Direct linking is an old tactic that’s been around since probably the beginning of affiliate marketing itself. I have tried different variations of it and would like to share when it’s wise to use it and when it’s just a waste of time.
What is direct linking in affiliate marketing mean?
It’s just the process of linking directly to an affiliate offer.
7 different examples of when direct affiliate linking happens:
- It could be from a review page you wrote up.
- It could be from a YouTube video you made.
- It could be on a comments section of your website.
- It could be from a comment you wrote but on someone else’s website.
- It could be on a forum.
- It could be in an email.
- It could be from an online ad.
Imagine for a moment you’re looking for a very specific product online. You look for it on Google or Bing, type in the exact name of the product, see the results in search and some ads come up for it that take you directly to a page where you can buy it.
That in essence is a form of direct linking, where by looking for a specific product, you click on a site or ad and get taken straight to it.
The summary of direct linking in affiliate marketing and if it works or not:
- Direct linking from a review page. Yes this is fine.
- Direct linking from a YouTube video you made. Yep this works too.
- Direct linking from a comment on your site. This can work.
- Direct linking on your comment, but on someone else’s site. No, this won’t work.
- Direct linking on a forum. Most of the time, this won’t work, so don’t do it.
- Direct linking on an email. Depends if you built an email list, then it works. But spamming friends and family? No.
- Direct linking from an online ad. This is bad and typically results in no affiliate sales.
Direct affiliate linking pros:
1) You don’t need to own a website to use direct linking. Imagine someone is looking for a specific type or toy online and all you do as an affiliate marketer is find a website which sells it, become an affiliate to promote it, create an affiliate link to that page and just advertise it to the person/s looking for it? This process can literally be set up within a minute if you’re already signed up to an affiliate program.
2) Most commonly direct linking is used to promote CPA offers which are basically web pages which provide free trials for all sorts of products. Although I’ve personally never met anyone who has succeeded with it, I have read from a number of people who said that they have made a lot of money promoting CPA offers via direct linking.
Cons:
1) There are numerous situations where direct affiliate linking won’t work like the situations I indicated above.
Ways that I have tried to use direct affiliate linking.
1) In my experience the only way to succeed with direct linking is to target a very, very specific niche audience and sell them exactly what they’re looking for. So if you know about niches, let me give you an example:
- Broad niche: Wight loss.
- Specific niche: Weight loss for single moms.
- Very, VERY specific niche: P90x.
If I were doing a direct linking project, I would only focus on P90X and the niche audience I would target would be those who know exactly what it is and are ready to buy it.
For example:
I have tried to sell very specific weight loss products to my niche audience through Bing Ads.
All I did was, I had an affiliate link which took people directly to the product page (this is a direct link example), I set up an ad which would appear under the specific keywords the audience would type and the ad would get visitors to it.
I have also made YouTube videos reviewing a product and sending people directly to the affiliate offer.
I have ONLY seen success from the YouTube example, but honestly, if you closely look at it, it’s not really a form of direct linking as I’ll explain in a moment.
If you take just the narrow understanding of direct linking, then I have never been able to make 1 sale with it.
Before you directly link to an affiliate offer, do this first:
Give people a reason to buy before you ask them to buy! Whether it be on your blog or YouTube video, offer quality content value first, and then provide the direct affiliate link.
Only a small portion of people are ever ready to just buy something and even a large percentage of those groups are still in a stage where they need to know what will work before they pay that money. It just doesn’t pay in that circumstance to directly link people to affiliate offers.
They probably already saw the ads, the site, the sales pitch and so on, so directly linking them back there won’t convince them to buy it. This is where your review will have to bridge that.
You as an affiliate marketer must explain to them why the product they are looking to buy works or doesn’t. The more information you provide, the more they will trust you. And only after you do that, can and should you directly link to that offer.
In online marketing, through certain methods such as paid ads, you can leverage to an extent traffic flow to a product, but if you send them directly to the product buying page itself, you might most of the time, not make any sales because again, giving people a reason to buy something rather than pushing it on them immediately is a better way to sell.
I see a lot of people lose money and time thinking that directly linking to affiliate offers is the way to go and this fails 99% of the time. This is why I rarely do it until I give people value.