How To Extra Make Money With Affiliates On Your Backyard Farm

I am a big believer in not stretching yourself too thin when it comes to growing your backyard farm and making money from it. If at all possible I would love for you to find one niche or product category that could make you the most money and use that to pay for everything else. 

Making extra money with affiliate income can really help you do that. You can recommend products to people on your website or through your social media following and earn money from that. 

What Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing

You have heard about affiliate products but what does that even mean? In short, making money with affiliate products means that if you talk about something on your blog or in your social media account and you share a link that is special to you and someone buys the product after clicking your link you get a small percentage of that product sale price.

Notice two key things I said there. 

You have a special link that is assigned to you so the person selling the product knows who helped sell that product. 

And that the person has to click your link first and go buy that product.  

You can’t go get a link straight from amazon.com and expect to get paid. They have to add some special code through your Amazon Associates portal to your link so they know you are the one who recommended the product. 

small office dable with a desktop monitor, candle, notebook, and cup of coffee

Sometimes There Is A Time Limit

If we are using the Amazon Associates program as an example the person who clicked the link has to buy the product within 24hrs in order for you to get the affiliate sale. It doesn’t matter that someone put it in their shopping cart to buy later. That doesn’t count. 

For online courses, education tools, planners, and things of that nature in the online business space sometimes there is what’s called a “last click” which means that the last person’s affiliate link that they clicked will get the sale. 

This is common for high-priced courses because oftentimes people are shown ads and are even doing a lot of google research to see if they should buy this course. If they read blog post A about the course and then click through the link on blogger B’s link through social media then blogger B gets the affiliate commission.

That is the general idea of the tech side of affiliate marketing.

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Selling Vs Sharing Affiliate Products

It seems easy enough. But there is one key component that you have to remember. People don’t buy from people they don’t know or trust.

You have to do the work to show up often and gain the trust of your audience no matter what platform that is on. 

When people trust you, you don’t have to sell. Because they trust what you say. If you love a product then share it and why you love it. 

But when you have that trust. Don’t ever break it because you might never get it back. 

end table with a notebook and cup for holding writing tools.

What is selling?

Selling is saying “buy my skincare, here is my skincare you need my skincare,” that is what turns people off. You are telling them what they need to do and not letting them decide on their own if they want the product.

Now before you say you can’t “sell” or tell people about a product.

I have a question for you. Would tell your best friend about a sale at your favorite clothing store or a great deal you found at your local craft store? I am in love with Hobby Lobby in case you were wondering. 

If you share your link with someone through a text or social media DM that is exactly what affiliate marketers do just on a larger scale.

My sister and I tell each other about things on sale all the time and we don’t apologize or sound timid about telling the price.

Either of us could choose to go take advantage of the sale or not. I am not insulted if my sister does not buy the product I told her about and she is not mad at me for telling her about it. 

That right there is how you make money with affiliate marketing.

The same goes for you telling your readers about a product that you love.

Maybe it is a couple hundred dollar course or it is a tool that you love to use on your farm.

rustic style office with a small table and chair by the computer

Build Relationships And Passive Income Will Be Easy

Look at your business as building friendships.

If you are giving them valuable information or small quick wins along the way nobody is going to slam the door and get angry when you share your favorite offer.

When you run your own business it doesn’t come free and people do forget that. So make sure you are recommending products with your affiliate links often. Even if people don’t buy they become accustomed to it and will know that is something you do. 

Girls got to pay the bills.

Places To Share About Your Affiliate Partner

The best way to make money consistently through affiliate income is to have a website that you have high quality content on and drive traffic to through SEO and Pinterest. This will be the most passive way to earn money with affiliate marketing. 

The next ideal way is to share affiliate products to your email list in your weekly emails as recommended tools. Or you can do big launches around them and offer bonuses if someone signs up through your link. 

The last way to help increase affiliate revenue is to share on your social media accounts. The reason I left this for last is becuase the shelf life of social media content is so much less than they other platforms you are not likely to earn as much in the long run. 

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Finding Your First Product

If you are saying to yourself “ok, I think I can do this” then start with something small like an affiliate discount on a tool you like to use. You don’t have to start with a high-priced course as your first go around. I defiantly wouldn’t recommend it.

You want to be excited to share the product with your people and be able to feel like you are doing them a favor by telling them about this product.

The best strategy to take when your audience is small is to not stress about making a huge income but rather to practice while your audience is small. Just try getting the words out and see how people respond.

Look at the likes and comment on the post, and even see how much reach the post got according to your platform analytics.

Make sure to document these results because this will help you know what will get the most engagement on a sales post and be more helpful when your audience grows. 

