How To Use Google Ads For Affiliate Marketing (2024)

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Affiliate marketing refers to a company that partners with an external third party to drive traffic to its website. Affiliates typically receive a commission for every sale generated through their efforts, tracked through a unique or embedded affiliate link. An affiliate network often facilitates the process, acting as the middleman between the affiliate and the merchant.

Affiliate marketing has become a popular way to make money online because it benefits both the business and the affiliate. In an affiliate program, companies can extend their reach to new customers without investing in maintaining their sales and marketing infrastructure. Affiliates also enjoy a commission on sales, providing a healthy revenue stream.

To be successful with affiliate marketing, you need to find quality products to promote, build a website that will generate traffic, and create compelling marketing materials to attract potential customers. You can use platforms like Google Ads for advertising, which I’ll describe in the next section.

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Google Ads (formerly known as Google Adwords) is a robust platform that displays paid ads on the Google search engine. Over 8.5 billion searches are conducted each day, making Google Ads a fantastic resource for advertisers looking to reach their target audience.

Using the site, advertisers can create Google Ads campaigns and choose exact match keywords for which they want their ad to appear. When a user searches for one of those keywords, the ad will appear on the Google search engine page, as shown below (for a search on “affiliate marketing”).

Google ads example

Google Ads is the largest ad network, which gives advertisers access to a massive audience. The campaigns have built-in targeting based on users’ interests, locations, and browser histories.

These ads work on a pay-per-click (PPC) system, meaning that advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad. Advertisers also have to bid on the keywords they select, meaning that the competition can be fierce for specific terms. However, you can adjust your budget to fit your needs, making the service accessible to most advertisers.

But how can you use Google Ads for affiliate marketing? The following section will detail the requirements you must follow to use the platform as an affiliate marketer.

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Google Ads can be used for affiliate marketing, though there are some restrictions. Affiliate marketers cannot use the paid search results of Google Ads to drive traffic directly to an affiliate product.

Instead, they must send people to a landing page where they can learn more about the product before clicking through to the affiliate website, such as a blog post or video review. Having a landing page helps ensure visitors get what they expect from your ad and aren't tricked into buying something they don’t want.

Affiliates are also not allowed to use “bridge pages,” where users are redirected to a page with no content that links them to the company the affiliate is marketing for. Therefore, you need to have a landing page with meaningful content to use Google Ads, which I’ll explain more in detail in the next section.

As with any advertising platform, thoroughly review the terms and conditions for Google Ads before beginning. If you feel confident that you understand the restrictions of using Google Ads for affiliate marketing, let’s dive into how to set up your account.

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When you’re promoting third-party products as an affiliate marketer, the quality of those services or products must be high. If people aren’t happy with what they’ve purchased, that reflects poorly on you and can lead to fewer sales in the future.

In general, you should try to avoid companies that offer products or services including the following:

• Illegal products or services.
• Products that are irrelevant to your niche audience or are misleading (get-rich-quick schemes or weight loss products).
• Low-quality products you haven’t tested yourself.

When deciding what products to promote, use your discretion and don’t partner with any company that seems to be selling low-quality items or misleading offers like “how to lose ten pounds in seven days” or “how to get rich in two weeks.”

What you advertise reflects directly on your reputation as an affiliate marketer, so be cautious when choosing what businesses to advertise for.

To create a Google Ads account, all you need is an email address and a website for your business (that you will use as the landing page). You’ll then choose between two Google Ads modes: smart mode and expert mode.

Smart Mode is ideal for beginners since it is more automated and walks you through the ad-building process step by step. You can create your first campaign in minutes but may have less access to advanced features.

On the other hand, expert mode is designed for more experienced advertisers. This option gives you more control over your campaigns and lets you customize them to get the best results. You have access to every kind of Google Ad campaign available and can better fine-tune your targeting.

Regardless of which option you choose, Google Ads is relatively easy to navigate and lets you set your budget, choose an advertising goal, and bid on relevant keywords to increase the chances of your target audience seeing your advertisem*nts.

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Before jumping into creating your first campaign, one of the most critical factors that the success of your ad depends on is the keywords you use. You have to bid on these terms, some of which are highly competitive. Therefore, you must ensure you’re spending money on the right keywords for your ad groups.

But how do you know which keywords are suitable for your advertisem*nt? One option is to use Google’s Keyword Planner. Open the keyword planner and enter a keyword or phrase related to your business to get started. The planner will then give you a list of related keywords and data on how often each keyword is searched for and how much potential traffic it could bring to your ads.

Create Your Ad

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Google Ads can be an extremely useful way to reach new customers and drive traffic to your website, but it’s essential to track the effectiveness of your Google Ads campaigns so you can make sure you’re getting the most out of your investment. There are a few key things you can do to measure the performance of your advertisem*nts.

You can use Google Ads’ built-in reporting tools and custom URLs to track how much money you spend on each campaign and which keywords generate the most clicks and conversions. This information can help you fine-tune your campaigns and focus on the most profitable keywords.

Google Analytics is another tool you can use to collect data and in-depth reports about user behavior. Google Analytics provides information about what users do after clicking on your ads, including conversion rates and returns on ad spending (ROAS).

There are quite a few benefits of using Google Ads as an affiliate. First, the ads are incredibly effective at reaching a large audience quickly and easily since Google is the largest search engine. The platform is also simple to use—with smart mode, the platform guides you through the process, and if you’re more experienced, you can take advantage of advanced tools with expert mode.

Google Ads also have targeting options to define your audience based on their interests, demographics, and past browsing behaviors. Using these targeting tools means that you can reach people who are likely to be interested in what you have to offer, which increases the chances that they will click through your ad and make a purchase.

Google Ads are also relatively cost-effective since you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, and you have the freedom to control your budget as you scale your business. The flexibility in pricing makes the service accessible even to novice affiliate marketers.

There are a few drawbacks to consider when using Google Ads as an affiliate marketer. If you spend a lot on advertisem*nts, it may be challenging to recoup those costs through sales commissions. There is no guarantee that even if users visit your landing page, they will go to the merchant’s website and make a purchase, so you’ll have to weigh this risk.

Additionally, competition for ad space on Google is fierce, so it can be challenging to get your ads seen by potential customers if you don’t choose the right keywords or have a lower budget. You’ll also have to dedicate a lot of time to building your landing page and tracking conversion rates for your advertisem*nts.