OAK Digital, an affiliate marketing agency explains that successfully managed affiliate marketing campaigns can have a highly positive impact on a company’s profitability, market share, and brand image. This marketing technique offers a flexible approach to promoting a business, requiring low effort and time, along with being cost-effective.
However, most companies do not have the right in-house expertise to manage a large-scale high quality affiliate program. Therefore, to opt in for external agencies to design, develop and run their affiliate marketing programs makes sense for them and their business.
Before getting into an agreement with any external agency, it is important for business owners to determine their scope of work along with their strategic goals, metrics and deliverables. Doing this will help your business get the best out of your affiliate marketing agency. It is also essential to ask the right questions when interviewing and shortlisting an affiliate marketing agency. The following guide will help you understand what affiliate marketing is, along with everything you need to know before starting a successful affiliate marketing program.
1- What is an affiliate marketing agency?
An affiliate marketing agency is an organization that connects you with the right partners and stakeholders to help you deliver a unique and focused marketing campaign. These agencies typically have access to a vast number of social media influencers and unique content creators and use these resources to promote your product in the required market segment. In return, they earn a commission on every sale that is made as a result of the agency’s efforts.
Affiliate marketing typically involves a partnership between an affiliate and a business to help increase the business’ sales. For businesses that operate online, the affiliate uses a unique link that is meant to track traffic that is directed to the site through the affiliate. The affiliate gets a certain percentage of the sales made through these unique, trackable links, also known as affiliate links.
2- What are the main advantages of affiliate marketing?
According to data from Statista, affiliate marketing spending in the US is expected to reach USD 8.2 billion by 2022.
Why are companies spending so much on this marketing technique?
Because of the numerous benefits it offers. For instance, an affiliate marketing program does not require a massive budget or a professional advertising team. All you need is the creativity of the affiliates you partner with and they will come up with advertising ideas on their own. In addition to that, any costs attached to the marketing content created will have to be borne by the affiliates themselves. Since it is a commission based program, it means you will only have to pay the affiliates according to the sales they bring in.
In addition to low costs, affiliate marketing is also low risk and offers a higher degree of flexibility. Businesses have the choice of making their affiliate program smaller or bigger, as per their marketing requirements.
Other benefits of hiring an affiliate marketing agency include targeted traffic, high ROI, performance-based payment structure and a boost in reputation and market presence. Affiliate marketing can be a highly effective investment with an impact that stretches beyond a business’ traditional market.
3- Why do advertisers use affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a growing field with numerous advantages for advertisers. These marketing programs are quickly becoming a significant part of content marketing strategies employed by businesses all over the world. Content marketing is a major part of any business’ digital marketing strategy, and affiliate programs are the ideal way advertisers can meet the challenge of creating content that actually generates value for customers and delivers the company’s message in a trustworthy way. In addition to that, most of the costs involved in affiliate marketing are paid based on performance, including commission, bonuses and network fees etc.
4- How do I hire an affiliate marketing agency?
When planning on hiring an affiliate marketing agency, it is important to keep certain factors in mind:
Industry experience:
You should ensure that the affiliate marketing agency you hire has a lot of experience in your specific industry.
Relevance of affiliates:
Typically, you should look for an agency that has the right kind of publishers on board. For instance, if you intend to advertise a new kind of exercise machine, you should look for an agency that can connect you to fitness bloggers. These fitness bloggers would have the potential of helping you tap into the right market segment for your product.
Existing clients:
The affiliate marketing agency you go for should ideally have worked with other successful brands. It would be a big plus if the agency has already worked with one of your competitors, since this would mean that they are aware of your specific market.
Communication:
It is essential to go for an affiliate marketing agency that has excellent communication scores and would not be hard to reach in case any concerns arise. You should go for an agency that can dedicate a sufficient amount of time to designing and executing your marketing campaign.
Dedicated account manager:
It is important to ensure that you have a dedicated resource managing your account with the affiliate marketing agency. Often, agencies will assign a whole team to your business, with no one person in-charge. This can give rise to numerous problems because of a communication gap. When shortlisting an agency for affiliate marketing, it is recommended that you ask the agency about the number of accounts your dedicated manager will be looking after at one time. Make sure this number is not very high and does not create room for a conflict of interest on the part of the manager.
Size of the programs:
It would be a good practice to ask your shortlisted agencies the size of the affiliate marketing programs they handle. If you want to run a widespread campaign, it would be better to go for an agency that has a vast and widespread network of affiliates in the relevant markets.
