”

5. Digital Products & Online Courses

Creating digital products like online courses or eBooks is a great way to promote affiliate links and generate passive income.

For example, if you run a photography blog, you could create a beginner’s photography course that recommends a Canon DSLR camera as the best camera for beginners, with an affiliate link.

The best part is it’s not salesy if it’s truly the best option for them. You are helping them with their goals of taking great pictures.

Andrew Fiebert, Lasso’s founder, has multiple courses that also contain affiliate links for recommended tools.

Your courses could be about anything from creating a successful e-commerce site to digital marketing to dressing better, and people will pay.

6. YouTube Videos

• YouTube’s rules on affiliate links: Allowed, but massively posting affiliate content on dedicated accounts may violate spam policies.

It’s much easier to get a lot of views on a YouTube video than a blog post. Simply add affiliate links in the YouTube video description for people to click on, or as the pinned comment, and ideally directly tell your audience in your video that the link is in the description.

You can get into more detail in a YouTube video than you can in a blog post, and show things visually to give people the confidence to buy. This is ideal for product reviews that you can earn good affiliate commissions from.

Here’s an example of a YouTube guide with affiliate links in it:

Placing your link in the comments can also help to start a conversation with your customers.

Here’s another example of Carl Broadbent, a popular affiliate marketing and niche site YouTuber, placing an affiliate link for Ezoic in the description.

For a more detailed guide, I recommend reading our guide to YouTube affiliate marketing.

7. Product Round-ups & Gift Guides

I’ve already covered promoting affiliate links in product reviews and in how-to guides, but there’s also another style of blog content that can get big traffic to your affiliate links: product round-ups.

These are sometimes called buyer’s guides, or “Best” or “Top 10” articles, and instead of just covering one or two products, they typically compare 5-10 products in mini product reviews. Another version of this is gift guides, which often have 20+ gifts for certain types of people, for example golfers.

You can find these keywords by searching for keywords with “best” or “gifts for” within your niche. 

To promote the affiliate links on these pages, write great content, outreach the brands you feature to try to get them to link to the content, and get traffic organically from Google and Bing.

The key to writing high converting product round-ups is good segmentation, and understanding your audience. You need to differentiate each product as much as possible, and show each type of audience member which is best for them.

You can do this by marking each product as:

• “Best budget pick”
• “Best for MacOS”
• “Best for beginners”
• “Premium pick”
• “Best for summer”

Then, have the affiliate link for each product, monitor which gets the most clicks, and move those to the top.

One way to increase clicks to your affiliate links in product reviews is by having your top 3 picks in a table right at the top of the article. Most people don’t want to scroll all the way through, and giving them a quick summary is often all it takes for them to click your affiliate link. 

Here’s an example on SmokedBBQSource:

SmokedBBQSource actually used Lasso to make this display, and you can make great-looking displays that convert well using our tool, just like this one.

8. Paid Ads

Leveraging ads on social media platforms is another way to drive traffic to your affiliate links. You don’t need to wait to get organic traffic from Google, you can instantly send traffic to your affiliate offers to convert into sales.

Advantages of promoting affiliate links via paid ads also include the ability to target specific keywords (Google Ads), as well as targeting specific types of audience segments and fans of specific hobbies or interests (social media ads) that are more likely to buy.

If you have pixel data, you can run retargeting ads on past visitors of your site, that are more likely to convert.

Paid ads options include:

• Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram)
• Google Ads
• Twitter
• Quora
• Linkedin
• Reddit

However, this is expensive, and requires skill to do well. I do not recommend this for beginners without paid ads experience. 

You also need to be running careful tests for minimizing your spend per click, and maximizing your earnings from your affiliate pages and links, to make sure you’re profitable. 

Also remember: many affiliate programs either outright ban PPC ads, or ban them for any terms they are also bidding on, such as their brand name. Be careful to ensure you aren’t kicked off the program for breaking ToS.

9. Resources & Tools Pages

Tools and resource pages are an amazing way to promote your affiliate links. For example, the Toolbox page on listenmoneymatters.com generates 10% of total affiliate income!

In these pages, simply recommend the products and services you use in your hobby or niche. Then, if they have affiliate programs, you can add the affiliate links in.

This is a great quick win if you already have traffic, as some people will click on to these pages, especially if it is in your top nav.

At Lasso, we’ve even made a guide on how to create a high-converting Resources page in under 10 minutes!

10. Instagram

• Instagram’s rules on affiliate links: Allowed, but limited ways to post them.

While you can’t post links in your IG posts, there are other ways, including:

• Your bio link.
• In Reels.

