the affiliate marketing

comma
club
the proven way to 2x your income
using social media without having
a big following

gannon meyer
the affiliate marketing

comma
club
written by gannon meyer
 table of contents
Preface..................................................................................................4

Chapter One: Affiliate Marketing; a Breakdown.........................6

Chapter Two: Picking the Right Companies and Products.......8

Chapter Three: Videos, Videos, Videos......................................11

Chapter Four: Become a Master Video Writer.........................16

Chapter Five: Creating Clickable Thumbnails and Titles.........21

Chapter Six: Tools to Becoming a Master..................................26

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 preface
I'm a nobody. I don't have a massive social media following. I don't get paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote products. And I have very little
influence on the people I'm closest with - let alone some random people on the
internet. We're more alike than you may think.
But somehow I did it. I managed to start making more money per month on
the internet than my full-time, full-benefits, salary PLUS commission marketing
consulting job pays me. That's pretty fucking crazy, no?
Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was skill. Maybe it was a little bit of both? Either
way, I want to put together everything I did to make this work, so hopefully you
can go out and do the same.
Having a sustainable, passive income is an amazing fucking thing. I'm not rich
by any stretch of the word, and I'm not pretending to be. But the cool part
about being young and doubling your income in the span of 90 days is that you
really don't need to worry about living paycheck to paycheck.
You don't need to worry about any unexpected expenses, paying rent on
time, feeding your family, or deciding between going to the movies for date
night or making sure the cable doesn't go out because you can't afford to pay
the bill (I've been in all of these situations).

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 When you double your income in 90 days, you give yourself the freedom to
choose. Choose where you want to go on vacation, not how you're going to go
on vacation. You give yourself the freedom to explore new, more innovative
and exciting projects without the constraint of a small budget.
The crazy part is anyone can do this. People have told me I'm fucking insane
for doing what I do. They think I'm out of my mind when I'm recording videos
for hours on end, locking myself in my DIY YouTube studio, just trying to make
a difference in my own life and the lives of those around me.
But it's only sounds crazy until it works. And believe me, this shit WORKS.
It's going to take a while to learn the ropes, but that's why you're reading this,
right?
With only 600 YouTube subscribers, 2,000 Instagram followers, and a little
over 5,000 TikTok followers as of the time of this writing, I have made over
$25,000 in affiliate marketing in the last three months alone. What would an
extra $8,333+ per month look like for you? I'll take that all day.
This is not meant to be a flex. It is meant to simply show you that making
money on the internet, no matter who you are, is possible. The world is
changing. The small minded people telling you otherwise will be left in the
Stone Age. The time to adapt is now.
Within these pages, I want to break down the steps I took to build this
income. I hope you learn, replicate, and share everything you read. My goal is to
make you money, and if you feel as if your investment in this book was not a
good one, I will personally cut you a check for what you paid for it.
So without further adieu, let's get into it.

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 chapter 1
affiliate marketing: a breakdown

Let me acknowledge this up front; you need to go through the boring stuff
to get to the fun stuff. That's the way any skill you learn works. So before we
talk about all of the different things you need to do to make the money, we
need to talk about all of the things you need to understand before you 'do the
doing'.
Let's start with some basic vocabulary. Please highlight these and keep notes
on everything in this chapter, because it will be critically important to reference
later on when we discuss the money making process.
First, the basic affiliate link and how it works. An affiliate link is a URL
provided by a company to a creator that will link customers to a product
landing page. The affiliate link determines where a sale is coming from. With
analytics these days, everything can be tracked. If a customer purchases a
product through your unique affiliate link, you will be compensated on sale.

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 If they do NOT purchase the product through your link, then you will NOT
be compensated on the sale. You can make all the videos you want about
certain products, but if you aren’t driving traffic to YOUR affiliate link, you’ll
never make any money. Use the affiliate link.
Next is commission. You make a certain percentage of each sale through your
affiliate link. If a product is $100 and your commission rate is 15%, you will
receive $15 for each sale made. It’s that simple. At scale, as we will see later on,
this is where the magic happens.
Perhaps the most important thing to understand when you're deciding which
company you want to work with is the attribution period. The attribution
period is how long after clicking your affiliate link a company is willing to
attribute a sale to you.
For example, some companies have a 6 month attribution period, meaning
that if a customer saw your video in January, clicked on the affiliate link, but did
not make their decision to purchase until June, you will STILL BE
COMPENSATED on that sale. Crazy, right?
Companies can track where a customer originally came from (paid
advertising, affiliate links, etc.) Anything over 90 days, I would argue, is a great
attribution period for affiliate links. More on this later.

