How to Be a Successful Forex Affiliate Marketer

Admirals Jun 21, 2023 10 Min read

While Forex affiliate marketing can certainly be a lucrative endeavour, it is by no means easy. It will take a lot of skill and persistence, especially if you do not yet have a substantial online presence. This article aims to clear up any confusion you may have on the subject and lay out exactly what you need to do in order to become a successful Forex affiliate marketer.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is when you promote a product or service provided by a third party and earn a commission if the third party makes a sale as a result of your promoting. In a Forex context, that means providing a link to an external broker's site or trading platform. If somebody clicks on your link and then signs up to the broker, you are either paid a one of commission, usually based on the size of the initial deposit and also sometimes known as a CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) affiliate program, or a percentage of the trades they make going forward. These payment structures can vary widely.

Sometimes, the term "Forex affiliate program" is used for several different types of partnerships, including those where you introduce individual people in your network to a broker. In this article, we will focus solely on classic affiliate marketing examples, whereby you place referral links on your website or share them with your audience. That said, if you'd like to learn more about how Forex referral schemes work, click here to learn about Admiral Markets' Introducing Business Partner program.

Can You Really Make Money From Affiliate Marketing?

It is possible to make money with affiliate marketing and many people do precisely that.

However, there is a caveat. You need to be realistic. Unless you either already run a site with extremely high levels of traffic or are willing to put significant effort into making the venture a success, this will probably not take over as your primary source of income. Instead, it is more sensible to treat as a bonus, a promising supplementary income stream that, if executed well, could result in a high return on a relatively modest investment of time.

How to Become a Forex Affiliate Marketer

While affiliate marketing is often billed as a passive income generator, you will see far better results by putting in a little extra work to bring your referral links to the attention of your audience. We have put together a tried and tested, 10-step strategy to help set you on course towards having a successful Forex affiliate program.

Step 1: Set Yourself Up as an Authority

Note: if you've already built up a great site with a well-engaged audience, skip forward to Step 3.

The difference between affiliate marketing and simply hosting advertisements on your website is that, as an affiliate marketer, you are advocating for the product. You personally are telling your audience that this Forex broker is worth their time and money.

That means your audience needs to have a reason to trust your opinion on the matter. You need to demonstrate your understanding of Forex trading, or investment finance generally. Provide advice, analysis and emphasise your credentials. This will help to establish a clear, helpful and decisive voice.

Step 2: Build a Presence as a Forex Authority

Without a decent following, you will struggle to refer anyone to the Forex broker. Not only does this mean you will not be a particularly attractive partner for brokers, but you also will not be able to make much money from your endeavour.

A lot of this comes down to the quality of the content you produce. You also need to post content regularly enough to keep people engaged with your site and with your social media profiles, not to mention to help boost your rankings in search engines like Google.

Think carefully about the topics people want to hear about and focus on the problems they want resolved. Pay close attention to your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to encourage inbound traffic to your site or blog, and promote your articles extensively through social media channels.

If you are proficient with SEO, it is also possible to build a site purely around reviewing products in your niche, which we will explore in the next section.

Step 3: Write Reviews about Trading Products and Platforms

Before seeking out an affiliate program, it makes sense to start writing reviews of Forex or trading related products and platforms on your site.

This is an effective tactic for three reasons:

Your readers get used to seeing reviews on your site, so it won't seem out of place when you promote or align yourself with a particular broker.
It is a great way to incorporate keywords and common search terms into your copy without it feeling unnatural or jarring. People often search for comparisons or "which is better?" questions, so writing reviews that compare different Forex trading platforms or brokers is an excellent way to attract new readers.
Your target readers are actively looking to try out Forex trading, which makes it an easier job to persuade them to opt for the broker you are partnering with.

Step 4: Start Collecting Email Addresses

Building an email list is a smart way to ensure you have a direct line of communication to your audience when you want to promote something in particular. Basically, you are laying the groundwork now for your marketing efforts later. Consider embedding a pop-up subscription form to your site. Even better, create gated content, i.e. top quality content that is free, but for which people need to enter their contact details before they can download it.

Even if you only get a few hundred email addresses, these are extremely valuable. Conversion rates are vastly better for personalised emails than for website copy. If you're smart about how you approach these people, they could be your most profitable prospects. However, please familiarise yourself with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements as well, because those apply to email marketing in Europe.

