If you’re looking for setting up a passive income stream, look no further than this article, because it covers all important aspects that you need to know about earning passive income.
The recent pandemic has taken the world by storm and several profitable affiliate marketing niches have started to experience slow down. The mandatory protective measures enforced by official bodies have now pushed businesses to operate remotely with a direct impact on operations and revenue generation.
Affiliate marketers are always busy in discovering the next “in” niches as previously profitable niches such as gym memberships and tourism are seeing a sharp decline in sales. However, products like immunity-boosting supplements, hygiene products, and online courses are now gaining exponential popularity due to health scare.
Amongst all this, the IT sector continues to flourish and grow as video conferencing software, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and hosting solutions continue to see an increase in sales. This brings us to a profitable product that is helping business owners, digital marketing agencies, and affiliates deploy websites without worrying about hosting hassles.
Users can use the browser-based platform to launch managed servers and deploy web applications within minutes. They get the choice of hosting their projects on DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Engine.
First and foremost, affiliate markets can earn passive income through the Cloudways web hosting affiliate program. Secondly, you - as an affiliate marketer have access to resources that help you explain the benefits of managed cloud hosting to potential customers. Furthermore, a dedicated affiliate manager can help you scale earnings and optimize your promotional efforts.
Cloudways is known for its amped-up advanced and premium support, which means they take their customers' satisfaction very seriously. Users can reach out to the Cloudways support team through LiveChat, dedicated ticketing system, and Slack. Here are the two levels of support you can mention in your affiliate marketing campaigns.
While going through the Cloudways blog, I found some interesting reading material on sales funnel optimizations, strategies of generating higher conversions, and effective ways of nurturing lead generation. They also have blog interviews with some renowned affiliate marketers such as Ryan Robinson, Tim Burd, Adam Connell, Robert Glazer, and more.
Now that you know why Clouwdays is a great product to promote, I’ll now elaborate on the three payout models and which model can be appropriate for your affiliate payout.
The Slab Payout Model
If you can generate multiple referrals every month, the Slab model is great for earning consistently from month to month. This model works best for performance marketers and entrepreneurs.
In this payout structure, the final payout for the month is calculated on the final number of referrals recorded by the system. For instance, if an affiliate lands five referrals during the month, but gets another two before the end of the month, the total commission is calculated for 7 referrals. In this model, the marketer has a chance to earn more by aiming for higher slabs.
Hybrid Structure
The Hybrid payout structure works for marketers who are after the long game. These marketers are not aggressively looking to earn commissions and want their earnings to be spread out over months. This structure works best for bloggers, freelancers, and digital agencies that wish to leverage recurring commission earnings.
In this passive income system, the affiliate earns a $30 up-front bonus along with a 7 percent of the referred customers monthly invoice as recurring commission for every active Cloudways customer they refer. As you can see, the affiliate marketer continues to earn as long as the referral continues to host on Cloudways.
The third commission structure is ideal for affiliate marketers who can bring in a high number of referrals to Cloudways. Since they can potentially bring in a lot of business, Cloudways offers a custom payout structure that borrows from both Slab and Hybrid payout structures and offers a higher commission per sale.
How so?
Let’s look at an example...
Let’s assume you own a digital agency and use a reliable hosting service for your websites and projects. Since your hosting provider delivers well on the promises, you decide to refer your clients and earn a commission. As long as your client continues to use the managed cloud hosting service, your commission continues to grow.
This is the affiliate panel’s home screen, a central location where you carry out the bulk of the tasks. You'll be able to see your affiliate link at the top of the page here.
The side menu in the Affiliate Panel offers access to reports, campaigns, ad channels, and subID tracking.
Quick Stats: Check current, the previous day, monthly stats for the number of clicks (repeat/ unique clicks), number of sales, and commissions. It summarizes Click to Sales ratio, Earnings per Click, and Average Commission Per Sale.
Trends report: Here affiliates can analyze impressions, clicks, commissions, and sales trends in a visual format.
Commission report: This live dashboard automatically reflects existing and new signups and sales status. The users can apply custom filters to drill down to the required data points and export data for analysis.
