BlackFriday & CyberMonday Affiliate Marketing Guide

Every year there is so much hype around November. Any clue why? Well, it is the biggest online spending/earning season of the year. In this guide, I will show you how to generate affiliate marketing income on BlackFriday and CyberMonday.

Black Friday represents both an enormous opportunity and an enormous challenge for sellers and affiliates. It is a wonderful opportunity for you to test your skills and to make some nice money, even if you are a rookie or an affiliate marketing veteran.

The sales potential is massive, but you need to implement a comprehensive website and marketing strategy for it to be fully maximized. Remember not to emphasize Black Friday as there is still a huge opportunity to generate sales on Cyber Monday.

There aren’t many days left, and there is plenty of work to do, so let’s not lose any more time.

1. Standout from the crowd

Let’s not kid ourselves. You’ll be fighting for attention on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Many exclamation points, boldface type, and stark designs contribute to the idea that Black Friday is an exciting, exclusive, and intriguing time that only happens once a year.

No matter which kind of content you plan to publish on your website, you need to make sure it is entirely a killer that helps pull in the ratings and retain curiosity from your audience.

How do you do that?

2. Effective ways to generate sales

Here are several marketing channels you should use in your Black Friday marketing strategy.

2.1 Write Blog posts and reviews

In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, content is critical. Almost every blogger offers the same deals on their blogs, and if you want to make more sales during Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you need to give away something extra to your website visitors.

Instead of overfilling your content with affiliate links, try investing some time in creative articles or blog posts to capture the attention of your audience, which leads to lots of potential shares and comments.

TIP: Visitors love to hear first-hand experiences and will trust your opinion.

Talk about why anyone should start a blog or to start an affiliate marketing blog and this can be a great way to supplement their income or share their ideas with the world. You can also mention how this is a great time of year to purchase hosting and blogging tools as sales are typically most aggressive during this time. Mention why your product or the product you are recommending help you. Explain the advantages and outline the disadvantages. 

Your readers need ideas right now – and you’re the trusted expert. This is why your blog post not only has to announce the availability of the deal itself but to convince your audience why they should take advantage of it. Writing a review on your blog is a great way to encourage people to sign up using your affiliate links.

Make sure to maximize your page titles and post titles to be relevant to what people are searching for. Your “on-page content” is also essential to get the organic search rankings for the exact search phrase or related searches.

By including the good, original, thorough content on all your pages about Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal info, you can maximize the number of search results that each page of your site can get from Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

2.2 Emails (my favorite)

Black Friday is a HUGE weekend in email marketing. No secret there. The purpose of sending emails on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to announce the deals’ launch and create a sense of urgency because the sales will be limited-time offers.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, email remains an efficient method for exceptional results. Think of email lists as owned communities and consider packaging your affiliate link into helpful information. Also, don’t forget to write a Call-to-action (CTA) title.

Because emails are so critical and deliver huge ROI, prepare your emails well in advance. Time your emails appropriately, as noted above. A day is recommended multiple times but at the very least a few hours before 3 pm ET’s peak times on Black Friday and 10 pm ET on Cyber Monday. And, if you’re only going to send out one email, use a structure that highlights all of your available Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals.

TIP: There are many email sending tools that are easy to use and very cheap, including iContact, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, and MailChimp (which is free for up to 2000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month). Before sending, make sure your messages are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act.

SAMPLE SUBJECT LINES

You’ll also want to be conscious of your subject lines while fighting for inbox attention. Use catchy headlines by including the special offers for our products, and your sales will skyrocket.

TIP: To beat the competition in the inbox on and around Black Friday, your subject line must be engaging. You made this happen! The Wait is Over! Don’t Panic. Finally!

2.3 Social Media Posts

Recognize the social media channels that work best for you, and make sure to promote your links and content in all of your posts.

Harness the power of your followers on social media! Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn…these are all amazing platforms where you can drive people to click on your affiliate links. Keep it varied and frequent. Don’t worry about posting too much because you never know which deal will resonate with your fan base.

We recommend several posts per day through your fan page and other social networks. Hashtags are necessary for posts to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Use them wisely. 2-3 hashtags is a good number to increase your Facebook and Twitter posts’ number of views. Our recommendation is to use a maximum of 9 on Instagram to receive the most engagement.

2.3.1 Facebook Marketing

If you own a fan page or a business profile, you’ll put your links there first. Another best thing is Facebook groups. This can be tricky or considered spam, but try to squeeze some links in a few popular and targeted Facebook groups.

2.3.2 Twitter Marketing

Remember that any single tweet’s lifespan is approximately 10 minutes, which means you can share reasonably frequently on this platform.

Hashtags like #BlackFriday2020 and #CyberMonday2020 will be oversaturated, true, but that means you need to be more active, tweet more often, and follow more people. Consider adding #deals #holidayssavings

2.3.3 Linkedin

Posting a LinkedIn update or even a post on it can bring quite a few eyes to your offer. Not many people share their links out there, so there might be a chance of your link getting good views and clicks

2.4 Between the lines

Do you already have a personal business and often promote products to a specific audience? If so, use your position to promote your new affiliate link. Write diverse sentences and include your links seamlessly while underlining the service usability and the many ways it helped you.

It never hurts to ask people to share your content. Encourage your social friends to Like, Comment, Share, and Retweet your posts on Facebook and Twitter by asking for them.

By interacting socially with friends on Facebook and Twitter, they will do the same for you. It will help your content go viral to their friends, thereby increasing traffic to your affiliate offers and promotions.

2.5 Podcasts

Whether you are experienced in podcasting, consider this approach for sales generation since it’s trendy nowadays.

By using this method, you will keep the interest of your followers alive in one more way (while in the car), in addition to the already established ones—computer, phone, tablet.

