The next layer of monetisation we add is affiliate offers.
An affiliate offer is basically a link to a product or service that you add to you newsletter. If a reader goes to that link and makes a purchase you, the person who sent them, gets a percentage of the sale.
One of the best known affiliate programmes is Amazon Associates. By becoming an Amazon Associate you can send people to Amazon to buy products. When they buy you make a percentage of that Amazon sale.
If I ran a board gaming newsletter I could review and recommend a board game in my newsletter and add a link to the board game on Amazon.
If someone buys the board game I’d make 6% of the sale. If the board game was $50 I’d make $3. If I drove 100 purchases I’d make $300. Nice.
To check out Amazon’s pay out rates check here for USA: Associate Commissions or Google “your country + Amazon Associates Commission Statement” to find the local rates.
The reason this works well with early stage newsletters is that size doesn’t matter.
You can join an affiliate programme and drive however many sales - you aren’t locked into delivering a certain result. Therefore it’s a good early stage revenue stream.
And there are many many affiliate programmes out there. Amazon is one of the largest but we’re going to use ChatGPT to find others.
Here’s a prompt for starting our affiliate journey:
Act as an affiliate marketing expert.
I write a newsletter about [topic]
Give me a list of known affiliate offers (products and services) in this niche from a wide range of sources like Amazon, Clickbank and other affiliate marketplaces, education marketplaces, individual brands, blogs and influencers
Give me a total of 20 specific known offers
Using [topic] = board games
This prompt will give us places to go and check out.
From here visit the websites and find their affiliate programmes. Google "name of website + affiliate” to find the exact page quickly.
From there check their payout rates and terms and conditions. Register for the ones you like the look of to get your affiliate links. Then simply start to drop those links into your upcoming newsletters.
This could be an issue that is specifically a review.
Or it could be a general link to their website - for example I might say “This issue brought to you by Zatu Games” at the top of my site and add my affiliate link straight to their homepage. If they then browse around and make a purchase you’ll take a cut.