Now imagine that your referrals were actually helping real people with real businesses. That\u2019d be pretty cool right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is what local affiliate marketing promises: lower competition and higher commissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What exactly is local affiliate marketing? How does it differ from conventional affiliate marketing? How much can you make from it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ll explore these questions and more in this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is Local Affiliate Marketing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Local affiliate marketing is promotion of products and services of a business in a specific a geographical area (for example, a neighborhood, city, or state).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of going to sites such as Amazon<\/a> or Clickbank<\/a> to find products to market (which have a global reach), you look for local merchants and promote their area-specific services and products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many local businesses are willing to spend money on new customers but don\u2019t know how to market online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a local affiliate marketer, your job is to approach these businesses and offer your marketing expertise. Usually, this means sending them high quality leads in exchange for a commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The local affiliate marketing workflow looks somewhat like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understand that most local businesses already have systems in place to convert incoming leads. They also know how much profit they can make per lead. If a car dealership knows it can make $14\/lead, it might be happy paying you as much as $10 for a quality lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most local businesses will be happy to work with you if:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are four reasons why local affiliate marketing works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even as we enter the third decade of the commercial internet, most local businesses struggle with digital marketing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Small businesses aren\u2019t oblivious; they know that their customers are increasingly moving online. The only problem is that they often don\u2019t have the expertise, the time, or, sometimes, the budgets to hire dedicated marketers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which is where you come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than social, SEO is the heart of any local marketing campaign. After all, 80% of consumers<\/a> use the internet to search for local businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, in the BrightLocal survey referenced above, SEO ranked as the second most effective source of customers for local businesses, next only to word of mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n Fortunately, in most cases, local SEO is easier than ranking for the same term with a larger geographical reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, the broad keyword \u201ccar insurance\u201d is phenomenally competitive with an Ahrefs KD score of 73 and a Moz KD score of 61:<\/p>\n\n\n A similar local search – \u201ccar insurance in Atlanta\u201d<\/em> – on the other hand, has an Ahrefs KD score of 12 and a Moz KD score of just 21 with a bigger opportunity score:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you decide to forego the SEO route, you\u2019ll find that promoting your site via PPC ads (especially AdWords) tends to be more effective for two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, consider the CPC for the keywords \u201croof repair<\/em>\u201d, \u201croof repair Houston<\/em>\u201d, and \u201ccheap roof repair<\/em>\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Combined with high conversions, advertising via PPC is often lucrative for local affiliate marketers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Local affiliate marketing gives you plenty of room to upsell additional services to happy clients. Once you start sending consistently high quality leads, you can negotiate deals for extra services such as website building, conversion rate optimization, nurtured leads, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This can effectively help you grow earnings and scale your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the most valuable internet companies are essentially local affiliate marketers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few that use different models:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zomato, which recently acquired UrbanSpoon, is one of the largest restaurant listings websites in the world (Alexa rank: 541<\/a>) with a $1B valuation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zomato makes money by selling advertising to local restaurants<\/a>. In turn, restaurants get a dedicated Zomato number which they can use to track and receive calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is essentially a variation of the local affiliate marketing model with local advertising thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nolo.com<\/a> is one of the largest directories of praticing lawyers in the US. The site is free to use for consumers and helps them find lawyers in any region for any specialty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nolo makes money by directing leads to local lawyers and selling premium lawyer profiles. This is another example of a hybrid affiliate + advertising model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n YellowPages.com<\/a>, the online home of the Yellow Pages, essentially brings the YP model online. Just like printed version of the Yellow Pages, the site has a massive directory of businesses in each city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Business owners can use the ySearch service<\/a> to capture local traffic and turn them into leads. Prices for this service range from $300 to $5,999 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cars.com<\/a> shows you detailed specs, pictures, and reviews for hundreds of cars across dozens of brands. When you click on a car\u2019s availability near your area, you are taken to a form where you can enter your name, email, and phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cars.com then sends this information to a local dealer, who can contact you to follow up with the purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Essentially, Cars.com makes its money by selling leads to local businesses. In 2014, it was being floated around at a price tag of $2.5 to $3 billion dollars<\/a> with annual revenues of close to $500M – quite a lot for a local affiliate marketer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re an affiliate marketer, don\u2019t overlook local opportunities. There are many high-value businesses in nearly every city ready to pay for new customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to stand out and decide and be in control of your own commissions, start an affiliate campaign in your own backyard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
\n
Why Local Affiliate Marketing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Businesses want your services<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
2. Local SEO tends to be easier<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"most](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\""car](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing2.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"\u201ccar](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing3.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\u201ccar](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing4.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\u201ccar](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing5.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n3. PPC is usually more lucrative<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"AdWords](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing6.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n4. Opportunities to upsell services<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Who is Doing Local Affiliate Marketing?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Zomato<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Zomato\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing7-1024x502.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n2. Nolo<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Nolo\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing8.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n3. YellowPages.com<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"YellowPages.com\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing9.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n4. Cars.com<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Cars.com\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/affmarketing10-1024x512.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOver to You<\/h2>\n\n\n\n