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Unlock The Secret to Successful Instagram Affiliate Marketing

Are you looking to boost your income with a side hustle in 2024? In addition to TikTok affiliate marketing, Instagram affiliate marketing is another lucrative opportunity you should consider. This post will reveal the keys to ...

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Make money on Instagram

Are you looking to boost your income with a side hustle in 2024? In addition to TikTok affiliate marketing, Instagram affiliate marketing is another lucrative opportunity you should consider.

This post will reveal the keys to effective Instagram affiliate marketing, enabling you to maximize the revenue potential of this well-liked social media channel. Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or want to improve your current approach, we’ll offer insightful advice that will help you be successful.

Let’s dive into the world of Instagram affiliate marketing and discover how you can earn through this popular platform with affiliate marketing.

How Does Instagram Affiliate Marketing Work?

Instagram affiliate marketing is a simple and effective way to make money from your Instagram account. In essence, you collaborate with brands to market their goods or services to your audience. You get money when customers use your special affiliate link/ apply your coupon code to buy the good or service.

To get started with Instagram affiliate marketing, you need to build a following on the platform, identify relevant brands and products to promote, and establish partnerships with those brands.

Next, it’s all about producing interesting content that advertises the products and entices your followers to make a purchase using your affiliate link.

Why should you try Instagram Affiliate Marketing?

Instagram is an all-about image app allowing you to display and sell items using visuals and video. With the addition of additional shopping choices and Reels to the platform, Instagram has proved to be one of the most influential and popular social media apps when it comes to lifestyle.

Instagram is a free and effective app to boost traffic and convert followers into customers. That’s why the app has become one of the ideal platforms for affiliates to promote their products.

These Instagram stats will prove it: 

  • 1 billion people use Instagram per month
  • 200 Instagram users visit at least one business profile daily
  • 80% of people use Instagram to research products/services
  • 50% of people visit the website through Instagram to purchase after seeing a product
  • 55% of fashion shoppers have made a purchase based on an Instagram post

As a result, affiliate marketing on Instagram could help you achieve considerably higher levels of success.

An example of a macro influencer on Instagram is @kendalljenner, with 203M followers, one of the most popular models and famous girls from the Kardashian Family.

Kendall make money on instagram
Kendall make money on Instagram

Her Instagram account is full of ultra-stylized, properly lit, and stunningly beautiful celebrity images.

When she posts a post like this as an ambassador for @moon, an oral beauty product brand, her followers will follow the tagged profile and purchase as her influencer recommends.

Furthermore, she is paid up to $1 million every post or earns even more through sales commissions. It’s not just beauty/lifestyle influencers like Kendall and the rest of the Kardashians who greatly make money on Instagram as affiliate marketers.

What I mean here is that Instagram is a powerful platform for affiliate marketing, you don’t need to have a large number of followers on Instagram like Kendall, but by building a good engagement with your followers and leveraging its other features well, you could gain back many referral sales with less effort.

Since not all brands could afford a big influencer like that, you could become a potential KOL, or micro-influencer for them.

Instagram affiliate marketing is more vital than ever before!

Don’t miss out on the chance to make money on Instagram in 2022. The next part will reveal everything you need to build a strong affiliate marketing profile.

How to Do Affiliate Marketing on Instagram?

Setting up the Instagram account

Username

Instagram Username is the essential element, and this is what people see throughout your interactions on Instagram and the most common way others search for you.

That’s why you should always make sure it’s memorable, best described by yourself.

Make Instagram username memorable
Make Instagram username memorable

This girl, Dieu Anh’s name, uses her name on Instagram but does not forget a cute little emoji “._.” to make her username more adorable and attractive.

Profile pic

Your profile pic is all about impressions. Choose the most impressive picture that fits your style. I suggest using photos of your own instead of the product you’re promoting.

Name 

Edit your name in the Edit Profile section, this is where you tell your audience who you are. You can add your name or a unique name that describes yourself, or your personality is also great.

Profile description

You also find this in the Edit Profile section; briefly describe yourself in this Bio. A good description that speaks out about your personality will impress your visitors.

Profile description
Profile description

Bio link

This is where you place your affiliate link. You can use free services like bit.ly to shorten the link and make it more personalized.

Suppose there are more affiliate product links that you could not put in one connection so that you could leverage the help of the third website builder to make a free link for you, such as Beacon.pages, or Linktree. In the website link, you include your affiliate links and the other social media platforms you have, such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Place affiliate link on your Instagram profile
Place affiliate link on your Instagram profile
Example of Linktree
Example of Linktree

Story highlight

Story highlights are a great feature that allows you to group relevant Instagram stories. This is where you could keep highlighting stories that your audience could see after 24 hours.

