Looking to make an impact on your world and your online entrepreneur life? Start with affiliate marketing! Affiliate marketing is by far one of the easiest and rewarding ways of starting your own online business that doesn’t require any startup money, no specialized skills, and allows you to work for yourself at your own pace.
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The Impact affiliate network hosts a number of affiliate programs and it’s very likely that they will have some options for you to make money with your online presence.
In return for you sending customer to an affiliate website site, they offer you a commission either per customer sent or a percentage of the sale that customer made.
All you need to get started is a website and a vision for what you want to write about. The internet is a wild and wonderful place full of every topic imaginable so find your place in that mix. You can write about travel, cooking, health, sports, city infrastructure, restaurant guides, life hacks, innovation, technology, and so much more.
As soon as you have your website and your niche decided, then it’s all up to you in terms of how much money you want to make. Just start writing and add affiliate “links” throughout it where appropriate and you’ll start seeing the potential for sales increase over time. The key is to stick with it and keep on writing great content that your readers will love!
Wanna learn how to do it? You can take my free email course to get stared and see the steps to take to get your website off the ground and earning money.
Today we’re going to review the Impact Affiliate Network, which is a great site to utilize if you want to start earning from your website.
Impact Affiliate Network Review
Affiliate Programs VS Affiliate Networks
Before we did too far into the Impact Affiliate Network lets first hash out the difference between a “network” and “program” in the affiliate terminology. Affiliate programs typically refer to a single company’s setup. A great example of this is with the hotel company Agoda. They have their affiliate program setup on their website at Agoda.com and it is 100% managed by the Agoda company.
On the flip side, affiliate networks are platforms that companies can utilize instead to place their affiliate program on. Affiliate networks are great ways for companies to cut cost of having to create the entire platform and a support team to manage any bugs/issues within it.
Affiliate networks typically have thousands of affiliate programs within them and are a really great way for new affiliate partners to get linked up with many great companies within their niche market.
The Impact Affiliate Network is one of these such companies that started in 2008 by the same group that started up the CJ (Commission Junction) affiliate network. Here are some examples of great companies that you’ll find on the Impact Affiliate Network:
If you want to see a full list of the different affiliate networks that you may want to use, we have compiled the best ones so you can see just how much is available to you as a way to monetize your website.
How To Sign Up With Impact
To get started as an Impact affiliate partner and start working with their different programs, you’ll first need to create an account. Head on over to https://impact.com and start at their landing page.
It’s important to understand that you may see terms like “Impact Radius” floating around and you may even have been told to go to impactradius.com instead, however, this takes you right to the impact.com home page.
Impact Radius is a part of the overall Impact company and is where all of the affiliate work is managed within.
Once you’re at the Impact home page, simply click the “Sign In” button in the top right which will bring you to the login screen. Below the login you’ll see “No Account. Sign Up As A” and select the “Partner” option as shown below.
Next you’ll be taken to a screen to enter your Name, Email, User Name, Password, and Account Display name. Then simply click the check boxes to agree with the terms of your login and click Create Account. Your account will automatically be created and you’ll see the dashboard of the Impact Affiliate Network.
Although you will now have access to the Impact Affiliate Network Portal, you’ll only have view mode and cant apply for brands until you complete the verification process including the following:
- Create a public profile that helps to sell yourself and your site. This should be as detailed as possible so that when you apply for different brands they will be more likely to accept you.
- Submit your business information for your website to ensure everything is compliant.
- Validate your email address by clicking on the link sent to your email.
- Lastly, search for a brand that you want to work with and start applying (more details in the next section).
Below is the screen you’ll see. Just click the “Complete Verification” button and you’re ready to get started!
Finding Affiliate Programs
Once the verification process is complete, you’ll then be able to look for brands to apply for. In order to apply for brands you’ll have to choose your niche as discussed above. If you’re still stuck and unsure what type to choose, use our guide below on deciding between passion and profit. Do you want to follow what you LOVE or what you’ll make MONEY from? 🙂
To begin searching for brands, click on the “Brands” tab at the top. This will show you all of the brands (companies) available on the Impact network. You can sort them on the right side, but I suggest first selecting from the categories on the left to narrow down the results to just those that fit your niche.
Once you’ve narrowed down the list, you’ll want to take a look at some of the important pieces of information including the following:
- Payout: The payout will show you what you as an affiliate will make from working with this company. This may be a percentage of the sales achieved, or a flat rate per sale. If you need more information, simply click on the brand line and a pop-up box will appear with more details. The payout is one of the most important pieces of information in understanding why you should select that affiliate program.
