Hi there, and welcome to our “Give me 5 Series!”, where we share five useful eCommerce tips that will help improve your strategies and pave your way to success.
In our newest episode,Diana Militaru, Affiliate Network Specialist at 2Checkout (now Verifone), discussed the five essential approaches you should consider when leveraging Affiliate Marketing to maximize your revenue.
Selling effectively is a timeless challenge in commerce. We live in a time where “out with the old, in with the new” seems like the fastest trend on the online market. Here is where Affiliate Marketing comes into play.
So, what should you be doing to win new audiences and capitalize on those connections? Here are five tips:
Set up your own affiliate program, or partner with an affiliate network
First things first: you need to understand how an affiliate program works.
An affiliate program is a partnership between a merchant and a publisher. Basically, the publisher promotes the merchants’ products on their site and receives a commission for doing so for each completed sale.
When getting into this process, you need to consider what type of your business is, as this kind of marketing strategy works best for eCommerce and online subscription businesses. Then, you should assess your business bandwidth. This is an important step as you will be face different and multiple demands, such as offering support to new affiliates, managing commissions, and assisting them with performance marketing software. From this point, partnering with an established affiliate network may be a more lucrative direction, since you can directly access a market-validated framework and processes that will get you selling through this channel faster.
Partner with the right affiliates
A new blogger may be developing their affiliate website and may not have much traffic yet, but it doesn’t mean they will not generate income in the future. You might want to consider the following elements when evaluating whether to work with a particular affiliate.
The advertiser’s website traffic and domain authority can give you valuable insights. You can see how much organic and paid traffic each site generates month to month, using tools such as Similarweb, SEMRush or Ahrefs.
With an affiliate marketing network, you can track the number of active campaigns an affiliate is running. As we all know, power is in numbers, so the more, the merrier.
For everything to be done right, consistency will be key. Make sure the affiliate site looks professional, polished and in line with your brand.
Also, don’t forget about relevance. If you use vertical affiliates who are known for their expertise in your industry, their messages will resonate better with your target audience. For example, if you’re a merchant selling multimedia apps, search for affiliates who specialize in the software space.
Offer unbeatable promotions
Often, new affiliates will begin by advertising the campaigns you suggested during the recruitment process. If new affiliates are successful from the get-go, it will make it easier for you to connect with them and gain their trust. It’s important to keep in mind that the top three drivers for affiliates are commission, product/service relevancy, and brand awareness. You’ll want to make sure you’re providing them with fitting information and compelling offers. As part of the promotion stack, approach each campaign having done your due diligence, whether this means setting up special pricing, producing visual materials or launching new campaign Landing pages.
Maintain the relationships and network
We all know that as a general rule in life, networking is key. This applies to Affiliate Marketing partnerships too. Since these accounts are the ones to generate revenue, you need to build relationships and keep the communication going.
Engage Affiliates in your program by sending them newsletters and updates each month. Reaching out to them regularly to keep them interested in promoting your products and services. A best practice for your power affiliates is to touch base each month to stay informed on any issues or needs the affiliate might have. I guarantee that the affiliate partnership will be improved if you do this. Of course, this can be done with any of the affiliates, depending on your availability.
Monitor results and ask for feedback
When I say this, I’m talking about asking for AND giving feedback. A little communication will always go a long way when it comes to better selling your product. Try to offer your affiliates feedback in a constructive way.
You may discover that there are things you can do to optimize the process, like adjusting the discount to season and territory, or displaying certain ads in certain places. In return, you also can ask for feedback, since the affiliates have a working knowledge of their community and can give you useful tips.
There you have it – five actionable tips to help you maximize your strategy through Affiliate Marketing. Now it’ s time to go try them out.
Thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments section. We wish you good luck finding the right strategies for your business needs. See you next time with more cool new tips!
In search of additional tips on how to recover lost customers and increase your businesses’ long term success? Then you should definitely check out our dedicated “Give me 5” episode here!
