“A lot of times, companies don't wanna lose the results they're seeing, and your interests or your priorities may shift where the money is going. And so you might say, like, you might have an affiliate deal and a sponsorship deal, and they're close, but the sponsorship kinda wins out. Well, if I can come back and say, hey, Joel, I'll give you a little bit more to make that more lucrative for you on top of, you know, like, doing a hybrid, for example, where I give you upfront and plus commissions, it could be a win-win situation. And I think a lot of times people don't think about how if you prove yourself as an affiliate and then you take that away, it puts the company at a disadvantage. They're gonna wanna do what they can to get things back on track.” - Justine Galea
Joe Casabona: I remember the first time I got an affiliate payout. I didn't even know it was coming. The money just kind of showed up in my bank account. What is this from? I wondered as I was staring at this number I wasn't expecting. Then an email came through. A hosting company, like a web hosting company I had written a blog post about paid my affiliate commission for the last 2 months. And while it wasn't an earth-shattering amount, it was a couple of $100 that I didn't expect to get. Since then, I've been stumbling through clumsily trying to make affiliate income an appreciable part of my bottom line, but it never worked out as well as I hoped.
So, I decided to bring in an expert, my friend, Justine Galea. She's been doing affiliate programs forever and is currently leading ConvertKit's {soon-to-be Kit), as well as consulting through her own business, Brilliant Affiliate. She is the perfect person to talk to not only because I consider her a friend, but because she has a wealth of knowledge.
And because of those two facts, Justine not only sets me straight, but she offers a ton of fantastic actionable advice for how to make the most of affiliate programs, how to find the right ones, and how they can live harmoniously and even help with sponsorships. I think a lot of people feel that if they do one, they can't do the other, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
So I want you to look for these top takeaways.
1. Affiliate programs provide a way to earn passive income by referring customers to products or services you recommend, but you need to make sure to look for the ones that pay well.
2. You should target your affiliate content to the right people. People who are low in your funnel and who are weighing their options between your recommended product and the competitors, they are likely to make a purchase based on your recommendation.
3. You should balance affiliate income with sponsorships. Affiliate is more passive long term, while sponsorships are good for timely campaigns. But being a good affiliate can also help you land sponsored campaigns from the same company, and Justine, who has done both, will explain why that's true.
So, I loved this interview. Now, if you didn't hear last week, I also changed the structure of Streamlined Solopreneur Accelerated. So this is a really tight interview. You're going to get tons of actionable advice in 35 minutes. But if you want to hear more, if you wanna hear a more casual conversation where I dive into affiliate offers gone wrong and we offer tech tips and get even more in the weeds, you can become a member at [streamlined.fm/join]. You will get ad-free extended episodes for every interview I do as well as every solo episode. It's just ad-free extended episodes all the way through. You'll get bonus episodes.
And since last week with these interviews, you're going to get about as much content in the member episode as you get in the free episode. So, if you love this conversation and you want to get more of it, you can head over to [streamlined.fm/join]. That's [streamlined.fm/join]. And if you wanna get all of the show notes because we talk about a ton of resources here, you can head over to [streamlined.fm/426]. But that's it. Without further ado, let's get into the intro and then the interview.
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy, so let's get started.
Joe Casabona: All right. I'm here with Justine Galea. She is the ConvertKit (soon to be Kit), Affiliate Manager, and is doing her own affiliate thing through the Brilliant Affiliate Newsletter, which is cool, and probably, like, a whole service thing. But, Justine, thanks for being here today.
Justine Galea: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited.
Joe Casabona: Likewise. I, initially. well, we're gonna talk about this in the pro show, but I said I was sorry to miss you at Craft and Commerce. And it turns out neither of us were there. So, but…
Justine Galea: So sad.
Joe Casabona: As you are running an affiliate program for a very creator-focused company, I wanna start off with, let's level set first because I wanna ask you, like, what makes a good affiliate program, but let's level set with what would you consider an affiliate program? Like, what is an affiliate program?
