In 2018, spending was $5,9 billion in US affiliate marketing. Experts predict growth to 8.2 billion by 2022. These are impressive numbers that underscore the relevance of affiliate marketing.
He is able to become a powerful promotion tool. It helps companies increase sales, brand awareness, and attract new customers. It’s real. However, only if there is an understanding of what and how to do. Therefore, we will tell you in detail about affiliate marketing.
The article contains tools and tactics that ensure the effectiveness of the strategy. We will also tell you about the pitfalls. Knowing these will help to avoid damage and ensure that every dollar is well spent.
Affiliate Marketing Secrets to Drive Revenue
Secret #1. High-quality Content is Key
Many specialists, starting to engage in affiliate marketing, strive to attract the maximum number of partners. However, this is not a case where quantity is important. In affiliate marketing, quality matters. One suitable partner will bring more results than two dozen irrelevant ones.
There are several reasons for this:
- A lot of ads. Consumers see it all the time, so they are skeptical. Advertising from a person that the audience trusts significantly increases the likelihood of attracting the attention of users.
- The influence of the partner’s image on the business. The person who advertises your product is its representative. You improve your own brand image by partnering with influencers and quality bloggers.
- Choosing the wrong niche. It can have several consequences. First, there is a low conversion rate. Moreover, it is possible both a large number of unfinished transactions and the attraction of not significant traffic.
How to determine that a partner is of high quality? Such a person has a large, loyal and engaged audience. It creates high-quality and engaging content for followers. Plus, the partner should have their own niche that matches your product.
Secret #2. Affiliate Marketing Goes Beyond Google
Many people understand by affiliate marketing the creation of content on partner sites. It drives the main traffic and helps with SEO. However, sources are not limited to search engines alone. Affiliate marketing allows you to use to drive traffic:
- social networks;
- forums;
- review platforms;
- video hosting;
- email.
When doing affiliate marketing, one should always keep in mind the importance of grammar. The presence of typos in the texts can negatively affect the reputation and effectiveness of the campaign.
Secret #3. Dedication Drives Results
Affiliate marketing gives you the opportunity to increase your brand’s online presence without additional investment. The company doesn’t need to create ads. Having found a quality partner, you get a comprehensive product promotion for your target audience.
Relevance is important here. If a partner operates in a niche that matches your product and has a loyal audience, then he understands the followers well. Therefore, it is able to present the product from the point of view of user benefit. In this case, the content written earlier becomes an addition to the information for the product. Accordingly, it stimulates the need.
Secret #4. Stay in the Top Three on Ranking and Industry Review Sites
There are a huge number of affiliate programs. Among them are platforms with reviews. Such sites can be divided into two types:
- General thematic.
- Hyperniche.
- Niche.
Research has been done. The specialists selected a number of keywords from affiliate marketing. We decided to find out what type of sites appear more often in search results: general, hyper-niche or niche. The results were surprising. Most often, niche sites appear in the top ten. Further general thematic and only then hyper-niche.
But things get more interesting when you consider the frequency of hitting the first place in the SERP:
- niche sites – 53.4%;
- 20.8% – hyper-niche platforms;
- 15.6% – general sites with reviews.
Therefore, it is worth remembering the importance of such platforms. If affiliate marketing includes posting reviews / testimonials on similar sites, then strive to be in the TOP-3. This is how users will definitely notice you. This means that traffic will be attracted.
Secret #5. Don’t become stagnant
The concept of affiliate marketing was first implemented in 1989. For more than 30 years, it has changed and improved. The competition grows every year. Therefore, marketers come up with new approaches.
For affiliate marketing to be effective, you need to have relevant information. It will improve your skills. Plus, by keeping your finger on the pulse, you gain a deeper understanding of the industry.
Regularly interested in updates, businesses have the ability to test hypotheses, test solutions and improve the effectiveness of events. It is important to maintain a balance in this. As you track industry news and validate their performance for your product, keep tracking performance metrics. They will tell you when to stop the experiment. Analysis of indicators is the thing that will not allow you to lose focus on the main goal.
7 Pro Affiliate Marketing Tips to Follow
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Offer discounts and coupons
Discounts help convert attracted users into customers. Aimed at selling to new customers. Coupons and discounts are promoted by affiliates not only on their own sites. Often they use third-party resources and social networks for this. This allows you to drive sales to new customers as well as increase overall brand awareness.
The promo code must be exclusive. Assigning a unique coupon to each partner will make it easy to track the effectiveness of cooperation. Using customized marketing collateral along with a unique referral link or a branded QR code with a logo can help your affiliates market your brand coherently, while maintaining your brand image.
Also, coupons and discounts are sold through partner sites. These include:
- sites with coupons;
- resources for comparing products;
- cashback platforms;
- content websites.
The leading option is the first. Coupon sites account for 27% of all affiliate marketing sites. Sites with content and cashback have a 25% share.
