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Affiliate marketing companies leverage the most powerful concept in business: the win/win situation. Organizations only pay for the sales that are generated and affiliates receive a commission in return. It’s a mutually beneficial scenario where both advertisers and publishers get a good deal.
According to research by Rakuten, 90% of advertisers consider affiliate programs to be important or very important in their overall marketing strategy.
In fact, the majority of publishers reported that affiliates drove over 20% of their revenue. So if you don’t have an internet affiliate program, then you could be missing out.
Working with Affiliate Marketing Companies
Affiliate marketing companies are highly effective because they’re built on a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model.
Affiliates are recruited to promote products or services and if an affiliate generates a sale then they earn a commission.
This means that the company only pays out once a sale has already been secured!
Working with affiliate marketing companies has a lot of business benefits.
Operating on a CPA model means they offer a low-risk strategy that can yield huge results.
It’s a performance-driven approach that only rewards affiliate partners who generate sales.
Advertisers don’t pay-out unless the campaign is successful, which generates a strong ROI making this channel one of the most profitable digital channels to exist.
This also means that affiliate marketing companies don’t get paid unless your campaign generates positive results.
The nature of this model is that it encourages high performance.
It’s in an affiliate marketing company’s interest to get the best possible results for their advertisers. If they don’t, they won’t get paid either.
So the best affiliate marketing companies will vet applicants to facilitate effective partnerships with top affiliate publishers.
Another benefit of affiliate marketing companies is that they handle all of the management for you. It’s essentially like putting your partner program on autopilot so you can focus on other areas.
They’ll take care of product launches, affiliate link building, and keep you updated with regular reports. You’ll then be able to work on other marketing projects, safe in the knowledge that your affiliate channel is generating revenue in the background.
And if you ever need a quick answer to a query, your affiliate manager is at the end of a phone with all the information you could need.
Are There Any Downsides?
Of course, there are both pros and cons to working with affiliate marketing companies, just as there are if you work with an advertising firm or SEO agency.
Partnering with third-party performance marketers can be daunting at first as it may feel like you’re handing over control to someone else.
There’s also the question of whether they’ll generate the results you’re looking for or fail to deliver. Likely there is an upfront investment to secure affiliate payouts (like an agency fee and your pay-out wallet in commission junction), but as we discussed above, it’s in their interest for your campaign to succeed.
Both teams have skin in the game which makes it highly unlikely that they’ll let you down especially if they have a track record of recruiting good affiliates.
Affiliate marketing programs are sometimes scrutinized more heavily than other online marketing channels.
Organizations may be concerned that affiliate marketing will cannibalize sales that would have been generated anyway.
Or worry whether affiliates will portray their brand in the correct manner. They may have concerns about the technical setup aspect or overpaying on affiliates commissions that haven’t been accurately tracked.
However, all of these concerns can be overcome with the right setup.
There are plenty of ways to resolve these apprehensions, such as restricting affiliates from PPC bidding on your branded keywords (trademark bidding) and providing them with ready-made banner ads to match your brand messaging.
If you have concerns like these then it’s worth discussing them with an affiliate marketing company directly. They’ll be able to recommend solutions based on previous experiences and ensure that the marketing program meets all of your criteria.
Since they interact with affiliates on a daily basis, they’ll be able to suggest practical ways of addressing potential worries prior to implementation.
How Do Affiliate Programs Work?
Affiliate programs incentivize publishers to promote your products or services. These publishers can range from niche bloggers to huge coupon sites.
When they sign up to your program, they’ll receive unique affiliate links to your website. These links include trackable code so it’s easy to identify where a sale came from and allocate commission appropriately.
Direct sales affiliate programs can be set up to your precise business needs and specifications.
You decide the commission amount, payment structure, and what the rules are.
Most advertisers offer their affiliates a 30 or 45-day window after the initial visit in which they’ll receive credit for a sale (known as cookie durations).
Not everyone purchases instantly and many people take time to think it over before returning a few days later. If a visitor purchases within this time-frame then it’s only fair that the affiliate receives a commission.
This model also works for recurring revenue too. If you offer software as a service for a monthly fee, then affiliates can receive a recurring commission for each month a customer remains signed up.
This also works well for membership sites and delivery boxes. It encourages affiliates to not only drive the initial sale but support you in minimizing churn too.
Depending on your commission structure, this can decrease your overall CPA and increase the lifetime value of your customers. It can also aid cash flow within your business allowing you more freedom to expand in other areas.
Which Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Niche?
The best thing about affiliate marketing is the ability to pick from a variety of niches. You can sell anything from digital products to furniture to clothes.