2.6 Video content

In the video streaming era that we live in, everyone wants to save as much time as possible while also get a real feel about the products they are interested in.

Customers today prefer watching a two-minute video instead of reading a two-page long article. Videos are a great medium to keep your audience engaged and increase conversions. A video presentation does not need to be complicated or exceptional.

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. You can leverage YouTube to generate Black Friday/Cyber Monday affiliate sales. Create an on-camera video, post it on your social profiles, and increase your reach. Improve your viewers to click on your links that can be mentioned in your video description. Make sure to properly optimize your video titles, meta description, and tags for specific keywords.

Consider focusing on making your signature content and making a real connection through communication about the product or service. Top your Affiliate marketing game with video content on Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook Live, IGTV, or why not even Twitch.tv

2.7 Ads

Invest in ads smart if you want to sell more. Make sure to create personalized messages for your specific audience. Test various options for ads and monitor your results. Of course, always include complimentary info for all the participants while testing.

Adding banners to your website is a great way to build awareness and excitement for the upcoming holiday sale. To help you plan and inform your website, visitors about our great hosting deals, we have prepared an assortment of holiday banners and badges for use on your site so you can promote the products you recommend. These banners are optimized to convert and are easy to put in place, automatically associated with your affiliate ID.

2.8 Exchange promotions with other sellers or bloggers

In the prior years of BlackFriday, there are already many bloggers and sellers that put together pages with BlackFriday and CyberMonday deals. Let me show you some:

• Monetize.info Black Friday 2020 Deals List
• Fat Frog Media’s Black Friday Deals for Marketers & Bloggers 2020
• Magnet4Bloggin’s best Black Friday And Cyber Monday Blogging Deals For 2020
• TemplateMonster’s BlackFriday deals [Seller]

You are a seller? Then search for bloggers that do black Friday deals roundups and invite them to post your deal. If you have an affiliate program, then you’ll get better success as they are incentivized to do it.

If you’re a blogger, you can ask them to do cross-promotion. This works best if you don’t share the same deals.

Use a blogging outreach tool like Outreach.buzz to find bloggers that write about your niche or industry or do a Google search for keywords like “Black Friday deals for bloggers/entrepreneurs/moms/freelancers/etc.”

2.8. Don’t forget SEO

Make sure that your site is up to date on SEO matters. SEO is important because it can help enhance your visibility and page ranking on Google.

A couple of simple things you can check your website for are title tags, meta descriptions, 404 pages, and URLs. Also, use keyword savvy text on your on-site content. Remember that SEO is a long-term and ongoing process, so the earlier you start, the better!

TIP: Be sure to check how to format your posts from start to finish to maximize your blog for SEO, exposure, and optimal click-through rates.

3. Customize the deals to your audience

Affiliate advertisements for generic deals won’t work. They are overdone. Show your audience balanced, honest short write-ups that are tailored carefully to them. Tell them why you love the deal, not just that the sale exists.

We’ve listed some of the most common target groups that come to our mind to help you communicate your message more intimately and address specific customer’s needs. Have a mixed audience? Mix and match and make the most of it!

3.1 Target local audiences

Focus on tailoring content curated towards your local language/community to create a more relevant, targeted, personalized experience.

TIP: Translating your site into multiple languages can boost income overnight. Being more localized and specific, your website won’t have any direct competition since most sites focus on a global audience.

3.2 Create content for early shoppers

Planning the details of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales is essential for every online business. But that’s only the first step.

According to Deloitte’s annual holiday economic forecast, 88% of shoppers will be influenced by product and service reviews as much as personal recommendations’ during the holiday shopping season. More than 55% of shoppers will make their holiday purchases online, and a quarter of those will be done during the Black Friday weekend.

Do not miss the momentum.

Guide the audience that trusts you to make a shopping decision that they will benefit from. You do not need to wait until Black Friday to do it. Craft your content well before the shopping rush time and highlight all the benefits that your readers will get if they trust your advice and

TIP: According to a 2018 survey by RetailMeNot, a staggering 60% of consumers plan to start shopping for holiday gifts before Black Friday.

3.3 How to communicate the deal?

Now that you know what to highlight depending on your audience, you can follow different marketing pieces to promote the deal on your website, in your social media channels, and to your email subscribers to maximize your earnings.

4. Planning: do it now

Timing can make or break even the most creative blog post, enticing email, targeted advertisement, or fantastic deal. On Black Friday, order traffic steadily increases until hitting the hottest hour, 12:00 PM Eastern Time peak, but the entire afternoon is strong.

Again, if you think about it, it makes sense. This is the time of day that those millions of in-store deal hounds have arrived home and are finishing the last of their lunch. Plan your campaigns all day, but be sure to focus particularly a few hours before 3 PM and after 3 pm ET.

OUR RUNNER-UP FOR THE HIGHEST VOLUME DAY IS CYBER MONDAY. DURING CYBER MONDAY, SHOPPERS USUALLY TAKE A MID-EVENING BREAK BEFORE PEAKING AROUND 10:00 – 11:00 PM EASTERN TIME

Starting at 8 pm to Midnight is all considerably higher than midday. This is the time of day when everyone is home from work and probably done with dinner across the United States. Once settled down for the day, it’s time to shop.

The entire day matters – don’t stop promoting at the end of your day. Power through the evening to make a big push between 10 pm and 11 pm Eastern Time. While you’ll want to promote throughout the day, make sure to specifically time an email and a few social media posts about two hours before this most popular time of day.

Conclusion

The sales potential of BlackFriday and CyberMonday is massive, but for it to be fully maximized, you need as a blogger to implement a comprehensive website and marketing strategy.  Check our monetization guide for bloggers to see how you can make a better income with your blog.