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Promote free trials and samples
People are often suspicious of new things. This is also true for products. By offering people a sampler, you give the opportunity to experience the benefits of a product or service. This simplifies the purchasing decision and eliminates risks. For example, the likelihood that a product will not fit a person. If you like the product, then making a more expensive purchase will become much easier.
The recommendation is also relevant for B2B products. On average, 66% of people who received a trial copy made a purchase. Therefore, sample promotion is a universal solution.
It’s also easy to track. If there are affiliate links, cookies will remain. They can be used to track the receipt of the trial version by the user.
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Focus on mobile conversions
Modern man uses a smartphone all the time. Therefore, it is not surprising that the number of purchases made from a mobile phone is growing. First, people search on mobile devices. Such requests take 60% of the total. 45% of sales also occur via smartphones and other mobile devices.
This information is important to keep in mind in your affiliate marketing strategy. Make your affiliate page responsive. This is a little trick that will enable 54% of mobile purchases expected in 2021.
Also, take care of the page load speed. Reducing it by 1 second can increase the conversion rate by 27%. Slow loading increases the bounce rate. Sites with responsive design that open in 3.3 seconds have a low bounce rate (20%).
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Choose affiliate programs that offer lifetime commissions
The key difference between these programs is not a one-time, but a regular income. Typically, the affiliate receives a commission for the completed action. For example, a purchase. This completes the process. However, recurring affiliate programs provide long-term commission payments.
In fact, the partner receives a reward for the client’s life. The commission comes from every purchase, not just the first. The partner earns as long as the user attracted by him remains solvent.
When choosing a permanent affiliate program, direction is important. The product must correspond to the topic the partner is dealing with. Otherwise, the program will not work.
The partner’s job is to get the person to subscribe. The more people do this, the more income. If, at the same time, the product corresponds to the theme of the partner’s site, then he does not even have to make additional efforts. This provides him with passive income.
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Avoid ad fraud
Affiliate marketing is all about driving traffic. However, it is not always valuable. Ad fraud creates the illusion of driving traffic, in which the advertiser is wasting budget and getting no results. In 2018, North American advertisers lost $44 million in fraudulent traffic.
You should beware of such deception. The most common forms of fraud are:
- fake clicks;
- fake advertising traffic (bots or other automated systems);
- ghost sites (fake impressions on platforms that don’t exist);
- fake app installations;
- overlay ads (placing several ads on top of each other to hide the customer’s ads and get paid for showing);
- domain substitution (presenting a low-quality site as good for increasing affiliate reward).
Fraud can be detected by strange indicators. For example, the emergence of unknown traffic sources. It is also worth paying attention to situations when the reversing speed is too high. In this case, you should ask about the partner’s traffic generation methods.
But don’t just take my word for it. Maintain a healthy skepticism. If the partner’s site has low traffic and minimal content, then it cannot bring thousands of clicks. As well as huge sales volumes. When you see something like this, try to independently investigate what is happening and take action. Affiliate networks offer fraud protection support.
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Study your competition
When promoting your own product, keep your competitors in mind. First, it is worth paying attention to their positions. Especially if you are represented on the same partner site.
Also, competitors can use other solutions. For example, promote on coupon sites while you’re partnering with a social media influencer. By observing a competitor, you can draw conclusions about performance. If growth is noticeable, then it may be worth implementing some of the tools he uses in his own marketing. This is a great way to optimize your marketing budget. Plus, increase your ROI with minimal effort.
Also, pay attention to the periods when competitors are holding promotions. Are you planning a large-scale advertising campaign? Excellent. If it turns out that a competitor also launches one in the same period, then a significant decrease in results is possible. Better to wait a bit. A couple of weeks difference in the period of the advertising campaign will allow you to get the most out of it.
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Make sense of your attribution systems and gaps
Partners promoting a product are a significant link in the sales chain. It is important that they understand the rules by which cooperation is carried out. By understanding them, a partner can increase their own reward.
Also, your company’s affiliate marketing rules may include guidelines for product positioning. This is a way to guarantee the required quality level. All you need to do is define clear rules. If you are selling complex products, then take care of training partners. For example, by providing informational materials.
In a collaborative environment, clearly define a list of actions that are acceptable. You can also anticipate unwanted ones. Make sure you follow the rules, because even a one-time violation can be noticed by other partners, which will start a snowball.
Work the reward system separately. Some partners will be more effective, engaged, and motivated than others. Such affiliates should be retained. For example, by coming up with a reward system that matches the sales value of a particular partner.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a comprehensive promotion strategy. It allows you to quickly and with minimal effort to announce the company, attract users, and increase sales. The main thing is a reliable partner.
Also, being in demand and highly competitive, the industry requires fresh ideas. Try different approaches and tools. One product may enjoy interest on social media, while the other is highly sought after on partner networking sites. It is important to try and track the result.
However, the key requirement for affiliate marketing is quality. Look for partners who create good content and have earned the trust of the audience. Train affiliates. High quality is the secret of effective affiliate marketing.
Interesting Related Article: “What is the Future for Affiliate Marketing?“
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