Youtube And Affiliate Marketing – How To Get Traffic With Sean Cannell

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Boost Your Affiliate Traffic Free With Youtube Videos – With Sean Cannell Affiliate Marketing Tips

Hey guys, its Marcus here and today we have Sean Cannell from YouTube secrets. What we are going to do today is to talk to you about how he grew a YouTube channel from scratch. I really like a lot of his stuff. One of them, in particular, was a milestone with Amazon where he was doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year, which we know as an affiliate marketer, takes a lot of traffic.

Sean knows how to drive traffic and YouTube is the platform that he likes to use. He has a book he’s going to share with us, which is called “YouTube Secrets”. The book goes through all kinds of stuff on how to start on YouTube, how to find the right keyword, and even how to monetize, which is great. So, let’s get started with the interview section with Sean.

Marcus: What Was Your Journey Like, When Did You Start?

I got into YouTube during the hardest season of my life. I actually got into video back in 2003 when I was with my local church and that was where I learned video production. The first Youtube channel I managed was back in 2007. I didn’t know anything about titles, thumbnails or even YouTube channels.

Then, in 2010, I started my own YouTube channel, when I was coming out of the hardest season of my life. The recession just happened: my wife and I were losing homes and the properties we invested in. She had a chronic illness that almost took her life. We spent lots of time in the hospital where we had to lose jobs and money. I found myself in a place where I’m like, “I need something that needs to work”. I want to figure out how to create passive income, work on my own term. I want to work from home and be able to be with my wife. I need to figure out this online stuff.”

So, I started with YouTube. Then I start to learn about YouTube, ranking videos (SEO) and affiliate marketing. All I really knew about, that time was Amazon. I started posting videos, and the first video that took off is called, “Gift ideas for him”.

I got this idea when I thought to myself that many people are going to YouTube and it is the second largest search engine in the world. And these people (they got men in their lives) are typing in “gift ideas for him”.

One of the things that I learned is that if you put your content in front of somebody that is in a buying mindset, even if they don’t buy, you are still getting credit for what they are doing. It reminds me of a time when I got $1500 gold coin: I didn’t even know Amazon sold gold coins, I didn’t even recommend gold coin, but the commission was around $187, while I was sleeping.

At first, I didn’t know how to master it, and then I thought, “if I just do this over and over again and I get a lot of content out there, that would be great”. And, eventually I narrow down to my tech channel. Tech is a little bit more expensive and more competitive. And because of ranking videos and building up YouTube channels, I also thought about creating multiple streams.

I was getting YouTube ads and more traffic and it was great. Now we do digital courses and other things.

So, this is just actually one piece of our overall business and it became very lucrative. Now, we are getting about 150,000 clicks on our Amazon links every month.

Marcus: Wow, That’s A Lot Of Traffic. Now, How Many Views Do You Need To Drive To Do That?

The channel drives about 1.2 million views in a month.

Marcus: I’m about 7% click-through rate, which means if I make a video and get about $100,000 views: that would be 7,000 clicks. If I have an opt-in, I’m going to get about half of them to opt in. Knowing those numbers is important because it helps to make decisions.

I remember when I had a font site: in my mind, I thought fonts are free. I’m making $1 per download on the fonts. Then one day, a guy bought $600 worth of fonts (which is like a $200 commission)

Marcus: What Is Your Why ? Were you direct linking (Direct linking is sending people directly from your traffic source to an affiliate link)?

Early on, I use the Amazon wishlist as a way to summarize the whole video of “gift ideas for him”. Now, I use sites like kit.com, which allows you to go international with one Amazon link so I get checks from around the world.

Start With Something You Use And Love

One of the things that I have learned is that one of the ways to do affiliate marketing is by using lifestyle integration. So, I tell stories about how I got the product and how I use and love the product.

Marcus: What Would You Say Are The Tips Of Success For Someone Who Wants To Get Started, Maybe They Want To Be On Camera Or They Don’t?

 There Is A Guy On Youtube Who Has Got 150 Million Views And 150,000 Subscribers And Its All Robot Voice. This Guy Is Out There Doing It And Making It Happen. So, Where Would You Say For Someone To Start?

Make A Good Product Review With Products You Actually Try Or Use

You can go broad or do some kind of product review channel. That’s the most direct way to do it. The reason I say that is because you want to think about the intent of the viewer. For example, if someone is typing in, “what is the best vegan protein powder”, they are looking to save the time, money and energy and get the right direction.

To go a lot deeper than that, if you have a particular niche, it can help not just to tactically put videos to make money on affiliate marketing, but to also help you build a brand. For example, if it’s the health and fitness program, you can talk about all kinds of supplements, workout equipment and give advice. People will see you as a go-to source for helping them.

For my tech channel, I do the same. If you want a legacy and want to be known for something, then brand yourself. But still, even if you are not on Camera…you can build a loyal following.

I have actually thought that someone should do a luxury watch review channel because it is so high ticket that even on Amazon, a lot of luxury watches are 3-8 thousand dollars, and there are lots of search for them.

You can just get your hands on them and show them off ( even if you are not on camera). The intent of the audience that is researching those is that they probably want to make a purchase decision based on luxury watches. So, a luxury watch channel could build up an audience of people who love watches.

Marcus Tip: Start Narrow Then Go Broad

I’m a fan of what people started with. I look at it a bit different by teaching people to go into a specific and build on the specific. You can get the book at videohacks.com/book.

The great thing about “YouTube Secrets” is that it starts out with the 7 seeds of YouTube success. It helps you to understand the concepts of competition. You are not going to try to climb Mount Everest or navigate across Europe without a roadmap. That’s the idea of the 7 seeds of YouTube success, it’s a blueprint.

It really helps anybody, whether from beginner or advanced. It helps you master the foundation because that’s what you are going to build on. One of the big mistakes I’ve seen people make is focusing on tons of tactics, learning a lot of different tactics but not having the right strategy. And the strategy is the foundation in which tactics are built upon. Tactics without a strategy can lead to failure.

The second part of the book is on building on the 7 seeds. Things like leveraging Trans and timing. For example, during the Christmas season, I’ve learned that as an affiliate marketer (especially to Amazon), my income, often times, triples without me doing any extra work. Why? Because I have got all the clicks at the right time of the year when people are spending a lot of money. I also noticed that a lot of videos that I put out are very strategic based on black Friday or any holiday.

I think that even if you don’t want to be a YouTuber, you should be paying attention to how YouTube could be the main source of revenue and a way to do affiliate marketing or just a support platform for your overall online marketing plan and strategy.

Marcus: Go get the “YouTube Secrets” over at videohacks.com/book. It’s a quick read and you can get all the information that you need. Thanks for reading.