Justine Galea: Sure. So, I mean, I think the way I consider an affiliate program is really a tool that companies can use to partner with people to refer new customers to them. So, if you are an affiliate, you would get a special tracking link through an affiliate program, be able to promote that company's product and services. And anytime a conversion takes place, you would get a commission from that company. So an affiliate program just gives a company a way to pay their biggest fans and advocates for sending new business their way.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's like a kind of, like a commission-based payout thing. Right?
Justine Galea: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: And these I mean, these have been around for a long time. Right? I feel like there's probably, if I had done more research, there's probably, like, an AB and Flow to the popularity and ubiquity, we'll say of affiliate programs. Right?
Justine Galea: Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of times, if I think back to the earliest ones, it's mostly the e-commerce space did, like, physical product sales, that kind of thing. But a lot of B2B SaaS types of companies started to implement them, you know, I'd say maybe 10-15 years ago. At least, like, the earliest program I launched was, I think, back in 2012 for FreshBooks. So that, you know, it was something that we had or we're thinking about, but we just hadn't, it wasn't really done back then for that type of company as much.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. But in a way, it kinda makes more sense. Right? Because like, with a physical product, I mean, Amazon's affiliate program is like 4%. Right? And…
Justine Galea: Right.
Joe Casabona: That's the, first of all, they don't really need affiliates. Right?
Justine Galea: Yeah. Not. Yeah. Not anymore. There's actually been tons of companies who have used affiliates like, to get off the ground and then are like, yeah, we're closing our program. No buy.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I've seen that. Right? When that's…
Justine Galea: Netflix. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Oh, right. Yeah. And I mean, look, I get it if it's like, if it's not doing anything for you and it's like, more overhead to run, but sometimes it feels like, all right. Well, we used you, and now we don't need you. And so, peace out. Right? Which is maybe why Amazon keeps hanging on to theirs. Right? Because like, I mean, it's like…
Justine Galea: [Inaudible 08:30.01] and give them 5 or 8% product. You'll get 8% this month.
Joe Casabona: I'm in, like, some experiment where they're doing, like, bounties or payout, like, bonus payouts if you, like, move a certain amount of product which makes it sound like a drug deal. But, so, it's like, nice. It's, that's very passive for me. Right? Like, if I'm linking to an Amazon product, I have a process in place where I can easily grab or generate the Amazon affiliate link. But that's not something that like, I wouldn't stake my business on the Amazon affiliate program.
Justine Galea: Absolutely. Yeah. Now that makes sense. I think I tend to tell people who are, especially who are starting out to focus on lucrative affiliate programs. So, those, you know, you can find lucrative programs in every niche. You just have to think a little bit outside of the box. So for example, if you're in the fashion space, a lot of the programs are paying very small amounts, like 5 to 15% at the most. And a lot of times you might not even wanna partner with certain of those fashion companies for whatever reason. And so if you think about others like, if you think about what are high-end products in the fashion space, and then join those programs, even though the commission's only 10%, the product price is so high that you would get a decent amount on each sale. Or if you are in the, you know, doing behind-the-scenes content or starting to help people with starting a fashion business, then you could potentially be selling fashion-related courses, which typically will have like that 50% commission rate. So there are ways absolutely to find lucrative programs in your space even if it's not the B2B, you know, traditional financial stuff.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's, really good advice. Right? And, kind of completes the thought that I started and then got distracted with Amazon. But, you know, physical products have a lot of actual overhead. Right? And then there's the selling. So, like, you're probably not gonna see more than, what, like, a 10% or maybe 15% commission on a physical product because you have, like, real tangible costs there. Right? But with software as a service, like, yes, there are still costs and there's still a business to run, but there's not like a per-item sold cost.
Justine Galea: Right.
Joe Casabona: Right? So they can offer higher commissions for the software or the courses.
