How to do Affiliate Marketing on Instagram 2021

There are various channels through which you can do affiliate marketing. Instagram is one of those channels. This photo/video sharing app has grown tremendously over the years. There are billions of users on Instagram as of today. With millions of active users on Instagram, it attracts the brands for marketing. If you haven't yet give Instagram a try for your affiliate marketing campaigns, then you should definitely give it a chance. The success mostly depends on the niche, audience and obviously the offer or campaign you are promoting. Instagram is flooded with millennials and for the fashion, fitness, gaming, food, travel, style, art, beauty and makeup there is ocean of opportunity.

Affiliate marketing is one of the marketing techniques that gives benefits to both publishers and the advertisers. In all the years it has grown a lot and today it is at a position where a lot of companies around the world have included it in their marketing plans. Publishers get the commissions as a remuneration to their promotional efforts and advertisers achieve sales and customers. There are a lot of people who understand how to attract people either to read or watch the content that they create. This article is specifically based on how you can move ahead with affiliate marketing especially on Instagram.

If you are a veteran social media user, then you will definitely know that Instagram is one of the platforms that can bring in high conversion rate. Businesses love Instagram, they all want to be seen by millions of people. Hiring 100 digital marketers or social media managers can be really expensive but on the other hand, providing commission to 100 affiliate marketers who are working day in and day night for your brand to be seen, it is worth it. If you are just starting out with affiliate marketing in general or on Instagram, read the points below to get an idea of how you can get those hits.

Tips To Do Affiliate Marketing On Instagram in 2021

In 2021, there can’t be a better social media platform that you can select other than Instagram for any kind of marketing. There is a slight issue, that you need to get the readers or viewers to click that affiliate link in order to get that commission but Instagram doesn’t allow you to put one in the captions. Read the points below carefully to understand how you can still use Instagram for Affiliate marketing:

Start With Non-Marketing Content And Gain Followers

The soul of any affiliate marketing website or for this matter Instagram page, are the followers. If you don’t have followers and you start marketing things from the word GO, you might not move an inch ahead. That is not what you are looking for here. Build a following by posting content that genuinely helps people find things that they are looking for. Create a relationship with them and once you have their trust, shift to the affiliate part smoothly. It is recommended to stay legit and keep your account active. Following black hat techniques to grow your page can eventually shadow ban your account that can result is limited reach and conversions. As an affiliate marketer, you definitely would not like this.

Play With Designs And Words

Instagram is a platform where words and graphics work in collaboration. Earlier people only used to see the images but now people even get to the comments to feed their curiosity if the post is interesting enough. That is why it is important to pay attention to captions as well apart from clean graphics. Also, make sure you reply to all or as many comments as possible. That is really important as it gives the readers more insights about a certain post. There are many other ways too to keep active such as postive regular, updating stories timely, liking and commenting on others' posts and engaging with others.

To gain conversions, you need to make sure that your caption copy is actionable. There are many AI based tools in the market as of today that can help you write social media copies in no time.

Join Right Affiliate Network

To get most out of Instagram through your marketing endeavours, you need to make sure you are promoting right offers. In order to get right offers for your audience, it is recommended to choose the right affiliate network that can provide you relevant offers. For example, if you have a Instagram page related to gaming then you can find gaming affiliate networks that can best fulfil your needs.

Choose a right affiliate program

It is very obvious that if you join a right affiliate program, then you can earn more money than promoting offers. You need to find and join the affiliate networks related to your niche. To be honest promoting affiliate programs is not quite easy on Instagram. So, make sure you also adhere to the below listed points which can help your reach more users and extend conversions.

Use The Link In Bio

You might have seen “Link in Bio” written a lot. This is because bio is the only place where you can put a link that redirects. Instagram has played smart to keep all its users on their platform but you need to be smarter. Focus on promoting one product at a time. Take a week for a product and put its link in the bio and just mention that in all your captions or even the images. You can make use of instagram tools such lnk.bio or popularly known as link in bio tool. This tool lets you create a link which can contain your multiple links. Technically, you can show many links to your users with only one link.

Use Tools Like Linktree

If you still want to promote more than one product in a week use tools like Linktree. Linktree is basically a tool that helps you put a lot of links inside one link. You can put that one link in the bio and when the users click them, they will be able to see all the other added links. This way, you will be able to market more than one products in a week.

Get Enough Followers To Be Able To Put A Swipe Up Feature

This is an extension to the first point. Gain followers so that you can turn the swipe up feature in your stories. This is one of the best ways as stories create more engagement and also have a better view rate than posts. To get swipe up feature, you have to cross 10k followers on your Instagram page. It unlocks possibility to drive users to outbound links which can be your YouTube channel, affiliate page or anywhere you want.

Use Instagram Ads

Instagram ads are powerful and they are getting smarter. You get options when you start setting up an advertisement on Instagram. They ask you, Where do you want them to redirect the users (Profile/Post/Website). Here you can choose a website and put the affiliate link on the product that you want people to buy. Create a post that has great graphics and a caption that smartly tells people to click the link and buy the product.

Below is quick guide for using Instagram Ads for better returns:

• Promote your best content
• Start with a story or connection building
• Righ call to action button
• Better Targeting in terms of Topic, Users and Demographics
• Make use of carousel or video ads
• Keep the graphic text in proportion to recommended guidelines
• Make use of Facebook Creative Hub to text your mockups
• Try Relaythat for Creative Ads Campaigns

Instagram Tools for Business

When you try to do everything manually, you literally call lot of obstacles and hardships alongside. In order to make your work smoother, it is advised to use Instagram tools for business that can help you schedule your posts, create visually rich photos, create collages, engage with other users, show you helpful instagram page data and what not. Below are some trending Instagram tools for business that you can use for better workflow.

• Hootsuite
• Crowdfire
• Canva
• Linktree
• Lnk.bio
• Later

Affiliate Marketing on Instagram: FAQs

Conclusion: Affiliate Marketing on Instagram Good or bad

Going ahead with Affiliate marketing on Instagram might not be the smartest move but it can surely do wonders if done in the right way. There are a lot of people who are already doing it, hence, you can do it too. Just keep exploring new ways to give away the affiliate link to the followers and keep earning that commission when they buy.