Email affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to earn money online. If you’ve built an email list or are considering doing so, you can make commissions by promoting products or services your audience might like.
In this guide, we’ll break down the essentials of email affiliate marketing — so you can start sending emails that make money while keeping your audience engaged.
What’s Email Affiliate Marketing All About?
The idea behind email affiliate marketing is simple — you promote products to your email subscribers. Inside the mail, you include a special affiliate link that tracks who clicked it. If someone buys a product through that link, you earn a commission from that sale.
Email marketing is popular among marketers worldwide, 77% of them say they use email to send personalized content to their subscribers.
It’s a great system: businesses get more sales, and you get paid for recommending products without having to create any yourself.
Why Email Affiliate Marketing Works
✅ Personal connection with your subscribers: Your subscribers already trust you, which means they’re more likely to engage with your recommendations.
✅ Higher conversions: According to statistics, 59% of consumers say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, with over 50% saying they purchase from an email at least once a month.
✅ Low cost: Once you have an email list, sending emails is very cheap. With the right affiliate promotions, the potential to earn is pretty big — 18% of companies achieve email marketing ROI greater than $70 per $1 invested.
✅ It grows with you: The more your email list grows, the more money you can potentially make.
How to Build an Email List for Affiliate Marketing
You can’t promote anything without an email list, right? Here’s how to start growing one:
1. Use Opt-In Forms on Your Website
An opt-in form is a simple sign-up box you can place on your website to capture email addresses. Make sure it’s easy to find — place it at the top of your homepage, in a sidebar, or use a pop-up. Offer something valuable (like a free guide or discount) to encourage people to subscribe.
2. Promote Your List on Social Media
Let your followers know about your email list. Tell them why they should sign up, like getting exclusive deals or content. It’s a simple way to grow your list using platforms you already have.
3. Segment Your Audience
As your list grows, start grouping people based on their interests or actions. This helps you send more targeted affiliate offers that they’ll be interested in. This is great for boosting your open rates and conversions.
Setting Up Email Sequences for Affiliate Success
Once people are on your list, you can start sending them email sequences. These are a series of automated emails designed to build trust and eventually guide them to take action, a.k.a. clicking your affiliate links.
✉️ Welcome Sequence
This is your chance to make a good first impression. Your welcome email should introduce yourself and let subscribers know what kind of emails they can expect. You can even slip in a soft promotion for an affiliate product that’s relevant to them.
✉️ Nurture Sequence
In these emails, focus on giving your subscribers helpful content. You don’t want to sell all the time — mix in tips, resources, or personal stories that build trust. When the time comes to recommend an affiliate product, they’ll be more likely to read.
✉️ Sales Sequence
When you’re ready to push a specific affiliate product, create a dedicated sales sequence. There, you can highlight the product benefits, share success stories, and ask your readers to click on your affiliate link to purchase.
Boosting Open Rates and Engagement
Here are some tips to get people to open and engage with your emails:
1. Catchy subject lines: 34% of people look at the subject line first, so it needs to be interesting. Keep it short, make it personal, and hint at the value inside. Try different styles and track which ones perform best — to get those open rates up.
2. Keep it simple: Once your email is open, make sure the content is easy to read. Break up text with short paragraphs, bullet points, and visuals. Your affiliate link must be easy to find — don’t bury it at the bottom!
3. Make it personal: Ensure your emails are personal, not general. 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from brands, and 76% get frustrated when their brand interactions aren’t personalized to their interests.
4. Test what works: Experiment with different types of emails and see what gets the best results. This could be trying out different subject lines, email layouts, or call-to-actions. The more you test, the more you learn about what your audience responds to.
5. Check your links performance: To see how your links are clicked, use tools like Keitaro Tracker. It gives you all the insights on clicks and helps you make quick adjustments when campaigns don’t work as intended.
Picking the Right Affiliate Products to Promote
Not all affiliate products are created equal, so you’ll want to choose carefully. Here’s what to consider:
🔍 Relevance: Make sure the products you promote are something your audience would actually want. Otherwise, they’ll lose trust in your recommendations.
🔍 Good commissions: Look for programs with higher commission rates so it’s worth your time to promote them.
🔍 Products you trust: If you believe in the product, it’s much easier to promote. You don’t want to recommend something that’ll disappoint your subscribers.
🔍 Proven to convert: Some products just convert better than others. Do a little research to see what’s working well for other affiliates.
Using the Right Tools to Track Your Progress
To make your email affiliate marketing run smoothly, you’ll need some basic tools:
1. Email service provider (ESP): This is the platform you’ll use to send and manage your emails. Some popular ones include Mailchimp, MailerLite, and Constant Contact.
2. Affiliate networks: To find products to promote you need to join affiliate networks. Here, you can find a list of the best affiliate networks for beginners in 2024.
3. Ad tracker: You must know which links get clicks. For this, we recommend using Keitaro Tracker. It helps you track your campaigns and emails to optimize your affiliate marketing efforts in real-time.
Avoid These Common Mistakes
Even though email affiliate marketing is simple, it’s easy to make a few mistakes. Here are a few things to watch out for:
🟣 Too many promotions: Bombarding your subscribers with non-stop affiliate offers and emails can turn them off — 69% of people said they unsubscribed from newsletters because they received too many emails from that sender.
🟣 Ignoring legal stuff: Always disclose that you’ll earn a commission when someone clicks on your affiliate links. This not only keeps things transparent, but it’s also legally required in many places.
🟣 Not segmenting your list: Remember to send targeted offers to specific groups in your audience. Not everyone on your list will be interested in the same product, which may make people leave — 56% of people said they unsubscribed from newsletters because the content isn’t relevant.
