How to Make Money from Affiliate Marketing using Instagram Shoutouts

Table of Contents

Are you into selling products ?? Are you promoting products from Clickbank, Commission Junction or any other affiliate marketplace ??

Well I do !! And most of you are doing it as well.

But an issue comes when the product does not convert 🙁 . This happens mainly because we fail to drive the right traffic to our landing pages (or the page where we promote the product).

Most of the products are not easy to rank on Google by SEO, while many products even after being good are not searched enough on Google.

The only solution in such cases is to find and reach the correct audience ourselves instead of just waiting for the potential buyers to come onto your website or landing page.

Following this, many of us started doing paid advertising !! 

It helps many people to get sales, but again lies an issue. Infact many issues.

Everyone competes on the same sources of traffic. This leads us to spend more. This leads to less ROI. This even leads to big failures !!

To bypass all this, many smart marketers keep on switching their advertising techniques and traffic sources.

In this post I will be sharing an effective method to generate traffic from Instagram and convert that traffic into sales. 🙂 Sound good ??

So what is it ?? And how does it work ???

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Guide to Affiliate Marketing using Instagram Traffic

When it comes to paid advertising, Instagram is much better than Facebook and other social media networks !!

Firstly, because of low competition among advertisers !! And secondly because of the option of reaching target customers easily. I will be teaching you how to target your potential buyers and also how to convert them.

You will be learning:

  • How to Pick a perfect product to Promote
  • How to Find Instagram page to promote your product
  • How to Get traffic from Instagram to your Product page or Landing page
  • Different Sources to find Best pages for Instagram Shoutouts

Note: I will be taking an example of any random product to teach you the steps

Note 2: I will also be showing you what others are doing

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Basic Ideology behind the Method

The basic idea is to first get a good product to promote. Once you have the product, the next step will be to find Instagram pages that allows you to advertise your links via shoutouts. The final step is to convert the traffic that you get from the shoutout.

It may sound simple !! Right ??

But there are many chances of errors, specially considering the fact that people avoid purchasing from mobile devices.

So this is the reason, you have to continue reading the post 😛

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Picking a product to Promote

This is one hell of a task !! Picking a product that converts good is not simple, however if you follow some basic principles you can find some real gems.

The marketplaces you can search for finding a product are:

  • ClickBank
  • Shareasale
  • Commission Junction
  • MaxBounty
  • Or you can sell Tees from Teespring !!

And many more. However the 4 I mentioned covers almost every category of products (both Digital and Physical).

The next step should be purely based on your interest !! You must pick a category that you feel you can promote. Having a knowledge about the product will help you writing emails, blog posts and above all it will help you understand the right audience for the product.

Let me explain with an example !! Since I have a fair amount of knowledge in the fat loss niche, I will be explaining the process using fat-loss niche.

Firstly, Head over to clickbank marketplace !! If you scroll down a little, you will find a list of categories and each category again have many sub-categories.

I’m Picking “Diets & weight loss” sub-category which is under “Health and Fitness” !!

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A list of products opens up!! The issue here is, we have to pick products that are good and gives good commision. The best way to find out such products is to sort the products by gravity. Gravity is an indication of how much the product is successfully sold by different affiliate marketers on clickbank.

The higher the gravity the better the chance of selling the product. It simply indicates that the product is good and people are liking it. I will always recommend you to pick products that have a gravity of over 30!!

So here’s what my search result came up with…

I forgot to sort the list by gravity !! However the products in the snap are sorted on the basis of popularity which again is somewhat similar.

clickbank iftiseo

Before moving on, Let me explain the thing’s I have highlighted !!

You can see that the gravity of these products are pretty good, this is a good indication. But its always not a single factor to look upon. Do check the Avg$/Sale !! This shows an average of much money you will earn if you make a sale. I always prefer picking products giving atleast 15$ on Avg per sale.

Another factor to look upon is the product itself. Just click on the product name, the landing page of the product will open up. Just by seeing it you can make an idea of how it is. A good landing page always converts big. So its a must thing to look upon.

And lastly also check up the affiliate links provided in the product description. These links usually contain all the essential information that you may need while promoting the product. The affiliate pages usually contains banners, email swipes, Affiliate rules etc.

Ahhh!!!

I guess this is enough for you to start with.

Let us select a product from this list…  Umm, lets pick the first product itself…

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So this is my product !!! now what’s next ???

(PS: Are you reading this line :p ?? )

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Finding the Right Source to Promote the product

After picking the product, what next ??