We suggest you have these story collections:

  • A collection of pictures you’re using the products
  • Product promotion pictures/designs
  • Your universe daily life showcase
  • Customer feedbacks
Story highlight covers
Story highlight covers

How to build your followers with Instagram affiliate marketing

When it comes to Instagram, engagements matter!

On Instagram, you can measure engagement by a range of metrics, including:

  • Comments
  • Shares
  • Likes
  • Saves
  • Followers and growth
  • Mentions (tagged or untagged)
  • Branded hashtags
  • Click-throughs
  • DMs

Here are methods you can use to boost your engagement rate

Post consistently

To attract followers and increase engagement rates, you must be active – but how active should you be?

Regular 1-2 postings every day is the greatest. As a result, your feed will remain fresh and current, and you will have more possibilities to draw attention to your material. Knowing when to post on Instagram is also important, especially when dealing with the algorithmic timeline on the platform.

# The best time to post on Instagram

According to Later’s research of 35 million global Instagram posts, the optimum time to publish on Instagram (in local time) is 6 AM.

Saturday and Sunday are the greatest days to post on Instagram, with the highest average engagement for posts uploaded at 6 AM on Sunday.

On the other hand, posts published between 10 AM and 4 PM on Wednesday and 9 PM to 11 PM on Thursday earn the lowest engagement rates, making them the worst days to post on Instagram.

This table shows the best time to post on each day is, source: Later

Remember to switch your account into Instagram Business or Creator Account to see your Instagram audience behavior.

This allows you to view when your followers are most active and plan your updates accordingly, ensuring that your posts remain at the top of their feeds.

Best time to post on IG
Best time to post on IG

Follow, like, and comment on other’s post

Doing all these actions will bring back the most followers for your Instagram account.

  • 14% of people followed back when they were followed
  • When people are followed and liked, 22% of them will follow back.
  • 34% people followed back when they were followed, liked, and commented

Include hashtags in every post to get more #visibility

Instagram is built on hashtags. Hashtags are the foundation of Instagram. It is the primary technique for sorting and filtering content on the platform. On Instagram, users can use up to 30 hashtags per post.

However, using too many irrelevant hashtags may cause the system to believe you’re spamming your followers, putting you in danger of an Instagram shadowban. Hashtags that link to a topic page can be included in your profile, Instagram Stories, or be location-based to increase visibility, or used to create user-generated content campaigns.

Protip: Use www.all-hashtag.com to generate more specific hashtags

Be specific with the hashtags you use. Popular hashtags like #fashion, #menswear is just too common, you need more niche hashtags to drive leads that convert to sales!

Instagram hashtags
Instagram hashtags

Use location tags

When choosing location tags, you can use a similar strategy. Tagging your state is far too broad, whereas tagging a single area (that isn’t a major tourist site) may be far too narrow unless you’re tagging your merchant’s shop to attract customers.

The greatest tags for creating strong engagement and getting new followers are usually city or community tags.

Master your aesthetic

Instagram is all about visuals. Your pictures make the initial impression on this social networking platform.

That’s why you should stick to one filter to bring your content a unique and unified look.

Instagram users prefer visually appealing content in their feeds. They need to know that you can regularly offer high-quality visual content if they’re going to follow you and help raise your Instagram engagement rate.

You can refer to how some influencers build their Instagram feed to look the most aesthetic as they can.

Use Instagram features effectively 

Instagram reels

Instagram reels are short videos posted on Instagram (similar to TikTok), it’s the secret to go viral on Instagram, which allows you to record, edit, and upload videos from 15 to 60 seconds.

However, mastering the optimal Reels method as well as learning how to use all of the various editing options is not an easy task.

# What to post in Instagram reels?

  • Cover trending dances and entertaining, fun, aesthetic, inspiring contents
  • Share about your life
  • Your opinions on the products (eg. What occasions should I use this product, why is this product good/bad,…)
  • Promoting contents (eg. Reviewing the products, instructions to use,…)
Instagram reels
Instagram reels

Protip:

  • Use creative tools like text, filter, or camera effects
  • Vertical videos are better
  • Find a good corner or plain background to shoot the reel
  • Always use trending music, filters, and effects. Instagram prioritize contents that catch the trend
  • Use the same aesthetic filter for your Reel videos

Instagram is prioritizing promoting reels so it’s recommended to make as many reels as possible. If you can’t afford to produce that many reels, once a day would be the right frequency.

