Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog while providing a good user experience to your readers.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog if you are looking
to earn income from your website but do not want to run display ads.
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| An affiliate marketing banner from Travelbook that I used |
The Top 6 Affiliate Marketing Sites To Help You Monetize Your Family Travel Blog
My personal journey in affiliate marketing
When I first set up a blog, my primary objective was to have a personal space in cyberspace where I can share my thoughts and travel experiences. It was purely a hobby that allowed me to pursue my love for writing.
When I was just beginning, I used a free blogging platform so maintenance was really no-frills. As I grew more serious about blogging, I decided to buy a domain just to add a touch of professionalism to my blog.
While the cost of buying the domain was minimal, I still signed up for Google Adsense in hopes of earning a little to offset the expense.
Google Adsense runs display ads in blogs and is a great way to earn a
little extra when a visitor clicks on one of your ads. However, you can only run a few ads on your site if you want to keep the user experience and site speed as your priority.
As I gained some more experience in blogging, I discovered affiliate
marketing as a great monetization tool alongside Google Adsense.
Affiliate marketing allows bloggers to sign up and promote the products and services of partner companies. Site owners have the option to run ads or integrate affiliate links within their articles.
The main advantage of affiliate marketing is that you are promoting
products and services that you like or have tried, which meant that the
links and ads integrate naturally within your articles.
The first affiliate program that I signed up with was the now-defunct
Travelbook Philippines. I liked it because it offered mostly local tours and affordable hotels and inns. I reached my first payment threshold in a
few months.
I even won a Caramoan tour when I signed up with Travelbook. Sadly though,
it eventually closed shop.
My recommended affiliate marketing sites
Aside from Travelbook, I discovered other affiliate marketing sites that have become my favorite. I always include links to their relevant products and services when I write my articles.
They are easy to sign up with and implement, so if you are also
considering to go into affiliate marketing, here are some of the platforms
that I recommend for you to check.
1. GPSmyCity
GPSmyCity is also one of the very first affiliate marketing programs that I signed up with. GPSmyCity smartphone application that lets travelers download city guides for free.
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| GPSmyCity |
These city guides are actual articles written by bloggers and converted into easy-to-use travel apps. For a minimal fee of around US$2, you may avail of an upgrade that comes with an offline map and a GPS-enabled guide.
When you want to visit an attraction, a landmark, or a restaurant,
simply click the “Go There” button next to the name of the place. You’ll have an offline map plotted for that place which you can follow either on foot or by vehicle.
GPSmyCity allows travelers to discover other travel blogs and hence, see destinations from a variety of perspectives. For details on signing up as a partner, please click here.
2. Agoda
Agoda is one of the largest online hotel booking sites today. I actually
use it a lot if I wanted to get a comprehensive list of available hotels
in an area as well as good booking rates.
To sign up as a partner, look for the “Affiliates” link under the “Partner
With Us” section. Creating an account is pretty straightforward.
Moreover, Agoda does not have any minimum traffic requirements. Once
approved, you may already run ads such as search boxes, banners, and text
links.
For more information about the Agoda Partner Program, you may click
here.
Also read: How To Apply For Agoda Affiliate Program
3. Involve Asia
Involve Asia is an affiliate marketing agency that focuses on the Asian market. This is currently my most favorite platform because its advertisers are mostly from Asia, which meant that my readers are most likely to buy from them.
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| Sign-up portal for Involve Asia |
Think of brands like LAzada, Shopee, Gawin PH, Metrodeal, and Zalora,
just to name a few. You have the option of implementing banners,
coupons, and deep links which are my favorite. With deep links, you can directly promote products and official stores from, say, Lazada.
Just use the deep link generator, enter the link to the product, and
store, and this will be converted to an affiliate link that you can use
on your site or on your social media.
To sign up for Involve Asia, click
here.
4. Lazada
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| Lazada sign-up portal |
You can sign up directly by clicking
here or through Involve Asia since Lazada is also one of their most
active advertisers.
What's better with signing up directly though is that you have more options in terms of products to promote. Furthermore, Lazada gives recommendations as to the top-selling items and deals, as such, you are mostly to gain success when you sign up direct.
5. Awin
Awin is similar to Involve Asia as both platforms act as a marketplace or middle-man between publishers and advertisers. The only difference is that Awin has more brands outside of Asia.
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| Awin affiliate marketing program |
The advertisers are also categorized per niche (i.e. food, travel,
electronics, etc.) and per region (i.e. North America, Europe, Asia
Pacific), so publishers have more ability to filter out the brands that
they can work with it.
Honestly, I haven't had much success with Awin
because my audience is mostly from the Philippines and Asia.
6. Klook
Klook is a tour and attraction booking site that is has gained much popularity over the years because of the affordable packages that it offers.
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| Klook affiliate marketing sign-up portal |
According to Klook, they make it simple for travelers to plan their itineraries keeping the best price in mind.
Bloggers have the flexibility to use banners, search boxes, links, dynamic widgets, and promo codes. You can even enter into a co-brand partnership with Klook.
You can join the Klook affiliate program here.
Epilogue
These are just six of the affiliate marketing programs out there. You can look at other blogs to see what they are using and read more information about the programs that you are interested in to see if these are a good fit for your blog and editorial style.
Keep in mind as well that affiliate marketing does not give you instant income. You have to build your traffic and reputation over time don't be discouraged if you do not get any income for months or even years. Just keep writing and honing your craft.
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This post may contain affiliate links, including those from Amazon Associates, which means that if you book or purchase anything through one of those links, we may earn a small commission but at no extra cost to you. All opinions are ours and we only promote products that we use.
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Hi Ivan Jose,
ReplyDeleteThank you for such a great post. I was searching for articles on affiliate marketing startup and i ended up here.
Hope you do not mind but i would like to ask you about something relevant to affiliate programs.
I am a blogger myself and it's been over an year that i got fully engaged with my contents and built nice followings and traffic that helped me a lot earn a little through adsense but the thing is it's not cutting it. It has crossed my mind many times about introducing my webs to affiliate marketing but i was waiting for right moment, and now when i have the traffic built up and trusted following, i feel like i should start promoting products related my niches now. But finding the products of different niches in one place/platform or even getting approved in a program that might just refuse the starters is hard. I've been searching on my own and found this program here in UK that is offering those kinda services and stores data with free CMS tools and 100% commission on sales which caught my eye and i feel like i should try joining them but that would be nice to gain some advise from some professionals on this. any suggestions or recommendations are welcomed.
Thank you in advance
Thank you so much! Just try joining these programs. There's nothing to lose, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! Just try joining these programs. There's nothing to lose, anyway.
ReplyDelete