Instagram has over a billion users, making it one of the largest social media platforms in the world. With such a large number of people using the picture and video-sharing platform, it is one of the leading places to market products and services.
The massive marketing potential on Instagram makes it one of the best places for affiliate markers to operate. Affiliate marketing and Instagram marketing are each multibillion-dollar industries. By merging them together, you have the potential for a lucrative income.
Affiliate markers on Instagram receive commissions when their followers purchase products or services they recommend.
How to start affiliate marketing on Instagram
Making money is the final goal of affiliate marketing. However, before we start making money, we have to build a presence on Instagram and become known for something. Here is a guide on how to get started.
Switch to a Creator account
To become an affiliate marketer on Instagram, you will need to operate a creator account. Go to your Instagram account settings, switch to a professional account and choose Creator. Also, select the category that describes your affiliate niche and enter your contact information.
With a creator account on Instagram, you can have access to the tools designed for bloggers, influencers and content creators. Hence, gaining access to the tools that would help you grow your affiliate business on the platform.
Pick an affiliate network
We recommend picking high-ticket affiliate programs as they offer you the best high-value offers to promote as an affiliate marketer. Affiliate networks grant you access to services and features such as tracking technology, reporting tools, payments, support and more.
The affiliate network you pick should be a reliable and reputable network that has a reputation for excellent service, top-quality creative materials, optimized funnels and excellent commissions and payment terms.
Build your influence
Now that you have an Instagram creator’s account and joined an affiliate program, it is time to start building your influence on the Instagram platform. Always remember that quality is more important than quantity in marketing.
Provide meaningful content to your followers, and your influence on the platform will grow. As the number of followers increases, so also your potential earnings when you recommend products or services to your followers.
To make money with Instagram affiliate marketing, you need to become an influencer in your audience’s eyes. After that, you stand a chance of diverting them toward your affiliate links. To build your influence, you need to be consistent in providing value to your followers. Provide your followers with solutions to their problems and recommendations.
Keep in mind that not all your posts have to be promotional. You can share other valuable content for free to help out your audience. Furthermore, ensure that you pick a niche before building an influence. The goal is to become a trustworthy source of news, information, and or entertainment in your industry.
Start promoting products and services
After building your influence, it is now time to start promoting products and services. Your audience already knows you as an influencer in a field and relies on you to provide them with solutions to their problems.
Ensure that the products and services you recommend to your followers are things that are actually useful to them and will add value. You can’t be in the sports niche and start recommending a non-related product in loans. You will most likely not make money this way
Analyze and optimize
Continue to analyze and adjust your affiliate marketing on Instagram. You have a creator’s account, which means you can view important analytics, which will help you know how well your posts perform.
You can tweak your campaigns for better engagement and higher sales. It is also essential to track how many of your affiliate marketing sales make it through to closure. Never overlook the impact of small changes to your CTAs (call to action) as a simple word change can produce dramatic results.
Seven tips to become more successful as an Instagram affiliate marketer
There are certain things you can do to boost your affiliate marketing efforts on Instagram. Here are some useful tips for you.
Label affiliate products as a paid partnership
As an affiliate marketer, you are required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to disclose your relationship with an affiliated brand. According to the FTC’s guidelines, you must declare your affiliation with a brand you are promoting to ensure that your followers are not misled.
Instagram has a paid partnership logo that you can display on your Instagram post. This shows that the affiliate marketer is incentivized to share the brand’s content. By indicating that it is a paid sponsorship, you will not come off as spam to your followers. Failure to do so could lead to your followers regarding you as a deceptive marketer.
Create an Instagram affiliate storefront
In 2021, the social media platform launched an in-app storefront, similar to the eCommerce brand’s Instagram Shops. This is designed for content creators using Instagram.
With the affiliate storefront on Instagram, you can showcase the products you are affiliated with from their Instagram profile. You can promote your products and services from the storefront to encourage sales.
Include affiliate links on your Instagram bio
Another way to boost your affiliate sales on Instagram is to include your affiliate link in your bio. This is usually one of the first things your followers see when they visit your profile, and they can click on the link to purchase the products and services you recommend.
Use Instagram Stories to your advantage
Instagram Stories, also known as Reels, has become a very popular way of engaging with followers. Take advantage of this feature to promote your product and share your affiliate link with your followers.
Record product demonstrations
Affiliate marketing has evolved over the past few years and involves more than just promoting your product with words or banners. These days, you might need to consider filming product demonstrations for your followers.
When recommending a product or a service, you can film yourself using that product or service so your followers can know the steps involved and the benefits. You can do the demonstration via Instagram Live and also post the video on your story.
By doing so, your content will get more engagement as your followers will know they are authentic. You are recommending a product or a service you are using yourself, and that is a huge positive in the eyes of the potential customer.
When doing a product tutorial, you can break down each step into a short video or an individual photo and post them on your Instagram feed. This will ensure that your followers can gain access to those tutorials whenever they wish, and you continue to earn commissions when followers follow your affiliate link to make purchases.
Use hashtags to expand your reach
Instagram, like other social media platforms, has tools you can use to increase your reach. The more people your content can reach, the higher your earning potential as an affiliate marketer.
Hashtags have become very popular in the social media world as they help you expand your audience with minimal effort. Instagram users follow hashtags within the app, which means your content could appear in their feed when they search for relevant hashtags, even if they don’t follow your account.
To get the ideal hashtags to use, carry out competitor research. Usually, brands, publishers, and content creators use hashtags to expand their own reach. Look at their posts to gain inspiration and determine the hashtags to use on your posts.
Ensure you look at a hashtag before you publish it. Some hashtags are banned by Instagram as they are considered offensive and using them in your affiliate content can result in a temporary ban.
Track affiliate performance
Earlier, we mentioned that using an Instagram creator account grants you access to certain analytics and insights. We recommend using this data to analyze the success level of your affiliate marketing campaigns on Instagram. Some of the key metrics you should look at include brand awareness, profile activity and engagement rate.
Final thoughts
With over a billion users, Instagram is one of the best places to promote products and services. The steps explained in this post will help you become a successful Instagram affiliate marketer. You can use Algo Affiliates to gain access to a wide range of affiliate offers to promote on Instagram.
