Affiliate Marketing for E-Commerce

By 2022, the expenditure on affiliate marketing is expected to rise to $8.2 billion from $5.4 billion in 2017 in the United States. This statistic is a reason why numerous ecommerce brands are contemplating launching their affiliate programs. As a matter of fact, 81% of brands utilize affiliate marketing programs.

The virtual marketplace is a bustling and congested arena that is increasingly favored as more and more enterprises establish their presence online. Thus, the dilemma is, how can you distinguish your business from the rest?

Affiliate marketing is a potential marketing channel for e-commerce websites seeking new options as there are limitations and costs attached to SEO, paid advertisements, display banners, email campaigns, and social media.

E-commerce websites seeking expansion and growth have found affiliate marketing to be a highly favored marketing approach. It employs the influence of referral-based advertising to procure leads, draw in specific audiences, and enhance conversions.

Affiliate marketing has demonstrated its effectiveness as a growth strategy, actually.

• Affiliate marketing accounts for 16% of e-commerce sales, outperforming social commerce and display advertising.
• 81% of brands use affiliate marketing programs
• Affiliate marketing generates 3X leads than traditional advertising

What exactly is an affiliate program and how can one commence their own? This guide for beginners presents a clear and easy-to-follow approach to starting your own affiliate marketing program, including the obstacles and advantages that come along with it.

The process of earning money by promoting a business’s products is known as an affiliate program or associate program. This involves a straightforward partnership between an advertiser and a publisher, where affiliates are compensated with commissions.

The online store owner, who is also an advertiser, desires to sell their products. Meanwhile, the affiliate, also known as the publisher, markets the said products on their own website and receives a commission for each successful sale or action.

By utilizing the affiliate’s capabilities in terms of expertise, traffic, and influence, the advertiser can generate sales for their business. They only have to pay after the sale has been made. Meanwhile, the advertiser publisher uses their influence to earn profits from the advertiser and boost traffic on their own website. As a result, both parties reap benefits in this mutually advantageous scenario.

Before launching your own affiliate program as an ecommerce business, you should take into account which channels are most frequently used by your customers. This involves looking at whether your audience usually purchases items on Instagram or Facebook, as well as if they devote a significant amount of time to reading blog posts or watching YouTube videos.

Once you have responded to these questions, you should determine which affiliate program suits your business the best.

Customize your program

Once the integration is in place, it is then necessary to personalize the affiliate program.

As with your other marketing endeavors, it’s essential to ensure that your business identity is consistent. Just as you wouldn’t utilize various branding techniques for your advertising or social media channels, the same holds for your affiliate program. Tailor your program with the following suggestions:

• Set up a custom subdomain
• Create a branded sign-up page
• Add your logo to your affiliate program’s dashboard
• Personalize affiliate emails to fit your brand’s verbiage

Set affiliate commissions

When determining affiliate commissions, there are two factors to take into account. Firstly, what actions will result in affiliates earning a commission? Secondly, what will be the commission percentage that they receive?

Transformations

The things for which affiliates receive commissions are determined by the marketing objectives that you have set. Based on whether you want to enhance brand recognition, generate leads, or boost revenue, this process is known as a conversion. Typically, in e-commerce, this occurs when a referred customer completes a purchase.

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Affiliates will receive a commission for each conversion they produce, which may be either a flat fee or a percentage of the sale, and is usually a one-time payment.

In addition, it is possible to provide affiliates with recurring commissions for particular conversions, such as those related to products that require a subscription. As a result of receiving recurring commissions, affiliates receive a percentage of the commission for every payment made by their referred customers.

If the affiliate’s referral purchases a monthly subscription box, the affiliate will receive a commission for every month they continue to pay. There may be a limit on the commission, such as after six months or when a certain amount is reached.

Furthermore, you have the opportunity to entice top promoters and provide additional motivation to affiliates by implementing commission tiers and bonus programs.

Find affiliates to promote your products

Now is the moment to begin seeking affiliates who will endorse your e-commerce goods. An excellent place to commence is by reaching out to your customers.

Tapfiliate’s Affiliate Recruitment function enables you to invite both new and current customers, sending them a referral link to share your website with others. Whenever they recruit a new customer, they will be automatically enrolled in your affiliate program and receive an invitation to access their performance and other program tools by logging in.

Additional excellent partners for online commerce comprise:

• Social Media Influencers
• Bloggers & Niche Websites
• Industry Experts

Search affiliates

Search affiliates, who are often freelancers and entrepreneurs, invest their own funds in promoting your product or service. They make use of popular search engines like Google and Yahoo to boost traffic to your website.

If the affiliate is knowledgeable in SEO and A/B testing, it presents a fantastic opportunity to determine the most effective ads that generate the highest ROI and drive the most traffic to your website. However, it is important to ensure that they are adhering to the search and advertising protocols.

Bloggers and influencers

Through content marketing, bloggers have the potential to boost a seller’s conversions by ranking organically on search engine queries. After trying out the product or service, the blogger creates a detailed review that effectively promotes the brand and redirects traffic to the seller’s website.