Traffffffficccc !! 😉

Let me first clear out, we are talking about paid traffic here. It is very well observed most of the sales on clickbank products come via paid traffic. And believe me its much easy via paid traffic.

While in getting search traffic you may have to spend months doing SEO with no guarantee of making onto the first position of search results.

Eliminating Search traffic from this system, we are now left with Paid ads. Facebook, Bing, Google Adwords, Twitter, Instagram !!

How much does paid Facebook ads cost for such targeted audience ?? Ever tried ??

Well if you do, you will see that you will be spending more than 1$ per click (or engagement). Such is the competition of this niche (nowadays almost every niche). Same will be costs when you try Bing ads or Google Adwords…

Now what !!

I like to play with minds !! That’s what I will be doing in the next few lines 😛

Suppose you plan to invest 100$ in facebook ads !! Here’s what will you get !!

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A max reach of 42000 only (which can never happen on Facebok) !! And believe me, its worse !!! If you have worked with facebook ads, you must be knowing how much it varies once you start the ad campaign. All the money will be lost and you may only end up getting a few clicks !!

Also note that I have selected a broad audience. Its not targeted.

With my experience, this ad may give you 0-2 sales only. Which means, $31.45*2= 63$ Approx !! 

A loss of around $37 !!

This is the reason, people have started shifting from Facebook ads. The marketers are now trying new sources for traffic!! They are looking for sources that gives targetted traffic which CONVERTS.

One such source is INSTAGRAM !! And that is what this post is all about…

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How to Find the Right Accounts for Instagram Shoutouts

You must have heard the term Shoutouts !! Its quite common on Instagram. Shoutouts are:

An Instagram shoutout can be a screenshot of another user’s profile page uploaded to your account to show support and give exposure to the other user. Shoutouts can increase a user’s followers and provide advertising to small businesses and websites.

Our method deals only with shoutouts. Instead of making big accounts and selling shoutouts, the idea here is to find big Instagram pages and buy shoutouts for your affiliate links or landing page links ! 🙂

I can see a Grin on your face 😛

Okay, so our product was based on weight loss. So its obvious that we need to buy shoutouts from weight loss accounts on Instagram.

How to find those pages ?

Open Instagram on your browser or mobile app simply type “Weight loss”. You will see a drop down of suggestions. Open upto 10 accounts that are suggested by Instagram.

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The top suggested pages are usually the ones with huge following.

Once you open different accounts, just check up the following stats:

  • Number of followers : Over 50k is always good
  • Number of likes the account gets per post: 1000+ is always recommended
  • BIO/Description of the account: It must have details to contact either mail id or just a mention about shoutout.

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An Ideal account !! Good number of followers, Business inquiries (Shoutouts) email provided, already promoting someone else’s link. Moreover each post has 3000+ likes and 100+ comments.

Such accounts are what we need.

Make a list of such active accounts that comes under your product category. The next step is to ask the shoutout cost, this is very essential part as we don’t want to spends a lot on a single page.

If a page has more than 500k followers and has a good activity, then the ideal cost of a single shoutout can be between 30-200$.

Since I am not much into it, I don’t have exact numbers of how much all these accounts are charging. However you can always DM (direct message) or E-mail the page owners for the cost of each shoutout. 🙂

If you still face difficulties finding accounts that sell shoutouts, then you can also check the following sites:

There may be some more sites, but the above 3 mentioned are enough. You can pick any category and look for the right page. By using these sites, you can find some really cheap shoutouts which are really worth trying. Here are some that I found !!

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6 Hour Feature for 40$ on a page with 343k Followers

 

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15$ for 6 hours twice on a page with 130k+ Followers

 

 The above pages were found in fitness category on buysellshoutouts.

The other sites give the same result as well. Here’s an example.

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Isn’t it great?? A single sale can give us 20$ and the entire shoutout is worth 20$. More than 1 sale and we will be on profit… 😀 

Now that we have our product and a good list of pages (along with cost) that allows shoutouts, it’s time to take the big step.

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Sensible tip to Buy the Best Shoutout

Even if you have done the above steps correctly, this step can make the entire process FAIL miserably. So be careful here. 🙂

The first and foremost thing to understand is, since it is paid advertising, You have to INVEST Money which directly means that you have to take risks.

Before coming up with a figure to invest, its better to do some calculations. Have a look at the page followers and compare it with the average number of likes/comments. The better the engagement, the the better will be your chances of converting.

