Before You Promote Another Affiliate Offer, Watch This

Can I be honest with you for a second? 🤔

Most affiliate marketers never stop to properly evaluate the offer before they start promoting it. They see a decent commission rate, the product looks good on the surface, and they jump in.

Months later? The income still doesn't match the effort. The back-end payouts are getting cut. The cookie window is too short. The brand doesn't actually align with their values.

And they're left wondering why it's not working, when the problem was the offer all along 🫠

In this week's episode, we're walking you through the exact framework we use to evaluate any affiliate programme before committing to it.

Commission structures, cookie duration, back-end payouts, brand alignment - all of it. The stuff most people find out too late.

If you've ever promoted an offer that felt off, or you're about to say yes to something new and want to make sure it's actually worth your time and energy, this one is for you.

Watch it here 👆 and grab our free Affiliate Success Playbook.

Drop a 🙋‍♀️ in the comments if you've ever promoted an offer you later regretted. You are not alone, and there's a better way.

Ready to step into your own Feminine Wealth? Start here!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to today's episode. We are so excited to be here. Um, today we're talking about affiliate marketing 101, right? Like what is it, all the deals. My name is Brandi Shaver, and I'm here with my amazing co-host Carrie Haim. And today we are tackling an essential topic for every affiliate marketer. How to choose the right program or product that resonates with your audience.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yes, that's right. And wherever you're watching from, let us know. I mean, we're streaming to multiple platforms right now, but say hello, join in on the conversation. If you're watching live, maybe say, hey, I'm live, hashtag live. And if you're watching the replay, it's a hashtag replay in the comments. And, you know, with so many options that are out there, it can be overwhelming. Right. I know that when Brandy and I like first entered this whole affiliate marketing world, we were like, holy cow, there's so many different options. There's so many different things to keep in mind. So I don't want you to worry because we're here to provide you with a straightforward framework today so that you can select programs that not only fit your style, but also deliver real value to your audience as well. And that's one of the most important things I feel like because if you're building an audience and it you're promoting something that they don't find valuable, you're not gonna get sales. Yeah. So keep thinking as we go through today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, that totally makes sense, which kicks us off to our first point, knowing your audience. Okay. So if you've built an audience of people, let's say you've built an audience of people that eat meat, for instance, and then you decide you're going to try to sell them an offer that's for vegetarians, it's not going to go over very well, right? So understanding your audience is the foundation of a successful affiliate marketer. That's just how it works.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah. So when you're looking at your audience and when you're looking at the audience that you're wanting to grow, you need to take the time to create like a detailed customer avatar, right? Like we like to say, like, you need to give that person a name. Like we have names of several different avatars depending on whatever the offer it is that we promote. So what how old are they? What are they interested in? What pains or fears or problems are they experiencing right now, right? Like what keeps them up at night? What problems are they looking to solve? And then what are those dreams and desires that they actually want, that they're striving for, that they're dreaming about while they're sitting at their nine to five or whatever that may be. Because when you can get clear on where they're at and where they want to go, your content helps them get there, which makes it a whole lot easier to make those commissions.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Absolutely. You can use tools like surveys or polls on social media to gather your audience's insights uh directly, or you can analyze like demographic trends and preferences specific to you know whatever your niche might be. One key that I want to share here is if you're building an audience from scratch, because you know, we have people from all levels, right? That are like, oh, I just started in affiliate marketing and we have people that are like, you know, multi-million dollar affiliate marketers with us. What you want to do is if you're brand new, figure out an offer that lights you up and then build the audience that fits that. But if you've already built an audience of people, then your offers or products that you want to offer that audience need to fit that audience. Again, going back to the meat and vegetarian, you know, type example.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah. And you know what, Brandy, you and I, we had a really good friend several years ago. She had spent a lot of time growing an audience with on of around horses, like she loved horses. That was that was her jam. And here she was trying to sell skincare to this like audience of horse lovers, right? And it was like through that mentorship program, she realized she didn't, she wasn't actually promoting the right offer to the audience that she had spent years building. Like she had an audience of over a hundred thousand horse lovers, right? So when she shifted her what she was promoting, I think she started selling sat sat uh saddles and horse supplements, like those types of things, all of a sudden the commission started rolling in because the offer matched. And this data can reveal like what products are gonna resonate with your audience the most. For example, if your audience prioritizes sustainability, like look for eco-friendly affiliate programs that align with those values. When you you have to have that uh match in your audience to whoever, like whatever it is that you're promoting. If it's not a match or if it's not a fit, you're not gonna be making those commissions at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, it definitely has to be a match because if it's not, you're gonna find you're built all this time, money, and energy into this audience, and then you can't, you know, pull any income from it, right? So, next up, you want to research potential affiliate offers. Again, going back to the horse example or meat for vegetarians, right? We want to research what potential offers we could offer that audience. So now that you know your audience, it's time to find those programs or products that align with their needs. And you can do that, you know, by research. You can use AI, you can um, you you're gonna have to use your brain a little bit here though, right? We're not gonna give you the answers because everybody's gonna be different on their niche and who they're who they're targeting and their audience and all those things. So you have to do the research. This is the unsexy part that nobody wants to do, right? They just want to get in and start making money, start building the audience, those kind of things. And if you don't do the research, you might find that, you know, six months, a year down the road, you are the lady with the horse audience and you're trying to sell them skincare, right? Like it could happen because you didn't do the research.