How to Increase Affiliate Sales on Black Friday & Cyber Monday

Black Friday and Cyber Monday of 2015. are soon to be knocking at our doors, are you ready to take advantage of it to maximize your profits?

In 2014. I made exactly $37 during the Black Friday weekend from affiliate marketing. This year I will try to make $370 or $3700 instead.

What about you?

My sale numbers from 2014. are nothing to brag about, that’s why I decide to write this article, so this year we can all brag with our high profits. How? The key is in the preparation. Let’s see how to prepare for maximum sales and profit.

In this article you will learn:

• How to prepare for Black Friday to make the most of it
• What should you promote on Black Friday
• How to get more traffic and make more sales

Let’s get started.

Why my Black Friday sales sucked in 2014. (and every year before that one)

If you checked my About page you probably know that I live in Croatia, Europe. We don’t have Thanksgiving here, nor do we have large discounts everywhere you look during Black Friday weekend (although I saw that few Croatian stores decided to offer some discounts in 2014).

But the truth is, most of people in my country don’t even know what Black Friday is. So basically, Thanksgiving (or the lack of it) is the main reason why I always forget to prepare on time for Black Friday promotions (at least that’s the excuse I’m telling myself).

Yeah, I could find some deals for my niche in the last moment, but if you are in a rush you are probably going to miss a few good ones, and you are also going to miss the opportunity to prepare your marketing materials and tactics.

And that’s the main reason why my sales sucked every year – I didn’t think ahead, I didn’t prepare and I did everything in the last moment (while my competitors did a hell of a good job).

A week before Black Friday (aka Preparation period)

That’s today.

If you are reading this article on the day it was published, that means you have exactly 7 days to Black Friday 2015. The time is running quickly, so let’s see what can you do within a week to maximize your profits.

1. Check your current affiliate status

If you are an affiliate for some companies, contact them and see if they plan to have special discounts for Black Friday.

Even if they don’t, ask them if they could make a special discount coupon just for you and your customers. However, that’s unlikely to happen unless you have brought them enough sales on a regular basis in the past.

2. Apply to new affiliate programs on time

Like I mentioned in my article about best affiliate programs, it is crucial to apply to become an affiliate at least 1 week before the day you plan to promote that product, possibly sooner.

You can never know how long will it take them to approve your application. Some make it instant, others can take several days or weeks before they approve you.

3. Think about the hottest product right now

Imagine if Apple would suddenly decide to give 50% discount on all their new iPhones 6s this Black Friday. They would sold out everything probably within hours.

Now try to think of what’s the hottest product in your niche right now.

Something you know people are crazy about. 

When you find it, go back to step 1 and step 2 described above.

If the company which sells that product plans to have some kind of special discounts, you’re in luck. Just make sure to notify your readers and followers about it.

If they will not have any discounts, but you know people want that product really, really bad, here’s what you can do.

Bribe your potential customers, give them some kind of valuable incentive.

Especially if you have your own products or services.

Tell them, if you buy this I will include a bonus completely free, just during the Black Friday weekend, you can get my eBook, free access to my premium membership etc. You can teach them something, consult them, tell them that trick you use for Facebook advertising where you get dirt cheap, laser targeted clicks.

Possibilities are countless, you just need to think about it for a minute, and be creative.

Because people are already in the ‘buy mode’, you just need to push them in the right direction.

Through your affiliate link, of course.

4. Evergreen products you can use to cash in

Depending on the niche you are in, there are some products people will always need and buy.

In the online marketing world, or world of bloggers and website owners, that thing is web hosting for sure.

Web hosting companies like HostGator, WPEngine, BlueHost, SiteGround (which I use and recommend), always have huge discounts on Black Friday.

Good thing about hosting companies, is that they have fixed commissions and not percentage commissions, which gives you a great leverage and great opportunity to make some serious money.

Most hosting companies pay $50+ per sale, some even go over $100. Go figure 🙂

If you don’t know what to promote and you have an online based business, promote some hosting company, that’s the best tip I can give you.

Other than that, you’ll have to think for yourself and find that evergreen product you just know everyone needs and will most likely buy.

5. Sell your products and services

This article is mainly for affiliates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell your own products or services if you have them.

Do I need to explain how?

Create a huge, special discount just for Black Friday and notify your followers about it.

Don’t have a product or service to promote? Now’s the time to create one.

If you have any kind of online business, even if you are a blogger, you have some skills or knowledge which you can transfer to someone else.

Whether it’s something specific as copywriting, creative writing, graphic or web design, or something more broad, you can sell it. You just need to offer it, in a format of your choise, a video tutorial, webinar, maybe a Skype 1-on-1 consultation.

Here’s another idea.

Use Gumroad to pre-sell your product idea. You have always wanted to create that ebook, software, video course or a membership? There’s no better time than Black Friday to test it.

With Gumroad you can pre-sell your product idea (buyers won’t be charged until you release the product). Or, if everything fails and only a few people buy your product (ie, you don’t make enough money) you can cancel it and Gumroad will give your customers money back.

