Every now and then we get questions from affiliates seeking our advice on successful affiliate campaigns for software titles. This is a subject that has no universal conclusions, since what may work very well for one can fail for others. However, in this post I will share some of the ideas that were successfully put to work by some of our affiliates, hoping they will serve as inspiration.
First of all: there’s no recipe for success! But there are some things that you could try as an affiliate promoting software in order to make it count for your pocket at the end of the month :)
Promote software with try-before-you-buy model
Most of the successful affiliates already do this partially – promoting free trials on their website. It’s a great way to increase your traffic and increase the sales, since some of the users using free trials will eventually buy them. This figure depends on the merchant, application type and popularity of product/service.
Freemium can also increase the number of sales for an affiliate. This model assumes that the merchant gives away a free basic version of his product without any time limitation. For advanced features, the user has to purchase the Pro version or the product. So, you can promote these free versions on your affiliate website and make sure you set a cookie when the file is downloaded or even get a custom build from the merchant for that.
As an example of a merchant doing freemium, IObit offers one of the best selling products in the Avangate Affiliate Network and in the utilities niche overall – Advanced SystemCare – which has a freemium version also alongside the paid pro version. They also offer affiliates the possibility of getting custom builds directly on their website.
Convert the customer on your website
This means that you should go the extra mile to convince the customer to purchase a specific product from your website. Don’t just list the product description and send the visitors on the merchant website via an affiliate link – this should be just a complementary action.
This works for all types of affiliate online promotion methods: download portals, content websites, discount websites (since most visitor entries are likely to be specific product pages) and email marketing campaigns. Remember – content is still king; anything you can include that will ease up the purchase decision process for the potential client will increase the conversion rates for your affiliate business.
Here are some examples:
- product / service reviews – test the product yourself, write about it and incentivize your visitors to add their own reviews;
- product walkthrough – from installation to illustrated how to’s about the product, tips on how to get the best from the product;
- comparison of similar products – let the potential buyer view the advantages and disadvantages of similar products and let him decide about the best; you may, of course, give recommendations for certain products;
- discounts, promotional campaigns related to offered products / services.
Use the power of email marketing
If you have an affiliate website, you should also try to gather targeted email addresses from your visitors – be sure they give their consent into sharing their email with you, otherwise the spam reports / regulations will make it worse for you. Content websites are more likely to gather a higher opt-in rate, since they offer the added value in the purchase flow that customers find useful. There are some interesting tools to help you with this – PadiAct is one of them, being integrated with all the major email marketing service providers. Plus they have a content-rich blog to go along with that.
For best results, I recommend using email marketing especially when offering special deals to your user database – discounts for products / services, launch campaigns, sales campaigns, etc.
This was part 1 of the series; stay tuned for 2 more ideas we’ve seen that are yielding great results in affiliate marketing.
