Affiliate Marketing: How to Increase Your Sales

Today we are going to talk about sales, specifically about affiliate marketing: what it is, why it is needed and why it is becoming so popular. Naturally, we will give some recommendations on how to improve your marketing strategy for you and your company.

As always, we will start with theory and gradually get to know the topic.

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where an affiliate or third party promotes a company's product for a commission. It is these commissions that are the 

additional income for the company's affiliates.

At the end of 2022, according to statistics, more than 20% of marketers designate it as the main source of income. This trend will be relevant in 2024 as well, so it's time to create or develop your brand's existing affiliate.

It's really quite simple. There are three main points that are responsible for working:

1. The company that has the product/service creates an affiliate programme and provides its affiliates with links to place on their resources. Depending on the type of strategy, these can be graphics, links, tags to social media accounts and so on.
2. The partner's audience clicks on the links and tags. The affiliate link, once interacted with, tracks all activity and actions.
3. After making a purchase or ordering services, the action is recorded and the funds (according to the terms of the programme) are credited to the affiliate's account.

As for the terms of disbursement of funds, there are many and all of them are optional. It all depends on what and how the company sells, what is important to it and how much it is ready to pay affiliates from each attracted client. And here are the main ones:

• pay per click links — the user clicked on the link, went to the site, the parter got paid;
• pay-per-lead — each lead increases the partner's revenue;

pay-per-sale — each sale generates funds for the partner, after the purchase through a referral link on the company's website.

The main pros of the strategy look like this:

• profitability of the strategy;
• high return on investment;
• increased traffic on the website/store;
• target audience reaches you;
• you increase brand awareness and reputation;
• improve SEO;
• increase audience reach;
• minimal risk;
• you have the opportunity to increase conversion rates.

Feels good? It feels good. Now let's get down to business and look at how to work properly with your affiliate programme and what can be improved in it.

Now that we've learnt the theoretical part with you (well, or refreshed our memories of it) it's time to get down to practice, and more specifically, 10 tips to improve your strategy in affiliate marketing.

Choose the Right Partners

The mistake many companies make is that they offer their affiliate program to everyone, indiscriminately. Is this a good thing? No.

We understand why some companies do this, but it's better to shy away from this method. For example, a project that deals with heavy metallurgy opens an affiliate programme and beauty salons participate in it. 

It sounds funny and a bit ridiculous. How does the company benefit from such partners and participants? No, someone may say that the advert can be seen by the investor's wife and all that, but what we need is a concrete result. Every action should bring a tangible result, and relying on the "will of chance" is not our choice. Therefore, before proposing and approving participants of an affiliate programme, conduct a detailed analysis of your potential partners, their audience, assess all the risks and benefits.

Landing Page Optimization

So, you want to increase conversion rates. And who doesn't, right? Work with your landing page: it should be user-friendly, informative and give the customer what they need. That said, a landing page that stands out from the competition will add loyalty points to you and your product. On the background of this will increase and sales figures, as a consequence — the profit of the company.

Working With an Affiliate Page

You have a separate page for your affiliate programme, right? No, not just a small block or section on the site page, but a separate page? If not, you must make one.

If you have a separate page, have a closer look at it: do you like everything in its structure? Is everything clear and accessible? Work on it, if necessary.

And what will help you to identify the need to work with the affiliate page? Research, that's right. According to statistics, you and your landing page have 0.5 seconds to make a first impression on a user. Yes, yes, that's how long it takes for a visitor to evaluate the page. It must load quickly from different devices, be optimized for different types of screens, and all its elements must be working.

Influencers Are Our Everything

In business, all resources are good and each should be used to the maximum. Influencers can be used in your advertising campaign. They are opinion leaders, they are a great option for your brand to become recognizable in social networks and on the Internet, they are watched by millions and their opinion is considered (even if it is not very expert).

Naturally, when choosing who to collaborate with, remember compliance and the first item on our list. The influencer and his sphere of activity should be related to your product (even if not directly, at least indirectly). It will be strange if a tarot master tells his audience about the benefits of buying construction equipment or fertilizers from your company.

Discounts and Offers

Discounts/promotions/interesting offers are the key to long-term and comfortable cooperation. They have always worked and will always work. In the e-commerce sector, discount programmes help retain your business partners and encourage them to purchase your product.

Instead of discounts, you can use motivational offers from the category:

"Participate in our affiliate programme and get 15% of revenue from every customer you refer. The promotion is valid for 4 months."

This not only encourages them to participate and cooperate with you, but also more actively encourages the partner's audience to buy your products or services.

Motivation

You must have a specific, interesting offer for customers and partners. When he gets to your page, he should understand why your offer is better than analogues and competitors, why exactly with your brand he should want to cooperate.

At the same time, don't forget about the interaction with the content on the page. We're talking now about functional buttons like:

• share on social media;
• know more;
• read more;
• go to site.

Monitoring Results and Achievements

When you launch an affiliate, immediately start monitoring the situation and track the dynamics of sales and customers. The number of affiliates and products does not matter. Only numbers and indicators are important. Thus, you will immediately be able to understand which of the partners is more effective, whose methods and audience are useful for your brand and how sales grow as the number of partners increases.

Working With an Affiliate Network

Once you launch an affiliate programme, you can't let it go to waste. It needs attention, it needs time, and it needs to evolve. Try to reach a larger number of partners from different areas that will be related to yours, and the audience of partners should be useful to your product.

The more diverse your network and offer, the more audience and customers you can reach.

The Perfect Letter

We have already raised the issue of the importance of mailing in one of the blogs. Now it is time to remind about the necessity of competent personalization. In the letter, you should tell each potential partner in detail and clearly how beneficial it is for him to cooperate with you and what he will get from this cooperation.

Proper Tools

Do not forget about the selection of competent tools for marketing. Well-chosen tools will not just save time and money, they will help in the process of work, at each stage of it, simplify calculations and analytical aspects, help to track the dynamics of company growth and its success.

When promoting a brand, you need to use all possible options, combine techniques and strategies. Affiliate marketing is one of the popular techniques whose effectiveness cannot be levelled. Do not ignore this promotion option, because it will help not only to attract a large layer of target audience, but also to increase user loyalty and the indicators of recognition in the market.