To avoid that and prepare your customers, tell them that you need at least 10, 20 or whatever number of customers is enough, for you to actually create the product.

Also, make sure to let them know that the product will be much more expensive later (like 100% more at least) than the price you are offering to them right now.

Getting traffic to your affiliate offers

I won’t get into much details here, rather I’ll just remind you of the things you can do to get traffic to your affiliate offers on the upcoming Black Friday 2015.

If you are promoting several products, and I hope you do, I suggest to have them easily accessible from one central location. Like a special Black Friday blog post or page.

Repurposing your content

Even if you don’t have a website or a blog, you can create one on Medium, LinkedIn or maybe Facebook notes.

You can go crazy and repurpose your content, just spread it around as much as possible. That alone will bring you some traffic without further efforts.

But let’s take it another step further.

Emailing your subscribers

Of course if you have an email list, the first thing you should do is email them, and point them to your special Black Friday offers page.

For more hesitant subscribers, you can even link directly to your best offer straight from your email.

If you need help with email marketing there are tons of guides on Google, just search for it.

Paid advertising

You need money to make some money, right?

Go ahead and invest a few dollars in Facebook advertising, it won’t hurt.

You could also try with Twitter ads, LinkedIn ads, Pinterest ads and Google Adwords.

I didn’t try this, but maybe not a bad idea either, is to some invest in media buys, like banners on some targeted forums or other niche specific sites.

Hell, you can even go with solo ads.

You don’t have to do it all, go with the thing you feel most comfortable with and preferably have experienced with.

If you are a complete rookie, go and play with Facebook ads, that’s your best bet.

Promoting on social networks

A lot of marketing can be done for free too.

For example, spreading the word about your cool offers on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Here are few tips for each of them:

Facebook – If you own a fan page or a group, you’ll put your links there first. Another best thing are Facebook groups. This can be tricky or considered as spam, but try to squeeze some links in few popular and targeted Facebook groups.

Twitter – Hashtags like #BlackFriday and #CyberMonday will be oversaturated, true, but that just means you need to be more active, tweet more often and follow more people. Don’t do it all manually, use some kind of automation tool like Zapier, IFTTT or a dedicated Twitter auto poster like Twuffer (it’s free).

Pinterest – Everything you need to know about marketing on Pinterest is summed in my article about how to get tons of traffic from Pinterest.

LinkedIn – I have over 1000 connections on LinkedIn, what about you? /* (feel free to connect with me here) */ Posting a LinkedIn update or even a post on it can bring quite a few eyes on your offer. Don’t forget LinkedIn groups either.

Google+ – I barely use Google+ and have almost 500 followers. There are also Google+ communities where you can find your targeted customers and tell them about your deal.

Steal your competitors visitors

These tips are a bit evil, don’t use them if you don’t like them. I’m just saying that you could if you wanted to.

Is it moral, right or wrong, that’s up to you.

So one thing I noticed is that a lot of people actually do all the things I have described in this article.

Meaning, they publish Black Friday specific articles, they advertise on Facebook and they do all they can to bring more traffic to their websites/offers.

Why not take advantage of that? 🙂

If you see a Facebook ad where your competitor is advertising his latest article, why not comment on it?

Go to his/hers blog, comment on the article, say thank you, that you appreciate it, and mention that you also have some cool offers (but not the same).

You don’t even have to put a link within the comment (it might not get approved that way), just link straight to it from the website field (avoid websites using Disqus and similar commenting systems).

Here’s another thing you can do – comment directly on the Facebook ad. This time put the link straight in the comment.

Or, don’t put a link in the comment, change your Facebook preferences so that you make a comment as your fan page, not your personal profile.

Or just make a comment, with no links in it, with your real name, but make sure to bait them so that everyone who see’s the comment, go to your FB profile, where you have the link to your website.

Wrapping it up

And there you go. Follow this guide and I guarantee you that you will increase your affiliate sales on Black Friday.

There are of course more tactics and tricks, I’ll cover them another time.

At least now you know that you need to react now, and start making preparation for your big affiliate promotion.

What about you, how will you make money this Black Friday?

Share your tips in the comments below 🙂

Further reading

Need more tips for affiliate marketing on Black Friday? Check the links below, and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter so that you don’t miss any other useful articles from me:

• http://www.silverbean.com/blog/ppc-black-friday/
• http://www.codefuel.com/blog/affiliate-marketing-lessons-black-friday-2014/
• http://netprofitstoday.com/blog/sell-more-this-holiday-season/
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141008160444-32399-10-affiliate-marketer-preparation-tips-for-capitalizing-on-black-friday-and-cyber-monday
• http://theworkathomewife.com/black-friday-affiliate-tips/
• http://blog.shareasale.com/2014/10/20/the-ultimate-black-friday-and-cyber-monday-guide-for-affiliates/
• http://blog.justuno.com/ecommerce-marketing-tips-black-friday-cyber-monday