Decide an amount that you are willing to spend on it. Its better to invest on 2 or more accounts instead of investing all your amount on a single page.

Note: I recommend you to start this method with 100$ 

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How to Create the best Content for your Shoutout

This is again something important to work on, Most of the accounts will ask you for an image along with a description and the link. In such cases you can do two things:

  • Either Make an image that contains the important description of the product.
  • Or you can use an image that displays results of using that product.

Both will work according to the product and the niche you are working on…

Along with the image, you also have to write a short description that explains and influeunces the auidience. And the last thing will be the link that you have to add.

Here are examples of some shoutouts !!

See what people are doing ??

Some are directly promoting the product image while some are showing results of using the product. Also have a look at the descriptions of these shoutouts. In some cases, people prefer promoting their own instagram account while, on the other hand we have people who are promoting the affiliate link directly in the bio of the account.

Here are my tips to creating the best shoutout content:

  • Keep it short and simple..
  • Always try to show results/examples/positive factors in the image instead of using any random image.
  • Avoid using product image in your shoutout.
  • Don’t overuse Hashtags.
  • Include only one CTA (Call-to-action).
  • Avoid promoting your own instagram account in such shoutouts.

Apart from these, your results will also very much depend on the type of product you promote. All I can say is, keep experimenting with the product, content and CTA !!

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How to REALLY Convert Shoutout Traffic into SALES

After reading 2100+ words you might be having a basic question !!

And it is…

Instagram usually gets mobile traffic and its hard to convert mobile traffic, then how can we generate sales ??

(Raise your hands if you had this question in mind. 😛 )

Anyways, there’s a simple solution to this problem. Infact, this solution is something that can convert your traffic into recurring traffic…

Hmm, so you must have heard of LANDING PAGES !!

Well, that’s what you have to do. Instead of directing the traffic to product link, its better to capture emails. Many people are not comfortable in buying products using their mobiles… And this number can lead us to big losses..

However, an email capturing landing page can do wonders. You can easily collect emails of most of the people opening the link. Infact, this way you can also capture emails of those people who were not sure of buying the product…

If you are into Affiliate Marketing industry, then you must be well aware of how big of a gem an email list can be. You can use the list to sell products, promote new links, get more traffic etc. And this can be done again and again, as “an Email list never gets old”.

Okay, back to the scene !!

The steps you can follow are:

Picking the best Landing Page Builder

Start the process by creating a simple yet powerful landing page. You can use thrive page builder or any landing page creator to build one. I recommend you to use Thrive Page Builder or  INSTAPAGE for building simple, cool and effective landing pages.

Instapage

You can even buy a landing page template that you can use anytime for any campaign you run. Here are some of the best Landing page templates

Or, if you want to start everything for free. You can simply use this WordPress plugin called “WordPress Landing Pages”

Creating Landing Pages that Converts

After deciding the best builder, you now have to create a landing page.

Your Landing Page must:

  • Be Responsive
  • Be Fast in Loading on any device
  • It must be simple with less content and a Clear EMAIL form.
  • It must not have any fancy designs.
  • It must have a good CTA.

Have a look at these designs:

You can create such simple designs.. Or you can create designs similar to landing page of the product you are promoting. Both of the methods can work.

Our aim is to collect as many emails as we can. 🙂

After email submission you can also lead your visitor to landing page of the product that you wish to promote. This way you also have a chance of converting the same traffic into affiliate conversion. Use your smart brain in such experiments 😛

Running Email Campaigns !

Once you collect a good number of emails you can start shooting emails campagins to your list. You must signup to a good email marketing service to do the following.

Depending upon the list you may have to switch to paid email marketing services as most of the services don’t allow big lists in free plans. I recommend the following !!

  1. GetResponseHighly Recommended. FREE Signup, no credit card required.
  2. BenchmarkFOREVER Free upto 2000 Subscribers. No Credit Card needed. All PRO Features included
  3. MailchimpFree Plan upto 5000 Subscribers.

 

Its good to send your subscriber a FREEBIE in the first mail. You can send any PLR package that sounds relevant. 

The best principle to follow is:

  1. First Mail: Welcome Email with a freebie (a guide 0r a PDF that you promised to provide in the landing page). You can setup autoresponders for it.
  2. Second Mail: Ask about the Freebie you gave. Talk something good and send an offer he can’t refuse.
  3. Third Mail: Ask whether the offer was recieved. Remind about the offer with link to it.