Only Share What You Love

One thing to remember is to only share products you love. And I don’t mean products that you kinda sort of use and would change if you found a better price somewhere. Products that have you hooked. This is the key to success with affiliate marketing. You have to treat these products as if they were your own and you are the creator.

It will be obvious when you are creating content if you don’t really care about the product. 

Chose 2-4 Affiliate Products To Get Started

Chose just a few to get started. Once you have found your footing around talking about products then you can look for a few more. If you go all in and sign up for a bunch of affiliate products and different affiliate programs you will get overwhelmed and not going to know where to start.

Your email account will be inundated with emails and you will just give up and not make any progress. 

I will talk about this in a bit but I would HIGHLY recommend you start using a tool like trello to store your links and keep them organized. 

Think about the problems you solve with your content and find products that have helped you around that area.

If you are struggling stop and think about what you help people with and the categories those fall into. 

My top three are farm business, time and task management, and small farm animal care.

I am not going to go into all of the tools I recommend but here are two good examples.

My utility cart. – Every persona should have one of these. They are the best for getting a ton of stuff from one place to another. If you show small livestock this is also great for transporting them into the building.

Garden Carts Yard Dump Wagon Cart Lawn Utility Cart w/ 600-pound – Check it out on amazon.

My FAVORITE chore coat. – This thing is so warm and it will not get ruined if caught on something like rabbit cage wire!!! I can not tell you how many coats I have damaged getting them caught on wire – Check it out at Tractor Supply

Think About Your Audience

When you start getting into the weeds of affiliate networks, digital products vs physical products, and all of the other nuances of the affiliate marketing industry think about the ideal person you are wanting to help. 

Who are they and what do they tend to spend their money on? How do they like to learn about a product? What do they really care about in life and what could they do without? 

This will help you choose the right products and the right price range. I have spent over a thousand dollars on courses to help me learn more about business and marketing more than once. But does that mean my readers will do that? Probably not.

I could try to recommend these higher-priced courses but if my readers won’t buy them I will lose trust and very likely my readers as well. 

That goes for the home products you recommend or the farm tools you recommend to your customers. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if you would have bought that when you were at their level.

Start Out Organized

Use a tool like trello to keep all of the products you recommend organized and stored with your affiliate links. This will help you stay focused on what to offer to your audience and where you could look for other products to fill the gap in areas you don’t have products.

You can access trello on your phone and on a desktop so this will be handy when you are on the go and sharing social content. But you can also grab the links when you are on a desktop.

screenshot of using trello to stay organized with affiliate links

How To Find Affiliate Programs

This can feel a little overwhelming but it is doable if you just take a breath and do a little detective research. 

The simplest way to start is to use a  search engine and type in (the product you are looking for + affiliate program) and see what comes up. Most times they will take you to the page you need to find all the details about joining the affiliate program.

Affiliate Networks

There are businesses that have multiple affiliate programs within their network and you can get their affiliate links through one tool. Keep reading and you will see what I mean.

Reward Style

If you want to recommend things from places like Walmart or target then I would highly recommend getting into this affiliate network if you can. You do need a decent following so don’t feel bad if you apply and don’t get in the first time or two.

But they make it so easy to be able to recommend lots of different products.

Once you have the chrome extension on your browser you just go to the product page on the seller’s website, click the link ninja tab on your browser and it will create a link for you right then and there. 

They even have places like home depot that are great for farming and homesteading business owners to recommend products.

psssttt…. You can get recommended by people already in the program and this can help you get approved. So if you have 8k followers or site traffic on one platform AND you publish consistent content you might be able to get in.

If you would like an invite into the program then email me at [email protected] and I will look at your accounts to see if you would be a good fit and submit you for consideration into reward style.

Share-a-sale

These types of websites can feel a little overwhelming but if you are already recommending products why not use a link and possibly get an affiliate common for it?

You can get all sorts of affiliate assets (advertising material) for the products you recommend. T

There are thousands of merchants on there. Just type in a few names and see what you can find. You might be tempted to sign up for all of the programs that you “might ” recommend but if you have never heard of them before then don’t waste your time. Remember what I said about recommending products you know? Don’t break the trust of your followers by recommending a product that doesn’t make sense for your followers and readers.

The account is free to create so make sure to try it out HERE.

  • PepperJam / Ascend – If you are a homestead blogger and you want to recommend products from tractor supply and other farm stores this is the place to sign up.
  • Impact – This is another common host for affiliate programs.
  • CJ Affiliate
  • Commission Junction

Amazon Associates

Another great program that you probably hear about is Amazon affiliates where you can earn a percentage of someone’s purchase. You find a product you want to link to and grab the affiliate products link in the bar that goals across your screen when you are on a desktop.

You are allowed to add links to your social accounts as well as put links and ads on your website.

