How I Did $318k in Affiliate Sales on Medium as a New Creator
Stop relying on partner programs!
It’s been almost 16 months since I started my account on this platform, and it’s been a great teaching experience and a rewarding hobby.
I never imagined that blogging would turn into a viable source of income for my household.
While I’m not perfect, I am trying to spend more time reading other posts on this platform — and I can’t help but notice that many creators are complaining that their earnings are down from the partner program.
It takes much self-restraint to not respond with:
“You’re doing it all wrong! The partner program should be the least of your concerns.”
There are so many ways to make money as a creator. Once my posts started to gain traction, I began exploring affiliate marketing last May.
I signed up for Impact Radius and began searching for brands that I already use, recommend, and am willing to share with my audience.
While I do have so much more to learn, I’m pleased with my results for being a total newbie:
I should note, however, that these are my total sales, not profit margin. As any business has revenue/profit margins, affiliate marketing is no different.
Here’s why you should care about affiliate marketing — and here’s how to get started today
Ever since the release of the book “The 4-Hour Work Week”, the notion of earning passive income 24/7 has become a phenomenon that most people are deeply interested in learning.
If you’re a creator, you’ve most likely encountered the feeling of, “there’s one of me. I can only create so much content. How in the heck am I supposed to scale?”
Here is where affiliate marketing comes into play — I can add custom links (where appropriate) to my existing content to increase my income without creating an additional 50 posts per month.
For those brand new to affiliate marketing, in simple terms, you’re offering another company’s product or service to an audience in exchange for a commission from each sale.
Doesn’t this seem like a pretty sweet gig? You don’t have to hold any inventory, deal with supply chain issues, manage employees, and so on.
For those that aren’t already a creator, you’ll need to have some form of content (a blog, Youtube channel, etc) around a niche to get started. To build an audience and make headway as an affiliate marketer, you’ll need to consistently post, even when there isn’t a single soul reading or watching your content.
When you’re ready to start adding affiliate links to your content, you can explore affiliate networks such as:
- Amazon Associates
- Impact Radius
- Clickbank
- ShareASale
These are just a few networks to explore; you can also reach out directly to a brand to see if they’d be willing to partner with you.
You don’t need a massive follower count to find success
I think the Instagram influencers got the best of me in the sense that I always correlated their success in selling another company’s products/services with the size of their audience.
I’d see influencers with a million followers promoting product after product, and always assumed that I’d need to build a huge audience before even attempting to represent another company.
Many of my posts are not read by my followers on this platform — I get a ton of traffic from Google.
I did a quick Google search and typed in “How to Save $500k by 30”, a similar topic to one of my posts here on this platform, which was written over a year ago.
My article is ranked number 4 on Google, which is fantastic!
Medium has incredible domain authority, and it’s often easier for your Medium posts to rank higher on Google than a niche blog!
That said, even if you already have a decent following on this platform, optimizing your articles for Google can skyrocket your affiliate earnings.
Don’t forget to take advantage of the low-hanging fruit: Medium’s affiliate program
When Medium released the referral program (which is an affiliate offer), I saw many of the creators balk at the idea.
“You have to give people a reason to sign up. You have to send them to a funnel, give them something for free, etc. to get them to join Medium”
Those were common complaints that I heard from the creator community.
On articles that get a decent amount of traffic from Google, I include Medium’s affiliate link (their referral program).
Spoiler alert — People sign up.
Medium’s referral program has been a wonderful way to earn passive income in addition to increasing my affiliate sales — I’m double-dipping!
The most important takeaway is…
You need to be authentic and genuine with your audience. Don’t be overly sales-y and do not create content for the sake of promoting another company’s products or services — this goes against Medium’s guidelines, and you can get your account banned by doing this.
Most importantly, you should take a long-term view and focus on the community that you’re building, the people you’re helping, and always come from a place of genuine desire to serve your audience.
If you put your audience’s needs above your desire to make quick/short-term money, you will most likely find success in the world of affiliate marketing.
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