Search finds you readers once. Email and video bring them back. Both channels build the familiarity that makes a recommendation persuasive, and both carry rules worth knowing before you paste a link.
Email: the audience you own
An email list is the one audience no algorithm can take away. It also converts well, because subscribers chose to hear from you.
A welcome sequence that earns
- Day 0: deliver what they signed up for, and say what the emails will cover.
- Day 2: your best free resource, with no links to sell anything.
- Day 4: the tools you actually use, and why, with disclosed affiliate links.
- Day 7: a story or result that shows one of those tools at work.
After that, send regularly with useful content first. A reader who learns something from nine emails will click the tenth.
Check each program’s email rules
Not every program allows its links in email. Amazon Associates, for example, doesn’t permit its special links in emails. Others ask you to link to your own page, which then links to them. Read the terms before you send, and disclose at the top of any email with affiliate links.
YouTube: search engine and trust engine
YouTube works as a search engine for “how to” and “which one” questions, and as a trust engine: viewers see the product in use and hear from a real person.
Formats that convert
- Tutorials where the product is how the result gets made.
- Comparisons filmed side by side, with the same task done in each tool.
- Setup tours: “everything I use to run my business”.
- Long-term reviews: “six months with…” carries weight a first impression can’t.
Where the links go
Put your most important link high in the description, before the cutoff, with a one-line disclosure. Pin a comment with the same link. For spoken mentions, ask programs for a short personal code that works without a click. Eligible creators can also tag products through YouTube Shopping, whose affiliate program has expanded to include many Shopify merchants.
Disclosure on video
Say it out loud near the start, show it on screen, and repeat it in the description. Turn on YouTube’s paid-promotion setting when a brand has paid you directly. The disclosure guide covers the reasoning.
Make the channels feed each other
Each video can offer a free resource that joins the email list. Each email can point to the newest video. Each article can embed the video that shows the product working. Three channels pointing at one another make you far harder to knock over than a site that depends on search alone.
Watch first: our video library collects tutorials on building affiliate sites, email setups and how search works.