This article will explain what affiliate marketing is and how companies can sell more with Affiliate Marketing.
How to get leads from social media if you don’t have groups? How to multiply traffic from sites where you are not even represented? The answer is – through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Benefits
First, affiliate marketing is about saving money. If you work with partners on the CPA – cost-per-action model, then you will pay only for the leads you need or for the purchases you have already made. Secondly, it saves time. You just need to find partners and negotiate the terms of cooperation, and the rest of the work already lies with them.
Disadvantages of affiliate marketing
Leaving work in the wrong hands is always a risk. A partner can ruin your reputation if he uses not entirely honest and “bazaar” promotion methods like clickbait teaser ads. Or it may simply break the agreement: at best, you will lose time, at worst, money and reputation.
Types of affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing can essentially be divided into two groups. The first is to work through partner networks, these are special aggregator sites where marketers, site owners, bloggers, and so on can act as partners.
The second group is working directly with partner companies. You find a site that has your target audience and cooperate directly with the site: for example, you make joint content with an advertising element.
Affiliate networks
When they talk about affiliate marketing, they usually mean networks, or simply “affiliate programs” among the people. So, we’ll tell you about them in more detail.
An affiliate network is an aggregator site where advertisers and webmaster performers can register. The advertiser gives the task and payment terms: for example, to place a link to the product on the website, and the artist’s payment will be calculated by the number of clicks on it.
Here is a list of the main placements:
- contextual advertising;
- banner advertising;
- display networks;
- teaser advertising;
- landing pages;
- blog articles;
- email newsletters;
- social network.
Performers in affiliate networks get paid according to several models, here are the most common:
- CPA (cost per action) is a model when payment is made for a specified action that a user must perform. Affiliate networks are often called CPA networks.
- CPS (cost per sale) – payment for the sale, which took place thanks to the partner.
- CPL (cost per lead) – payment for a lead, usually a registration in the service.
- CPI (cost per install) – payment for installation, this model is used when promoting mobile applications.
There are many affiliate networks. There are thematic ones, for example, devoted to purely financial services, and there are many-sided ones. If you are just starting to work with affiliate networks as an advertiser, choose the largest and most proven ones, and study their conditions.
Similar to affiliate programs, a common technique for increasing registrations in the service is referral programs. Only here do you act directly through your customers. If the client invites his friends to register, he receives a bonus from the service. To track such registrations, a unique invitation link is generated for each user, which he sends to friends.
Booking offers a bonus if the user invites a residential property owner to register with the service.
Loyalty programs
Affiliate marketing can be used in your loyalty program – to give loyal customers bonuses from partners. This often happens in banking product programs.
Gifts and promotions
This option is similar to loyalty programs, but in this case, it is short-term. With this approach, you can constantly change partners, choose new ones and test what your target audience likes best.
Shared content
Shared content turns out to be useful: we do not just advertise companies, but talk about their practical experience and give specific instructions on how to repeat the case using our service. It turns out a win-win situation: the company gets an external mention, and we get high-quality blog material, useful for readers.
Of course, the format is not limited to articles only. You can translate it into social media. For example, make a joint post, video, or live broadcast with an expert on an interesting topic.
Info support
Information support is a mutual PR of two companies. For example, you can negotiate with some community on social networks where your target audience is, and exchange posts.
The affiliate post should be of interest to your subscribers.
Choose sites of about the same size as yours: if your partner has much fewer subscribers, then such cooperation will be unprofitable for you.
Info support is also often found in email newsletters: in digests, subscribers are offered an article or a promotion from a partner company.
How to build an effective affiliate marketing
Start building your affiliate marketing program gradually. At the same time, it is important to analyze incoming traffic from the very beginning and, if possible, evaluate potential partners in advance.
1. Track every incoming customer
Track incoming traffic for affiliate programs. This is the only way to evaluate the effectiveness of different affiliate placements. Traffic can be analyzed in Google Analytics or Yandex. Metrica, but the most reliable way is to make links with UTM tags. With UTM, you will know exactly from which article, post, or letter the user came to you.
2. Work with trusted partners
When you are promoting through affiliate networks, choose reliable ones. Aggregators themselves select implementing partners, and the stricter the requirements for them, the less chance of running into scammers or simply unscrupulous executors.
If you select partners manually, then the risk of unsuccessful cooperation is higher. We advise you to monitor sites that are of interest to you – bloggers, groups in social networks, and company blogs. You can “throw a rod” there in advance and exchange small posts. If all goes well, then larger joint projects can be started.
3. Don’t take too many partners
If you work through affiliate networks, choose one or two.
If you don’t have a dedicated marketing department, it just isn’t wise to spend time tracking results across a large number of partners. Moreover, not every collaboration will be effective. To get started with affiliate programs, choose one – large, popular, with normal guarantees.
If you plan to negotiate directly with other companies, bloggers or communities, you should also not immediately achieve huge coverage. It is better to spend time on a little research and find several sites where your potential target audience is most concentrated.
Affiliate marketing and email marketing
We want to warn you right away: do not abuse affiliate mailings! Some companies simply send letters from partners to their base, without designating them in any way. It turns out that a person receives a newsletter, which he did not subscribe to, and sends it to “Spam”. If there are a lot of complaints about spam, it spoils your reputation as a sender and reduces the deliverability of future emails.
How to correctly form partner offers in mailings:
- Send a letter on your own behalf, in your usual design.
Select offers that are interesting to your target audience, and directly indicate that they are from your partners.
Don’t overload the letter. Create a useful newsletter with your materials and add a couple of offers from partners to it. Do not send letters that consist entirely of affiliate promotions.
What is worth remembering
Affiliate marketing is the mutually beneficial promotion of goods or services through intermediary partners. A partner can be anyone: an ordinary marketer, blogger, owner of a Youtube channel or a group on a social network, or another company. This is convenient: in most cases, you do not need to search for advertising channels and sites yourself, think over the campaign settings – all this is done by the intermediary himself.
Here are the types of affiliate marketing you can use for your company:
- partner networks;
- loyalty program with bonuses from partners;
- gifts and promotions from partners;
- joint content – cases, expert articles, videos, and so on;
- info support – mutual distribution of content.
To build an effective affiliate marketing
Work with trusted partners. If you want to use networks, choose large ones first, with a good reputation and guarantees. If you work directly with intermediaries, start with small deals and gradually work your way up to larger ones.
Don’t take too many partners. It will be difficult to track and evaluate all the results – it will take a lot of time and effort. Usually, large companies with dedicated marketing departments work with a large number of partners.
Track all traffic coming from partners. To do this, use links with UTM tags or unique promotional codes – this way you will understand from which particular ad, post, letter, or article each user came.
Try to promote yourself with affiliate marketing – this will significantly expand the entrance to your sales funnel.