Payouts to me: Here an affiliate can check payouts history and the amount of paid and unpaid commissions.
Raw Clicks: This reflects near real-time data of unique and repeated clicks.
Quick Stats is perhaps the most useful feature of the affiliate panel. Here, the affiliate can view metrics pertaining to sales, earnings per click, and average conversion per sale.
The SubID tracking feature is a powerful feature that affiliates use to monitor the ad channels and analyze the flow of the channel traffic.
I connected with the dedicated affiliate manager at Cloudways to help me understand how to set up subID tracking. Here’s the reply I got from the Affiliate Team:
You don’t always have to click Create a custom link for every ad banner you place online. A simple copy-pasting the affiliate ID (provided in your account homepage) followed by the URL you’re placing should do the trick. The ‘XXXXX’ in the above example should be replaced by your affiliate ID.
The interesting thing is, Cloudways offers two custom parameters data1 and data2 for additional tracking options. The good thing is, you can directly add data1 and data2 parameters in the affiliate link and can keep track signups and conversions.
Suppose you have a blog with multiple opt-in forms on your homepage and blogs. You can create a new channel with the name “optin”. In case you want to track sales through the homepage main option, the affiliate link would be:
In this report, you can see that blog has sign-ups from multiple channels, but the one conversion is from mainoptin that was easily tracked through the Data1 parameter. Hence, mainoptin is a great start for optimizing the campaign.
Another important aspect of subID tracking feature is proper attribution to the exact affiliate link that generated the conversion. In the following image, a visitor came to the Cloudways website through Campaign A but converted later through Campaign B. Hence the affiliate actually needs to work on Campaign B to improve conversions.
This concludes the features of the Cloudways Affiliate Program. The added advantage you have with Cloudways is that you can target both large enterprises looking for managed AWS hosting solutions, as well as startups looking for affordable managed cloud hosting solutions such as DigitalOcean.
Want to add your two cents about the Cloudways affiliate program? Don’t forget to add your thoughts in the comments section below.
The recent pandemic has taken the world by storm and several profitable affiliate marketing niches have started to experience slow down. The mandatory protective measures enforced by official bodies have now pushed businesses to operate remotely with a direct impact on operations and revenue generation.
Affiliate marketers are always busy in discovering the next “in” niches as previously profitable niches such as gym memberships and tourism are seeing a sharp decline in sales. However, products like immunity-boosting supplements, hygiene products, and online courses are now gaining exponential popularity due to health scare.
Amongst all this, the IT sector continues to flourish and grow as video conferencing software, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and hosting solutions continue to see an increase in sales. This brings us to a profitable product that is helping business owners, digital marketing agencies, and affiliates deploy websites without worrying about hosting hassles.
Why Choose Cloudways?
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that helps users keep their focus on important stuff such as business growth without worrying about server management tasks.Users can use the browser-based platform to launch managed servers and deploy web applications within minutes. They get the choice of hosting their projects on DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Engine.
Cloudways Caters to Affiliate Marketers
Affiliate marketers prefer Cloudways for several reasons.First and foremost, affiliate markets can earn passive income through the Cloudways web hosting affiliate program. Secondly, you - as an affiliate marketer have access to resources that help you explain the benefits of managed cloud hosting to potential customers. Furthermore, a dedicated affiliate manager can help you scale earnings and optimize your promotional efforts.
Cloudways is known for its amped-up advanced and premium support, which means they take their customers' satisfaction very seriously. Users can reach out to the Cloudways support team through LiveChat, dedicated ticketing system, and Slack. Here are the two levels of support you can mention in your affiliate marketing campaigns.
While going through the Cloudways blog, I found some interesting reading material on sales funnel optimizations, strategies of generating higher conversions, and effective ways of nurturing lead generation. They also have blog interviews with some renowned affiliate marketers such as Ryan Robinson, Tim Burd, Adam Connell, Robert Glazer, and more.
Now that you know why Clouwdays is a great product to promote, I’ll now elaborate on the three payout models and which model can be appropriate for your affiliate payout.
