Instagram affiliate marketing can help you earn money off of your followers. But how does it work? Does Instagram have its own affiliate program (more on that at the end)? How do you even begin becoming an affiliate marketer?
We’re going to cover all aspects of affiliate marketing for you in this in-depth guide.
If you’ve ever wanted to earn money off of your Instagram and don’t want to deal with creating your own products, you’ll find tips on:
- How to add offers
- How to find affiliate networks that deal with Instagram traffic
- So much more
Before we go any further, it’s crucial that we define what affiliate marketing is so that you have a better understanding of how this all works.
What is Instagram Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is how people with 10 or 500k+ followers can earn money. Instagram is a hotspot for shoppers because 44% of users shop on Instagram every week.
So, you have about half of your followers who buy products on Instagram already.
Affiliate marketing means that you:
- Partner with a brand or company (more on that later)
- Promote products or services
- Earn a commission for each sale
You may earn a pre-defined amount per sale or a commission. For example, you may earn $10 for each sale or 10% of the sale. When someone makes a purchase using your affiliate or discount code, you’ll earn money.
Payouts will depend on the affiliate network or company that you work with, and it’s not uncommon for you to need to hit a certain threshold before being paid. For example, you may need to hit $100 before requesting a payout.
And with affiliate marketing, you don’t need to worry about:
- Inventory
- Warehousing
- Potential capital loss
- Customer service
Affiliates only need to concern themselves with making sales while the company handles all of the sales logistics for you.
Imagine that you’re a fitness influencer with a large audience that is highly engaged. You can recommend a wide range of products:
- Fitness programs
- Protein shakes
- Supplements
- Etc.
Companies are more than happy to pay you for helping them make sales as an affiliate.
How to Add Affiliate Offers to Your Instagram?
If you have a business or creator account, you’re good to go and can move on to our first tip. But if you have a personal account, you’re missing out on some neat features that will make becoming an affiliate easier.
Changing your account type is easy and will require you to do the following:
- Open the Instagram App
- Go to Settings and privacy
- Go to Account type and tools
You’ll now be able to switch to either a Professional or Creator account. Be sure to tap Creator. Why would you want to deal with all of this fuss when promoting an affiliate offer? If you have a non-personal account, you’ll gain access to Instagram Insights, which offers in-depth analytics on how your post performs.
Data that is offered through the Insights dashboard can help you create more of the content that your target wants to see.
Promoting affiliate links is complex because you want to do it in a way that attracts the most clicks and sales without turning your followers away.
3 Tips💡for Adding Your Affiliate Links on Instagram
1. Add the link to Your Bio
Lure people to your bio, where you’ve added an affiliate link. You can do this in your posts or Stories where you tell people to go to your profile for more information, and then you have a link to the offer.
You’ll be limited with this option because your Instagram bio only has so much space for promotions.
2. Add a Link Using Stickers
Stickers are a great option for adding links. If you create a Story and use the link sticker, you can add a link for your followers to follow. You can even use this link to bring the person to your product demos or posts that promote the product to warm the lead up and push a sale.
3. Run a Contest If You’re Allowed
Often, you can run a contest if you get approval from the affiliate company. For example, they may give you permission to give one item away to your audience, and while generating all of this buzz for the contest, it will also work to drive followers to your affiliate links.
Often, if the person wants the item bad enough, they’ll end up buying it if they don’t win the contest.
A few additional tips that will help you generate even more sales from your Instagram account are listed below.
5 Tips to Increase Affiliate Sales on Instagram
1. Create Your Own Product Demos
The best way to get sales (and commissions) through Instagram is to show the product in action. For every offer you promote, take the time to record a product demo to show your followers:
- How it works
- Best uses
- Pros
- Cons
Affiliate marketing is most effective when your followers know, like and trust you enough to actually buy the items you recommend. Product demos will help you gain that trust.
You can share your product demos on:
- Stories
- Reels
- Livestreams
Keep your audience in mind when filming your demos. Touch on things that you know your audience will want to know. For example, if you’re a beauty influencer and trying to promote mascara to moms, you could point out that it’s long-lasting and made with all-natural ingredients – two things that moms will care about.