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yes. Yeah. And so you also want to, when you're doing this research, you want to look for like reputation, right? Like, what's the reputation of the offer that you're actually promoting? Because here's the thing: not all offers are created equal, not all offers are gonna pay the same. And I know maybe Brandy, you can talk about commissions here in just a second, but it's like you want to evaluate the products or the services that are being offered to ensure that they're genuinely gonna solve your audience's problems, that those people are gonna be taken care of. Because at the end of the day, trust with your audience is everything. And if you promote a janky offer that they people come in and they're not gonna be taken care of, that trust can be broken at the snap of a finger. So make sure you're doing that online research. You can check, I mean, social media by going to social media. You can look at trust pilot reviews, you can, like Brandy said, check out AI, um, Google, YouTube. Like there's so many different places that you can go and you can check out different programs that you're gonna be affiliating for. Make sure you do that research before you start promoting because you'd hate for people to suddenly it puts a bad name on you, right? Like it affects your reputation when you promote offers that people aren't taking care of in.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, absolutely. Now, and remember, of course, you're probably doing this to make money, right? Like that's the whole point of becoming an affiliate or building a business online, right? So you want to focus a lot on the commission structure. Okay, so programs that offer recurring commissions or high conversion rates can significantly boost your income. Okay. Companies that pay at least 20% on high ticket on the back end is what you actually want to be looking for. Now, some of you might have just gone, wait, what do you mean by back end? Okay, so there and I'm gonna explain it. There are a few out there that do, but you don't want to mess around. If you don't want to mess around like looking and like trying to figure out all the things, just come to Feminine Wealths and use our passive premium partnerships. Okay, you'll find that a lot of companies pay 100% on the front end, which seems super sexy, right? You're like, oh, they pay 100% and then they have the little parentheses front end, okay, but they cut you out of the back end conversion and that impacts your income. So if you want to go big, like big money, you need to be able to scale with ads eventually. Okay. That's that's just what we believe in here. Yes, organic is amazing, and yes, you can build a massive business, and yes, you should be doing both, absolutely. But for you to make massive amounts of money, and I mean in the millions, you're going to need to use ads eventually. So the percentage they're paying you on the high ticket back end matters more than people even realize. So do your homework and figure out how much they pay. One of the other things that you may want to check too is the conversion rate. Like what is their conversion rate, right? Because like if you're if you're affiliating for this company and yes, they're paying you 100% on the front end and 100% on the back end, and their conversion rate is 1%. Like, how's that going to do EF4? You know what I mean? Like, you're not going to get very far if they're actually not moving what they say they're moving. So check that stuff. Okay. Ask those hard questions.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yep. And another thing that I wanna that I want to point out is check cookie duration. So, what this means is like if someone purchases through you, like let's say someone becomes a lead through you and they buy something, usually companies will say, okay, that person belongs to you for a certain amount of time. So you don't have to worry about like other affiliates taking that commission on the back end. It's really important. Brandy and I have been a part of affiliate companies before where there was no cookies. And so we were spending money in ads to bring people there. And then all of a sudden, those people would end up the high-ticket commissions that we needed to pay our ad spend were suddenly going elsewhere. So it's just important to know what that cookie duration is. A longer cookie duration means that you have a better chance of earning commissions, even if the customer doesn't purchase the high ticket back end immediately. So 60 to 90 days of a cookie duration is what you really want to look for. Because if someone isn't gonna upgrade in 60 to 90 days, their chances of upgrading aren't very high, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Right, right. Absolutely. Okay, so now let's talk about testing the offers of the products that you're gonna be affiliating for, right? This is a crucial step and many overlook it. The problem here is again going back to your integrity, right? If you don't test the product or the offer and you don't like, you don't know exactly what's happening, right? And people come in and then you know they they don't get what they're looking for, or maybe the company's customer service sucks. Your integrity is impacted by that. Okay, so you being able to test the offer or the product is a crucial, crucial step, at least for me, because I don't want my name attached to something that's janky. That's just me.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, and so you're just what you want to do is you want to go through the offers yourself, right? Like just to kind of piggyback off of what Brandy said, because authenticity is key in any type of sales business, being able to authentically talk about this product or service or whatever it is that you're promoting to your audience, and you can actually say, Yeah, like I went through it, yeah, I've bought it. This is the results that it gave me, it makes it so much it not only does it make it easier for you to make money because you can genuinely and authentically talk about it, but there's that trust there and your audience can sense insecurity right away. Like if you aren't sure, they're not gonna buy because they're like, well, if you're the person who's promoting it and you're not even sure, why should I do it? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah. And even if you can't access the product directly, like let's say it's a, you know, a high ticket, whatever, and you know, you don't have the funds for that or whatever for right now, and they're gonna pay you that high ticket commission on the back end, which you know, some companies do, not many, but some. Um, look at their testimonials, right? You look at their customer reviews. You want to ensure that it's high quality and delivers on its promises. And you can get that through looking through the testimonials as well. So don't count those out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yes. And remember, if you're promoting digital products, consider offering like a walkthrough or a tutorial to showcase its features. Brandi and I, this is how we got a ton of our high-ticket upgrades when we were like leading leaderboards in, you know, other and an other affiliate opportunity was we offered a call with people or we even sent like a little video where we walked people through exactly what they were gonna get. And we talked about the result that we were getting because of the service that they were providing. And it just led to more, it adds more value, it builds trust with your audience and it leads to higher commissions because people, uh, there's more trust there in actually spending that high ticket money to get the high ticket result that they're looking for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

