Unfortunately, get-rich schemes and the promise of passive income have given affiliate marketing a bad name.
This article will cut through the noise, discuss how affiliate marketing works, how individuals can start affiliate marketing, and how businesses can use the approach to reach prospects that may not have known about their solutions otherwise.
Mas primeiro.
O que é marketing afiliado?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business pays third parties to either generate leads or sell their solutions.
Why should a business leverage affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is low-cost, but not no-cost, investment for businesses to reach new customers.
Affiliates promote the affiliate products to their existing networks, possibly via websites, social media, email lists, etc.
The affiliate earns money only if they make a sale. Otherwise, the affiliate’s efforts are at no cost to the business.
Business Risks
There are risks to the business leveraging affiliate marketing, primarily:
- The affiliate may use wrong or illegal methods to sell the company’s solutions.
- The affiliate marketer may sell to customers who are not a good fit for the solution, costing the business more money and lowering revenue from these customers. Or, worse yet, it costs the company money to support these customers.
Getting started with affiliate marketing
Planning the program
You have created a marketing plan for your other channels.
A successful affiliate marketing program requires the same level of strategic planning as any other marketing channel.
Set rules that mitigate your risk and protect your upside
Ensure that the affiliate marketer is clear about the dos and don’ts of your program.
Are they allowed to promote your products via google ads?
Social media promotion?
What affiliate marketing strategies are acceptable and what are not.
Remember – you don’t want to pay affiliates for generating sales you would have generated via other marketing channels.
Codify this into a legal agreement and ensure every affiliate marketer signs this agreement.
Have a screening process
What should your affiliate marketers “look like”?
Should they have a website?
Be a social media influencer?
Have an extensive email marketing list?
Define a screening process to ensure this channel compliments your other efforts.
Affiliate Compensation
While most affiliate programs pay for sales, some pay for leads.
Which model (s) do you want to leverage?
For affiliate compensation:
- What percentage of the sale will you pay?
- What is the maximum amount you will pay per sale?
- When will you make affiliate payments (net 30, 60, etc.)?
- Will you pay recurring revenue (if you sell SaaS solutions) or one-time payments?
Most affiliate programs also use cookies to track leads, even if they don’t result in an immediate sale.
Cookies ensure the affiliate marketer gets credit if the prospect buys your solution down the road.
Set a precise cookie length so affiliate marketers know how long they have to generate a lead before they are no longer eligible for credit.
For example, will the lead count as affiliate sales if the prospect buys within 30 days? 90 days?
Use Affiliate tracking software
You could create your in-house solution.
You could create separate landing pages for each affiliate, manage the agreements, track sales, and so on by yourself.
There are so many great affiliate networks to consider — see our table just below.
These solutions are built for companies and affiliates to find one another, manage the relationship, track sales, and handle payments.
These solutions are great affiliate networks that:
- Simplify the generation of a unique affiliate link per partner
- Monitor individual performance and monitor the overall ROI of your programs.
- Provide a central place to communicate to all affiliate marketers you are working with.
| Visão geral | Classificação G2 | Fixação de preços | Ideal para | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWin | Awin é uma plataforma de tecnologia de marketing, que fornece um mercado aberto para que as empresas gerenciem qualquer tipo de parceria. | 3.4/5.0 19 Revisões | Preços não publicados | ||
| ClickBank | Por mais de 20 anos, o mercado ClickBank conectou comerciantes de elite e proprietários de produtos inovadores para escalar seus negócios on-line. Nossas ferramentas poderosas, alcance global e suporte confiável permitem que empresários e marcas on-line alcancem seus objetivos comerciais. | 4.7/5.0 14 Revisões | Preços não publicados | ||
| Comissão Junção | CJ Affiliate é a maior rede de afiliados do mundo. Com mais de 20 anos de experiência, CJ Affiliate é o nome mais confiável e estabelecido no marketing de afiliados com um histórico de crescimento inteligente e consistente para nossos clientes. | 3.8/5.0 12 Revisões | Preços não publicados | ||
| Impacto | A impact.com, a principal plataforma global de gestão de parcerias, vem transformando a forma como as empresas descobrem e gerenciam todos os tipos de parcerias - incluindo afiliadas, influenciadores, editores de conteúdo comercial, B2B, e muito mais - desde sua fundação em 2008. | 4.6/5.0 518 Revisões | Preços não publicados | Ver Perfil | |
| Partnerstack | O PartnerStack automatiza as partes mais difíceis das parcerias de lançamento e escalonamento. Ajudamos você a recrutar os parceiros certos, a bordo deles em seu programa, recompensando-os por cada conversão, e capacitando-os a se tornarem os melhores desempenhos. | 4.8/5.0 331 Revisões | Preços não publicados | Ver Perfil | |
| Rakuten | Na Rakuten Advertising, nossa missão é tornar a Internet um lugar melhor. Um lugar que traz relevância, valor e prazer para todos os envolvidos - anunciantes, editores e consumidores. Como fazemos isso? Nunca diminuindo o ritmo. Inovando constantemente. | 4.0/5.0 13 Revisões | Preços não publicados | ||
| ShareASale | ShareASale Client Services oferece uma variedade de serviços integrados que podem ajudá-lo a estabelecer, construir e expandir seu programa de Afiliados. | 3.6/5.0 25 Revisões | Preços não publicados |
Monitor your affiliate marketing partners
The majority of affiliate merchants will not sell anything.
The successful affiliate partners are where you need to focus the majority of your energy.
Work with these successful marketers to learn how you can help them be more successful.
Would an investment in dedicated affiliate managers be a worthwhile investment?
Should you use a portion of your marketing budget to generate more supporting materials, hold events, or create tiered incentive programs for your top performers?
Why should you become an affiliate marketer?
Affiliate marketing can be an excellent way for anyone who has built an audience to generate additional income.
You find a product you love, see if it has an affiliate program, get your affiliate link, and start sharing with your audience what you love about the product, how you use it and generate sales.
Some of the positive aspects of joining an affiliate program include:
- Selling other people’s products
- No inventory to manage
- No customer service/support calls
But remember, you are telling your audience about this product/service. Your reputation is on the line, so be selective.
Getting started as an affiliate marketer
Find a product or service you love
Is there a solution you regularly use that you think everyone should know about?
Go to their website or call their sales team to find out if they have an affiliate marketing strategy and program.
If they do, sign up!
You can also find affiliate programs through other means:
- Search for <<product name>> affiliate program on your favorite search engines.
- Register on an affiliate network like ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten, Impact, or Partnerstack.
Consider your audience
What type of audience do you have?
Do you own a website?
An online store?
Are you a Youtube or other type of social media influencer?
Have a massive email list?
What does this audience want to learn about, and how can the product you promote help them?
Then help your audience
You may create a Youtube video, blog post, a new email, or a tweet depending on the above.
You should show your audience how they can solve a problem they have using the product you are promoting in your marketing efforts.
Include your affiliate link in a few places, where it makes sense, and make sure the call-to-action is prominent.
And disclose to your audience that you are an affiliate and may get paid if they buy this product.
Final thoughts – for now
We’ll share an in-depth article on best practices in the future.
Fique atento.