Now that we understand those key terms, let’s dive into how to pick the
right companies and right products that we want to promote. This is going to be
a major player in how much money you will make.

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 chapter 2
picking the right companies & products

Before you even think about making a dime, you need to be able to pick the
right company to work with. This will be based on two things; (1) the values,
beliefs, and story behind that company (you want to make sure this aligns with
you and your target audience), and (2) the company’s attribution period and
marketing campaigns. Let’s first take a look at number one.
Pick a company that you can relate to and one that has products that your
target audience will LOVE. Ideally, you want to explain how the product you
are ‘promoting’ fits into your current daily routine, or solves a problem that
your target audience has.
For example, if you’re a content creator that teaches people how to use
video equipment to make videos, you don’t want to be talking about the
newest and hottest hydroflask to hit the market. Why would YOUR target
audience care about that? Sure, there might be some general interest in that
product, but think about this LONG TERM. If your initial video of the hydroflask
just happens to go viral, but your business is focused on helping make videos,

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you just attracted the wrong audience. Congratulations! You need to start over.
A video review of the video equipment you use would work much better
than a hydro flask review. Your target audience is likely trying to figure out the
easiest way to get great camera quality, and you being the expert are able to
show them the equipment you use that will get them there. A simple review of
your camera with an affiliate link to the Amazon product will suffice. Don’t do
this randomly. Be strategic.
Let's shift this conversation to the marketing side of the coin. You want to
pick a company that has a long attribution period (mentioned above), and also
has great marketing and retargeting. The reason we need this combination is
because we want the company to be able to re-capture folks who clicked on our
link, and show them Instagram, Facebook, and email ads that will get them BACK on
the website purchasing that product.
You essentially need to do absolutely nothing besides get that customer
aware the product exists, and get them to click on the link. That’s all.
Hold on, that is worth reiterating. Let me say that again, but this time in big
bold letters…
You essentially need to do absolutely nothing besides get that customer aware
the product exists, and get them to click on the link. That’s all.
Think of it this way; have you ever gone on Amazon, looked at a few things,
but didn’t end up buying those things? It just so happens that 24 hours later
when you log into Facebook or Instagram, those things appear out of the blue!

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 There they are, just chasing you around the internet. This is retargeting at
work. The best companies use this to get potential customers back on their
website. It’s a very inexpensive way to get sales (if done correctly), and we need
to take advantage of this as creators. Find companies that are retargeting.
Okay, but how do you find out what companies have great retargeting
campaigns? Well, the easiest way is by signing up for their emails yourself, or by
browsing their website before becoming a customer and seeing if you are being
shown any of their ads on social media at some point in the near future (usually
24 hours). If you are, that’s a good sign. Retargeting is working.
Another way you can do this is by visiting a company’s Facebook page and
going to their ad library. Now, this method won’t show you the structure of the
ad campaign (who is being targeted, how much they’re spending, etc.), but it
will give you a good idea of the company’s current marketing efforts. If a
company isn’t running any Facebook or Instagram ads, that could potentially
mean less money in your pocket.
My argument is that you should not even bother partnering up with a
company who doesn’t run Facebook, Instagram, or email marketing campaigns.
It’s going to be like pulling teeth trying to make yourself a commission.
And to reiterate the importance of attribution, you just need to get someone
to CLICK on your affiliate link. Pair that high click rate with some great
retargeting, and you are on a solid path.
Now, let’s dive into how to get people to click on your affiliate link.

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 chapter 3
videos, videos, videos

This should come as no surprise - the best way to make money through
affiliate marketing is by using video content. Plain and simple. There are
certainly ways to make money WITHOUT having to be on camera, but I never
did it that way. I was always in front of the camera with my videos, so I can’t sit
here and explain how to do it the other way.
Being on video (and being comfortable on video, for that matter) is a difficult
skill to learn. We are not programmed to hear recordings of our own voices, or
see ourselves talking to a camera in a very awkward way. But you need to grow
accustomed to this if you want to change your life. I recently posted a video on
my YouTube channel about how I was able to overcome my awkwardness and
become a totally different person on camera in just 30 days.
I don’t want this section to be too long, because chances are you already
know the importance of video content in today’s world. But this chapter is
critically important for you to understand. The following sections will be
dedicated almost entirely to (1) how to get more views on your videos, even
with a small following, (2) how often to post videos, (3) which platforms to

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focus on, and finally (4) how to create thumbnails and video titles that will get
more people to click and watch.
I will tell you from experience the most effective way to make money is to
create videos that will rank in search results, whether on Google, YouTube, or
TikTok. Anyone can do this, but there is a science behind it. In the next section,
we’ll discuss how to get your videos to rank, which will lead to more views, and
ultimately more money in your pocket.