Three Commission Structures
Cloudways Affiliate Program gives affiliates three income commission structures:- Slab
- Hybrid
- Custom
The Slab Payout Model
If you can generate multiple referrals every month, the Slab model is great for earning consistently from month to month. This model works best for performance marketers and entrepreneurs.
In this payout structure, the final payout for the month is calculated on the final number of referrals recorded by the system. For instance, if an affiliate lands five referrals during the month, but gets another two before the end of the month, the total commission is calculated for 7 referrals. In this model, the marketer has a chance to earn more by aiming for higher slabs.
Hybrid Structure
The Hybrid payout structure works for marketers who are after the long game. These marketers are not aggressively looking to earn commissions and want their earnings to be spread out over months. This structure works best for bloggers, freelancers, and digital agencies that wish to leverage recurring commission earnings.
In this passive income system, the affiliate earns a $30 up-front bonus along with a 7 percent of the referred customers monthly invoice as recurring commission for every active Cloudways customer they refer. As you can see, the affiliate marketer continues to earn as long as the referral continues to host on Cloudways.
Custom Structure
The third commission structure is ideal for affiliate marketers who can bring in a high number of referrals to Cloudways. Since they can potentially bring in a lot of business, Cloudways offers a custom payout structure that borrows from both Slab and Hybrid payout structures and offers a higher commission per sale. Opting for a Recurring Passive Income Affiliate Program
When you opt for a passive income system, you can earn and diversify your income stream as it is important to have multiple sources of income. Here at Cloudways, your commission continues to grow as long as your referral is active. Practically, your earning continues as long as you fulfill the following prerequisites:- Meet the required number of referrals per month (as per the designated invoicing cycle)
- Ensuring that your referrals stay with the Cloudways Platform
- Bloggers
- Trainers
- Freelancers / Developers
- Digital Agencies
Bloggers
Bloggers want to earn huge income from their blogs. However, monetization of the blog can take its own sweet time. One way of shortening the wait is by opting for promotion activities as an affiliate. Once the blog traffic and customer conversions begin to rise, bloggers can start scaling their earnings through the affiliate program.Trainers
Trainers often work with large and small groups that present great opportunities for affiliate referrals. They often have a large impact as they have access to numbers due to their training opportunities. Trainers benefit from both the Hybrid and Custom payout model as the quality of their referrals is high, they can earn long term commission as their referrals are likely to stay with the Cloudways Platform.Freelancers / Developers
The Cloudways Affiliate Program can help freelancers add a buffer to their income. They can now set up a dependable income by referring clients to the Cloudways Platform and set the commission income aside while they focus on freelance projects.Digital Agencies
Digital marketing agencies have a pool of clients that the agencies could leverage to set up a passive income stream. This program gives digital agencies a smart alternative of earning and sustaining the revenue. This is a steady path for digital agencies to gain financial stability through recurring passive income.How so?
Let’s look at an example...
Let’s assume you own a digital agency and use a reliable hosting service for your websites and projects. Since your hosting provider delivers well on the promises, you decide to refer your clients and earn a commission. As long as your client continues to use the managed cloud hosting service, your commission continues to grow.
The Cloudways Affiliate Panel Features
Cloudways Affiliate Panel is the central hub that offers a host of features to help you set up, deploy, and monitor the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns.The Affiliate Panel
The Affiliate Panel has a minimalistic UI that makes navigation quick and easy. It’s divided into sections such as Reports (analytics), Campaign (for marketing campaign metrics), and support options.This is the affiliate panel’s home screen, a central location where you carry out the bulk of the tasks. You'll be able to see your affiliate link at the top of the page here.
The side menu in the Affiliate Panel offers access to reports, campaigns, ad channels, and subID tracking.
Reports Tab
The Reports tab consolidates the reports on your affiliate marketing activities. These reports cover quick stats, trends reports, commission & payouts, and raw clicks.Quick Stats: Check current, the previous day, monthly stats for the number of clicks (repeat/ unique clicks), number of sales, and commissions. It summarizes Click to Sales ratio, Earnings per Click, and Average Commission Per Sale.
