Become a VBI Affiliate and Start Earning

Love Visuals by Impulse? Want to earn extra income for your channel?

Now your viewers can support you directly, each and every time they make a purchase on the VBI marketplace.

That’s right, we’re stoked to announce that the VBI Affiliate Program is BACK and bigger than ever. For years, you’ve shared our name and designs across Twitch, YouTube and the streaming world. It’s time for us to return the favor.

Starting today, you’ll earn bonus cash every time you refer a viewer or fan — and they go on to buy VBI designs. We’ll hook you up with custom affiliate URLs, discount codes, private analytics and free graphics for your channel.

All you need to do is stream, share and start earning.

Best of all, this program is available to anyone, not just streamers. Got a YouTube channel? You can earn there. Run a blog, podcast or gaming outlet? Start earning there too.

Ready to become affiliated with Visuals by Impulse? We’ll show you how it all works.

What is an affiliate program?

If you’re a long-time creator, you may already know how affiliate programs work. Maybe you’re even rocking some affiliate URLs in your Twitch profile or YouTube video descriptions right now!

For many others, affiliate programs may be a brand new concept. Here’s a brief rundown.

Affiliate programs are arrangements between creators and brands. In exchange for promotion of a brand’s services, the creator—or “affiliate”—earns a slice of every sale they refer. Typically, this means you earn a percentage cut of each purchase made by your viewers or fans—often called “referrals”.

We’ll explain this in more detail later. For now, know that affiliate programs are a great way to:

• Earn extra income for your channel, beyond just subs and donos. Diversification is almost always a good idea.
• Make passive income. This way, you can earn money even when your stream is offline — or while you’re asleep!
• Get exclusive discounts for your audience. Your viewers save every time they use your custom discount code.
• Win credibility with new viewers. Being affiliated with a well-known brand instantly marks you as a professional.

But not all affiliate programs are built equally. In fact, ours is pretty darn special.

How does the VBI affiliate program work?

Our Affiliate Program was designed for creators, first and foremost. And because every creator wants to be memorable, we’ve loaded ours with customization options and features. That way you can customize the experience for each of your viewers — and max out your earnings.

Here’s how it works:

• You’ll be given a unique affiliate URL, which you can share with your audience.
• We’ll also give you a unique discount code, which unlocks 5% off designs for your viewers.
• Every time someone uses your link to visit the VBI site, their activity will be linked directly to your affiliate ID.
• If they make a purchase on the VBI marketplace, you take home a 15% cut of the transaction total.

That means that if one of your viewers purchases a $30 stream package using your affiliate link, you earn $4.50.

Nice.

What else should I know?

How you share your affiliate URL is up to you. Later on, we’ll share some of the best ways to drive referrals. But to start off, we’ll be giving you a free, downloadable affiliate kit, which includes:

• Twitch panel
• Animated CTA overlay
• Pre-roll videos
• Wallpapers
• Social post templates

You can download your kit here.

But what about customizations? Well, later we’ll show you how to customize your affiliate URL, to make it iconic and branded to your channel. You can also personalize your discount code, for easy sharing with your audience. You can even create several affiliate links—all running simultaneously—using “campaigns“, multiplying your revenue streams.

You’ll also unlock access to your very own, private analytics dashboard. From here, you can track real-time data for all your traffic sources — and see what’s working and what isn’t. All your most important data in one spot, so you can maximize conversions.

And as a VBI affiliate, you’ll have direct access to our industry-leading support team. Need help setting up your affiliate URL or discount code? We’re here to help.

How much can you make?

How much you earn as a VBI affiliate depends on a number of factors:

• The size of your audience
• Your marketing creativity
• Your audience’s disposable income
• Your hustle

Regardless, there’s easy money to be made, whether you’re streaming to 10,000 viewers or 10.

To demonstrate the range in earning potential, we’ve created three hypothetical scenarios.

Scenario #1: Small Twitch Streamer

Sam streams four to five days a week on Twitch, with an average of 50-100 concurrent viewers. By combining on-stream callouts, social media posts, and the occasional YouTube video (from his OBS recordings), Sam averages one successful referral per day. That is, each day one of Sam’s fans uses his affiliate link to purchase a VBI product.

The average order value of Sam’s referrals is around $20. Sam gets a 15% cut, which averages out to $3 per transaction. So, Sam makes around $3 per day as a VBI affiliate.

That means Sam makes $90 every month. Or, around $1,080 every year. Not bad.

Scenario #2: Mid-Sized YouTube Creator

Yara is a full-time YouTube Gaming creator. Her channel has 125K subscribers, and she typically uploads two to three videos per week. In addition, she livestreams twice a week and averages around 500 concurrent viewers.

Between her video uploads and livestreams, Yara drives around five successful referrals every day. Each referral averages $17 in order value, of which Yara takes home 15%. That means that per day, she generates around $12.50 in bonus revenue.

That’s about $375 per month. Or over $4,500 each year. Pretty sweet.

