What is an affiliate marketing funnel?
A well-planned affiliate marketing funnel aims to guide potential customers towards purchasing the affiliate product you are promoting as quickly as possible. Each stage of the buyer’s journey should offer personalized value to ensure a successful funnel.
The buyer’s journey comprises of four crucial stages.
- Awareness – Prospects become aware of a problem.
- Consideration – They start to learn more about possible solutions.
- Conversion – They make a decision to purchase.
- Loyalty – A positive experience leads to trust and repeat buys.
Your affiliate marketing funnel precisely leads them through that journey.
What a sales funnel for affiliate marketing looks like
To align with the buyer’s journey principles, an affiliate marketing sales funnel must have a structure similar to this:
To begin, attract visitors to your promotion by creating blog posts optimized for SEO, utilizing paid advertisements for a complimentary offer, and leveraging social media networks such as Pinterest.
In the second phase, the aim is to transform the traffic by providing a complimentary incentive. The objective is to add them to your email roster, where you can effectively guide them and have multiple chances to sell to them.
In the third phase, you have the opportunity to prepare your audience for increased conversion rates prior to delivering your offer during the fourth and conclusive phase.
5 Benefits of a Sales Funnel for Affiliate Marketing
Curious about the reasons for creating an affiliate marketing funnel when alternative methods such as inserting links in blog posts or targeting cold prospects with advertisements seem simpler?
There are numerous reasons why it is highly recommended to invest in developing an affiliate marketing funnel.
1. Reach more prospects
If you solely rely on advertisements, you might lose out on a significant number of prospective customers, which amounts to as much as 72%, as stated by Pardot. Why? Because the majority of individuals initiate their buying process with a search.
It’s not limited to generating blog posts and simply integrating affiliate links to them.
At this point in time, purchasers desire informative resources, therefore generating complimentary content on the topic increases the likelihood of more individuals eventually making purchases through your affiliate links.
2. Boost your conversion rates
There’s no surprise why lead nurturing leads to improved conversion rates.
It is necessary to comprehend leads prior to nurturing them. This comprehension enables you to provide more precise and customized assistance, which, in turn, boosts brand credibility and conversions.
By using an affiliate marketing funnel, you have the ability to monitor every stage of the process, enabling you to quickly identify and resolve any issues. For instance, you might notice that individuals are responding to your emails but refraining from clicking on the offer page. Alternatively, they may appear enthusiastic about the offer initially, but then lose interest once they arrive at the offer page.
By following a funnel that guides you step by step, you will have no uncertainty as to where the decrease in activity occurs, thus allowing you to identify the issue and resolve it with ease.
3. Bag repeat sales
By constructing an affiliate marketing funnel, you have the chance to generate your own list of buyers, contrasting with the approach of incorporating links to a blog post or driving ad traffic straight to a sales page.
Buyers list – A carefully built list of people who subscribe to your email list and you know are willing and ready to buy relevant products, because they’ve done so in the past.
This implies that rather than putting forth extensive effort to obtain a single sale which eventually allows the merchant to create a list by using your hard work, you will have your personal list that can be used to sell additional products in the future.
4. Increase brand trust and authority
The purpose of an affiliate funnel is to provide customers with value at each step of their purchasing process. This way, even if they choose not to make a purchase, there is no negative perception as you did not merely disrupt them on social media, but rather offered something of value.
As a result, there is an increase in both conversions and trust in the brand.
Furthermore, due to the comprehensive education that leads receive, they have a precise understanding of their needs and only make purchases when they are genuinely prepared. This is vital to reducing regretful purchases, amplifying customer delight, and minimizing refund appeals.
5. Command higher affiliate commissions
Product owners are aware that leads of varying quality are generated by traffic, therefore they are ready to invest more money into obtaining leads of higher caliber.
Sending a smaller amount of traffic can still work in your favor if the traffic you send to merchants results in higher than average conversions and fewer refund requests, as you can use this as leverage to negotiate for higher affiliate commissions.
How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing
A basic explanation of how to begin with affiliate marketing is provided here.
- Build an audience. You need websites with traffic, email lists with subscribers, or social media accounts with followers to promote a product – or ideally, a combination of all three.
- Find products and services you can passionately promote to the audience you have built. The more you love something and believe in its efficacy, the easier it will be to convince someone else to buy it.
