As an e-commerce business owner, you should leverage the power of affiliate marketing. And, if you have been in the e-commerce business for a while, perhaps you must be familiar with the term ‘affiliate marketing’. Let’s understand the meaning of affiliate marketing and its working in detail followed by how you can boost your sales with e-commerce affiliate programs.
In simple terms, affiliate marketing is a performance marketing model, wherein, e-commerce business owners reward their affiliate partners for carrying out the desired action. When someone purchases the products recommended by your affiliate partners, you as an e-commerce store owner would have to pay a commission to your affiliate partner.
Boosting Your Sales with Affiliate Marketing Programs
With the rising popularity of online shopping due to the convenience it offers and the time it saves, affiliate marketing in e-commerce has a high potential as it helps you reach a wide audience while bringing in new customers. You can do this largely by tapping the power of influencers and running ad campaigns to support your affiliates’ work and observe a significant growth in your sales.
Continue reading to find out how you can do it effectively:
- Build a Strong Commission Structure
If you are ready to offer a reasonable commission, you can tap quality affiliate partners who will help you promote your products on a larger scale by reaching out to a wider audience. An ideal e-commerce affiliate commission rate ranges between 5-15 per cent of the product price. The factors that play a vital role in deciding the affiliate commission are:
- Price and product margin
- Industry
- Affiliate partner’s value
If you are just beginning with affiliate marketing, offering a strong commission rate would attract quality affiliates. You can also take into consideration the commissions being paid by the competitors in your niche and launch the program with a stronger commission that you can afford at that time. Or, you even create custom commission structures for your different affiliates and optimize your expenses.
As the affiliate commissions are paid post-sales, you can factor in profit margin, cost of goods sold and the affiliate commissions for generating a solid return on your investment.
- Find Right Influencers to Promote Your Products
Now, you need to extensively research and find affiliate bloggers and websites which have an audience similar to your target market and then invite them to become your affiliate partner. You can take the help of partner recruitment tools that assist you in connecting with the content creators and affiliates that align well with your brand.
Furthermore, for connecting with the influencers, you can work on cold email templates and send them out to the influencers. However, ensure that you follow up regularly and have their attention by providing them free products, competitive commission, and other incentives for joining your program and associating with your e-commerce business.
- Get in Touch with Your Affiliates Regularly
It is important to have open communication with your affiliates and keep them updated about the upcoming product launches, banner ads, product feature videos, and the products that you are promoting across your social media channels. You can brainstorm and work on ideas that can make conversions easier for them, provided they need any help.
To entice the influencers to promote you, you should provide them with the best offers, converting landing pages, and bonuses. And, you can reward the affiliate partners who are driving tons of e-commerce business orders with exclusive deals, a better commission, or free products.
Here’s a tip – You can use an e-commerce affiliate marketing tool to connect with the affiliates present in your niche. A few companies play the role of a mediator between your affiliates and you, introducing you to the efficient working of affiliate marketing and helping you in launching or improving your affiliate marketing program.
- Create Text and Banner Ads
Whether your promotions are scheduled around the business cycle or the holidays, you can build a text and banner ad campaign coinciding with what your affiliate partners are promoting. This would drive customer decision making.
You can create effective banner ads complementing your affiliate marketing program with the following tips:
- Have clear branding, which speaks for itself
- Keep the message simple and concise
- Tap the potential of animation and incorporate them in your banner ads
- Do not forget to include a CTA button, as it gives the next step to the viewers
Expand Your Horizons with Affiliate Marketing for Ecommerce
In this day and age, shoppers look up to influencers or browse through the internet for innovative styling tips, ongoing fashion trends or other trending products, and then make purchases. Therefore, if you want to cater to a larger audience with the help of partners who already have an audience that has built trust in them over a period, it is highly recommended to include affiliate marketing as one of your marketing strategies.
You should remember one thing – as affiliates represent your brand, make sure that they align with your brand’s core image and values. Having an in-depth understanding of the affiliate marketing tools that you can trust and the affiliate marketing tactics you can incorporate in your marketing strategies can enhance your sales and take your business to new heights.
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