Justine Galea: Exactly. And they typically do. I have a little rant about physical product companies though because if you think about wholesale, I used to do wholesale years ago. I had a jewelry company on Etsy, and I would sell my products to retail stores. And so I would have to give 50% off to any retail store to buy my products.
Now, yes, they did buy in bulk, so maybe I'd get, like, a $2, 000 order versus a $20 sale. But I was able to discount my product by 50%. So why can't they pay affiliates more than 5-10%? I don't understand. Like, I really do think there's more wiggle room there and they just don't wanna, it's just the industry standard, so that's what they stick to. If a company decides to, like, forego that and actually offer something really generous, they could crush it in that space, but they don't. They all stick to, like, hey. What's the playbook? Oh, we all do 10. Let's just do 10. So, yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's really interesting because I have thought about affiliate programs the same way where it's like, instead of I've tried to ask affiliates, like, if like, instead of giving me a 30% commission, I could offer like a 30% discount to my members. Right? And, like, a lot of times, like, the system wasn't in place or, like, it really didn't make sense because, like, my membership wasn't really big or whatever. But, there are ways to get creative, I think is, I guess, what?
Justine Galea: For sure. Yeah. A lot of times companies should be able to do that, like, from the affiliate manager's perspective. If I don't care who comes to me, I don't care what size your audience is. If you ask me for something that I can easily give you, I'm happy to do that because:
1. It just helps build our relationship. And then,
2. It's if it's like 2 clicks and I can give you a 30% discount to pass to your membership, I'm gonna do it. Right? Why not? It's just extra results for me and a nice thing for you.
The only time I can think of companies who don't do that if they really wanna make it, oh, you have to be this size or it's exclusive. I don't think that's a best practice. I don't like operating that way. But they've definitely I'm sure there are companies who just can't do it because they don't have the ability. Right? Like, I don't easily have the ability to create a 30% coupon. So that's something that would be harder for me to give. Whereas a 30-day trial, I can give you in a second. So if anyone asks, I'm happy to do that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And that makes sense as well. Right? It's because the other thing that maybe we would touch on later, maybe we wouldn't, is like, affiliate budget generally is like a different pool of money than like the marketing budget. Is that right?
Justine Galea: Yeah. Usually.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I've found that in with sponsorships. Right? When someone reaches out to me about being an affiliate and I say, like, oh, I don't really do that, but, you know, if you're interested in sponsoring, they're like, well, we gotta send you to our marketing person now. That's a different…
Justine Galea: Right. Or as a podcast person or…
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. So, okay. So I really like this. I look for high-end products, expensive products. Is there anything kind of before we move into Act 2, around best practices for affiliate programs like, for a solopreneur or a content creator? Right? Like, I guess the thing that we haven't said yet, right, is this could be a good income stream for like an additional income stream for a solopreneur. Right? Even if you don't build your whole business off of it, there could be an opportunity to bring in, like, a little bit. Right? I'm in Circle's affiliate program, and I referred like, 1 person 1 time 2 years ago. And, generally, the circle affiliate payout covers like, the Intuit fee like, the QuickBooks fee that I get from like, a big invoice. And I'm like, all right. Well, that offsets some costs for me. Right? So it's worth it.
Justine Galea: Absolutely. I think I got a $400 payout for something the other day, and it's like, it's, yeah, it's not gonna pay all my bills, but, like, it makes me happy. You know? And it feels nice because you haven't worked that hard for it in a way. Right? That's exactly like sponsorship, it's a lot more work and Charlie at ConvertKit (soon to be Kit), you know, she talked about this where she's like, I really wanna add more affiliate opportunities and income because sometimes doing a brand sponsorship is just a lot of work upfront even though you get paid upfront. It's like a different type of pressure.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. And I do both. Obviously, the show has sponsors that we're about to hear from soon, but you're right in that. Like, yeah, if you're, you know, if I'm trying to like put dinner on the table and I need money fast, I'd probably go the sponsorship route. Right? I can exert a bunch of effort upfront, and get paid upfront. But if I want something longer term and sustainable, right, affiliate programs didn't disappear in 2022. Whereas sponsorship money, at least for me, for like, small solopreneurs and creators did for the most part. Like, that was my worst year of a podcast as far as income where I pull in like, mid-5-figures. Usually, I pull, I didn't pull in anything close to that in 2022.