How to Get Your Videos to Rank

In today’s world, people are using three platforms to find out if a product is
worth buying. The big three are (1) Google/YouTube, (2) TikTok, and (3)
Amazon. In this section, we will focus on Google/YouTube and TikTok. Now
let’s talk a little bit about SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
SEO plays a role in how your videos will end up ‘ranking’. Meaning if
someone searches on Google or YouTube “best camera for YouTube”, having
optimized SEO means your video has a greater chance of ranking higher in the
search results, leading to more views. This is prime real estate on the internet.
Some companies spend tens of millions of dollars ranking at the top of Google
searches. Imagine you could rank up there without spending a DIME?
Interesting…
Okay, great, but how do you rank higher? How do you make your video SEO
optimized?

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 The easiest way to do this is to do keyword research. A very basic way to do
keyword research is to open up an incognito window on YouTube or Google
chrome, start typing in a sentence like “best camera for…” or “how to do…” and
let the results auto-populate below your search. The results you see are listed
in descending order of search volume. If your idea is not on that list, chances are
you won’t get much traction with your video because there is no audience for
that video. People aren’t searching for what you’re talking about.
Another way to see search volume is to use a tool like TubeBuddy or VidIQ.
These tools give you an in-depth look at how many people are searching for a
specific phrase or set of keywords on YouTube. Personally, I use TubeBuddy
for all of my keyword research, but I do not think it’s a make-or-break service to
use for your affiliate marketing campaigns. It’s a good tool, but your money is
likely better spent on a video editor.
It’s also worth mentioning that there is a fine balance between search
volume and competition. The reason I like tools like TubeBuddy and VidIQ is
because they are able to add the factor of competition into how your videos will
rank. Sure, you can make a video review of the newest iPhone or tech gadget
and link to an Amazon affiliate landing page. There may even be a TON of
search traffic for those things! But if you only have 100 subscribers, are the
potential viewers going to trust YOU? Or are they going to trust MKBHD with
16 million subscribers?
An incognito search won’t show you those things. Click on any of the results
in the YouTube search and see how big the top-ranking channels are. A good
rule of thumb I like to use is to compete with anyone that ranks high with less
than 100k subscribers.
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Great! So we know our product, we have an idea of what keywords we want to
target, but should we make longer videos or shorter videos?...

Short Form or Long Form Content?

A lot of people think you need to pick either long form content or short form
content. Instead of OR, it should be AND. You need to be making both. And
you need to scale that across all platforms.
When you’re thinking about your videos ranking not only on YouTube
search results, but also on Google search results, long form content will perform
better. As of writing this in March of 2023, YouTube shorts and TikToks do
NOT appear in Google search results the way that YouTube videos do. So if
you are focusing primarily on short videos to promote your affiliate link, just
know that you are leaving a huge amount of (potential) search traffic on the
table by not creating at least one long form video about the product.
That being said, there are other search engines away from Google that will
help boost your affiliate commissions. In fact, TikTok was the #1 most visited
website on the internet in 2022, and more and more people are using TikTok as
a search engine. With more than 1 billion active monthly users, you could very
well have more success with short form video than long form video. But that’s
not how I got my results.
So what’s the perfect mix? How can you maximize your income with a mix of
both long and short form?
I don’t know the exact answer to this, but here’s what worked for me. I made
two long form videos about the product I was promoting, and somewhere

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around 5-8 short form videos. Again, this is over the course of 90 days.
Those short videos were posted across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
shorts, while the long form videos were posted only on YouTube. The two
YouTube videos ended up ranking in the search results for the keywords I was
targeting, and with only 300 subscribers, the more popular video currently has
over 12,000 views. (See the previous section about how to get your videos to
rank in the search results, it’s likely the most important section in this book).
Having done a combination of both long and short form videos, I
recommend doing exactly what I did; two long form videos, and five to eight
short videos. I can’t guarantee you that using one style of video over another
will perform better. Again, I am only speaking from what has worked for me.
I have a lot of experience in content creation - after creating hundreds of
hundreds of videos over a 6 month period, I have also learned what seems to
be the best structure for a video. The next section is dedicated to the art and
science of writing a video, which will ultimately lead to longer watch time and
more views (which then turns into more clicks on your affiliate links, and more
money in your pocket…woo!)

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 chapter 4
become a master video writer

Here’s a secret that I got from the company whose product I was making
videos about:

"We've found that if you simply explain how the product works to people,
they'll buy."

