Janet Thaeler first heard about affiliate marketing in a marketing class around 2005. She was intrigued by the concept and wanted to learn all she could, so she attended a conference called Affiliate Summit. While there she interviewed a top affiliate in Utah for a magazine article and the rest is history. Since then, she has been helping local bloggers to earn money on their blogs through affiliate marketing.
The idea of affiliate marketing is simple, according to Thaeler. “It's a method of promoting other people's products and services for a commission or payment,” she said. Upon signing up for an affiliate program, the promoter gets a special tracking link and then when someone clicks on it on the promoter’s website they make between 6 and 15 percent on whatever the “clicker” buys within a certain timeframe.
Thaeler has learned much through the years in this line of work and has been able to help many local bloggers by organizing an affiliate marketing conference. She is also a “go to” for many local businesses to contact when they want some local marketing for businesses. They reach out to Thaeler and she and the business organize an event. She lets the local bloggers know, they come to the event and share about it on their blogs and social media sites.
“I like doing restaurant openings because it combines food and friends. Utah has a strong community of bloggers. My next favorite thing is the affiliate marketing conference I've put on locally,” Thaeler said. But Thaeler doesn’t limit her help just to events and her marketing conference, she likes to offer help and teach and encourage whenever people ask. “I try to bring them opportunities to learn and earn with blogging campaigns that have an affiliate component,” Thaeler said.
Most people don’t become successful affiliate marketers overnight though, contrary to popular belief, she said. There are many successful local lifestyle bloggers that Thaeler works with, but she said education is the key to success. “I invested a lot of time into learning. Then the next thing is to implement,” she said. At first, she wasn’t making much money with affiliate marketing but when she started to focus and integrate links to her posts, things started to pick up.
One of her favorite campaigns has been working with Purple Mattress and she received a mattress with compensation and fell in love with it. Since then, she has sold many mattresses and now focuses on that niche.
These Weber County based bloggers all use affiliate marketing and have found great success:
The Salt Project http://www.saltproject.co/
The Creative Mom http://www.thecreativemom.com/
Doodlecraft https://www.doodlecraftblog.com/
Dani Marie https://danimarieblog.com/
Or So She Says www.orsoshesays.com
Indie Ogden https://indieogdenutah.com/
