Have you ever wanted to be able to click a link and have an affiliate sale pop up? Maybe you’ve tried doing this in person with a sales person but, for whatever reason, it didn’t work out.
Or maybe you’ve tried doing this online with an affiliate link, only to find that the conversion rate is incredibly low.
Whatever the reason, having an affiliate program can be a goldmine. But, if you want to get the most out of it, you need to understand how to use AWeber to effectively promote affiliate sales.
What is AWeber?
If you’re not familiar, AWeber is an autoresponder service for marketers, bloggers, and business owners. Think of it as “email marketing for people who hate email marketing.”
One of the things that makes AWeber stand out is the ability to create “lookalike” email list segments. So, if you have a blog with a lot of content on it and you want to promote a product that’s similar to something you’ve written about, you can create a list of people who have an interest in that product and promote it to them via email.
Why should you use AWeber for your affiliate program?
There are many reasons why you should use AWeber for your affiliate program, but I want to highlight a few of them.
Firstly, creating segments of email lists is something that can be very time-consuming. If you have a team of people working on your affiliate program, creating lookalike segments can take a lot of the drudgery out of the process.
Secondly, creating lookalike segments also gives you the ability to test different types of content and offers on your website. If you run an eCommerce store, having the ability to test different types of product or deal promotions can be incredibly beneficial. Not only does it allow you to optimize for the best performing content, but it also gives you the ability to analyze which products and promotions bring in the most sales.
Thirdly, having a diverse group of affiliate marketers on your team can bring a lot of expertise to bear when it comes to running and optimizing your affiliate program. If you’re running an eCommerce store or selling your own products online, having a team of people who are specialists in E-commerce or Marketing can make a huge difference.
How does AWeber fit into the equation?
AWeber is actually made up of different tools that can help you automate many of the tasks that come with running an affiliate program. So, while you could certainly do all of the work yourself, using AWeber can make the process much smoother. Additionally, many of the popular affiliate tools like Commission Junction, LinkShare, and Share-A-Win allow you to integrate AWeber email marketing into your existing workflow.
The great thing about AWeber is that they’ve made it incredibly easy to do. In fact, it’s so easy that, even a beginner can get up and running in moments. Plus, the platform is completely free.
Setting up your AWeber account
To get started, you need to visit the AWeber website and click the Get Started button. You’ll then be brought to the “Sign Up” page where you can enter in your email address and create a password.
As I mentioned, AWeber is completely free, so you have absolutely no charges coming from them. You’ll just have to take into consideration the cost of the products you’re promoting. You can find a list of available payment methods below the green Enter button.
You can then take a moment to test out the sign up process by clicking the big red “Create My Free Account” button. If you do everything right, you’ll receive an email from AWeber with your free account information inside.
Making money with your affiliate program
After creating your free account, you can head back over to the dashboard and click the blue Get Started button. Here, you’ll see a map of the various tools that AWeber has to offer. As you can imagine, there are lots of options. But don’t worry, I’ll walk you through the process of setting up your affiliate program via AWeber efficiently so that you can start making money as quickly as possible.
To begin, click the big green Get Started button to the right of the map. This will take you to the “Choose Your Products” page where you can choose the products you’ll be promoting. While you can use any products you want to promote, I recommend using affiliate products that are very similar to what you are promoting online or on social media. Creating lookalike segments is incredibly easy with AWeber, so you don’t want to use products that are too far removed from what you are promoting.
Below the “Choose Your Products” map, you’ll see the various products that AWeber has available to promote. As you can imagine, there are lots of choices. But don’t worry, I’ll introduce you to a few products that can help you make money quickly.
Create Lookalike Segments
One of the first things you’ll want to do is to create lookalike segments of your email list. Similar to how you’d find products similar to what you are promoting online, once you have your email list you can find similar products and promote them to your list. Think about it, if someone is on your list they have expressed an interest in your content and similar products, chances are they’ll be interested in what you have to say about some other product as well.
To create lookalike segments, click the radio button next to Create New Lookalike Segment. Doing this will give you a quick list of possible matches based on the products you’ve chosen. You can then choose the one that feels right to you and click the Create button.
If you run an eCommerce store you can choose multiple products and offers at once, simply click the Create New Lookalike Segment button and select the products you want to promote. Doing this will create different segments based on your selected products. For example, if you have chosen shoes as one of your products and clothing as the other, you will have separate segments for men’s shoes and women’s shoes. While this might seem like a lot of work, considering you’ll have to do this for each product you want to promote, creating lookalike segments is quick and easy.
Once you’ve created your lookalike segments, you can begin promoting products similar to what you are promoting online. But, instead of relying on online searches or social media, you’ll be using your email list to send out promotional emails. The great thing about AWeber is that there are tons of proven email marketing campaigns you can use to send out personalized emails to your subscribers.
Email Marketing Made Easy
Another big plus of using AWeber for your affiliate program is that the platform makes email marketing incredibly easy. Simply click the Get Started button on the dashboard and you’ll be brought to the Inbox page. As you can imagine, the Inbox is where all of your emails are stored. To the right of the Inbox page is a list of the various email campaigns you can create using AWeber. Simply choose the one you want to use for your affiliate program and you’re good to go.
Doing this will give you the ability to easily send out personalized emails to your subscribers. Additionally, if you run an eCommerce store, you can take advantage of AWeber’s built-in payment buttons so that orders can be processed through your affiliate link automatically. This can be a huge time-saver.
To sum things up, creating an affiliate program and using AWeber to manage it are both relatively simple processes that can be a lot of fun to do. Plus, you’ll be able to implement systems and strategies that will make your affiliate program much more effective.