Step 5: Sign Up to an Affiliate Program

You are now ready to take the leap and choose the right affiliate program for you - both in terms of the broker and the commission structure that will work best for your circumstances. Given that this is a very important task in its own right, please take a look at our in-depth guide to choosing the right Forex affiliate program.

Step 6: Embed the Link on Your Site

You now have everything you need to start generating commissions. Your broker will have given you a unique referral link (and, if they are worth working with, a complete package of marketing materials, banners, widgets and so on). You just need to figure out where on your site to put it.

Be smart about this. It makes sense to add the link to reviews and any other articles that mention the broker by name. You could also decide to write a dedicated article specifically promoting the trading platform, to create a demo or review video with an accompanying link, organise a webinar talking through how the site works and/or add a button or header to your whole site. The trick is to increase exposure without overdoing it. You do not want to look too pushy.

Step 7: Promote the Link to Your Audience

It is possible to leave things there and wait for people to click, but if you really want to make money out of affiliate marketing, it is advisable to go the extra mile. This is the time to let your email list know about the broker you are affiliated with. Craft a clear and engaging email outlining the benefits of the Forex broker and why you think it would be a good choice for your readers.

Remember too that financial tools like these are (rightly) heavily regulated. Your broker should provide you with plenty of email templates and sample wording to ensure that the information you share with your audience is accurate, transparent and compliant with industry rules

Step 8: Promote the Link to a Wider Network Using PPC Advertising

If you are looking to widen your net of referrals, consider budgeting for a pay-per-click advertising campaign using your referral code. Online advertising networks provided by Google, Facebook and other publishing giants tend to give you a lot of control over exactly who you want your ads to reach, while giving you plenty of flexibility to try out different ads at a very low cost. A small investment could go a long way.

Step 9: Collect Your Affiliate Commissions

Now that you have done all you can to promote the links, all you need to do is sit back and wait for your share of the money to come in. Hopefully (if you have taken our advice on board!) the broker you work with will have an intuitive, easy-to-navigate partner platform where you can track how many referrals you bring in, how much they deposit and trade, and how much you are earning in commissions, all the way through the process.

Step 10: Review and Improve

If you are working with a top Forex affiliate program, you will have access to a platform that helps you monitor performance and track ROI (Return on Investment). Use this to figure out what is working well and what could be improved, from the channels you used to promote your referral links through to the kinds of people you targeted in your advertising and marketing campaigns.

Once you have a clear picture of this, you can use your findings to perfect your approach, try new angles, cut out the methods that did not work, and keep improving your ROI.

Final Thoughts: Successful Affiliate Marketing

While it sounds counterintuitive, the most successful Forex affiliate marketers are those that do not fixate too heavily on the actual sale. Instead, they are constantly figuring out how they can offer something of value to their audience or network, viewing the transaction from the customer's point of view rather than their own.

Remember that people do not buy or invest because you want them to. They do it because you have persuaded them that they want to. However, as an affiliate marketer, you are approaching the conversation as a mentor, educator and industry leader, rather than as a straightforward salesperson. That's half the battle.

While Forex affiliate programs can offer excellent return on investment, don't fall into the trap of thinking you don't have to do anything. You need to be patient, persistent and creative in coming up with new and better ways to communicate with your audience in order to reap the biggest benefits.

Admirals offers individuals such as yourself the opportunity of becoming a partner through several different affiliate programs, meaning that by helping us to introduce our trading services to your network, we will boost your income and reward you with a variety of additional benefits!

We offer several different partnership options, such as our Introducing Business Partner program, that offers various benefits to your day to day trading experience, as well as, excellent promotional tools, 24/7 access to the Partner Portal, advanced analytics tools and access to exclusive features designed especially for Admirals partners. To learn more and to start earning an income through affiliate marketing with a global, award-winning, regulated broker, click the banner below!

About Admirals

Admirals is a multi-award winning, globally regulated Forex and CFD broker, offering trading on over 8,000 financial instruments via the world's most popular trading platforms: MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. Start trading today!

This material does not contain and should not be construed as containing investment advice, investment recommendations, an offer of or solicitation for any transactions in financial instruments. Please note that such trading analysis is not a reliable indicator for any current or future performance, as circumstances may change over time. Before making any investment decisions, you should seek advice from independent financial advisors to ensure you understand the risks.