This should come as good news to you. You don’t need to put on your sales
hat to make a video with the expectation of making money. All you need to do
is simply explain how your product works. What a relief!
You understand your target audience better than anyone else. What are
your audience's pain points? How does the functionality of the product solve
that problem or problems? That’s literally all you need to explain in your video.
Let’s break down the right structure to use in your short form videos.

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The Hook
Alright, you’ve heard this a million fucking times. Everyone will tell you that
you need to hook your viewers and get their attention in the first three seconds
of the video. Great. But how do you ACTUALLY do that? Let me show you
what works for me.
Let’s go back to our keywords lesson from a previous section. Remember we
discussed using an incognito Google or YouTube window and had the search
results populate based on a short prompt? We’re going to use that again. Here’s
what I mean.
If you type into the search bar “Best streaming microphone”, the search results
will look something like this:

YouTube search results auto-fill for popular search terms, usually listed in descending order of search volume.

You can literally use any of those results as the hook, or the first sentence
you say, in your video and expect great results. Why? Because those results are
listed in descending order of search volume. You know that people are actually
searching for those things online. There’s an audience for your video!
So your hook would be “Here’s the best streaming microphone in 2022!” or
“Let’s look at the best streaming microphone under $100”. Do this with every
short form video you make.
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The Meat:
In the wise words of Sean Cannell from Think Media…

“Be fun, be brief, be done.”

You want to make your video half as long and twice as impactful. Again, the
only thing we need to do is explain how the product works. You should ideally
know some sort of problem you are trying to solve for your audience. Explain
how that product solves that problem for them. Let’s use the example of the
“best streaming microphone 2022”.
Here’s the exact MEAT I would use for that video.
Audience problem: There are way too many options to pick from for the best
streaming microphone. A lot of the videos are a few years old at this point. My
audience wants something that is made for this year. Flip to the next page to
read the entire video script for a short video about this microphone.

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Video Script:
Hook: What is the best streaming microphone you can get in 2022? Let’s
take a look at the Shure SM7B.
MEAT: You have a ton of options to pick from for a microphone but the
sound quality you’re gonna get out of the SM7B is unmatched.
All of your favorite pro streamers use this microphone, and Michael Jackson
even recorded some of his greatest hits on this mic.
You have free reign over how bassy or how clean you want your voice to
sound and it even connects seamlessly with things like voice changers to
get some good laughs from your viewers.
Sure, it’s a bit expensive at $450, but you’re gonna need a microphone for
the long haul if you’re a streamer…don’t cheap out.
After thousands of streaming hours with this, I give the build and sound
quality on this a 10/10.

DONE! But wait, we’re missing one thing. A call to action! Where do we
want to send viewers when they’re done watching the video? Do we want
them to follow us? Do we want them to click on our page and visit the link in
our bio? We need to add just one more sentence at the end of our video to get
people to act.

Call to Action
Your call to action should only be one sentence. You’re going to want to put
this at the end of your video to encourage people to act on what you’re saying.

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 This is going to sound kind of corny when it comes out of your mouth, but
people will literally forget to do things or act unless you tell them to do
something. Trust me, it works.
So for our video, we’re going to say the following:

“Check out my page if you want to get your hands on one of these” or
“Follow for more tips and check out my page if you want to level up your stream”

And that’s it. Add that to the end of your video and watch the magic happen.
However, as a word of caution, refrain from saying the words “click the link in
my bio” in your video. Platforms are starting to pick up on that and will punish
you for trying to get people moving to another website.
Now that we’ve covered how to get people to WATCH our videos, let’s take
a look at how we can get people to click on our videos in the first place. After
all, the only way they’ll end up watching your videos (if they’re long form) is if
they click on them in the first place!

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 chapter 5
creating clickable thumbnails and titles

Regarding the YouTube algorithm, the chances of your video getting more
views increases if two things happen; (1) you can get someone to click on your
video, and (2) you can get them to watch your video in full. Both of these things
are very hard to do. In this section, we will focus on the former.