Justine Galea: Yeah. So when, I would say 2020 to 2022 is a pretty dark time. And from being on the company side of things where I have, I was working full time, and then I also had freelancing on the side where I would I was still managing the FreshBooks affiliate program and then full time, I think at Gusto, what I noticed was the first people to get cut from the workforce in marketing were specifically people doing paid social ads. So Facebook, Instagram, those types of ads, as well as people doing podcast sponsorships. Our budget just like, disappeared. You know? Pull back.
We had to, it was the first time I ever saw Gusto had cancelled sponsorships that they had pre, like, we had never done that before because it, you know, it was just a, it was a terrifying time, and I guess a lot of people just didn't know if we would have the budget to do certain things.
So, yeah. It was a tough time. Yeah. And I would say affiliate on the other hand, I remember FreshBooks actually, we increased our commission as a way to say, hey. I know this is, like, really crappy. What's happening? Because affiliates get paid after the company gets paid. So there's a lot more flexibility there. Yeah. So I think affiliate, it's a nice stream to have.
And it's just, it's also, it can be so low-key. It doesn't have to be a ton of work. Right? You can just implement it slowly over time. And then as you start to see results, and you can figure out, like, oh, I just made some money off circle. Let me put a little bit more effort into that. You know, that's how you can approach it versus let me put all my eggs into the affiliate basket, make $7, and then go. This doesn't work.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And this is great. I think that perfectly answers, like, the last question I wanted to ask here about, like, best practices because, yes, they're at least I'm old enough to have been around when like, affiliate websites, like, affiliate-specific websites were a thing. Right? Like, you go all in on an affiliate program and your whole content strategy would be around them, and it would just like crush it for you. I don't know how common those are today, but I think that your approach here, right, pick a few good programs that payout is a good one because you aren't, you know, the time investment versus the reward is better there. It could be over there. So, awesome. Well, I do wanna ask, you know, a potentially inflammatory question. But first, we need to hear from our sponsors.
Sponsor: Look. When you have an online-based business, speed and reliability are the most important aspects of a service. Not far behind that is actually owning the website that your business relies on. When you own your website, you're not subject to an algorithm, changing terms, or accidental shutdowns. That's why I'm so excited that Liquid Web is back as a sponsor of How I Built It this year. Their cloud VPS is some of the best-in-class hosting you can get when your business relies on your website. From speed to security and protection to regular backups, with Liquid Web, you can trust your website will remain in tip-top shape.
Not technically savvy? Don't worry. Liquid Web offers fully managed hosting, which means they have a team of knowledgeable experts looking after your website for you so you can focus on running your business. If you need fast, reliable, and secure hosting for your business, check out Liquid Web. Head over to [streamlined.fm/liquidweb] today.
This episode is sponsored by Clariti. One of my biggest projects as part of the show's rebrand is to organize the website's content. That's over 400 episodes, and I was doing it using a Google Sheet. And if you're overwhelmed by that statement, you should be. But there's a better way.
Wouldn't it be amazing if you could conduct a comprehensive content audit in minutes, identify areas for improvement with ease, and finally ditch the content guesswork? Clariti is your secret weapon. It automatically syncs your WordPress data, merges your Google Analytics information, and pulls insights from the Google Search Console. It's your new go-to platform for content auditing.
With Clariti, you can uncover hidden gems by easily identifying low-performing posts with broken links, missing alt text or outdated information. You can track progress by monitoring the impact of your optimization efforts. You can see what content is truly resonating with your audience and you can replicate your success by identifying your top performers and leveraging those insights to fuel future content creation.
