Instagram is a gold mine for business entrepreneurs, brands, and, even more so, affiliate marketing.

However, don’t get things mixed up here – because it is a gold mine does not mean every affiliate marketer can effectively exploit it for bigger profits.

So that you know:

• Instagram houses close to 3 billion active users already.
• This meta-owned app earned almost $25 billion in 2021, a testament to how many social marketers utilize it for their brands.
• About 130 million people carry out online shopping through Instagram.

All these stats show that you need more than just a product label and an affiliate link to kickstart your affiliate marketing business on Instagram effectively.

In fact, if all you do is dump product images and a little caption every day for your enthusiastic followers, you are likely to see little to no encouraging results.

That’s why we compiled five proven and easy-to-implement tips to help you scale up and double, no, triple your profits within the shortest time possible.

1.   Niche Down, Don’t Be Everywhere

To become a profitable affiliate marketer, you must streamline your efforts and build yourself as an authority in a single product niche.

If your Instagram followers do not see you as an authority, then there’s no need to talk about successfully selling anything to them.

It’s straightforward logic. People want to be sure you know what you are saying or promoting.

They want to see you talk about how your affiliate products can address their pain points on a personal level.

Try these steps when niching down:

• Promote what you use often. This is relatively easy because you know the ins and outs of the product through practical and non-promotional experiences. For example, skincare products will make a good deal if you’re a fan of facial scrubs and other body care items. That leads you to the beauty category. From there, you can choose any beauty brand with available high-yield affiliate offers and set up your account with them.

• Go for products with a larger audience size and popularity. In contrast to the first step, you don’t necessarily need to go for the products you’ve used before. Do a brief market research and create a list of popular products in the past year or six months. Afterwards, sift out the top-ranking products that have more searches on Google trends. You can also use a social listening tool to know what people are looking for on Instagram – particularly products and other relevant info.

2.   Focus On Building Quality Fan base

Becoming a successful affiliate marketer on Instagram requires more than just promotional and influencing strategies.

You need real-time followers who are enthusiastic about your daily stories and reels.

You can’t build a speakable fanbase by buying Insta followers or through other cheat means.

These methods only increase your follower count but can’t give you a loyal community.

So instead of growing your follower count, you should design an effective and non-promotional method to engage with the existing ones.

Let’s say you have 10,000 followers – your goal is to ensure that one-third of these people always engage with your updates.

Try these actionable practices:

• Switch to the Instagram creator’s account. This gives you access to more tools for effective content production.
• Consistently upload quality content, product related or not. You can center it around your daily activities or useful trends.
• Respond to comments as fast and friendly as possible.
• Do occasional shoutouts to your loyal followers. You can launch a giveaway program too.

3.   Prioritize Video Marketing

It is a widespread fact that videos garner more interest than walls of text and even images.

About 78% of marketers reported more sales when video marketing was implemented.

According to Invideo, video posts on Instagram are more likely to generate more engagements than image posts.

Suppose you are marketing skincare products for a beauty brand; you can do a short video story featuring your fast-forwarded step-by-step application.

Or you can clip out a 60-second reel showing the pre and pro-transformation of your face after a skincare routine.

Likewise, affiliate marketers can drive more interactions with a broader audience by properly utilizing one-minute short video shots.

Things to note include the following:

• 60 to 80-second video is more than enough to capture your audience’s interests. Make your videos very short.
• Use clean backgrounds and a quality camera when shooting your clips.
• Tag the products used in your video with their respective links so that viewers can check them out.
• Label tagged products as a paid internship

4.   Add Affiliate Links and Promo Codes to Strategic Places

As an affiliate marketer, your affiliate link is the most critical asset.

Without a link to click, your followers and other Insta users can’t access whatever product you promote.

At the same time, you need to ensure your link is not broken or redirected to another source.

To maximize your sales, add your affiliate link (s) as CTA to each related post and place it in the bio section – most Insta followers check out this section of your account.

Some affiliate companies assign their marketers a promo code.

You can insert the code next to your affiliate link and seamlessly mention it in your reels.

5.   Track Your Insights and Affiliate Performance

Instagram creator account gives access to performance tracking tools which you can use to measure in-depth data on daily follows and unfollows, post reach, engagement, and impressions.

Performance tracking is behind-the-scenes and will not affect your usual activities.

But with these insights, you can map out new marketing strategies and know which type of content works best.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing on Instagram is not rocket science.

Once you find a suitable niche, you can start building your fan base as an influencer or an individual marketer.

Afterwards, introduce video marketing for more engagements.

Don’t forget to add affiliate links in essential places, such as the bio section and inside each related post.

And lastly, you should track your daily or weekly performance with the creator tools.

This ensures you’re on track to producing optimized content that drives more conversions.