What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is the process of making money online every time a customer purchases a product based on your recommendation. This is an online sales tactic that allows you – ‘the affiliate’ – to earn a commission and helps the product owner increase sales. At the same time, it makes it possible for affiliates to earn money on product sales without creating products of their own.
Simply put, affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platforms, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link or code associated with their recommendation. Do it right, and this performance-based opportunity can be a source of additional income or help diversify the revenue streams of an existing business.
How is affiliate marketing different from influencer marketing?
If an affiliate is redirecting customer traffic to a merchant’s website, doesn’t that qualify as influencer marketing? While there is indeed a natural overlap between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, they are not necessarily the same. It is important to understand the differences between the two and how each of them works in order to maximise the revenue-generating opportunities offered by both.
Influencer marketing is a collaboration between brands and individuals who already have a sizable audience (or influencers), where the individuals are paid to endorse or promote the brand or its products/ services. It is a marketing strategy by which brands reach their target audience and try to ‘influence’ their purchasing behaviour.
With affiliate marketing, brands incentivise affiliates to promote their products/ services online by offering a commission for every sale they cause. i.e. the affiliate receives a commission if a visitor purchases the product from a link (or code) unique to the affiliate, published on their website or channel.
In influencer marketing, the number of followers, social media impressions, and interactions measure the ‘engagement’ that an influencer could generate. This is a key factor that determines the amount paid to the influencer based on their quote, whether or not the influencer activity actually leads to sales. Typically, influencers are paid a one-time fee, or a per post/content fee, for the activity.
On the other hand, in affiliate marketing, site traffic, sales volume, and average order value are the bases on which the affiliate gets paid a commission. This may be a pre-decided percentage of the product sales effected by them or a flat-fee commission. This means, affiliates get paid on achieving a business outcome for the brand, whereas influencers are paid for the work they put in.
While these distinctions hold true, the similarity between successful influencers and affiliates is that both produce engaging content that resonates with their audience and instils a sense of trust. Therefore there is often an overlap between the two.
How does affiliate marketing work?
To participate in an affiliate marketing program, you’ll need to:
Find and join an affiliate program
Choose which offers to promote
Obtain a unique affiliate link or code for each offer
Share those links or codes on your blog, social media platforms, YouTube channel or website.
And you collect a commission anytime someone uses your links or codes to make a purchase. Commission rates vary dramatically, depending on the company and the affiliate program. At the low end, you’ll earn about 5% of the sale but, with some arrangements, you can earn as much as 25%. In some cases, affiliate marketing programs provide a flat fee per sale instead of a percentage.
How to find affiliate programs?
If you’re wondering how to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing, you’ve got a few options. Not every company offers affiliate programs—some businesses manage their own affiliate programs while others use an affiliate network.
An easy way to find affiliate programs is to visit an affiliate marketplace or platform. Browse your niche to find top-performing affiliate platforms. Here are some of the most popular ones in India:
Another option is to visit the websites of the products and services you use and like, to see if they have an affiliate program. Brands like Juicy Chemistry, selling organic skincare products have their own affiliate programs up and running. So if you are a user of their products or knowledgeable about skincare in general, this affiliate opportunity might be right up your alley.
Source: Juicy Chemistry
You also can take a more direct approach. Reach out to the owner of a great product you come across and see if they offer an affiliate marketing program. If they don’t, they might be happy to set up an arrangement with you, such as presenting you with a unique coupon code to share with your followers. The best deals often are found when you’re the first to inquire and have a relevant distribution channel, such as approaching the seller of a new fitness product if you’re a health and wellness blogger.
Affiliate marketing programs will have terms of service you need to follow, so read the fine print carefully. For example, your link usually will have a cookie with a specified timeframe, and some programs don’t allow you to purchase pay-per-click ads using the product or company’s name.
Choosing your first affiliate program
As you brainstorm products or browse through affiliate platforms, the most important criteria to keep in mind is that the product/service should be aligned with your audience, or the audience you hope to build. Ask yourself, is it something your target audience would find valuable? Does it fit with your area of expertise?
A food blogger probably wouldn’t promote beauty products, for example. A wide range of other products would make more sense, such as cookware, meal kits, gourmet ingredients, or even aprons.
Also, make sure the product or service you’re promoting is a fit for the platform you’re promoting it on. For example, home decor and clothing are well suited to image-heavy platforms like Instagram.
However, if you’re promoting purchases that need a more in-depth assessment, like software, your review may convert better on longer-form content platforms, like a blog or YouTube.
Which platforms to use for affiliate marketing?
There are several platforms to earn money through affiliate marketing, some of them are listed below:
Your own website or blog
Instagram
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email
While any platform could be used for sharing your affiliate marketing links or codes, it’s useful to determine which platforms are the easiest to reach your largest audience with uncompromised trust, and where they are most likely to buy the products you are marketing.
For example, if you write well and have an audience seeking newsletters, email and your own blog may work out the best for you. Business products may be the easiest to market on Linkedin. If you have a large number of followers on Instagram, that should be the best place to begin. However, there’s no reason to limit yourself to any single platform.
How Are Affiliates Paid?
As already alluded to above, there are a number of different ways that affiliates are paid. This often depends upon the product or service being sold and the value of these.
Common payment structures for affiliates include:
Pay Per Sale (Fixed Fee): This is where a fixed fee commission is paid to the affiliate every time a sale is made, regardless of the order value.
Pay Per Sale (Percentage): The commission value that is paid is a percentage of the sale price or order value.
Pay Per Lead or Enquiry: A fixed fee is paid out every time a qualified lead or inquiry is made.
Pay Per Click: A (small) fixed fee is paid out every time a click is sent to the merchant's site by the affiliate.
Which payment structure is used very much depends on individual merchants and the niche that they operate in. In some cases, affiliates will be given a choice of different payment structures to choose from and be incentivized accordingly.
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