Sponsorships. Where to begin..?

[TBCompilations]

Right, kind of like Audible (which is actually owned by Amazon, so you'll be able to use those as well), but it's not like one of the official Audible sponsorship. So, with the official Audible sponsorship, you'd get a kick back of $XXX per person signing up, even with the free trial. With the Amazon affiliate, which is open to everybody and doesn't require a sponsorship deal, you'd get a kickback for any sales made, with the percentage determined by what department the sold item is from. And it is a percentage, not a set amount, so in *theory* you could earn more than you anticipate. So, let's say that XYZ person buys your $10 book suggestion, but at the same time also purchases a laptop and a 2017 Mazda 6 (I kid you not, you can buy cars on Amazon). You'd get a percentage of kickback from all of that, all for a single link click.

It should be noted that the cookie on their system does expire after (I think) 30 days, or if they wipe their system or browser than it is gone that way as well, but the *potential* is there!

Now that I'm looking at it more, people say you can't use your YouTube channel as a website? I used my direct channel link and I'm in the dashboard and created my first affiliate link to a video I did today. Is this wrong? Suddenly not feeling as confident as I was earlier.

Others say that you can use it and they use their YouTube channel without having a separate website to use the links and still make money off it. I'm just making sure I do this right.

 

[Luminick]

When I signed up I used my Youtube channel alone, since that's all I had at the time, and I've been going about it just fine so far. Now, if you want to be entirely technical, Youtube's T&S actually say not to use affiliate links, but I don't think it's ever been enacted upon, because that's essentially what most sponsorship links are, and affiliate links work the same way. I am fairly certain that it's more of a safeguard on Google's behalf so that if something were to go wrong, then they have plausible deniability. That being said, don't abuse the ability to use affiliate links on Youtube videos, and I don't think you (or I, or anybody) will ever have any problems with it.

 

[TBCompilations]

When I signed up I used my Youtube channel alone, since that's all I had at the time, and I've been going about it just fine so far. Now, if you want to be entirely technical, Youtube's T&S actually say not to use affiliate links, but I don't think it's ever been enacted upon, because that's essentially what most sponsorship links are, and affiliate links work the same way. I am fairly certain that it's more of a safeguard on Google's behalf so that if something were to go wrong, then they have plausible deniability. That being said, don't abuse the ability to use affiliate links on Youtube videos, and I don't think you (or I, or anybody) will ever have any problems with it.

Okay. I just got overly skeptical after setting it up to make sure I did it right and watched a video saying you need to create a "quick" blog website as a landing zone. For one, there's no such thing and I'm not taking care of a website as well. I used my direct YouTube link and since you and I hear many others did the same, hopefully will be fine for me. I'm pretty sure I bought my microphone through an affiliate link, on YouTube.

Do you mind me asking how much you make with these affiliate links?

 

[Crown]

Okay. I just got overly skeptical after setting it up to make sure I did it right and watched a video saying you need to create a "quick" blog website as a landing zone. For one, there's no such thing and I'm not taking care of a website as well.

If you're looking for FREE, then you can set up a free blog at https://wordpress.com/ - It will literally take you a few hours at most to set up. I would however recommend getting your own hosting and installing Wordpress there on a proper domain name. It's a bit more work, but a much better solution because you'll be building an asset that you own (not Wordpress)

As to whether a YT channel is allowed as a URL for Amazon, I'm not sure, but I have heard of a lot of people who've been refused due to that.

Affiliate marketing can be quite lucrative but Amazon's commission rates are relatively low (about 7-8% I think) because they are selling physical goods where the margins are lower. If you can find affiliate programs selling digital goods (ebooks, online subscriptions, software that people pay for monthly etc), then often the commission rate is much higher (sometimes up to 50%) With Amazon, you will need a lot of traffic. The advantage of Amazon however is that the traffic converts well.

One final word of warning about affiliate marketing and YouTube. - It's still quite a grey area. There is nothing in their rules that says it's specifically not allowed, but there is a rule that says:

"If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies."

Source: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973

So a video that is talking about this amazing product on Amazon and you're telling everyone to click the link in the description all through the video, then there's a big risk of breaking the above rule. Conclusion - make sure that the affiliate marketing thing is discrete and adds value and is secondary to the rest of the video. Use your common sense with that but definitely err on the side of caution if you value your channel.

 

[TBCompilations]

If you're looking for FREE, then you can set up a free blog at - It will literally take you a few hours at most to set up. I would however recommend getting your own hosting and installing Wordpress there on a proper domain name. It's a bit more work, but a much better solution because you'll be building an asset that you own (not Wordpress)

As to whether a YT channel is allowed as a URL for Amazon, I'm not sure, but I have heard of a lot of people who've been refused due to that.

Affiliate marketing can be quite lucrative but Amazon's commission rates are relatively low (about 7-8% I think) because they are selling physical goods where the margins are lower. If you can find affiliate programs selling digital goods (ebooks, online subscriptions, software that people pay for monthly etc), then often the commission rate is much higher (sometimes up to 50%) With Amazon, you will need a lot of traffic. The advantage of Amazon however is that the traffic converts well.

One final word of warning about affiliate marketing and YouTube. - It's still quite a grey area. There is nothing in their rules that says it's specifically not allowed, but there is a rule that says:

"If the main purpose of your content is to drive people off of YouTube and onto another site, it will likely violate our spam policies."

Source:

So a video that is talking about this amazing product on Amazon and you're telling everyone to click the link in the description all through the video, then there's a big risk of breaking the above rule. Conclusion - make sure that the affiliate marketing thing is discrete and adds value and is secondary to the rest of the video. Use your common sense with that but definitely err on the side of caution if you value your channel.

Definitely! Thank you for the reply! I was thinking of creating a site to also sell merchandise as well because a lot of people have been asking for it. We will see what happens with amazon and then I'll look at other affiliate marketing if that doesn't work.