In the same vein, an influencer possesses the ability to sway the buying choices of a significant portion of the populace as a content producer. Given their considerable fanbase, influencers can effortlessly steer customers towards the vendor’s merchandise by means of social media postings, blog entries, and other engagements with their supporters.

For fruitful partnerships, seek out bloggers and social media influencers who regularly interact with your intended audience. If you offer digital products like online courses or design templates, consider partnering with publishers who have a foundation in education or design. Similarly, if you offer beauty products, approach influencers who often post cosmetics tutorials and reviews.

Coupon sites

This partnership may not suit all ecommerce brands, but there is tremendous potential for coupon sites to boost incremental sales and enhance your affiliate program. Studies show that 85% of American shoppers search for coupons before making a purchase and 53% actively use daily-deal websites such as Groupon.

Consider collaborating with a coupon website to provide special offers and discounts for a limited period if one of your goods or online services is not doing well in the market. Although selling your goods at a reduced price may appear to be a loss of revenue, it is an opportunity to expose your items to new buyers and increase your brand recognition.

Email marketing

Email marketing is advantageous because every recipient on your list has been exposed to your content and willingly provided their email address, indicating a level of interest in your enterprise. Therefore, you can utilize personalized and targeted content to initiate a dialogue and actively involve your audience.

Even if a customer subscribes to your email newsletter, they may not appreciate receiving multiple emails per day, particularly if the content is not tailored to their interests.

To ensure the effectiveness of your email marketing with affiliate partners, it is important to consider the targeted audience and the relevance of the content. When a customer subscribes to your fashion retail store, check their gender and other demographics, engagement level, and purchase behavior before personalizing the newsletter content accordingly.

What is the method of earning money for affiliate marketers?

Whenever the publisher advertises a product on their own platform and manages to generate a sale or prompt a customer to take a specific action (such as clicking a link or completing a form), the publisher earns an affiliate commission from the business.

The affiliate can generate substantial income without the inconvenience of selling a product, and the advertiser can enhance traffic and sales, resulting in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The manner in which an affiliate’s input to the seller’s sales is measured varies with the program they participate in. Below, we will examine three distinct types of payouts for affiliate programs.

Direct sales

Under this compensation scheme, the affiliate only receives payment from the merchant after successfully convincing the customer to purchase the affiliate product through their marketing tactics. The payment itself constitutes a percentage of the product’s sale price.

Leads

PPL (pay per lead) affiliate programs involve a more intricate structure where affiliates receive compensation according to the conversion of leads. The affiliate’s role is to convince the consumer to land on the merchant’s website and perform a specific action such as completing a contact form, subscribing to a newsletter, following the brand on social media, or downloading content.

Clicks

To generate a significant amount of traffic, advertisers may choose to compensate affiliates based on a pay-per-click (PPC) model. This encourages affiliates to redirect consumers from their marketing platform to the merchant’s site, with payment based on the resulting increase in web traffic.

Top affiliate marketing strategies for E-commerce

Once you have executed the aforementioned measures, you will be well-equipped to commence affiliate marketing for your online trade. To further enhance the effectiveness of your program, we suggest employing the following tactics.

Keep your affiliates updated

Routinely check in with affiliates to make sure they have everything they need to promote. This can include having a welcome message, drip campaigns, monthly newsletters, and an annual survey. Updating affiliates is especially important for e-commerce. Keep affiliates updated on new product launches, any awards or media mentions you have received, and any time-sensitive content.

Ensure that you furnish affiliates with all crucial information pertaining to sales and discounted periods, such as during the festive season.

• A detailed list of the sale discounts and prices
• Time of each sale, how long it will last & when discounts/coupons expire
• Terms & Conditions such as sale exclusions or gift return policy
• Sale slogans or catch-phrases like “Save Big for Cyber Monday” or “Holiday Deals & Steals”

Providing this information as soon as possible is ideal. This will allow your affiliates sufficient time to create various contents such as comprehensive product evaluations, sales manuals, or instructional clips in anticipation of the said sales.

Moreover, affiliates have the potential to serve as a “privileged source” for driving sales on your website, as they can provide their audience with early access to promotions or discount codes.

Provide marketing materials

Furnish affiliates with effective promotional resources such as banners, pictures, hyperlinks, social media content, and video.

To ensure consistency in affiliate promotions, it is beneficial to have a branding kit that includes your brand’s logos, color profiles, typography, slogans, and company images. This makes it easier for audiences to recognize your brand.

Other valuable resources comprise accolades, standings, publicity, or approval from the media.

Stay competitive

In order to remain competitive in e-commerce promotions through affiliate marketing, it is important to keep up with industry trends and monitor competitor offers just as you would with any other marketing strategy.

Additionally, contemplate methods to differentiate your affiliate program and make it more appealing to potential affiliates. This may involve providing bonus structures to motivate affiliates or increased commissions for prominent influencers.

Side notes

This encompasses all the essential knowledge required to initiate affiliate marketing for your online business.

It’s at your discretion to determine the structure of your affiliate program. You can either personally seek out affiliates and conduct competitions for them, or you may opt to implement automation tools to handle specific responsibilities and simplify processes.