However, you can not send an affiliate from amazon to your email list. HOWEVER, according to rewardStyle and Like To Know It you can send products linked to amazing using their tool.

Warning. You do have to get a there purchase within (I believe 180 days) at the time of writing this. So make sure you have at least 50 site visits per day to posts that have affiliate links in them. If you don’t get those sales in that time period they will not approve you after the trial period.

If you don’t get approved you can reapply so don’t stress too much.

Ultimate Bundles

Is another awesome affiliate marketing program that you can sign up for. If you do not have your own products to sell to your audience yet they are a great way to get your audience accustomed to you selling digital products.

They have a lot of different bundles of educational resources about different things. Things like starting a business, money management, time management and productivity, homemaking and more. 

If you want to sign up to learn more you can do so here.

Tools & Courses You Use

Another great way to earn money with affiliate marketing is to promote tools you use that have a referral program where you get a month free if you refer someone or some might even give a payout.

Tools like my email service provider Convert Kit or the social media scheduler I use Plann both have referral programs or affiliate programs that give you money off your next renewal if someone signs up through your link.

So make sure you check the tools and courses you use to see if they have that option.

Affiliate Disclosers

One last important detail to remember is that you have to by law say that your post, social post, or email has affiliate links in the U.S. I have text in trello saved so I can grab it when I need to. But I also use a plug-in called ad inserter to add the text to the top of every post. That way I don’t have to worry if I forget to grab the copy and its one less step I have to do.

The affiliate disclaimer goes like this.

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase an item through my links I may get a small percentage back at no extra cost to you. This helps pay for the upkeep of the site and enables me to keep bringing you amazing content.

It has to be on the page content where people can see it but before the affiliate link shows up in your post.

You are more than welcome to take that copy above and use it in your posts. If you are not in the U.S. which I know some of you are not check the rules and regs of your location in this area.

Some think saying “this is my affiliate link” will turn people away but for me, if I know someone is an affiliate for something I often go find their link if I can and buy it through them if I don’t have a better offer through someone else because if they can get a little $$$ why not?

Your Affiliate Dashboard

Every program you sign up for should have some kind of affiliate dashboard where you can see if you have gotten any clicks or sales. They aren’t all supper detailed but there should be something. 

As far as conversion rates don’t be too upset if your conversion is low.

The average click-through rate is only 2% and you have to get those to still convert. Whatever your conversion rate is just try to get it a little bit better and a little bit better.

What Commission Rate To Expect

Amazon’s commission rate is really low. At most, you will find something that you can get 8% on but most things are 2-3%. 

Reward style is a great place to be in because they have a lot of different stores to recommend products from that have up to 20% which is awesome for physical products. Even stores like Walmart.

But if you are selling products from other creators they will often give you on average a 40% commission rate which is the best you are going to find.

Creating Affiliate Marketing Content

If you’re a homesteader selling livestock you don’t want to completely shift the type of content you produce. But you should try to see where you could create content that would help your potential customers learn more about the thing you sell.

So for me, I create a lot of rabbit care content because I raise and sell rabbits. So I want my potential customers to be well-educated before they buy. But creating long-form content that you own on your own website can also be helpful in answering questions you get often.

So if someone asks a care question about an animal you raise you can send them to that post and then have your favorite products linked in that post.

Do you see how affiliate income can be a great addition to your farm business?

How Often Should You Recommend Affiliate Products

There are always going to be different affiliate offers out there so I could highly recommend you choose at minimum one product a month to send to your email list and share on social and send to your email list using email marketing tactics.

Even twice a month would be a good idea I think. It doesn’t have to be a huge launch. Just a simple mention in an email, social post, or a three-story clip on IG.

Take it one step at a time when you are starting to make money with affiliate marketing. It takes time to get good at anything in business so be patent with yourself and just practice. 

The Biggest Mistake 

When you are new to the online space and trying to make money online it can be tempting to try to sell one thing and move on to the next thing if that first one doesn’t work. 

The problem with that is you don’t get good at selling. You have to try something and see what got you results and what didn’t.

Change one thing. And run the sale again. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell your own digital products or increase your affiliate revenue. Sales is the same. It takes time and people seeing the product recommendation a lot for it to work. 

As you look for products to share in affiliate networks to increase your affiliate revenue think about that product as your own. 

Ask yourself these questions.

  • Do I love it enough to get excited about it when I talk about how awesome it is?
  • If my mom or grandmother was into my niche would I tell her about this product?
  • Is it within the price range they would likely pay for?
  • Does it solve a problem my readers have?

If the answer is yes to all of those things then you should test it out and see how your audience responds to it. You can make a decent income with affiliate marketing you simply have to build trust with your audience and grow your platform. 

Recommend products early and often in your affiliate marketing journey. 

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