I don’t recommend putting an affiliate link in your bio. It’s unattractive, and you’re limited to one product. 

Instead, use a tool like Linktree to create a link that leads to a landing page of all your socials, and all the products or services you recommend. Instagram are rumored to be launching multiple bio links soon, but for the moment, a tool like Linktree is the best option.

You can also add affiliate links in Reels, and Instagram have their own affiliate program for connecting you with brands to promote.

11. Facebook Pages

• Facebook’s rules on affiliate content: allowed on both personal and business pages.

Create a Facebook account (either personal or business) to engage with your audience. Then, when it makes sense, include affiliate links to products and tools you recommend.

Try creating a Facebook group focused on a single topic to qualify your readers. You’ll find this audience segment more engaged with what you’re promoting.

However, don’t mistake Facebook for a “selling” platform. Focus on creating value for your group members with every post, build trust, and don’t spam them with irrelevant links.

If you’ve already built a large community but haven’t considered promoting on the platform, now’s the time.

12. Pinterest

• Pinterest’s rules on affiliate links: You can post them on pins without any issue.

Pinterest is one of the best way to promote affiliate links on social media, with much less strict rules, and much wider potential reach. For example, posting a link on Twitter or Facebook will generally see reduced reach, but Pinterest doesn’t have this issue.

Use large, visual pins that encourage people to click. You can choose whether to directly bring people to the affiliate link, but it’s best to send people to a landing page, for example the “Top 10 gardening tools” to they can read more and pick the best for them.

For example, this popular pin of 31 passive income ideas, has the top option as investing, and then recommends investing options that are affiliate links.

Some clever site owners are even linking from Pinterest to lead magnet pages to get emails, and then promoting affiliate links in the email welcome series.

Best Practices When Promoting Your Affiliate Links

If you’re trying to level up your affiliate marketing game, the below tactics will help you get there. These are the best tips to boost trust with your readers (and commissions for your bottom line).

1. Include Your Affiliate Disclaimer

You have to disclose affiliate links in order to be compliant with the FTC. Hide this, and you risk getting fined, or kicked off that affiliate program for not disclosing this.

We’ve written an in-depth blog post about how to include affiliate disclosures, with easy examples you can copy.

2. Follow The Platform’s Rules About Affiliate Links

It’s crucial to check the platform’s rules regarding affiliate links before posting, as some ban them or restrict their use (such as with very clear affiliate disclosures). 

Failing to follow these rules can result in penalties such as account suspension or termination, loss of earnings, and damage to your online reputation.

For example, the last thing you want to do is have your website banned from Reddit because you spammed affiliate links, and lose out on the traffic and community you can build there.

3. Track Your Affiliate Links

If you aren’t tracking how well each of your affiliate links and products are performing, you’re basically operating blind.

Once you know which products convert well, and earn you high earning per click (EPC), you can scale your earnings by focusing on these products.

This is so essential that we built connecting Lasso to Google Analytics features into the Lasso plugin. It’ll automatically track your click data so you can see which affiliate links get the most clicks on your website.

And, now with Lasso Performance, you get a full breakdown of every affiliate link on every page of your site, with the revenue, earning per click, and CTR of every link. With that info, you can make the changes that earn you far more revenue.

4. Promote Affiliate Links Ethically

Your success as an affiliate marketer boils down to trust. The more trustworthy you appear, the more likely readers are to click your links and buy. 

Your brand is key. Don’t promote bad products for high commissions; make authentic recommendations that help improve their lives.

5. Organize Your Affiliate Links

Once you start promoting more products, it can get messy dealing with 50+ affiliate links, especially if they begin to go out of stock or the URLs change, leading to a broken link.

A quick win you can do is create a Google Sheet with all your links, and then periodically check them to make sure they’re working.

But if your time is valuable and you want better organization, we built affiliate link management tools into Lasso so you can keep track of all your links, and we’ll alert you when any links go out of stock or the links break.

FAQs

How do I promote my affiliate link on my website?

Add your links wherever it’s relevant for your readers, such as in relevant product reviews they are considering buying, how-to guides that the product helps with, or in your resources or tools pages.

Where can I promote my affiliate links for free?

You can promote your affiliate links on your blog for free, as well as on social media such as Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Medium, and many other locations.

Last Words

The best way to promote affiliate links isn’t to use every method on this list. You’ll spread yourself too thin. Instead, focus on one, or a couple of channels, test and gauge the results, and then scale what works for your niche and affiliate products.

If you’re targeting blog content, such as product reviews and buyer’s guides, then Lasso can help you with high-converting affiliate displays, as well as affiliate data analytics to help you optimize your pages.

You can get started here: Sign up for Lasso today.