And anytime that you can um share your screen and like show the actual, like show and tell, right? People trust that more than just a talking head, just to add that in there. So let's talk about alignment with your brand. Okay. Again, this is like message to market, what we what we opened with, right? This is message to market match, but it also has to align with your brand. If you've built a brand, like your brand on social media is around, you know, health and wellness. And then all of a sudden you start affiliating for a travel company. It's kind of like it's a little bit of a misalignment. I mean, I'm I'm not saying people can't do it. I'm just saying that like be aware that you want your brand and the offers to be aligned with your person and your values, right? Like that you want it to resonate, not just like you don't want to just be the person that like sells everything. You know what I mean? Like that traveling salesman that opens up his cart, right? And I mean, they used to call it like the snake oil guy or whatever. He had everything, right? The pans, the spoons, the spices, he had, you know, um remedies, right? All those things. We don't want to be. I mean, if it fits into what you're doing, then that makes sense. But if you're built a personal brand around, you know, finances and you're over here selling travel, it doesn't work, it doesn't go, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

So yeah. So for those of you who are watching, if you're watching live, whether you're watching replay, I don't care when you're watching, but let us know like what are you getting from this? What value are you getting? Maybe some aha's, drop them in the chat. We'll come back in, you know, we'll say hello and we'll converse with you all later. But if you're building, if you build a brand around empowerment and authenticity, partnering with a company that doesn't share those values can absolutely damage your credibility at the end of the day. So make sure that you're partnering with something that is in alignment with who you are as a person, your values, right? What are your values? What's your mission? How do you want people to be treated? And finding a company that shares those values is going to be the best place for you to be at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, it is important too, as you know, analyzing these affiliate programs that prioritize ethical marketing practices. Okay. So I don't know if you all know this, but you know, every time you see something on social media or out in the world, it's not always true. Okay. Like just putting that out there, right? So if you want to be aligned with, you know, and you're again your integrity is important to you, make sure that whoever you're partnering with as far as an affiliate program has ethical marketing practices and that they align with your mission. This not only enhances your brand image, but also attracts an audience that shares your values. Okay. So I don't know about you, but I want to be around people that are like me. I in my audience, I want them to be, you know, that I like them, right? Like that we are kind of the same kind of people. We share the same values, we have the same kind of energy kind of thing. So it's important to analyze that piece of it as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah. And I also want to uh bring in like when you're looking at, okay, I want to partner with this, like a certain company, right? Let's look at like look at the support that that company is gonna give you because there are affiliate programs that they just say, okay, you're an affiliate, but they don't have any support. There's no resources for you to use. There's zero like breakdowns of what's in their higher ticket packages or whatever that may be. So a good affiliate program is gonna provide you with the marketing materials, it's gonna provide you with the trainings to win, and it's gonna provide you with the support needed in order to make your first commission and then make that first high-ticket commission. And from there, you know, build that wealth. Uh, almost think of it like a like an engine that you turn on and it just continues to run. That's really what you want to be looking for. And if marketing materials, training, and support isn't there, it's gonna be really hard to win.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah. Other piece that you want to look at too is um how are the owners or the company itself closing people into the higher ticket offers if they're paying you higher ticket, right? Are they doing webinars? Are they doing tutorials? Do they have a dedicated affiliate man uh manager? You know, are they doing events where they're bringing these people in and, you know, actually closing them for you, which by the way, feminine wealth does for you. We do. It's one of the our imagining brandy, close your people. Yeah, it's one of our favorite things that we actually do. So it's important to look at this stuff, right? This shows that they're invested in your success, not just the companies, right? But as affiliates, they want you to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