- 30 Day EPC: As a sign of the brand’s success, the 30-day EPC will show you the average earnings that the affiliates that use this program are making. The EPC stands for the Earnings Per Click which is the average earnings per 100 customers that visit this brand. This is important so you know about what to expect based on the volume of visitors that may end up visiting that company from your site.
Another important factor when applying to programs is the cost of the products and services. If a company’s products are in the single digit dollars per item, 5% of a $10 item is just 50 cents so it takes a lot of 50 cents to equal anything significant. Focusing on a company that has higher dollar products will make it more worth your while in the long run.
How To Apply For Programs
If you’ve found one that you like both the payout and potential earnings, on the right-hand side click the “Apply” button. This will prompt a pop-up in which you have to read through the terms and conditions of the program and then click accept at the bottom.
While it’s not a guarantee that every affiliate program will accept you, if your website has enough content on it and is aligned with that company’s products/services you should be approved.
You’ll be notified within 1-2 business days typically as to the status of your application whether they approve or deny you. If you are denied, this typically is because your website does not align to the company or you do not yet have enough content or traffic.
You can always inquire with the program manager by clicking on the affiliate program name in the “Brands” tab and you’ll see a “Contact” section either by email or by phone as shown below
How To Find Your Links
Once you’ve been accepted to an affiliate program within Impact, you’ll now be able to use the portal to begin creating unique affiliate links. These affiliate links are what will eventually earn you money.
Affiliate links come in many forms but the most common are HTML Banners which are graphics with a link embedded into them that take you to the merchants site. Another more common form is a URL which you can paste on your website articles or you can hyper link text with the URL to direct customers to the brand’s website.
No matter which way you choose to do it, when a customer uses those affiliate links, as long as you get the link from the Impact site it will have your unique affiliate ID linked to it so you’ll get credit for the potential sale/commission earned.
Here are some different ways you can search and retrieve affiliate links through the Impact affiliate network:
Create a Link
On the left-hand side of the screen you will see a “links” icon (seen in the screenshot below) which will allow you to create custom links for the affiliate companies that you are approved for. To do this, first open the “Create a Link” window. Then select the affiliate company you want to work with from the dropdown.
The last step is to navigate to the affiliate company’s website and whatever page you want to advertise on your website, copy the URL and enter it in the box shown below in figure #3.
Lastly click the “Create” button and the Impact tool will create for you a custom URL which will route your website visitor to that specific area of the merchant’s website but yet you will get credit for sending that customer there.
This is a great option when you want to create your own URLs.
Create Ads
Each company also has great ads in the form of banners or URLs that are available. Navigate to the “Brands” tab and filter it by the brands that you’ve already “Joined” as shown below.
By clicking on each brand you’ll have a fly-out menu appear. On the right side you’ll have a link for Ads which will take you to the ads for that specific brand. From here you can filter it either by Banners, Text Links, Coupons, Videos, etc.
For each ad, simply click the “Preview” to see what it will look like on your website. If you like this ad, to use if on your site click on the “Get Code” button the right side and a pop up box will appear.
Inside the pop-up box you’ll see HTML code which you’ll need to add to the HTML section of your website where you want it to appear.
It’s important to note the difference between banners and text links if you’re still new to affiliate marketing:
- Banners: These will show up in the form of a graphic image on your site. These are usually great to have 2-3 maximum throughout your page often on the sidebar, header, or footer, but one mid-text of an article is also beneficial.
- Text Links: These are going to be in the form of a URL although you typically should never place a raw URL on a web page. Instead write text that explains the topic and hyperlink key words. Instead of writing https://onemorecupof-coffee.com, you’d write something like create an affiliate website, and link that text. This is more engaging and descriptive for the reader.
Every user who clicks on that banner or link from your site will then be taken to that company’s website and you’ll get credit for sending them. Each new visitor sent is a potential new sale.
What Next?
Now that you know the basics, feel free to explore all of the ads available under each affiliate program. You’ll find over time certain ads perform better than others so you’ll be able to maximize your earnings.
The key to success with all affiliate marketing is to not be afraid to try new things and to remain consistent. Consistency is key to ensuring your long-term success, and keep up with our
Nathaniell
What's up ladies and dudes! Great to finally meet you, and I hope you enjoyed this post. My name is Nathaniell and I'm the owner of One More Cup of Coffee. I started my first online business in 2010 promoting computer software and now I help newbies start their own businesses. Sign up for my #1 recommended training course and learn how to start your business for FREE!
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Mary
Can you sign-up for Impact and then use the links for 3 different websites? How do you you create your profile – do you just describe all 3 websites? Will this be confusing for brands when applying for their programs?
Nathaniell
You create your initial website profile, then you can add websites to your profile after. In general, brands are savvy and can figure it out, otherwise you can contact them personally & add a message when requesting access to their affiliate program.