Artist Advice: Get an Extra 5% from iTunes

This post is the first in a 3-part series on Easy Passive Income for Artists.

Originally posted on Receptive Music’s blog.

The majority of artists already have their music on iTunes, thanks to simple services like CD Baby and Tunecore.  You get 70% of the money every time someone buys your album.  But if you are sending your fans to iTunes, you need to sign up for an iTunes Affiliate Account to earn an extra 5% every time one of your fans buys something after clicking on your link!

How to sign up:

1. Go sign up for free at LinkShare.com. Takes only a couple of minutes (it’s worth it).
2. Then click here to go to the iTunes Advertiser page and click “Apply” at the bottom of the page after agreeing to Terms & Conditions
3. In a day or two, you will get an email saying that you have been approved for the affiliate program

 

How to earn the extra 5%:

1. Now that you’re an affiliate, go back to the the Advertiser Page and click on “Link Maker Tool”
2. An iTunes-looking window will pop up allow you to search for anything on the iTunes store and generate a custom link
3. Your link will be long and ugly, so I recommend putting it into a link-shortener like bit.ly, to make it sexier
4. Now take your bit.ly link and put it everywhere you are sending your fans to iTunes (music page, facebook, twitter, everywhere!)

 

The Gift That Keeps On Giving (for 3 days):

Sending your fans to iTunes using a Linkshare link will not only get you an additional 5% when they purchase your album, but you will get an additional 5% on anything they purchase in iTunes for the next 3 days after clicking your link!  Gotta love that.  

Final Words:

If you’re already sending your fans to iTunes (which you most likely are), you need to be using this affiliate program for passive income.  I have seen sizable amounts of money add up for artists using the affiliate program.  It doesn’t just have to be your music either: send your fans links to music they should check out, and you’ll get that extra income as well if they decide to buy anything. If you need any help getting started, I’d be more than happy to help you out.  Feel free to hit me up through email or Twitter.

About the Author:

Brendan runs Receptive Music, a digital music marketing firm.  We make the web work for artists by integrating marketing campaigns with web and social media development. 

Get in touch with him on Twitter (@webmusicguy) or email. 

Comments

[Derek Miller]

Whoa, that's a pretty sweet trick. Thanks Brendan!

[JP]

I completely agree - no reason not to use the affiliate program for some easy passive income.

However, please note that the "iTunes Affiliate Program" is really 22 separate affiliate programs. Each program is specific to a country's storefront so the directions that Brendan gave above will only work on getting commissions from people in the US store. If you have any international traffic you'll need to sign up for the program and then use the links that match the country your visitor is coming from. Uggg..

I've been working on solution that combines all the affiliate programs together and uses just a single link. This service geotargets where the user is coming from, translates the link to work for their store, then affiliate encode the link so you still get the commissions. Check it out International iTunes Affiliate Links - GeoRiot.com.

Good luck!
-Jesse