Imagine the time you'll save. No more combing through endless posts or building complex spreadsheets. Clariti makes content auditing and optimization a breeze. And as a listener of Streamlined Solopreneur, you can sign up for just $1 your 1st month with the code (solo2024). That's $1 for your 1st month with the code (solo2024). To set up your account, go to [streamlined.fm/clariti]. That's [streamlined.fm/clariti]. Thanks so much to Clariti for sponsoring the show.
Joe Casabona: All right. And we're back. So I kind of alluded to this earlier, but affiliate programs, by and large haven't worked for me because I have always felt I would have to do a ton of free work to yield any real money. But, based on what you've been saying so far, that's, maybe my approach is wrong, or maybe there's a bit of a misconception.
Justine Galea: So, I think there's two ways you can look at it. The first is that, like we talked about with sponsorships, for example, there's upfront work that you need to do because you're getting paid upfront. And there's sometimes a lot of pressure. And I've had that conversation once with Justin Moore, for example. He's amazing, right? Creator wizard. He has such a great brand and such good advice for people who want sponsorships. But, what, I where I kind of differ from him in terms of my thinking around affiliates is that let's say that the sponsorship doesn't work out, you're probably not gonna get another chance with that person. Right? They might not wanna take they're not maybe not gonna re-up because it didn't pan out.
And unfortunately, a lot of companies are doing direct response types of sponsorships where they're looking for results. They're not necessarily looking for brand awareness. With an affiliate, you don't have that pressure. And so a lot of times, I've been at companies where I was managing both affiliate and sponsorship, and I couldn't move forward with sponsorship until I had a history of results on the affiliate side. And so if you become a star affiliate, I'm happy to switch you to an upfront, hey. Like, I know this is how much Joe's gonna this is what Joe's funnel looks like for me. Now I can go to my higher-ups and say, hey. I wanna make a case to do a sponsorship because I know that if he hits this much traffic, I'm gonna get this many results. So you can actually secure better sponsorships and more long-term sponsorships through proving yourself as an affiliate in some cases. So, like, that's one way to look at it.
And then the other thing I would say with affiliates is you can grow your audience through affiliate tactics. And so instead of looking at it as, oh, I'm gonna do a bunch of upfront work for free for a company who's not giving me a dime. The way I would always look at it is, my audience needs help on this topic. I'm gonna create an amazing comparison article where I showcase 10 different affiliate platforms. And I'm gonna, like, go all in. I'm gonna, you know, pros and cons and costs and screenshots. And then if I make money through that article, amazing. And often comparison articles in particular tend to rank well. They tend to perform very well for people. You can put paid ads behind them. So, you know, it can become a very lucrative affiliate source. But the work and, like, the thought process behind it wasn't to make money or to be an affiliate or to like, crush it for a company. It was really at the end of the day to help your audience with something they really needed. That's kinda how I would look at it for the most part.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I love this framing. So first of all, I am a coach, and I'm like 1 of the asynchronous coaches in Justin's Wizards Guild. So, I help people secure sponsorships all the time. Sponsorships are a big part of my business. And I love what you said about, hey. Like, an affiliate program could actually help you with sponsorships. Right? I think that a lot of people worry that, oh, if I talk about this brand without them sponsoring me, they'll have no incentive to sponsor me. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Right? Like, if I do a really good campaign with ConvertKit, just promoting them through, like, hey. Best, email service providers for podcasters and why. Right?
Justine Galea: Right.
Joe Casabona: And then, like, it's like ConvertKit and then, like, whoever, whoever, whoever. And that does really well. Right? ConvertKit might think, hey. Joe wrote really good content. Put this really good content together. We have a campaign coming out about how we're rebranding to Kit. We should sponsor Joe's stuff because, like you said, you know, he has a proven track record.
Justine Galea: Exactly. And, actually, another thing people don't maybe think about is if you give it and then you take it away, it can affect me. And so if I'm the affiliate manager and you've like, crushed it for me on a free affiliate campaign, and then you pull back and you start working on a sponsorship with some other company, I might be like, well, where? Oh, no. Joe's results have gone down a bit. Like, how can I incentivize Joe to start focusing on us again? Let me throw some sponsorship money his way to, like, make it more worth his while.
