Cyber Monday is one of the most lucrative online shopping days of the year for affiliate marketers.
Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving Day in the United States and Cyber Monday falls on the Monday after that. Cyber Monday is a marketing invention that was first observed in 2005 by online retailer shop.org. Seen as an online version of Black Friday, Cyber Monday was created to allow customers to shop online from the comfort of their offices and homes. Most online retailers offer great deals and deep discounts to customers on these days.
Here are 7 tips to help you make the most of your affiliate sales this coming Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
1. Visit Your Affiliate Networks
Login to each of your affiliate networks to see what deals your merchants are offering for Cyber Monday. Many affiliate networks post links to holiday offerings on their homepage which makes finding promotional materials easy to find. Or you can search for Cyber Monday deals easily. For example, on CJ.com, you can log in to your account, go to Get Links > By Relationship, and search for “Cyber Monday” to get a full list of relevant text and banner links from all your merchants… uh, those who have bothered to label their promos “Cyber Monday”. 🙂
Here is a graphic example of how CJ Affiliate by Conversant (CJ.com) allows affiliates to search specifically for Cyber Monday links and banners.
2. Check Your Affiliate Emails
If you're set up to receive emails from your merchants, your Inbox is likely to be full to overflowing with deals and offers at this time of year. Pay attention to them! It's sometimes easier to pull a promo coded with your affiliate link from an email than to go searching for it on an affiliate network. Here's an example of an email I received from Udemy with links and banners coded with my affiliate ID to Cyber Deals:
A merchant can't make it any easier for an affiliate to promote their product! Just copy and paste the coded links into your WordPress blog.
Make sure you read those emails carefully. Many merchants place restrictions on when Cyber Monday offers can be advertised, i.e. not before a certain date.
3. Make Your Site Festive
Show that you are celebrating the Christmas season by using festive graphics in your blog posts. Better yet, change your logo to include a sprig of holly or a Santa hat. Or, go all out and do what Google does…
I purchase graphics through iStock. To have a really cool logo created, I recommend services such as Freelancer and 99Designs.
4. Add New Cyber Monday Promotions to Your Blog Daily
If you are used to blogging only once a week, this is the time to start blogging daily if you can. The more frequently you post, the more often your site gets noticed by Google which in turn means more traffic for you!
5. Follow up with Blog Broadcasts
Notify your email subscribers of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals posted to your blog using a service like Aweber's Blog Broadcast. You only have to set this up once, and then every time you post to your blog, the article automatically goes out to your email subscribers.
6. Promote Your Posts on Social Media
Don't forget to post links back to your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn where applicable.
7. Set up Google Alerts
Set up search queries in Google Alerts to stay aware of deals about which your merchants (and affiliate competitors) are blogging. Google Alerts is a content change detection service that will automatically notify you when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches the search terms you input into the service. You'll get the results delivered by email.
Best of success on this Cyber Monday everyone!! Get out there and earn some BIG commissions!
Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
Hi Ros!
Thanks for your candid response. I, Abayomi Charles Olusegun, will do my own portion to the best of my human ability to redeem the damaged image of Nigeria anywhere I find myself in the whole world (i.e not only on the internet). God helping me! I call on fellow Nigerians all over the world to do the same.
Please keep up the good job you are doing. God bless Rosalind Gardner. God bless the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!
Hi Rosalind!
Thanks for your sincere response to my question. As a matter of fact, I am a Nigerian from Ibadan in Oyo State, and I am proud to be a Nigerian with a positive difference. My full name is Abayomi Charles Olusegun. I want it known to every Merchant in the whole wide world today and evermore that it’s not all Nigerians that are scammers. In fact, scammers are everywhere in the whole world; not only in Nigeria.
Also. the era of positive changes has eventually arrived in Nigeria since 29th May, 2015, and Nigeria will surely occupy its true rightful position of being the giant of Africa in all ramifications and even in the committee of nations.
Thank you for being a very highly resourceful mentor to me. I have learnt a lot from each of your blog posts. Happy Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales in advance! God bless Rosalind Gardner!! God bless FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!!!
Hi again Abayomi,
You’re so right that there are scammers all over the world. Unfortunately, Nigeria got a very bad rap and all its people are paying the price. I hope you DO make a difference to change that for the better. 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Rosalind!
I’m glad I remembered your blog. How are you these days?
It’s going to be busy shopping days for all shoppers as well as to us, online sellers. Thank you for these tips. Clearly, you’re still on the bleeding age 😉
It is all about promotions, and if we want to earn more on this special day, we have to take advantage of the chance of being noticed. Good luck to us and may we have a happy Black Friday and Cyber Monday! Happy earning everyone!
Hey Carl,
How cool to hear from you!! I’m doing well thanks and thrilled to see you still doing the online thing!! Best of success to YOU this Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well!
Cheers,
Ros
Yes, I’m doing it full time now. I just graduated college last March 🙂
Hi Carl,
Congratulations on graduating! I’ll have to check back into your site to see what you’re up to. 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Thanks, Rosalind Gardner for your regular informative blog posts! Please I need to ask this question: I am African and a newbie in internet marketing. Are Africans eligible to promote foreign merchants products/services, (especially this Black Friday & Cyber Monday products you just blogged about), just like you do? Thanks for your anticipated response.
Hi Abayomi,
It so depends on where in Africa you live and what sort of connections you have. If you’re in Nigeria, I’m afraid the news is probably not good as there are too many scammers based there.
Basically, you need to check with each individual merchant to see whether they accept affiliates from your part of the continent.
Best of luck to you!
Cheers,
Ros
Really great tips, Jane! I wanted to add that for making your site festive, you can also head to 99designs’ new sister site, swiftly.com, to have your logo “holiday-ified.” Swiftly is for fast fixes, or updates, to existing files; the flat fee is $15, and the turnaround time is usually under an hour.
Happy holidays!
Hi Roz!
Looks like you and Edward had a fantastic
Trip through Arizonia.
I have a problem. My computer went belly up and purchased a new one. I took the old one in with the new one for transfer purposes. My computer guy was unable to do any transferring!! I know, I know, where was my back up? God, was I a dummy! Lynn preaches all the time and did I listen? That’s a big NO! I find that I can live without some of the things I lost, but not my AFFILIATE bible (my name for it) I had always left on my desktop for reference. Is it possible you can send me another? It is my lifeline and I refer back to it at least every other day. It’s my fault, but I do not want to have to purchase again if I can help it. I can send you info on my purchase, or I can give you my Name and email so you can look up?
Please let me know Roz, really missing it!
Happy Thanksgiving to you, Edward, and your doggie kids!
Debi Leonard
Hi Debi,
Sorry to hear about your computer! I will send you a separate email with the link this evening when I am back at my computer.
Cheers,
Ros
Great post Ros, ….as usual.
Thanks, Jane! 🙂