2. Add Discount Codes to Your Story and Highlights
Do you know what consumers love? Discounts. They’re a great way to increase affiliate sales, and you can easily add discount codes to your Story and highlights.
If you can land an exclusive discount or use a custom discount code, people will be more likely to buy using your affiliate link.
Why post these codes to your Stories? Because Stories have high view rates and are typically viewed by your most engaged followers.
In other words, the people who are most likely to make a purchase through your affiliate link will be viewing your Stories.
Adding an affiliate link to your Story is easy. Just use the link sticker and add your affiliate link.
Here are a few tips to make the most of this strategy:
- Make sure people know how much the discount is. For example, “Get it for 15% off now,” or “Use code BG20 to get 20% off your order now.”
- Create a piece of content that goes along with your discount code, like the product demos you created earlier.
- Turn these Stories into highlights to give them a permanent home on your Instagram profile. Remember that Stories only last 24 hours. Adding them to your highlights allows you to maximize sales without constantly promoting offers in your Stories.
3. Track Your Performance
The most successful affiliates take a strategic approach to affiliate marketing. It’s not just luck. They use data to improve their content and increase sales.
Make sure that you’re taking the same approach and tracking your performance to see which strategies are working and not working for your audience.
Affiliate programs typically have dashboards that display key metrics like conversion rates, clicks, average order value and more.
Along with this data, you’ll also want to keep an eye on your:
- Engagement Rate. Are you getting likes, shares and comments? If your followers aren’t engaged, you’ll struggle to get affiliate sales.
- Follower Count. Are your followers decreasing or growing? If you’re seeing a decline after promoting certain products or offers, then it may be time to switch strategies.
- Profile Activity. If you have a link roundup in your bio, check to see whether people are actually clicking those links. How can you improve your click-through rate? In most cases, this will come down to creating better content with better calls-to-action (CTAs).
4. Add Links to Your Bio
Instagram doesn’t allow you to add links to your posts, so make sure that you’re taking advantage of your link-in-bio space.
We recommend using a link aggregator like Linkinbio, so you can add more than one affiliate link. A tool like this will allow you to create a link hub, and the biggest advantage is that you can use it on other social platforms, too.
5. Rely on Multiple Networks, NOT Just One
If you want to succeed with affiliate marketing, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Join multiple networks and promote a variety of products.
Why?
There’s always the possibility that an affiliate network can go under or a program could disappear overnight. Some affiliates also have nightmare stories of not getting paid.
If you have multiple networks and promote a variety of products, then you can make up for lost income or a lull in sales by promoting a different offer.
Make sure that you read the terms and conditions of any offers you promote or networks you join to ensure that there’s no conflict.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Earn on Instagram?
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that the sky is the limit when it comes to earnings. How much you earn will depend on your niche, how engaged your audience is and the products/services you’re trying to promote.
Some affiliate programs pay a higher commission than others, and some niches naturally have more expensive products.
A person in the tech niche may earn more per sale than someone in, say, the beauty niche.
All that said, affiliate marketers on Instagram can make anywhere from $500-$5,000+ per month in commissions.
What Affiliate Platforms Allow Instagram Traffic?
There are several affiliate programs that allow Instagram traffic, including Amazon Associates, ShareASale, Rakuten Advertising, ClickBank, CJ Affiliate, FlexOffers, Awin, ShopStyle Collective and more.
With some of these programs, like ShareASale and ClickBank, you’ll need to check the individual products to make sure they allow Instagram traffic.
Can You Make Money with a Small Following?
Yes, you can still make money through affiliate marketing on Instagram, even if you have a small following. It’s important to remember that it’s not the number of followers you have, but rather, the quality.
If your followers are engaged and you’re in the right niche, you can start making money through affiliate marketing with less than 1,000 followers.
Does Instagram Have Its Own Affiliate Program?
No. Instagram doesn’t have its own affiliate program anymore. They discontinued the program in 2022.