So a lot of times, companies don't wanna lose that, the results they're seeing, and your interests or your, like, your priorities may shift where the money is going. And so you might say, like, you might have an affiliate deal and a sponsorship deal, and they're close, but the sponsorship kinda wins out. Well, if I can come back and say, hey, Joe, I'll give you a little bit more to make that more lucrative for you on top of, you know, like doing a hybrid, for example, where I give you upfront and plus commissions, it could be really it could be a win-win situation. And, I think a lot of times people don't think about how if you prove yourself as an affiliate and then you take that away, it puts the company at a disadvantage. They're gonna wanna do what they can do, you know, get things back on track.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And to your point with that, right, I have, I won't name the brand. Maybe I'll tell Justine in Accelerated, in Accelerated in the membership show who the brand is, which you can sign up over at [streamlined.fm/join] to hear an even longer ad-free conversation with Justine and everybody else that I talk to on this show. But I had a brand come to me. I guess I did a comparison article that was ranking number 1 under the sponsor, like, under the ads in Google. And, you know, they're like, hey. We'd love if you, like, updated this. We really made some changes. And I tried multiple times to get them on a, sponsorship, and they were like, super reluctant. And I'm like, I didn't feel it's not that I'm like being petty, and I'm like, I'm not gonna, I'm not holding it ransom. It is good content, so it would behoove me to update it, and I will when I have a chance, but it's not high on my priority list.
And so, you know, it's, I think there is like, a good give and take there, and it is a relationship. Right? It's not like the brand is not trying to say, like, well, we only wanna pay you if you're gonna generate money for us and the creators and saying, well, I'm only gonna talk about you if you pay me. Right? That's not a, that's not a good relationship. Right? ConvertKit, full disclosure, has sponsored this show in the past, and I am an affiliate, and I'm a big fan of the company.
And so I will continue to talk about ConvertKit when it makes sense, which is often. And then if there is and maybe this is the thing that we haven't said explicitly yet. Right? Like, sponsorships are really good for when a brand has a specific message at a specific time that they wanna put out there. Right? So, like, affiliate programs or even if you're talking about a brand for free, are really good for the times where you just wanna promote them because they're really good and your audience would benefit from them. And then if there is like a Black Friday sale or, oh, it's, like, such a dumb example, or, you know, a company's rebranding, right, and they want as many people to know as possible, like, hey. starting on September 1st, I should say ConvertKit didn't say September 1st. They said September, so I'm just picking a date.
Justine Galea: It will be in September. Yes.
Joe Casabona: It'll be in September. You know, we want as many people to know, so we're gonna do this paid ads campaign. That's when there's a good benefit of kind of balancing affiliates with sponsorship. Right? So, you know, I would talk about the new app store and, like, the RSS integration so you can easily share your podcast with your email subscribers. And then if there is a paid ads campaign, then I would use the brand's very specific messaging that they want me to use.
Justine Galea: Right. No. That makes a lot of sense. I think that that's kinda how we approach it. We have a, we have an influencer program, and it's kind of in a flywheel. So it's sort, it's very structured. Tom runs it, our social media manager. And so it's kind of like every month people get a sheet. I'm like, hey, we want you to make some videos around this topic, versus the affiliate where people could pick anything they want, any feature, any topic, and talk about it.
