Skimlinks is a major player in the field of affiliate marketing networks and well worth looking into for monetizing your commerce blog content.
A Brief Introduction to Affiliate Networks
One of the best ways to find affiliate programs and offers to partner with is through an affiliate network. An affiliate network acts as a bridge between companies and their affiliates. Advertisers and affiliates both have something to gain from the platform. The merchants with products and services to advertise can create offers while affiliates (content publishers) can look for relevant ones to promote. It's an amazing tool that simplifies the process of connecting with each other. Once accepted into the network, advertisers can add their offers so can publishers have instant access to a huge range of affiliate programs and promotional material. So the networks act like a middleman between publishers and advertisers, managing their connections.
Bloggers and content creators (usually called Publishers) that want to monetize and earn commissions offered by the merchants (called Advertisers) can apply to be accepted onto any program they wish to endorse. Once you've been approved as an affiliate partner with the advertiser, you can select from a range of promotional texts and creatives to use on social media, emails or websites.
When you join the network, you'll get a publisher ID that's unique to you. This helps the network keep track of how much sales each program makes through affiliate marketing. The publisher takes care of spreading the affiliate links across promotional material. When customers click these links, they'll be taken to the advertiser's website where they can complete their purchase. To keep track of who gets the credit for a sale, affiliate networks use an ID. Both advertisers & publishers can log into their dashboard at any time to keep an eye on how their program is doing within the network.
Affiliate networks provide a helping hand to both advertisers and publishers, guiding them in building and sustaining partnerships. This advice allows them to develop their program while improving it at the same time.
The Skimlinks Affiliate Network
Who is Skimlinks?
Monetizing your site with affiliate links is the number one way to create a blog that actually generates revenue. But there are hundreds of affiliate networks and tens of thousands of offers to sift through to find programs that are a good fit for your blog and it’s content.
One such network is Skimlinks. And it is a major player in this field well worth looking into.
Skimlinks is part of the Taboola company - a major force in paid media ads. Thiose are those thumbnail sized ads you see on newsites and all over the page at Weather.com.
Skimlinks is Taboola’s affiliate network for bloggers and other content creators - so they are well-connected with the online advertsing universe. Skimlinks is basically a platform that brings together other ecommerce affiliate programs under one roof, which is super convenient. It’s why they can boast of giving you access to almost 50,000 affiliate programs.
What Skimlinks Does
Skimlinks enables bloggers and content publishers to automatically monetize their sites with product links for content that is commerce-related.
Some 60,000 bloggers utilize this platform and many of them are very big players in the publishing world, such as the Daily Mail, Hearst publishing and more.
The merchants they represent through their networks are also big names, (Nike, Wayfair, Anthropologie, Adobe, etc.)
Skimlinks is free to join and easy to set up, but approval is not guaranteed. They only approve publishers with good quality commerce content.
What Do They Mean by "Good Quality Commerce Content"?
So what is good quality commerce content? According to Skimlinks, they suggest the following:
First, make sure you have a solid understanding of who your audience is. This helps you develop content that will better engage your audience.
Create articles and content that offer your readers product reviews, top 10 and listicles, buying and gift guides. Box opening videos would probably work great as an addition to this kind of content.
Once you are signed up and approved by Skimlinks, and have content that is appropriate in your commerce niche, you can earn commissions from their many well-known, bigger name and trusted brands.
They also have a lot of great resources and help for growing your revenue.
What About the Money?
The Commission Rates vary wildly because they are dependent on the merchant, but Skimlinks claims they negotiate the best rates for their members. Commissions can range from 1% up to 80% or more. If you become what Skimlinks calls a “Preferred Partner”, you can qualify for a commission rate increase of at least 50% more.
However, there is more to a commission rate than just a percentage. Skimlinks makes their money when you do, so they work on a revenue share model. They split commission with you 75/25 – which means you as a publisher gets paid 75% of the commissions earned. For example, if you are linking to an offer that pays a 25% commission for a sale worth $100.00, you will split the 25.00 commission with Skimlinks. You’d earn $18.75 of that $25.00 and Skimlinks would keep the remaining $6.25. Of course, Skimlinks’ system handles all this math and manages payments to you automatically.
For more details about partnering with Skimlinks, visit their page called Getting Started guide for Publishers.
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