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How I Doubled My Affiliate Earnings by 160% in One Year! Reflections on the Affiliate Journey.

My name is Olexandr Ignatov and I’m an AudioJungle author and Music Producer. In this article, I’d like to share my experiences on how I was able to increase my referral earnings by bringing new people to Envato Market!

I first discovered the Affiliate Program in 2014, not long after I started uploading music to AudioJungle as an author. I realized that if you put a special referral link, you can earn money when someone sign ups using the link. That got me excited! At this time I had no clue about how to do it, so I just got started by generating clicks on the referral link to my AudioJungle profile using some free methods that were available.

I was getting really a lot of clicks but no one was signing up. I hadn’t much hope for it at that moment and I wasn’t aware how to do it right, so I just focused more on the music.

Things started to change in 2015 when I gained some popularity as an author at AudioJungle, increased my following and developed my understanding of marketing and promotion. I learned what a Targeted Audience is all about and why you need to promote to a select audience, not just to anyone. I finally started getting referral earnings from new people that were signing up using this strategy.

At first, I started putting referral links to my portfolio on AudioJungle and Twitter. I was putting out tweets with links to my files in the hope that someone would click on it, and sometimes people did. There was still room for improvement here as it didn’t bring great results initially.

I also tried mediums like SoundCloud, YouTube and Facebook. When you upload to SoundCloud, you can put your referral link into a ‘Buy Now’ button, which can be activated on your track settings. This means that people are automatically clicking as ‘referrals’ if they are interested in your track. That’s good! As I was uploading music to SoundCloud anyway, I managed to have referral links on them.

Emotional Cinematic Inspiring Piano

Same with YouTube – when sharing a video, I’ll make sure to put referral links into the description, so people could click on this.

Facebook is also the same. Whenever you post something, it’s good to find a creative way to include your referral links so people can sign up and when they purchase from you (or any other item at Envato marketplaces) you’ll earn 30%. Later I added Instagram, where I found my targeted audience using #hashtags and this helped to deliver my message to them using a referral link via social media channels.

Another pathway to gather your audience is through paid advertising. You’ll need some expertise to set this up and avoid losing money, but once you’ve got the hang of this, it can be a great way to find new customers. For example, if you typed in ‘inspiring piano royalty free music’ – you’re most likely to see my webpage pop up in a paid ads. When you click on it, there is a referral link, so if you sign up – the job is done! If you set up the whole campaign correctly, your rewards should also be more than the advertising budget you spend.

The Inspired Business

One more way to attract new people to Envato Market is through email marketing. In short, all you need is to build some kind of a funnel journey, which typically consists of: A freebie (free music) -> email sign up -> autoresponder email campaign -> leading to Envato Websites or products -> sign up from a lead -> lead purchased some item -> get profit. This also requires some skills to set everything up correctly but you should definitely consider it as an option to grow your referral network and bring in new people!

After trying these different strategies and mediums, I doubled my referral income from 2015 in 2016 with a 160% increase! This is great progress for me as an author, helping to bring in new customers and as a side effect of these actions, I also increased my item’s sales.

Now, in 2018,  I’m proud to say that I’ve achieved a 17% increase in referral deposits from 2016. This means that, although the overall number of all click-throughs was lower last year, I had already set myself up in 2015 to ensure my promotions and channels sustained itself.

Simple Business

With these experiences, I believe that authors should try to use the tools that are available to them, including – social media, paid advertising and email marketing as three ways to increase their fan base, item sales and referral earnings all together! Just pick one of them, to begin with, learn how to use it until you’re getting results and then try the next one. If you’re not getting results, try another!  Always keep in mind that people don’t just sign up for fun – they sign up for value. So make sure to provide it to them!

I’d recommend a service called Bitly to create short links. It’s easy and convenient as you can also see cool stats like where your clicks are coming from! I hope you’ll put this info to good use and will take your results to the next level.

You can check out Olexandr’s AudioJungle profile here. If you have any questions, want to continue the conversation or share your favorite Affiliate tips, jump over to the forums and connect with your fellow author community.

For all things Affiliate and to explore how you can earn an additional 30% on every 1st purchase or deposit you refer, check out the Affiliates Program here or email the team directly on [email protected]. Don’t forget, if you need a reminder on how to generate an affiliate link to Envato Market, watch this video!

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