How to Use Affiliate Marketing On Instagram

Hey affiliates! Are you wondering how to share your affiliate links on instagram? I've been researching the possibilities over the last few weeks and this is what I've discovered so far. These tips below are available to use once you have been enrolled in an affiliate marketing program (i.e. ShareASale, Clickbank, Impact, etc) that allow you to create customized affiliate links to products and track your commissions. I currently use ShareaSale and have been doing well with the strategies below.

Instagram Stories

Instagram stories is the most direct way to add your affiliate links to instagram. By direct I mean you can upload a picture or video of your product along with a clickable hyperlink to the item. See the example from my instagram account. I have a photo of me wearing the product that contains the link along with a disclaimer that it is an affiliate link (current FTC regulation). To add a link to an instagram story, click on the sticker icon when creating your story and then select the 'link' button. It will allow you to enter the URL and any customized label for the link. I would say the majority of my sales come from instagram stories. The users can see exactly what I'm promoting and can get to the product immediately without having to navigate to my profile link or type in a URL manually.

Success Tip: Stories only last for 24 hours however I have found adding these stories to my highlights has been extremely helpful in promoting the product for as long as I wish. I have a highlight on my profile titled 'T-Shirts' and when anyone clicks on it they will see all my archived stories related to my affiliate-linked shirts.

Instagram Posts and Reels

Posts and reels are another way to promote your products. This way is a bit more indirect than stories because instagram does not allow hyperlinks on posts or reels. However, they are still a great way to showcase your product. In fact, unlike instagram stories, reels can reach non-followers and tend to generate a lot more views. My photo posts also tend to have more views because they show on my followers feed for more than 24 hours (unlike stories). To point viewers to the link you would need to have it listed on your profile page. You can then simply say something like 'see link in bio' or 'link available on profile'. Instagram only allows you to have one hyperlink/website on your profile though. If you want to have more than one you would have to use linktr.ee or another linkshare hosting site to get around this. I have my linktr.ee URL in my profile and when viewers click on it they will see a list of all my other links (social media and affiliate-related links).

Instagram Profile

As mentioned above users can also get to your affiliate links from your instagram profile. By you making any type of instagram post or comment, a user may be interested in clicking on your profile to learn more about you. Having a link to your product(s) on your profile can be a huge asset and is one of the top referrers for all of my sales.

Summary

Instagram is a very lucrative way to share your affiliate links to your viewers. If you are already enrolled in an affiliate program, try using some of these techniques on your instagram account. If you are not enrolled in an affiliate program, I highly recommend ShareaSale simply because so many of my favorite products have a partnership with them. They have a long list of merchants to choose from. Yes, I also earn a small commission if you sign up with the link above however I wouldn't be promoting it or enrolled in it if I wasn't already having much success with it!

If you have found other cool ways to use instagram for affiliate marketing please leave them in the comments. I would love to hear from you!