And also, um, you know, like that community aspect I feel is also really important. Like you want to be a part of a community that's like supportive of each other, right? Don't get me wrong, I feel like there can be healthy competition, you know, when there's leaderboards and different things. But like, what's the support, this the network that's being created? What's that community like? Like, are we providing valuable insights of what's working and motivation towards one another? Or is it just like a cutthroat deal? Right. Because I don't know about you. I don't like cutthroat. I believe that we all can win and that a rising tide raises all ships. So if I'm gonna, you know, back a community, it has to have that in alignment as well. Because I don't do well with the cutthroat stealing people's stuff. Me neither.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

And that's just like keeping, I don't know, that just is like icky. And I don't want to be part of something that feels icky, right? Like Carrie said, there's let's have an abundance mentality, right? There's enough for everyone, right? There's yeah, we can all make money, we can all do something online and still, you know, all be abundant in our lives. So once you start promoting, it's vital to track your performance. Um, if it's not tracked, we actually say if it's not tracked, it didn't happen. Okay, that's that's how we use it here at with Carrie and I. So use analytics to monitor you monitor your clicks, conversions, and commissions and really understand like where you're going and where you are, because that's the only way you can measure where am I relative to where I'm going, right? It's it's important.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Well, and the data will also help you identify what's working and what isn't. So you're able to lean more into what is working and do less of what's of what's not so that you're actually making more money faster, right? With less work because you're leaning into what's working. So just adjust your strategy accordingly.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah. Which brings us to don't be afraid to pivot, right? If you've if you've done the research and you thought you were getting into, you know, what you thought it was ethical, you know, all the things, it was gonna pay high ticket, had, you know, the right percentages, it had the right cookies, it had all the things. And then you get in there and maybe something has changed or they changed the comp plan or whatever. Don't feel like you're like stuck with your handcuffs, right? That's the best thing about being an affiliate, is you can pivot. You can go find another um, you know, program or offer that resonates better with your audience. Your goal is to provide value, and sometimes that means making a change.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yep. And, you know, I guess just kind of wrap it up. We've been going for about 20 minutes here. Just the biggest things is to remember when you're choosing or getting started in affiliate is know your audience first, research the program, like really research it and test the offers and products. Go through them, like ensure that there's alignment with your brand, evaluate the support, evaluate the community. And then once you get going, track your performance so that you can make money even faster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

And by following this framework, you will be well on your way to choosing your the right affiliate offers, right? That not only boost your income, but also serve your audience effectively. Because again, a lot of us, you know, do this to make money. But the other piece of it is how are we serving other humans? Because if you serve enough people, then you get what you want, right? That's how it works. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

So if you got value today, give us a hashtag value in the comments. And if you're looking for an affiliate offer, uh, maybe give us, let us know in the comments. Just say, hey, I'm like, I want to check out feminine wealth, and our team can come in and they can send you whatever info um you need to see if being a part of the feminine wealth community is for you. But thank you for joining us on today's episode of affiliate marketing one on one. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and share any thoughts that you have with us. Let's like our mission here is to build a community of empowered affiliate marketers together. So hopefully you got value and we'll see you on the next episode. See you later. Thanks.