I am an Affiliate Marketer...so what does that mean?

Firstly, let's start with some background….

I started this blog because I got so sick of seeing people promoting products that, when I bought them, turned out to be rubbish! I wanted to buy products and give honest reviews. I didn’t start out with a view to becoming an affiliate marketer, but it turns out people like honest reviews, and when they started clicking through links, it made sense for me to become an affiliate marketer, as then I could use the money generated to (at least partially) reinvest into this little blog to help me create more reviews!

A little about how affiliate marketing works…

Affiliate marketing works by the marketer promoting a product with a link to the website that sells that product. That link is individual to each affiliate marketer, so that when you click on the link and buy something, that affiliate marketer gets a small commission. Commissions are often a percentage of the price of the product bought (or basket if there's more added) Commissions vary across websites and across categories, so sometimes the commission is as little as 1%, and sometimes it can be higher, like 10% or 25%.

Which affiliate marketing scheme you can sign up to is determined by their criteria. Some are more burdensome than others. Some let you sign up to the general access to schemes, but then individual retailers and merchants determine whether to let you into their specific scheme. Some will analyse how many visitors you have to your website, or post views you've had. Some will look into your social media following. Some will let you sign up to the general scheme and then all merchants are automatically accessible to you. Some will let you in the front door, but then you have to meet a criteria, such as so many sales on the links clicked through within a certain period of time. Some have criteria about your response to the product itself. I have previously bought a product with a view to signing up to an affiliate marketing scheme, but then when I have looked at the criteria, it requires you to be passionate about their product(s). So, where I have not been passionate about a product, I have decided not to sign up to that scheme. I mean, I may not have been totally negative about the product, but what I have written I wouldn't describe as being passionate, so I have decided to keep my review honest, and skip out on the opportunity to make money through the links. Which leads me on to my approach.

My approach to affiliate marketing…

So, once I discovered that money can be made from reviews, it suddenly made sense as to why some (but obviously not all) people were out there promoting products that turned out to be rubbish – what do they care once they’ve got their commission, right? I approach affiliate marketing differently…I think that if I promote a product (that is rubbish) and you, my wonderful reader, buy that product, then I have lost you forever! Why on earth would you come back to my blog in the future and trust my view if you had already been burned by it before, right? And because affiliate marketing works on building those clicks through, a dishonest review would actually damage, rather than enhance, my chances of turning this little blog into a small business to (currently) help pay my way through uni.

So, because of this, my reviews are honest. Even where that means I would miss out on the commission that could be earned. If you are new to this site, you may not buy that, but if you are a repeat reader, chances are it’s because one of my previous reviews influenced your purchasing choices.

So, for example, if you were to click through the Amazon link in the Detox Footpads blog post and buy that product, I would get paid a small commission from Amazon. However, chances are you aren’t going to click through on that link and buy that product because, well, the review makes it clear that in my view, Detox Footpads don’t actually do anything!

With all that said, I have started trying to find products that are likely to work, so that increases the chances of a good review. However, sometimes this effort fails after I have tested the product, so there’s no guarantees there! I test products for anything ranging from a couple of days to months. Sometimes, I will buy something and be testing it for ages before writing the review. Often, when buying from websites etc, the reviews on there are when the person has just bought the product. This is fine, but I personally feel that sometimes you don’t realise a product's downfalls until you have been using it for a while.

So, for example, I tested Gousto Recipe Boxes for a couple of months, and whilst personally I was impressed by these overall, the review I wrote includes lots of potential negatives, so that you can decide for yourself if that is worth trying! By contrast, the HG Hob Cleaner and the Kilrock Gel Limescale Remover, were both products that I bought and tested pretty quickly, over a day or so, before being able to write the review. It all sort of depends on what the product is that I have bought to test.

When it comes to writing reviews, I can take my time like this because I don’t have a boss to please, or targets to meet. In fact, the only person I have to impress is you, my reader! So in order to do that, I have to put in the time and effort to really get to know the products I buy so that I can give you as much information as possible to decide whether you want to buy that product or not.

Hopefully, this has helped explain a little more about what I do as an affiliate marketer, and how that relates to you as my reader. Building a following for a blog is hard work, and it takes consistent, trustworthy and reliable posts to be successful, so it’s in my best interests (and yours) for my reviews to be honest. Otherwise, I’d be shooting myself in the foot!

Thank you for reading! If you want to subscribe, to be kept updated with future posts, it would be really lovely to have you here!

With love

Rebecca

xxx