Affiliate marketing is a performance-based type of marketing in which business rewards one or more affiliates for each customer brought by the marketing efforts of the affiliate. In this affiliate agreement, the affiliate will normally be an influencer or a webmaster that markets the company's products or services on his or her own platform in order to provide these with publicity. When a customer clicks on the affiliate link and goes ahead to make a purchase from the link, or carry out any action placed in its stead (filling a form, signing up for a free trial), the affiliate is able to earn a commission.
Businesses, therefore, win from reaching the new audience and paying only for actual results. On the other side, affiliates earn through promoting products or services in which they believe. Affiliates can range from small bloggers to large media companies, and commissions can range from a percentage of the sale to flat fees, to even other metrics like generated leads or clicks.
Generally, the following steps are to be followed in order to put an affiliate marketing program for the business in place:
- Choose an affiliate platform: There are many affiliate marketing platforms that handle tracking, reporting, and payments, such as Commission Junction, ShareASale, and Amazon Associates.
- Determine the commission structure: How much to pay the affiliate for every sale or desired action and, if desired, decide if the offer will be tiered based on performance.
- Create landing pages, banners, and other creative assets with appealing offers and designs that can be placed on the affiliate's website.
- Affiliates' recruiting: Reach out to relevant niches where potential affiliates may be and inform them about the program, the product, or service they will be promoting.
- Track and optimize performance: Use the tools for tracking and reporting provided by the affiliate platform to follow the performance of each partner and eventually optimize the program.
With influencer marketing and the gig economy, affiliate marketing has exploded, and this approach is better than ever in terms of reaching business reach and revenue flexibly and scalably.