Scenario #3: Large Podcaster & Blogger

Ross is lead producer for a popular gaming podcast, which streams on a number of platforms — including Spotify, Apple, Google and YouTube. He promotes his VBI discount via audio shout-outs and always posts his affiliate URL in show notes and video descriptions.

In addition, he adds his affiliate link to new posts on the podcast’s gaming blog, which receives tens of thousands of monthly visitors.

Across all these platforms, Ross averages 20 successful referrals each day. The average order value is $14, of which the podcast takes a 15% cut — or about $2.10.

That’s $42 a day. Or $1,260 a month. Or $15,120 yearly. Very, very nice.

How Do Payouts Work?

Payouts are sent directly to your PayPal account. From your analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to track all your earnings, broken down into four categories:

1. Paid: Earnings that have been successfully paid out on PayPal.
2. Unpaid: Earnings that will be included in upcoming payouts.
3. Pending: Earnings that have not yet cleared transaction processing.
4. Rejected: Missed earnings due to order refunds or errors.

To qualify for your first payout, you’ll need to reach $25 in affiliate earnings. After that, payouts are sent the last Friday of every month.

Tips for Earning More Affiliate Income

Want to supercharge your affiliate earnings? Here are some top recommendations from our team — and creators just like you.

Download your free Twitch panel.

Twitch streamer? We’re giving you a free, downloadable panel to display on your Twitch profile! This is the easiest way to share your affiliate URL and discount code. Not only do panels make your affiliate info easy to find for viewers, they also add credibility and a ‘pro’ look to your channel.

Just make sure to link your panel to your discount URL, which can be found here. That way any time someone clicks your panel, your discount code is automatically applied — no extra steps needed.

Customize your affiliate link.

By default, the final characters of your affiliate URL—also called a “slug”—are assigned a random combination of letters and numbers. For example: https://visualsbyimpulse.com/?ref=9xcyj.

Gross. Who wants to click that?

You can customize your affiliate slug by visiting the Setting tab. Choose something with special significance, like your channel name or an iconic phrase. This not only builds trust when your viewers load up the URL, it also strengthens your brand.

For example, Shroud may choose to customize his affiliate URL to: https://visualsbyimpulse.com/?ref=shroud.

Much better.

Add animated affiliate overlays to your stream.

If you’re a streamer or YouTube creator, we’ve got another goodie for your affiliate toolkit.

It’s called an animated call-to-action (or “CTA”) overlay, which plays right over your livestream or VOD. It acts as a permanent, looping reminder for your audience. That way, even if a viewer has your stream audio muted, you can still grab their attention! It’s a great way to ‘show’ and not just ‘tell’, which means more referrals — and more cash for you.

You can download it here.

Setup is super easy. Just drag the HTML file into your streaming software, whether you’re using OBS Studio, Streamlabs or StreamElements.

Want to customize the timing of your new CTA overlay? By default, the animation loops every 300 seconds (or 5 minutes), but we made it easy to adjust. Learn how in this quick tutorial video.

If you’re uploading YouTube VODs or video editing, we’ve also included a MOV file. That way you can easily add the CTA animation to your video editing software, like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.

Check your analytics.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, some strategies perform better than others. Every audience too is unique, offering their own challenges and opportunities. The only way to know what’s working—and more importantly what isn’t—is to dive into your analytics.

Our dashboard allows you to pinpoint winning strategies and cut the losers. We give you the real-time, hard data so you can optimize results and earn more. From the Affiliate Area, you’ll be able to:

• Track every click of your affiliate URL—including whether the user converted (i.e. made a purchase) or not—using the Visits tab.
• See which products your viewers are buying—and how much your cut is—all from the Referrals tab.
• View a visual representation of your affiliate income over time, using the Graphs tab.
• See your overall conversion rate (i.e. the percentage of users who make a purchase) and view your campaign performances — all from the Statistics tab.

Remember, it’s not just about driving visitor traffic. You’ll only make money if your referrals go on to make a purchase, or “convert”. Use analytics to identify the campaigns with high conversion rates — and put extra emphasis on those!

Spread the word on social media.

One of the most effective places to share your affiliate link is on social. After all, as creators, many of us have built up large, loyal followings on platforms like Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

Social posts, stories and videos allow you to reach a larger audience — even if some viewers haven’t tuned into your stream lately. It’s also a great way to earn referral money even when you’re offline.

Need some messaging ideas? We’ve prepared a few quick-and-easy sample posts here for inspiration. Just remember to replace the VBI link with your unique affiliate URL, otherwise you won’t earn any rewards!

Set up chat commands.

Do you use either Streamlabs or StreamElements? Want a set-and-forget affiliate reminder? Call out your discount code with chatbot commands!

This is a great way to get your affiliate discount link in front of your viewers, even if you’re busy gaming or AFK. Remember, the more enticing your chatbot messaging, the higher click-through you’ll see — and the more you’ll earn.

Set an automatic interval that makes sense for your community. Whether that’s every 20 minutes or 60 minutes, you know your audience best.