Trends report: Here affiliates can analyze impressions, clicks, commissions, and sales trends in a visual format.
Commission report: This live dashboard automatically reflects existing and new signups and sales status. The users can apply custom filters to drill down to the required data points and export data for analysis.
Payouts to me: Here an affiliate can check payouts history and the amount of paid and unpaid commissions.
Raw Clicks: This reflects near real-time data of unique and repeated clicks.
Quick Stats is perhaps the most useful feature of the affiliate panel. Here, the affiliate can view metrics pertaining to sales, earnings per click, and average conversion per sale.
The SubID tracking feature is a powerful feature that affiliates use to monitor the ad channels and analyze the flow of the channel traffic.
Creating Ad Channels and Tracking Conversions
The interesting thing here is that I got in touch with Cloudways Affiliate support to ask how the subID feature works. Their reply was a set of simple instructions to create and set up these ad channel links.I connected with the dedicated affiliate manager at Cloudways to help me understand how to set up subID tracking. Here’s the reply I got from the Affiliate Team:
Suppose as an affiliate, you promote Cloudways through two mediums; a Blog and a Social Media platform. Now you can create two separate channels. Just click the Add Channels button on the left side and add Channel Name and Code for each new channel. Now the most important part, how to track channel with the help of the affiliate link. Suppose you want to route visitors to Cloudways sign-up page.A tip on creating custom affiliate links
The affiliate link for this is https://platform.cloudways.com/signup/?id=XXXXX, now add &CHAN=channelname to the affiliate link.
In the case, for a social media channel (already created through AdChannels feature),
The affiliate link would be https://platform.cloudways.com/signup/?id=XXXXX&CHAN=SocialMedia
You don’t always have to click Create a custom link for every ad banner you place online. A simple copy-pasting the affiliate ID (provided in your account homepage) followed by the URL you’re placing should do the trick. The ‘XXXXX’ in the above example should be replaced by your affiliate ID.
The interesting thing is, Cloudways offers two custom parameters data1 and data2 for additional tracking options. The good thing is, you can directly add data1 and data2 parameters in the affiliate link and can keep track signups and conversions.
Suppose you have a blog with multiple opt-in forms on your homepage and blogs. You can create a new channel with the name “optin”. In case you want to track sales through the homepage main option, the affiliate link would be:
https://platform.cloudways.com/signup/id=XXXXX&CHAN=optin&data1=mainoptinYour screen should look something like the screenshot above of a Commission Report. Data1 parameter is reflected as the Extra Data1 and Data2 parameter is reflected as Extra Data2 in the reports.
In this report, you can see that blog has sign-ups from multiple channels, but the one conversion is from mainoptin that was easily tracked through the Data1 parameter. Hence, mainoptin is a great start for optimizing the campaign.
Another important aspect of subID tracking feature is proper attribution to the exact affiliate link that generated the conversion. In the following image, a visitor came to the Cloudways website through Campaign A but converted later through Campaign B. Hence the affiliate actually needs to work on Campaign B to improve conversions.
Cookie
The Cloudways affiliate panel shows the status and data of the affiliate’s current conversion progress. Every cookie placed using the affiliate link has the ability to store data for up to 90 days.How Does One Join the Cloudways Affiliate Program
Joining the Cloudways Affiliate Program is simple and easy. You can sign up for the program from their affiliate program's landing page. In case you face any issues, you can follow the step-by-step guide to sign up and orient yourself with the Cloudways affiliate program or drop an email at affiliates@cloudways.com. I’ve also found a video that can help familiarize you with the Cloudways affiliate panel.This concludes the features of the Cloudways Affiliate Program. The added advantage you have with Cloudways is that you can target both large enterprises looking for managed AWS hosting solutions, as well as startups looking for affordable managed cloud hosting solutions such as DigitalOcean.
Want to add your two cents about the Cloudways affiliate program? Don’t forget to add your thoughts in the comments section below.