I was just thinking about what you were talking about with that other brand, and it's funny because I had empathy for that company when you were talking about the situation because I've been in that exact situation where I'm on a grid. Let's say my company is number 2 or 3, and I wanna be number 1, but I don't have any sponsorship budget. I don't have even, like, a budget on the side for anything beyond affiliate. I'm surprised they didn't offer you something else or maybe they did, but if I was in their shoes, I would have maybe at least tried to say, okay, let's bump up your commission rate. Let like, what are the, what's the company number 1 offering you? I will top that from an affiliate commission standpoint. Maybe I can give you an exclusive offer that they, you know, so maybe it's everyone else's 14 days. I'll give you 30 days, you know, something like that. There's gotta be something. That's typically how I would do it on the manager's side, but I can understand. It sucks when they don't have the budget because it, you do almost feel like, hey, this is something special and I wanna, I'm not gonna do this for free. You know?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and I guess that was the thing, which we'll now, we'll definitely talk about this more in the pro show. But, you know, it was like, there was, like, maybe initial interest, but, like, not even a free account. So I'm like, so now it's gonna cost me money to update this. It's like, oh, okay. When I'm ready and have the budget and don't feel like paying for like 2 or 3 of the same tool. Right? Like, that's…
Justine Galea: Yeah. That's crazy.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So, this is, this has been really great. So I think the takeaways here, right, before we kind of get into the actionable advice, right, are that you don't need to spend 10, 15, 20 hours per week creating affiliate content. Right? You can start slow, test a couple of good ones, which we'll talk about kind of, like how to find and what you should create next. But the point here is, right, like, affiliate programs can live harmoniously with sponsorships, and you don't need to spend a lot of time on the front end with affiliates. It's like you're, I mean, you're not gonna make like, 1,000 of dollars unless you have a huge audience at first, but it's a slow build, and it's a steady build, and it's perhaps a more predictable build. Right?
Justine Galea: Absolutely. And I think you can also think about your existing content. If you have, you know, tens or hundreds of articles that are already there, you could just filter to your top-performing posts or your top-performing content. Look for like, whatever has the highest traffic, just go through that article with an affiliate lens and say, hey, where can I easily insert or when where would it make sense in this article to insert an affiliate, you know, widget or a little conversation about an affiliate product that relates to this article because that's like a really easy way to like, literally make money overnight.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's great. And, I just made a note for, again, the pro show. I'm gonna talk about kind of how from a tech-like, a tech-tip standpoint, kinda how to manage some of that especially when it comes to like, affiliate links that may or may not change. And how to like, make your life so much easier when they do. But I want to, let's end the main show here with some really good actionable advice for the listeners. How can we find good affiliate programs?
Justine Galea: Yeah. So I think it starts with your goals, obviously, but I would say stick to, if you can, the more lucrative programs, especially when you're starting out. So, if you are in a niche that's not considered lucrative, so, you know, something more B2C, look for high-end products, software related to those niches, or digital courses info products in those niches. That those will be your best bet for like, lucrative options.
And then in terms of other things, you wanna look for a pro, a company that has a dedicated affiliate manager team. Because at the end of the day, you're gonna need help. You're gonna need support. You're gonna need resources. And you shouldn't have to do it all alone. Your affiliate team or manager should be there to help guide you. And, if you don't, if, you know, if someone set up in a program and they don't have those types of resources, it's gonna be a lot harder for you.
So, if you can try to find a company with dedicated help, they're literally there to support you, like, if someone who contacts me and is like, hey, can you help me? Like, I will look at their site. I will find ways for them to make more money through our program. So, you can absolutely feel free to do that. And then I would say, another thing to look for are, obviously, a recurring commission is lovely and that kinda goes in with, you know, lucrative high-paying commissions. But, if you look for companies who offer, give you offers that will help you to sell more through your link, that would be ideal as well. So for example, if they're willing to give you a co-branded landing page, like a 30-day, you know, extended trials, maybe a discount code, something that will help excite people to use your link specifically. That will be, you know, a really easy way for you to get more conversions.
And then I would say the other thing too if they don't have those options, see if their program terms allow for you to create your own bonuses or your own giveaways through the links. So, it technically is called incentivizing, and that's actually usually, it's something that most programs don't allow. They don't allow you to incentivize. For example, most companies aren't gonna allow you to say, hey, if you sign up through my affiliate link and you pay $500, I'll give you $50 back. They don't, they don't like that.