Need help picking chatbot trigger commands? We’ve put together a list of some of the most popular and successful commands right here. Pick your favorite, or create an alias to set up multiple commands.

Customize your coupon codes.

Just like affiliate URLs, your discount codes start out as a random sequence of letters and numbers. But once you pass $25 in affiliate earnings, you unlock the ability to custom-create your code!

This works best if you choose a codeword or phrase that is iconic to your channel. The more branded your code, the easier it will be for your audience to remember at checkout!

Once you’ve passed the $25 threshold, reach out to our Support team. We’ll verify your account and help to personalize your discount code.

Try out URL campaigns.

Is there a particular VBI product you use? Is there another you know would be a hit with your audience? By using affiliate “campaigns”, you can target each design simultaneously — and grow your affiliate income big-time. Here’s how.

By default, all affiliate links send users to VBI’s homepage—but they don’t have to. You can create campaign URLs that link to specific product pages, product categories or streamer tools! Campaigns act like shortcuts, sending users directly to the webpages that interest them most.

Best of all, you can have multiple affiliate campaigns running at once! For example, your chatbot can link to a favorite VBI stream package. Your new social post about can link to the animated emotes category. And your YouTube video can link to the transition maker tool! Pretty cool, right?

Setting campaigns up is super easy. Just visit the Affiliate URL tab, paste in your destination URL and generate your new link! You can even track the performance of each campaign, to see which ones are working and which aren’t. Click the Statistics tab to view all campaign analytics.

Queue some video ads.

Short on content? Taking a bio-break? Need some B-roll for your affiliate promo segments?

Your downloadable brand kit includes bonus video footage — get creative and use it where you see fit! As long as you don’t overuse them, ads are a great way to add more referrals to your affiliate queue. They also work excellent as pre-roll and mid-roll spotlights, if you can bake them into your YouTube videos!

Here’s a quick preview.

We’ll be adding more videos to choose from soon. In the meantime, the VBI YouTube channel is an excellent option for ad roll ideas.

Know your different links.

Don’t make a rookie mistake. Your affiliate link and discount link are not the same!

An affiliate URL looks something like this: https://visualsbyimpulse.com/?ref=ludwig.

Meanwhile, a custom discount URL looks like this: https://visualsbyimpulse.com/?ref=ludwig&coupon-code=ludwig.

Notice the extra bit at the end of the discount URL, “coupon-code=”, plus your unique code? That’s how you know your discount is built into the link.

Affiliate links alone will not apply your discount. Don’t worry, you’ll still earn whenever someone makes a purchase with your affiliate link. However, users won’t benefit from your coupon code — they’ll pay full price. For that reason, affiliate links are better suited for bloggers or news outlets, where it’s less common to push discounts.

On the flip side, whenever a viewer clicks your discount link, the coupon code is automatically applied. No extra steps needed — as soon as they go to checkout the discount is calculated. Alternatively, if they wound up on the VBI marketplace without using your link, they can paste your code into the coupon field at checkout. Both options will apply your code, and you’ll earn from either purchase.

For this reason, discount links are better suited for streamers and creators. Ads are a natural parts of video and audio content, and they’re a lot more powerful when there’s a discount attached.

Just don’t get caught using an affiliate link when you meant to use your discount link!

Download free wallpapers.

You’ll also unlock access to our complete collection of VBI wallpapers. That way, you can show off your affiliate status on-stream.

Set one as your desktop background, or share some with your audience! Each design comes in mobile variation too, so you can upgrade your iPhone or Android display.

Each and every wallpaper was hand-crafted by VBI artists. We’ve prepared a variety of themes to fit your style — and we’ll continue to add new ones in the future.

See the full collection here.

Experiment with educational content.

Want to boost your conversion rates? A simple shout-out or social post may not be enough to drive successful referrals. If you really want your audience to buy, you need to help them solve a problem. And the best way to do that is through engaging, educational content.

What does that mean?

Well, being a small creator is tough. There are so many stumbling blocks and tech obstacles. Who better to speak to it than you, with all the lessons and tips you’ve learned along the way? If you can show them how VBI makes their lives easier—and puts their careers on the fast-track—then you’ve already won.

Here are some ideas:

• Show them how to reawaken a dead chat with the Hype Meter widget.
• Teach them how to custom-create OBS stingers with the transition maker tool.
• Guide them through using webcam masks using our free starter kit.
• Create free, custom Twitch panels using the panel maker tool.

For a full list of ideas, check this out.

Educational content can take many forms. It could be a long-form video, or a blog post, or a dedicated livestream… No matter which you choose, always remember — you’re not trying to sell your fans, you’re trying to help them.

Conclusion

Streaming is hard. Why not earn easy money? You can start adding affiliate income to your stream today. All it takes is a few minutes to become a VBI affiliate.

Share out your link and code, then watch the earnings roll in.

We’re just getting started too. We plan on expanding the affiliate program with new features, analytics and tools — all designed to maximize your earnings.

Register today to get started.