Affiliate marketing has proven to be one of the most valuable and cost-effective marketing channels for brands attempting to target high-intent leads and convert customers online. Interestingly, marketers use affiliate programs at all stages of the customer journey: 83 percent target consumers during the discovery and awareness phase, and 79 percent during conversion or purchase. This post will analyze how the concept of affiliate marketing works and what it means for brands looking to achieve scalable online growth.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing model where brands work with affiliates—bloggers, content creators, and social media influencers—to promote or recommend products or services to their audiences. With their authentic and genuine connection with their subscribers/fan base, they’re able to persuade people toward the brand. The affiliates in turn receive a commission from the brand for generating desired actions, such as sending more traffic, generating more leads, or converting more prospects into customers.
Benefits of adding an affiliate marketing program to your digital marketing tool kit
Marketing is always evolving, and as marketers it’s our job to stay abreast of the trends and work ahead of the consumer curve. Affiliate marketing is a low-cost, high-converting channel, and complements all your promotional initiatives by providing a reliable, lower-funnel converting channel. If you’re still unsure about whether affiliate marketing is right for you, we’ve put together five reasons why you should start affiliate marketing right now.
Pay only for results
The performance-driven affiliate marketing channel is a cost-effective, scalable channel for brands that want to drive customer acquisition. By leveraging affiliate partnerships and paying only for meaningful results (i.e., actual leads, transactions, or conversions), brands enjoy more control over online marketing spending. And because you pay only on successful conversions, there isn’t any spending wastage, and you make the most of your marketing budget.
Amplify your audience’s reach
Affiliates generally have a dedicated, loyal following who trust their opinion and are more invested in their advice. Product promotion and brand awareness initiatives from bloggers and influencers, therefore, win you a marketing-qualified lead and an engaged, and more loyal audience. And since affiliates know their audiences intimately, they can also provide valuable consumer insights so you can target your brand messaging and promotional tactics accordingly.
Easy to track results
With unique affiliate links shared with each affiliate, you can easily track who’s responsible for a sale or a lead. You can also test different brand messaging, product features, and offers to see what areas are performing well, and where traffic or actual conversions are coming from.
Support rand reputation
With consumer behavior constantly changing, people prefer reviews and product comparisons from trusted sources. 37 percent of consumers trust social media influencers over brands. Since these influencers produce unbiased and honest content, partnering with them is a wise idea. Because of their genuine connection with their audience, they can help boost your brand reputation among potential customers. And you appear more trustworthy if a trusted third party is endorsing you.
Elevate your SEO strategy
Investing in SEO tactics can be expensive and daunting. When you collaborate with SEO-focused content creators, you increase your brand’s chances of appearing on the first pages of search results without being directly involved in it. This is an enormous benefit and one that can set you above competitors because it makes your brand easier for potential customers to find.
Tips for making the most out of Affiliate Programs
Choose your partners carefully
The affiliates and influencers you partner with depict a lot about the kind of brand you are. It’s therefore important to choose the right affiliates, and that requires a lot of heavy lifting. Consider asking yourself the following questions:
- Who are their audiences?
- Do they have a good reputation?
- How invested and engaged their audience is?
Go for a long-term stint
It’s important to keep in mind that results don’t happen overnight with affiliate marketing. Performance may take a while to pick up with this type of marketing channel, as it takes time for affiliates to join, produce content, and generate results. And performance marketing isn’t always just one swing of the bat you need to test different audience types, messaging, and product features to see what drives the optimal results. Having said that, the rewards for both publishers and merchants can be much greater once the affiliate program finds its footing.
Explore a mix of marketing tactics
A successful digital marketing strategy interlinks many pieces together. No one tactic or channel is a stand-alone success for lead generation and conversions. With the combination of affiliate marketing and other marketing channels, your marketing mix will be more powerful than ever. Not only will you see —an increase in revenue and ROI, but your brand will also be top of mind for consumers.
Explore bant.io’s affiliate program
Getting started with affiliate marketing is easier if you have the right foundation and support. Instead of doing so much heavy lifting in establishing your own affiliate program, you should consider collaborating with a network such as bant.io. With bant.io Lead Generation Affiliate Program, you’ll connect with a wide network of relevant affiliates, forge robust partnerships, and reach high-intent customers.
We at bant.io provide an all-in-one lead generation and sales acceleration service that helps automate your customer acquisition with data-driven experiments, making failure impossible. If you’re interested in learning more about launching an affiliate program with bant.io and working with leading affiliates, or exploring other sales development services and outreach campaign tactics, we’re happy to help. Schedule a free consultation with us right now.
Dana
Dana Vines works in Sales and Business Development as a full time digital nomad. She helps B2B and B2C companies develop partnerships across the globe. When she's not working on building relationships, you might find her scuba diving, at a live music event, or planning her next destination.