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The Secret to a Profitable Affiliate Product Review

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Affiliate Product Review

There is nothing more frustrating than getting excited about writing a review for an affiliate product that you love and watching it flop in terms of actually making money.

It’s happened to me – I’ve used a product, loved it, thought it was the perfect fit for my audience, wrote up a grand review, published it, and saw nothing but crickets in my Clickbank, Ejunkie, or other commissions report.

So what can you do to ensure that you make money with an affiliate review post no matter what? Try this approach.

Researching Products I Use

As a user of both StudioPress and Thesis themes, I’m constantly asked why I chose to use one over another for a particular website. I also kept receiving questions about the main differences between the two and which one was really better. The truth is, for me, both are great for different reasons.

So I decided to do a little keyword research. It turned out that there was a small amount of people who search for the phrase thesis vs genesis.

affiliate product review keyword research

While this is a pretty low number (and not even really accurate), it did show that there were people looking for this information. And regardless of the low search volume, the point is the people searching for those keywords are the people who are most likely to buy.

Creating a Comparison Guide

Since I love both themes, creating a comparison guide for them was quite easy. My 2,500+ word post on Thesis vs Genesis turned into a relatively non-biased review of both themes all rolled into one.

From an affiliate standpoint, it doesn’t matter what decision the reader makes at the end of the post. If they choose Thesis, I get an affiliate commission. If they choose StudioPress, I still get an affiliate commission.

The key to why this works for making money online through an affiliate review? People don’t feel like you are pushing one product onto them to make a buck. Instead, it gives people a choice at the end – and people love getting to make their own decisions. A plus is, if you’re reviewing two great products, you’ll also get a lot of support for one or the other in the comments.

Throwing in Extra Options

When it comes to comparing two products, the other thing that is nice to do is give further alternatives. In this case, I thought that maybe people don’t want to spend around $80 on a premium WordPress theme. So I tossed in a few lesser priced options including Elegant Themes which offers 76+ themes for only $39 (assuming you don’t need the developer’s edition) since that is half the price of the other two theme options.

If you can also thrown in supplementary products that compliment the main products compared, you can make a little off of those as well. For those choosing Thesis, including options such as Thesis skins by Thesis Awesome gives you an opportunity to capitalize on income from those who may already have Thesis and don’t decide to switch to a new theme in the end.

Marketing the Guide

Once you’ve created a comparison guide / affiliate review, your next job is to market it to get more traffic and build some link juice. This is where Google Alerts comes into play. Since people search thesis vs genesis, one can assume they would post about it as well.

I created alerts for that phrase along with thesis vs studiopress, thesis genesis, and thesis studiopress. Then, each time someone posted a question in a forum or other network about the two themes, I could share my post as a reference. Sometimes I did it through private messages vs. on the forum itself as many forums would consider that spamming (even though the post legitimately answers the question), but regardless, it worked. More traffic came in and I got the chance in some places to build links to my post.

The Results

Today, my post ranks at #2 for thesis vs genesis. It’s also my second most popular post of all time. And as far as income goes, here’s the breakdown of what I’ve made.

While that may not be a lot for super affiliates, it’s good for someone who usually doesn’t do that well with affiliate reviews. And really good considering it is from one post – not many people can say they made over 5K with one blog post. As an added bonus, it also did well in terms of social shares.

affiliate review post social stats

It’s not often you get a ton of tweets for an affiliate product review unless that review is super informative.

Sharing The Results

An added bonus when you create a comparison guide for two affiliate products is that you learn what people like more between the two. And that makes for a great followup post! So after a year of my Thesis vs. Genesis post going live, I posted stats straight out of Shareasale showing which themes people choose between the two companies. StudioPress won, and Thesis tied with Elegant Themes for second place.

The nice part is a post about Premium WordPress Themes – Which Ones Do People Buy is again informational and leads to traffic back to the comparison guide plus a boost in affiliate sales for both products.