Basically, you can follow this 3 mail strategy. It may work, it may not. It depends on how well you write the email. If you are into email marketing, then you probably have a good idea of how good it can work out.

Anyways, here are 3 email templates for you. 🙂 Unlock it by sharing on social media. 🙂

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Subject: Download your FREE XYZ Guide NOW !!

Hello,

Firstly, thanks for subscribing.

As promised here is the guide that you can download right now (give link). 

Moreover, have you heard of XYZ !! It promises to reduce wieght in just 20 days. I have personally used it and to be honest I have seen a dramatic change in my shape.

There’s an exclusive offer coming and I will be sharing it with you. Hope it will help you solve your problem as well.

Thanks.
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Hello,

I hope you enjoyed your freebie..

Remember I was talking about a product in the last email. Well, its on sale now..

And the best part is, you can buy it right now.

Check out now or else it might get late as the offer is limited for just 50 sales.

Thanks.
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[mks_tab_item title=”Email 3″]
Hii,

I was wondering if you got my last email where I shared a 50% discount link to XYZ (link to thr product). 

Today is the last day of this particular offer so I thought to remind you once again.

The product promises to:

PUT PRODUCT DESCRIPTION HERE. 

I hope you find this useful.

Regards

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Isn’t it simple ??

The sample emails are just examples of how you can do this form of email campaiging. Its recommended that you write the emails yourself according to the product you will promote.

I have one more cool thing that you can do…

What if you send responsive landing page type emails ??

How good will they look ??

Well, its something really worth trying as most of the big companies have switched to landing page emails rather than the tradional form.

So how can you do it ??

Mostly every email marketing service allows you to create such emails. I will highly recommend you to try Getresponse or Benchemark. 

Benchmark is perfect to start with as it allows you all features for upto 2000 subscribers. This plan will work for you !! Moreover it allows you to design beautiful email using the simple drag and drop email builder. Another thing I like is, it contains many predefined templates that you can use.

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[mks_button size=”large” title=”BenchMark Forever FREE Offer ” style=”squared” url=”https://iftiseo.com/recommended/benchmark” target=”_blank” bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”1″] [mks_button size=”large” title=”GetResponse FREE Offer ” style=”squared” url=”https://iftiseo.com/recommended/getresponse-free” target=”_blank” bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”1″]

So start using these services for your email campaigns.

That’s it !! That’s the complete process. The next step will be to track all your statistics.

Keep a good track of your email campaigns, email lists, conversion rates and commissions !!

Before I end this !! I have more for you 😛

Applying Sweet Steal Technique Here

Many times, it may happen that you fail to find a perfect product to promote. Or sometimes you may get confused regarding the results of picking a product to promote.

In such cases, I would simply recommend you to apply sweet steal technique !!

What does it mean ?

Just pick a niche and start exploring the big pages of it on Instagram. (After reading this entire post, you can easily figure out shoutouts that promote products. 😛 )

Let me do the same and find some really cool products that others are promoting.

Lets pick Designing/Photoshop niche !! I searched for “Photoshop” on instagram !! Usually the top 5-10 search suggestions are the pages with good following. I opened all of them and checked some latest posts as well the page bio.

Doing the same, I found an account (Learn_photoshop) that have a link in their Page bio.

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Fortunately, it is a bit.ly link which means I can see the traffic stats of it. (to check traffic of any bit.ly link, just add a “+” sign after the link)

Here are the stats,

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601 total views !! A good number.

Moreover every week it gets around 40-60 clicks which is fine as well.

Lets check the actual product and the commission one would get after each sale.

Since the bit.ly link redirected to product page via shareasale, it is clear that the product merchant is listed in ShareASale.

After just typing the site name “creativelive”, I found out the merchant.

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Hmm !!

1$ per lead is something that is attractive.. Average commission for the product is kinda low. EPC is fine !!!

So after this analysis we can come up with multiple explanations:

  1. It can be a good program to promote as each signup will give 1$.
  2. The commission is low, so its not good to invest much for getting the shoutouts.
  3. Since the link is added on the page since 2 months, it must be helping the marketer and thus it can be worth promoting.
  4. Competition is low, upon looking other photoshop pages it can be seen that most of the big pages are not doing any shoutouts. So this leaves us with an oppurtunity to pay low to them and get shoutouts.

hmmmmmmmm !!!

I hope you are feeling good as it makes a lot of sense 😛

Now, Do you like it ???

Or should we check one more product ??

Well, I did research on one more product, but that research will be mailed to you.