5- What is the most important element of a successful affiliate program?
The success of an affiliate program can be attributed to several factors. However, the most important factor is the creation of a good system that allows you to manage affiliate accounts, keep track of commissions, track referral links, and process payment structures.
One of the fundamental aspects of a successful affiliate program is having a strong product. While this seems like an obvious factor, it is important to note that affiliates are more likely to make a bigger effort to promote products that are inherently strong and solid, because the return on investment is likely to be higher.
In addition to having a reliable system and strong product, the business owner would need to provide relevant incentives to encourage affiliates to sign up for accounts. It must be kept in mind that just because an affiliate has signed up for an account, it does not mean that product sales would move in an upward trajectory immediately. It takes work and time investment, on behalf of the business owner, as well as the affiliate.
Another thing that business owners need to ensure is to make the work of affiliates as easy as possible. This could involve providing them with product images and logos in a timely manner or telling them early on if there are any specific requirements for the marketing campaign.
6- How does affiliate marketing work?
Affiliate marketing is defined as the process of earning a commission for promoting another person’s or business’s product. Affiliates use their personal platforms to promote products and earn a commission on every sale made through their account.
To make affiliate marketing work, three main parties are involved: seller and product creators, the affiliate and the consumer. The process starts with an affiliate listing the advertisement on their website, blog or social network. Following this, when a customer clicks the ad or link, he is sent to the store’s website through a tracking link. The customer then makes a purchase on the website and the affiliate network records the details of this transaction. After this, the business confirms the sale as a valid sale and the transaction is credited to the affiliate’s account. The process ends with the affiliate getting paid the predefined commission on the sale.
7- How does affiliate marketing drive sales?
Many successful brands are using affiliate marketing to increase their sales and grow their revenue streams. Several strategies and marketing channels can be leveraged in order to drive sales through affiliate marketing programs.
The most important factor for driving sales through affiliate marketing is choosing the right affiliates according to your marketing requirements. In order to ensure that you have the right affiliates on board, it is important to note factors such as whether the affiliate has a good reputation with their audience and if their audience matches your relevant market segment. In addition to that, the affiliate should have followers, views, engagement, authority, and site ranking.
Another way to drive sales through affiliate marketing is through the use of deals, promotions, and coupons. Consumers always love a good deal and typically look for discounts and vouchers on product purchases. For competitive markets such as food, travel, and beauty, coupons work best. However, it must be noted that coupons need to be managed well since an extravagant discount would simply take a major chunk out of your profits.
Another strategy to grow your sales volume with affiliate marketing is to harness the power of niche influencers. Many companies work with a large number of social influencers and bloggers in their niche markets and generate sales by benefitting from the bloggers’ authentic relationships with their followers. These social influencers have the authority to effectively get their audience to trust your brand and convince them to purchase your products.
Another method to drive more sales through affiliate marketing is to use various platforms, rather than just Instagram or Facebook. Some of the most promising sources for affiliate marketing platforms include product review blogs, webinars, email marketing and YouTube videos. By using a variety of marketing platforms, you can develop a very comprehensive and detailed affiliate marketing program that would last longer and is likely to offer higher profitability.
8- What is an example of affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a technique employed by numerous major businesses across the globe. The most notable example is the Amazon affiliate program which helps content creators, bloggers and different kinds of publishers easily monetize their traffic. Other noteworthy examples of affiliate marketing programs include those of The Home Depot,Ebay, Etsy, Aliexpress Affiliate, and The Zalando Partner Program.
9- How to find affiliate programs?
Whether you intend to use affiliate marketing as an additional revenue system or want to employ it as the main source of your site’s income, finding the right program is essential. In order to discover the best affiliate programs, there are certain pointers you ought to bear in mind. For instance, look for affiliates who are likely to be aware of your product and might even have used it before. This would help establish a trust factor with the affiliate’s audience. In addition to that, the affiliate is likely to already have a complete understanding of your product.
Another factor to bear in mind when looking for affiliate programs is to look for influencers who have followers in your required market segment since these would have the tendency to benefit your marketing campaign the most. Having the right audience is the most essential factor in affiliate marketing, therefore, do some research to find affiliates that have access to the audience you want to market your product to.
One more way to go about finding the right affiliates would be to reach out to agencies who are already marketing your competitors’ products. Affiliates from these agencies are likely to have a solid understanding of your relevant audience already and might even be able to get an interesting conversation going around the marketing of your brand.
10- Which products are best for affiliate marketing?