There you have it. Maybe it’s not much of a secret – perhaps it’s more of a case study. Either way, give it a try with two similar products. And if you’ve done a comparison of two products for an affiliate review, share your results in the comments!

Image © tiero – Fotolia.com

About

Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and copywriter who develops blog content, ebooks, emails, lead magnets, and website copy for marketing agencies, B2B, and SaaS.

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{ 15 Responses }

  1. Dennis Marshall says:
    Wow I know the feeling. I wrote a few reviews on my blog before knowing how important Keyword research was. I just put what I thought people were searching for as the title... Complete fail... I did make a few sales for a few products but nothing like I expected.... Great post though. and loved the Google Alerts tip. I've never heard of that. I'm going to play with it tonight.. I think you just gave me my next training video
  2. Josh Kohlbach says:
    Kristi, this is very cool. I totally agree with your tactic of doing the comparison type posts. In my experience with affiliate marketing, you're basically trying to be the last point of contact prior to them purchasing something. So creating comparative posts like your post with Genesis and Thesis frameworks make sense. The customer is really taking your opinion on board and are more ready to buy after they read. I think a lot of people review something with the end goal of getting people to click through a link and that's the wrong way to go about it. Just so you know as well, you're definitely not the only one out there that's done the whole "affiliate, review, and then... nothing" routine!
  3. Enstine Muki says:
    Hey Kristi, That's a hot money making article on your blog. Thanks for sharing the secret. I'm just going to do one of such in the near days ahead. I'm really insoired
  4. Trung Nguyen says:
    Thanks for sharing your experience, Kristi, I was impressive about what you got from your affiliates product comparing review, it's very nice. Thanks
    • Kristi Hines says:
      You're welcome Trung! I figured I couldn't write this post if I didn't actually share the real results. I figure some top dog affiliates might think it's low, but coming from someone who usually doesn't do a lot with affiliate marketing, it was pretty successful.
  5. Alan Tay says:
    Nice learning from your experience there, Kristi. I agree that sometimes, writing a review just hitting traffic but not much of sales $$$. Writing comparison article is like a win-win situation here. I'm going to do a try on this method and see how far it can go ;)
    • Kristi Hines says:
      I hope that it works well for you and your audience Alan! :)
  6. onos clinton says:
    Thanks for this eyes opener post. I'll try to implement this to see if i can make cool bucks.
    • Kristi Hines says:
      You're welcome Onos! :) I hope it works with your site!
  7. Ivy says:
    Hi Kristi! very nice post, I saw your last post on kilokani that was amazing too. I think the Affiliate marketing is getting harder these days, i used click-bank i just sell 1 product in 1 month this isn't a good progress i think.
    • Kristi Hines says:
      I feel like Clickbank products never work well for me, but I guess it's because Clickbank is home to expensive courses, Shareasale is home to events and top themes, and eJunkie is home to ebooks. My audience likes events, themes, and ebooks more so than courses.
  8. Frank says:
    I think it's really important to give good information to the reader. In your long post about the themes I think nearly erveryone would learn something. And you're helping the reader to choose from his options. So I think they are grateful for this and pay your service by using your affiliate link. It's a good idea to use a keyword with "vs", because as you write, people probably want to buy one thing or the other. Thank you for reminding me of this!
    • Kristi Hines says:
      Thanks Frank! That's what I was going for - each time I search for an affiliate review, it's usually a summary of the product's sales page or an obvious pieces of sales copy. I would rather get less sales because I over-informed the person to the point they realized the product was right for them vs. get a lot of sales then a lot of returns.
  9. Mike Thomas says:
    I think one of the most important parts is adding something of value that others don't give. Even if it's just a little bonus, if it's better than others then people will buy from you.
    • Kristi Hines says:
      You know, I've never purchased something because someone was offering a bonus, but I'm sure that does work well for people who have popular products. I was tempted to buy something because they said you'd get a free iPad buying from their affiliate link, but the product was over $1K to begin with.