[et_bloom_locked optin_id=optin_6] Thanks for subscribing. I will mail some more live examples and research facts to you. [/et_bloom_locked]

I hope you subscribed for another live example 😛

Umm.. 3600+ words… Should I stop ?? Or are there any doubt left ??

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Final Words on How to Make money from Affiliate Marketing Using Instagram Shoutouts

Before ending this article, let me list some of the best niches to start with !!

  • Health and Fitness
  • Fashion and Lifestyle
  • Gardening
  • Survival and Military Items
  • Camping, Adventure Sports
  • Bikes and Motorcycles

Try exploring more !!

And my final tips are:

  • Don’t spend big on one page or on one product
  • Buy shoutouts only for peak hours.
  • Try different marketplaces instead of sticking with one.
  • Always promote a good product that helps the buyers.
  • Keep track of everything you promote, prepare a good Excel sheet for it.
  • ROI of 25%+ is what you should be looking for. 

That’s it !! Start implementing it. 🙂

About The Author
Iftekhar Ahmed
Iftekhar Ahmed is the owner of iftiSEO.com and writes on various topics like Online Earning, SEO, Blogging etc. He has worked on many blogs and also works as an SEO Analyst.

56 Responses

  1. Hey Ifti,

    Great article here man! I would love to link to and reference this article in a blog of mine. Would that be ok with you? I will add the weblink and specific article below so you can check it out before I do anything.

    Keep up the great writing,
    Elliot

  2. Great Article, Thank you for the share information but sir, my flipkart affiliate account ready sir. I m always read your article and most of learned in this site. this is my helpful i will share your post. Thank you admin.

  3. I m always read for your post sir, I learned a lot from your website but sir 1 question you help me. my flipkart affiliate account is verify but not yet payment in my bank announced last 30 day. when will do flipkart team was sent payment ??

    Thank you admin !!

  4. And this artcle has been featured in one of Neil Patel’s posts. So happy to see that. One more thing to say about your last article on youtube channel ideas, I daily watch MO Vlogs!

  5. Once again you share great article. You are share this information so i m try in flip kart affiliate. Thank you boss

  6. Interesting post with full of Affiliate Marketing knowledge. The method seems very promising. Thanks for the post. Keep sharing such tips. Happy blogging 🙂

  7. And this artcle has been featured in one of Neil Patel’s posts. So happy to see that. One more thing to say about your last article on youtube channel ideas, I daily watch MO Vlogs!

  8. Great work once again, In fact, I am aware of many paid traffic methods which are used to promote affiliate offers but I don’t have any idea that there is another easy and effective way to promote affiliate products.

    Mant thanks for sharing with us another spectacular method 🙂

    Keep writing

    Regards

    Mairaj

  9. Read Something About This Technique on BHW Forum before a month ago .
    But its the complete guidance
    thanks for sharing real experience

  10. Iftekhar, great guide for people who are just starting out in affiliate marketing, I also did the same and got inormous results. Instagram has far better post reach that Facebook and Twitter. Anyways great article.

    Cheers
    Iffam

  11. This is one of the best post i have have ever read.
    You are a gem. Really loved it

    Thanks for sharing with us.

  12. bro after reading 3600+ words of an awesome in detail article all i could say is it’s incredible.
    Thanks for the post will try to implement this tips and will let you know the result’s bro.

  13. And the award for best affiliate marketing blog goes to “iftiSEO”.

    Again an epic guide on “how to make money online?”

    You are such a rockstar.

  14. Thanks for Sharing Amazing Info with Us Iftekhar,

    Past Few Weeks, after continues using of Instagram accounts.
    I felt the same this way
    & Thought
    Building & growing account in Instagram that big also helps a lot for future.
    This can cut the cost. But that would take time to grow that audience.
    But profitable in it’s own way.

    Btw Awesomely Written.
    Read Completely as Promised. 😉
    Will implement it for Sure.

    Loved it.

  15. Interesting post with full of Affiliate Marketing knowledge. It really helps me to know about it completely. I’ll use this technique definitely on my blog after few days for sure, As for right now my blog is pretty new and I’m grooming traffic to it 🙂 .
    Thanks a ton Iftekar for this meaningful and must needed post.

  16. As always this time Iftikhar bro also came with this rocking tips.
    I also seen this type shoutout on Instagram but never thought about making money by it.
    Going to try this soon. (Client funnel is rocking for me ???)
    Waiting for more posts like this I’m near future.
    Thanking you
    Regards
    Vikram

Comments are closed.