The best products for affiliate marketing are the ones that resonate with the affiliate’s followers, generate the highest income streams, and bring in the most sales. Examples of some of the best affiliate marketing products are financial products, dating products, beauty products, real estate products, travel products, gaming products, sport related products, fashion/apparel, and gardening products. Most of these products are high in demand for the most part of the year and have the capacity to generate lucrative profits for business owners. Let’s take fashion products as an example. The fashion industry is a highly profitable market with brands and products available for all demographics, including men’s clothing, women’s clothing, luxury products, petite and plus size products and so on. Naturally, there are numerous affiliates with varying audiences who can help generate the right kind of buzz about your product, whatever focused segment your product may be in.
11- What is high-ticket affiliate marketing?
High ticket affiliate marketing is a technique that allows affiliates to earn huge profits with low sale volumes. With this technique, affiliates sell product types that are bound to give more commission on a low number of sales. Such products are referred to as high-ticket products, including gold jewelry, expensive watches or luxury electronic items.
Using high-ticket affiliate marketing, advertisers can focus their energy on a few affiliate products that generate higher than average commissions, as opposed to a wide range of products that pay low commissions. High-ticket affiliate marketing is ideal for advertisers who have a solid grasp on the features and specifications of the high-end product they are selling. Consumers for luxury items are likely to only trust affiliates who seem to know what they are talking about. Therefore, it is important to be well-versed in the luxury product market that you wish to tap into.
If you have a high-end product that you wish to sell through an affiliate marketing agency, it would be ideal to look for an agency that has affiliates who are experienced in promoting luxury products.
12- How to increase sales with high-ticket affiliate marketing?
High-ticket affiliate marketing requires affiliates to have a very trustworthy relationship with their followers. In addition to that, affiliates need to be a complete authority on the product they are promoting and ought to be fully aware of all the features and aspects of the product. Both these factors combined can help generate sales for high-ticket products.
To achieve this level of expertise and boost high-ticket sales, there are certain strategies that can be employed. For instance, it would be advisable to allow the affiliates to use your product before they can design an effective campaign to sell it. If you intend on promoting a new high-end electronic product, it would be better to let your affiliates use it personally and figure out its pros and cons from a consumer’s point of view.
Another way to boost high-ticket sales would be to promote products based on customer needs in the relevant niche. For this, affiliates will have to do an in-depth analysis of the relevant market and would have to understand what appeals to their audience the most. A good way to go about this would be to check how competitor products are being sold through affiliates. Analyzing competitor marketing strategies can help you understand the market landscape better and can enable you to get better sales through your affiliates.
13- How can affiliate marketing help my business?
Affiliate marketing can help businesses promote their products to selected segments through the use of specific influencers. This marketing technique can help businesses of all kinds and scales increase their sales volume with low promotion budgets. One of the biggest ways affiliate marketing helps your business is by giving you a low cost marketing solution. Not only does affiliate marketing have a low start-up cost, but it also benefits businesses with its low ongoing costs. As the program takes off, affiliates take it forward and your brand only has to pay out when a sale is made through an affiliate. When using an agency you might have a fixed fee but a greater return of investment (ROI) as you are building your program upon the agency’s experience and Know How.
In addition to the above, affiliate marketing programs are largely low risk. This can be attributed to the low cost and low ongoing cost factors. As a business owner, you would be aware of exactly what percentage you will be paying out when the conversion occurs, saving you from any unexpected, last minute payments or financial risks.
Affiliate marketing can also benefit your business with its ability to generate targeted traffic. Because the affiliates you go for are selected and approved by your company, you can define the kind of traffic that comes to your website. Under ideal circumstances, if your affiliates resonate with your product, then their followers are expected to do so as well.
Affiliate marketing can help you increase brand awareness around your product through valuable partnerships with hand-selected influencers. When consumers hear about a product from someone they trust, they are more likely to make a purchase.
Another benefit of using affiliate marketing techniques is that brands can use the affiliate generated content in their own marketing campaigns as well. This would boost the organic visuals on their own social media and help generate more relevant traffic.
14- Can we have an affiliate program in multiple countries?
In order to have an affiliate program that spans multiple countries, business owners will have to spend time on generating proper links and providing the right technical support. An ideal approach to go about this would be to generate a universal affiliate link.
Let’s take Amazon affiliate program as an example. If you have tried selling Amazon products in different countries, you would have run into the problem of having to generate geo-targeted links for every single country so that people in other countries can actually find and purchase your product.
In order to overcome this issue with international affiliate marketing, it is recommended that you generate a universal affiliate link.
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