But if you got someone to sign up through your link to a $500 course, and you offer them a year in your membership or your private community, a lot of companies are cool with that. And so just double-check with the company, like the company affiliate manager or the terms. But if you wanna create or you can create things to get more people to click your links, it's really gonna help you in terms of just getting more sales and making it more worth your time and worth your while.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is a great idea. Right? I can see, like, if I am maybe promoting an affiliate program for a podcast hosting platform or a recording platform like Riverside, I say, like, hey. If you use my affiliate program to sign up for a year, you know, I'll hop on a 20-minute call with you to get your account set up. Right? If they're cool with that. Right? Because that's like an extra incentive. Make sure they use it.
Justine Galea: Such a nice bonus.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Also, like, in that sense, right, if I make sure they use it, then, you know, maybe…
Justine Galea: they'll probably renew. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's a really good idea, and that's the, I think that's my takeaway from this. Like, that's my action item, I should say, from this conversation. Right? Is I'm gonna reach out to some of the affiliate programs to see if they'd be cool that I participate in, see if they're cool with that because I really like that.
The last question here, because I think we kind of addressed the, like, how do we prevent being a hamster being on a hamster wheel, but what kind of content does well for and I, this is probably like a loaded question that is the answer is it depends. But, in your experience, what kind of content do you see performs pretty well for affiliate programs?
Justine Galea: Yeah. So I would say it's it depends, like you just said, but, like, for example, I've seen posts, social posts, like, go viral, and then that person makes a ton of, you know, sends a ton of leads to the companies I work for. So if I say don't do social, don't bother with social, it's possible social could work for you. But what I would say is think about where in the funnel your people are and create content for those low in the funnel. So if you are, let's say it's ConvertKit, DoobieKit, and you're talking about email, If someone doesn't even realize that they need an email list, they don't have any concept of why they should have a list, they're at the top of the funnel. And so you're gonna be needing to create content that's like, why you should have an email list, blah blah blah. And those people aren't gonna be like, oh, okay. Now I'm gonna go sign up to ConvertKit. But if you're talking if you are talking to people or you're creating content for people who know they have a problem where they have everyone on a different platform and they wanna own it and they want it in an email. And they're now just saying, okay, well, which platform is right for me? Should I pick ConvertKit? Should I pick this other competitor?
If you're creating content that's like ConvertKit versus competitor, they're gonna find that post. They're already ready to buy. They just don't know which platform. And so they are much more likely to click through and purchase through your link because they're already primed. Right? And so any content you can create around that, which would be comparison articles, review articles, even tutorials because a lot of times, especially in the software space, if you're doing tutorials, they may not have signed up yet and they might be on a free plan. But, you know, through enough tutorials, you it's like you talked about getting them understanding it and using it and realize, oh, I maybe I need to upgrade to the free, the paid plan because it's a better fit for me when I'm what I'm trying to do. Those types of articles and content, I would say, will perform best and get you more conversions for your clicks.
Joe Casabona: Nice. That's fantastic. Now there is, we're coming up on time here, so I'm gonna have to save this for the pro show. But, you know, I think that listicles are something common where I see affiliate programs, and so I wanna ask your opinion on that. But that's gonna have to wait until the pro show. So if you wanna hear an even longer conversation, and my friends, this is the first time I'm like, tested this with my friend, Sarah, but this is the first time in earnest I'm doing it with Justine, is we're just gonna have like a full, like kind of open-ended conversation. We had a very structured document for this. And so if you wanna hear just like kind of more of us talking about affiliate programs in general, what it's like running a brand's affiliate program, you could become a member over at [streamlined.fm/join].
Justine, thanks so much for spending time with us today. I really appreciate it.
Justine Galea: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was really fun.
Joe Casabona: Likewise. Thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. You can find all the show notes in the description for this or over at [streamlined.fm/426]. First time I mentioned that. I'll probably have to say it in the beginning now. But until next time, I'll see you out there.