Until now all my blogging friends who owned an Etsy store were not allowed to be Etsy affiliates too. That has changed. As of this week, you can now be an Etsy store owner AND earn commissions as an Etsy affiliate. You will not earn a commission on your own products, but you can earn on referring people to other products on the site.
First, you need to join an affiliate network that has Etsy. I use Affiliate Window. If you're not already part of Affiliate Window, here's how you can sign up: www.newspapergrl.com/affiliatewindow (my affiliate link). Note that you do have to deposit $5 to start your account (to combat fraud). You get it back when you make more than that in sales though. After you are accepted to Affiliate Window, you need to apply directly to the Etsy affiliate program.
Here's a screenshot of how to join, under Advertisers –> Join Programs. Then search on the left hand side for “Etsy”.
Then once approved, go to “My Programs”, select Etsy and on the far right side under “Actions” you click to get banners and images to use. You can also create a link to any product and get the HTML code or link to insert into your post. Don't forget to pin your products or posts on Pinterest now that it is ok to use affiliate links!
If you do own a shop, you need to follow these instructions when applying to the affiliate program: email selleraffiliate@etsy.com and note your shop in your application.
After that, be sure to get Affiliate Window's Wordpress plugin. It automatically turns a direct link to any product into an affiliate link. You put the link in how you would link to it, and it will magically redirect. It's called Convert-a-Link. Once logged into your Affiliate Window account, go to Links & Tools > Convert-a-Link to find it. Read more here. It will save you a ton of time!
Commission rate: 4%
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