Affiliate marketing is when you promote other company’s or people’s products. In the process, you earn a commission which can be a flat amount or a percentage of the sale.
It’s simple – you find a product of your choosing, you promote it in front of an audience, and for each sale that comes from your promotional work, you make a profit.
This kind of marketing goes by many names such as – referral programs or associated marketing programs.
Affiliate marketing uses the concept of revenue sharing. In this post by SPOPLI Web Development & Services, we look at how a brand that wants to use affiliate marketing should go about it.
What is eCommerce Affiliate Marketing?
When you add the element of ‘online’ to the regular affiliate marketing, it becomes eCommerce Affiliate Marketing. If you’re an online merchant who is promoting other company’s services, websites, or products on your site – you can earn a commission.
This type of marketing is becoming increasingly popular today which can generate amazing revenue for you and drive additional sales.
Because of its success and popularity, a growing number of businesses are joining affiliate programs. In fact, a whopping 81% of brands and companies are leveraging the power of this type of marketing.
How To Start Affiliate Marketing Without Any Money?
Even if you don’t have any money, you can still become an affiliate to other brands. You also don’t need major funding to promote your own affiliate links. All you need is the right strategy in place to reach your ideal audience.
You can do that in a variety of ways such as through online communities, social media, groups, your own network, etc.
5 Ways to Explore eCommerce Business Using Affiliate Marketing
Pick the Right Affiliates
One of the core ingredients of affiliate marketing is the factor of ‘influence’. There’s nothing like the power of influencers to nudge consumers into buying your product.
The only way to leverage that is by working with someone that already enjoys an active and engaged audience that trusts them.
That’s why picking the right affiliate is what’s going to make it or break it. While choosing your picks be sure to see that –
- The affiliate has a good relationship with the audience
- Their site rankings, engagement, authority, views, and following seem promising
- Their audiences would be interested in whatever brand, product, or service you have to offer.
All of these factors are important if you want to avoid wasting your efforts and give them a proper direction.
Here’s an example – it won’t make much sense for a food company to work with a site that sells online travel tickets or discount coupons. In the same way, working with a blogger who probably receives only a hundred visitors a day is not going to help you much with your sales funnel.
Use Discount Offers to Attract Sales
A highly effective strategy in the realm of affiliate marketing is leveraging the power of deals, discounts, and coupons.
Discounts and coupons have an appeal to them which automatically attracts buyers. People actively look for discount coupons online. And, they even wind up buying things they don’t need just because it was available at a discount.
You can use a multitude of websites for this purpose such as Offers.com and Groupon. Use these sites to attract huge amounts of traffic and improve conversions.
Coupons are particularly successful for certain products such as those in the beauty industry, travel, food, gadgets, technology, etc. But, be careful. Use coupons and discounts judiciously. If you’re not careful you could easily burn through your margins.
Coupons and affiliate marketing only work when you pick a high-quality site. Be sure to check the site’s authenticity before using it. First, use their coupons for a couple of products. If they don’t work, it could be a potential red flag for your business.
Use Multiple Resources to Leverage Affiliate Promotions
Don’t limit yourself to a couple of websites and social media platforms. Expand your horizon. Test out a bunch of strategies to see which platform the audiences best respond to.
Below are some of the best sources from where you can leverage affiliate promotions –
- Product reviews – Any affiliate blog that is review-focused is a potential goldmine for you to effectively promote your products. These sites are more likely to drive better sales and more serious customers who are interested in buying the product/service.
- Email Marketing – Many affiliates maintain a huge list of subscribers that you can reach in their inboxes. This kind of razor-sharp targeting in your niche could drive a lot of conversions.
- Webinars – Webinar hosts are experts who have a huge following. Their followers trust their recommendations. Getting in touch with them and using their platform for creating affiliate ads is another strong marketing strategy. Getting your product as a recommendation in front of audiences that trust the host is yet another great affiliate strategy.
- YouTube videos – A growing number of viewers rely on their favorite YouTubers and trust their recommendations. If you could manage to get your product featured on a YouTube channel with a huge following, it could do wonders for your brand/product.
Experiment with all these channels and strategies and more. Analyze the results and see which one is the most effective of all. For best results, try using a combination of those in the right ratio.
Bottom Line
Affiliate marketing today is easier than ever. All you need is an analytical mind and perseverance and you could do wonders with your strategy.
Author Bio:
Sunny Popli is the owner of SPOPLI Web Development He loves to learn and grow. His key interest areas are to learn and implement the latest & impactful ideas in the field of digital marketing.