Make sure to have these in the caption:

  • CTA (CTA to encourage engagements such as “Leave a comment…” or converting CTA like “The product I’m using is in my bio link
  • Include relevant #hashtags!
  • Keep it short!

Instagram Posts

Instagram posts are all about great photos. Make sure your pictures look neat and represent your style.

We recommend you create 2 Instagram posts a day, your feed should be consistent with your identity and appeal to the target audience. The use of candid photographs, subdued, earthy tones, and a low-key editing technique has replaced the use of high-saturation filters and perfectly positioned avocado toasts.

Don’t forget to use relevant #hashtags for your post. Find the optimal hashtag for connecting with your targeted audience by combining popular and industry-specific hashtags. You can look for specific hashtags by first going to a popular one, for example, #fashion (or industry influencers, rivals) then you can collect some other related hashtags and pick the most suitable one.

To avoid being penalized for “spammy” activity, vary the quantity and type of hashtags you use.

The most important thing is to make your Instagram feed have a unified look and the same vibe. Like this:

What to post: 

  • Share about your life

No one wants to interact with an account that only posts commercial content. When sharing your daily routine, your audience will get to know you better.

  • Pictures of you using the products (not promoting directly)

Don’t put any product links on this post, just add product hints in your post, how the merchant’s product has helped you in your daily life.

  • Products reviews and promotions 

This post is merely about promotion. After you have already posted product hints in your daily life, it’s time to spare space for your merchant’s product promotion, creating truth for your audience.

You can direct your audience to the affiliate link in your bio, or add the coupon code that your merchant assigns you. You could find the coupon on the UpPromote Affiliate Dashboard then add the link on the post description.

  • Instagram Stories

Stories are great to communicate and interact with your followers and get sales.

The Instagram story only lasts for 24 hours but is more powerful than you think, so how to leverage it?

Post your daily activities

By posting a story every day, you keep your audience engaged by providing a regular reminder of new updates. Your fans will learn to return frequently to see whether you’ve uploaded a new Story, increasing engagement.

How to engage your fans? Easy, if you’re a fashion affiliate, you can post a story about wearing the apparel of your merchant. Make it a stunning story, then your followers may DM you asking about your outfit, then you could post another story with a clickable affiliate link.

Normally, the affiliate link should look professional, you need to shorten it.

With UpPromote, you could shorten the link by going to the Affiliate Dashboard > Get product link > Then choose the product to Generate > Get shortened link and you’ll get a link that looks like this:

Shorten link with UpPromote
Shorten link with UpPromote

Ask-me-anything box

You can use another account to ‘ask’ sale-driven questions like “Where do you buy that thing” and post the answer on the story with the affiliate link you shortened on UpPromote Dashboard or the coupon code that your merchant assigned you.

Polls for engagements and promoting

You can create a poll to ask your audience to choose for you, for example, “which outfit is better – this or that”. Or ask your customer’s feedback for something useful for later.

FAQs

How Do I Become An Affiliate Marketer on Instagram?

To become an Instagram affiliate marketer, create a strong profile and join affiliate programs. Disclose sponsorships and follow guidelines. With dedication and effort, you can start earning commissions through Instagram affiliate marketing.

How Many Instagram Followers Do You Need for Affiliate Marketing?

There is no specific number of followers required for Instagram affiliate marketing. However, having a larger following and higher engagement rates can increase your chances of success and earning more commissions and be qualified for an affiliate program.

Wrapping up of Instagram Affiliate Marketing

Instagram affiliate marketing is sometimes neglected yet successful in monetizing your Instagram following. All types of Instagrammers, from celebrities to micro-influencers, utilize affiliate marketing to make a lot of money with little effort.

Instagram has become a very profitable means of making money. Others have been so enamored with Instagram affiliate marketing that they have quit their day jobs.

In addition, the remuneration is competitive. If you’re on the fence about whether Instagram affiliate marketing is good for you, this advice on how to get started could be able to help you make a more informed decision.

Why not make use of all those hours you’ve spent to make money on Instagram now? The choice is yours, good luck!

Joan, a creative mind and author behind UpPromote blog. Writing has always been my sanctuary, a place where I can explore my imagination and share my unique perspective on the world of eCommerce. Through my words, I strive to explain the complexities of the digital world and showcase its potential for innovation, growth, and limitless opportunities.