- Sign up for affiliate and referral programs. These will be offered directly through the company selling the product or service, or a third-party affiliate platform .
- Fill out your application and affiliate profile completely. Include your niche, monthly website traffic, number of email subscribers, and social media audience size. Companies will use that information to approve or reject your application.
- Get your custom affiliate or referral link and share it with your audience , or the segment of your audience that would benefit most from the product you are promoting.
- Look for opportunities to recommend products to new people . You can be helpful, make a new acquaintance, and earn a commission.
- Monitor your affiliate dashboard and website analytics for insights into your clicks and commissions.
- Adjust your affiliate marketing tactics based on the promotions that generate the most revenue.
Discover the top high-value affiliate programs that you can join in 2023, which provide either a generous one-time payment, recurring commissions, or both. Don’t stop reading now!
The Best High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing Programs
The selection of the “best” affiliate marketing programs is determined subjectively, but I considered their payment amounts, customer base, and average ratings in my choice. The evaluations from customers assist in identifying products that are worthy of promotion. In addition, you may leverage customer feedback to publicize products or services by emphasizing the remarkable achievements obtained and the most attractive characteristics admired by customers.
1. Smartproxy
Customers can use Smartproxy to gather business data on a global scale, whether it be for competitor analysis, SERP scraping, price compilation, or ad authentication.
The average rating of 4.7 out of five stars was given by 836 reviewers.
By making use of its affiliate program, you have the potential to earn as much as $2,000 for every customer that you refer to Smartproxy.
2. Thinkific
Over 50,000 instructors have utilized Thinkific, an online platform for creating courses, with a total of more than 100 million courses offered.
The average rating of 4.6 out of five stars was given by 669 reviewers.
Through the Thinkific affiliate program, you have the potential to earn up to $1,700 annually for each referral.
3. BigCommerce
Offering open SaaS, headless integrations, omnichannel support, B2B services, and solutions for offline-to-online business, BigCommerce is a top ecommerce provider.
It received an average rating of 8.1 out of ten stars from 648 reviewers.
By joining the BigCommerce affiliate program, you can receive a maximum of $1,500 or 200% of the customer’s initial payment for new enterprise clients.
4. Teamwork
By prioritizing billable hours, the project management software called Teamwork enhances the efficiency of all employees in your company, from its creator to the project managers.
The product received an average rating of 4.4 out of five stars from 1,022 reviewers.
With the Teamwork affiliate program, you have the potential to earn $1,000 for every new customer you refer.
5. Flywheel
Managed WordPress hosting by Flywheel targets high-traffic websites, ecommerce, and agencies.
The average rating of 4.4 out of five stars was given by 36 reviewers.
The Flywheel affiliate program offers the opportunity to earn as much as $500 for each new referral.
6. Teachable
Over 100,000 entrepreneurs, creators, and businesses of all sizes utilize Teachable, an online course platform, for crafting captivating online courses and establishing coaching businesses.
The product received a rating of 4.4 out of five stars from 150 reviewers.
By becoming a member of the Teachable affiliate program, you have the potential to earn an average of $450 per month.
7. Shutterstock
Shutterstock is a worldwide platform where one can obtain stock photos, vectors, illustrations, videos, and music.
An average rating of 4.4 out of five stars was given by 507 reviewers.
By joining the Shutterstock affiliate program, you can receive a maximum of $300 for each new customer you refer.
8. HubSpot
HubSpot offers a CRM solution for effectively managing your enterprise’s customer service, sales, marketing, and content management needs.
An average rating of 4.5 out of five stars was given by 3,616 reviewers.
With the HubSpot affiliate program, you can make an average payout of $264 per month (as per present affiliate earnings), and even more if you become a solutions partner.
9. Sucuri
Sucuri provides reliable security services through a cloud-based platform managed by skilled security analysts who conduct malware scanning and removal, safeguard against hacks and attacks, and optimize site performance.
It received an average rating of 4.6 out of five stars from 251 reviewers.
Get the chance to earn as much as $210 for every fresh sale you generate when you become part of the Sucuri referral programs that cover the platform, firewall, and agency products.
10. ADT
ADT provides security systems to both homes and businesses.
It received an average rating of 4.5 out of five stars from 588 reviewers.
Through the ADT rewards program, you have the opportunity to earn up to $200 for each referred new customer.
