Making a Mint with Jewelry Affiliate Programs

If there is any online industry in which trust is absolutely crucial to the process, the jewelry industry takes the cake. Here you have a buyer who in all likelihood is about to make the biggest decision of his life in getting married, and now he has to make one of the biggest purchases of his life as well, at least in terms of dollars per weight of product. Diamonds are among the most value-dense objects on Earth, and now he’s about to go to a website of people he doesn’t know and purchase something he hasn’t actually seen that’s so tiny, yet worth several of his paychecks.

So how do you get him to:

A) find your link,
B) click it,
C) buy the ring?

Finding the Right Jewelry Affiliate Program

Luckily, optimizing the store itself isn’t your job. But you do have to pick a store to promote that is honest, has a reputation, ease of use and most importantly, stores real copies of its diamond certificates available for online viewing. No one is going to buy an engagement ring without a certificate they can see.

• The program itself should of course pay well.

You’ll usually see anywhere from 5-9% on jewelry, but what’s critical is that they pay commission for loose diamonds as well. Most programs do not, so make sure you know what they’re paying on loose stones before you start driving traffic. Zoara’s jewelry affiliate program, for example, starts at 3% commission for loose stones.

• The program should have at least a 60-day cookie, if not a permanent cookie.

The time between the initial search and the final purchase can take months.

• The program should allow for a direct link campaign so you won’t have tracking codes appearing at the end of your URL’s which look suspicious. It should be private, in house. When dealing with jewelry, you don’t want even 1 or 2% of your commission going to a network when you’re only getting 5-9% to begin with.

In review, a good jewelry affiliate program should provide the affiliate:

• Commission on loose stones
• Permanent cookies
• The option for a direct link campaign
• In house tracking software

Build Your Marketing Plan – Get into the Mind of a Jewelry Shopper

Once you find your jewelry affiliate program, get into the mind of an online jewelry shopper. What does he do? How does he behave? He’ll most likely begin by checking out the most visible stores. He’ll Google “engagement rings” as his first move just to get a feel for what’s out there. But on that first day, it’s almost guaranteed he won’t buy. Conclusion: Unlike the stores themselves, you don’t have to target primary terms like “engagement rings”. Don’t waste your marketing energy on climbing a mountain that need not be scaled.

When he’s finished with his initial search, he’ll go a little deeper. He’ll want to learn about diamonds, diamond quality, diamond prices, and information about gold, settings, platinum and the like. Learn about these things and target the best educational search terms. The educational pre-purchase phase is where you can catch him and stick a cookie in his browser.

In review:

• Ignore SEO on primary terms such as “wedding rings” and “engagement rings.” Those are for the stores themselves.
• Learn everything you can about the jewelry you’re promoting.
• Concentrate on secondary terms surrounding what you learn

Generate Trust with Your Audience

Once visible, your job as a webmaster if you want to make real serious sales is to make your audience trust you. Talk to them. Try your best to have a personal relationship with your traffic by reaching out to them. Then you can either refer them directly to a product in their range for what they need, or build your own store affiliate store with a datafeed and refer them to that.

If you’ve learned about the product, done the SEO, and built trust with your audience, you can make more than just a good living. There’s nothing more satisfying in affiliate marketing than making a big sale…except making a big sale that will be with a couple for the rest of their lives.

This post was written by the marketing manager of Zoara.com. Their jewelry affiliate program pays 8% first tier on jewelry and preset rings (9% on direct link campaigns), and 2% second tier on an average $2000 sale. Commission for loose stones starts at 3%.