Video Titles
One major thing to keep in mind when you are doing product reviews on
YouTube is that you need to assume people have never heard of the product.
Let me say that again, because it’s worth reiterating - you need to assume people
have NEVER heard of the product. This goes back to our previous conversation
about keyword research. Your title and thumbnail should be keyword rich,
while also tapping into curiosity. Here’s what I mean by this.
Let’s again use our example of the Shure SM7B microphone. It’s a legendary
microphone (Michael Jackson recorded some of his biggest hits on it). Chances
are your favorite streamer uses this microphone as well.
Let’s also assume your target audience is streamers. What are the chances of
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them searching “Shure SM7B review”? Maybe there is some search traffic there
because the microphone is ‘popular’, but the better title would be ‘Is This the
BEST Microphone for Streamers? (Shure SM7B Review)’ or something along
those lines.
The reason we would title the video this way is because more people are
likely searching for ‘Best streaming microphone’ than ‘Shure SM7B review’. This
can be confirmed by using our keyword researching tip with VidIQ or Tube
Buddy. We want to include the Shure SM7B keyword in our title, though,
because that will allow us to reach BOTH groups of people; those who are
searching for the best microphone, and those who are specifically searching for
the SM7B.
Another tool I like to use to create YouTube titles is ChatGPT. You’ve
probably heard of this. If you haven’t please do yourself a favor and go check it
out. It’s an AI chat bot that you can use as a tool to brainstorm ideas for
content. You simply type in a prompt, and it will spit back out ideas to use in
your content. Here’s an example below, where I asked it to give me high
converting YouTube video titles for the best streaming microphone (the Shure
SM7B);

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With the exception of the first one (pretty boring), these are all extremely well
written. You can use this tool for FREE to level up your content. Pretty
interesting, huh?
Now let’s dive a little bit deeper into thumbnails. These are probably my
favorite things to create on YouTube (aside from the videos themselves).

Thumbnails
Similar to how we think about our video titles, we need to tap into curiosity
with our thumbnails. You want to make someone say to themself, “what is
that?”. Not in a bad way, of course, but in a way that makes them eager to click.
My personal best example of this is the thumbnail and title you see below. I also
included the analytics for this video (keep in mind, I only have 685 YouTube
subscribers).

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This is by far my most successful video to date. Going back to what I said
earlier, it makes the person who sees it say “what is that?” and triggers their
curiosity (7.8% click through rate!) Also notice how in the title, I did not include
anything about the actual product itself. There is no mention of the product I
am reviewing; only a photo. This leads to a higher level of curiosity, leading to
more clicks.
Now, I could write all day and probably make an entirely separate course on
thumbnails, but that is for another time. In that case, I will end this section with
this -

If you saw your thumbnail on the YouTube search results (or even the YouTube
homepage), would you click on it?

If the answer to that question is no, then head back to the drawing board.

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 chapter 6
tools to becoming a master

As mentioned in the preface; the only way this information is going to make
you money is if you put it into practice. This works for anyone, regardless of
how many followers you have or how much video content creation experience
you have. If you're willing to put in the work, you will enjoy the fruits of your
labor.
The first time you get in front of a camera to record a video like this will be
intimidating. You will put it off for a very long time. You're not going to want to
edit the video because you don't want to hear what your voice sounds like. But
here's the secret: you are your own biggest critic. Nobody will judge you as
hard as you judge yourself. Nobody is consciously thinking about the way your
voice sounds when they are watching your video. The content within the video
is what matters most. Do the damn work.
That being said, you'll probably need a few tools along the way to make this
content creation process easier. Below, I am sharing a few of my favorite

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products that I use on a daily basis. From my video recording equipment to the
tools that help me brainstorm ideas for my next video. Feel free to use these
tools as well. I am not going to gate-keep anything!

How to Tell Structure YouTube Videos for Higher Video Retention

Pipdecks Storyteller Tactics
Discount Code: MARKETINGWITHGANNON for 15% off

My Top Video Equipment Recommendations

Camera: https://amzn.to/3GP7MbF
Microphone: https://amzn.to/3k54Iiw
Lighting: https://amzn.to/3IxM7WT
Soft Box: https://amzn.to/3XdlRF3
Monitor: https://amzn.to/3Iy8RFX
Mixer: https://amzn.to/3VOwopi
Stream Deck: https://amzn.to/3vTnjRj
Lens: https://amzn.to/3Gqzkmr

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 I appreciate the hell out of you for checking out this book and wanting to
make a little bit of money for yourself. I know you can do this. And once you
understand that process and how all of these things work together, it’s a cheat
code.
If you found this guide helpful, I would greatly appreciate you sharing it with
a friend. In fact, if you decide to share this with them, here’s a discount code for
50% OFF.

Code: FIFTY

They can grab this for themselves at this link here: stan.store/gannonmeyer

Much love, y’all. Looking forward to seeing you on my YouTube and other
social media pages (which you can find below).

Instagram.com/gannon.meyer
Youtube.com/gannonmeyer
Tiktok.com/@gannonmeyer

Cheers,
Gannon

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