According to most affiliate marketing companies, here are the five most profitable niches:
Health and Fitness
The health and fitness niche is growing by leaps and bounds. There are a number of companies in this field including supplement manufacturers, gym equipment providers, fitness trainers, and fitness clubs.
They want to pay you to help them find more buyers or clients. Commissions in this niche are very high – between 20 percent and 40 percent.
Wealth and Money
‘How to make money online’ is among the most popular search terms on the internet. Everyone wants to make money, hence it doesn’t come as a surprise that wealth and money is a popular affiliate marketing niche.
You can work with finance gurus, trading companies, and investment firms. Due to high competition, the commission in this niche can be very high – up to 50%. However, it can be difficult to make money if you’re new in this industry, especially if you do not have the support of a popular affiliate marketing company that knows the ins and outs of the industry.
Fashion and Beauty
When it comes to affiliate marketing, we put the beauty and fashion industries under one bracket. These are worth $2 trillion together and can help you make a lot of money.
Unlike other options discussed above, the fashion and beauty niche does not pay very high commissions. Some businesses pay as low as 3 percent and some go up to 10 percent.
The good thing is that you will find a bunch of big names with some excellent affiliate products including Zara, H&M, and Mango. The low commission is usually not a problem because the market is huge. We all spend on fashion and beauty.
The average family spends about $1m800 per year on clothes including $388 on shoes. The beauty industry is far ahead when it comes to expenditure. Women tend to spend more than men – up to $3756 per year.
The good thing is that both men and women shop for fashion and beauty products and you will find all kinds of affiliate programs including affordable and luxury options.
Gaming and Software
The gaming industry is among the fastest growing affiliate marketing industries. It generated about $135 billion in 2018 and is said to be growing at a rate of 12%.
Companies in this niche actively look out for affiliate marketers to promote their products and services. The commission can be very high in this niche – up to 30% – but competition is also very stiff.
You can make money by selling digital copies of games, gaming consoles, and physical DVDs. Plus, software companies also work with affiliate marketers.
There are several options when it comes to software. You can sell a variety of apps and tools including some popular names like Zoom and Autodesk.
Hobbies and Survival
Buyers spend lavishly on hobbies as they help them be happy and remain busy. The market for hobbies and survival niches is pretty big and new players are entering at a rapid pace.
Most affiliate marketing companies suggest this niche due to high commissions and moderate competition. You will have no difficulty in finding products that meet your demographics since hobbies involve a wide variety of activities including fishing, flying, reading, and sports.
While these are some of the best niches for affiliate marketing, we must mention that they may not all be right for you. It is important to pick a niche according to your audience.
If you have a website or social media page dedicated to exercise and nutrition then it is important that you stick to affiliate programs in this niche.
Promoting products related to fashion and beauty or other niches will not give you very good results since most of your visitors would be interested in products or services related to health and fitness.
Building Great Affiliate Partnerships
The key to building great affiliate partnerships is to make it simple and rewarding.
Successful affiliate marketing companies develop powerful relationships with their partner network that drive results.
They’ll recruit an army of high-performing affiliates who are motivated to generate sales for you. They know exactly how to plan, implement, and run effective campaigns to get the results your business needs. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Streamline the process – there are plenty of affiliate management solutions that can handle the entire process, from generating trackable affiliate links to managing payments.
- Provide quality marketing support – create high-quality marketing materials to support your affiliates and keep them updated. You understand your brand better than anyone else, so take the lead in this department.
- Enable promotions and deals< – allow your affiliates to offer promotions and deals by generating unique promo codes for them to share. You can even offer the affiliates themselves a discount so they try out your product and can promote it even more thoroughly.
- Create standard operating procedures – these will help you run your affiliate program more efficiently, by having a clear process for when a link stops working, or an affiliate has questions.
- Give affiliates space – don’t try to micromanage your affiliate partners. Set the guidelines and then give them space to be creative. You may know your brand, but they understand their audience best.
Good affiliate marketing companies make it easy to follow these guidelines through their streamlined platforms.
They’ll have many of these functionalities built-in, so you can focus on supporting your affiliating networks instead of the technical details.
However, some popular companies still run their networks using outdated software that’s not particularly intuitive for users. So, it’s worth asking for a demonstration of their backend systems to ensure it’s easy to use and has all the functions you’re looking for.
Most companies will be happy to provide a demo video or create a test login so that you can experience their tech first-hand.
Choosing the Right Affiliate Marketing Companies
Partnering with the right affiliate marketing companies is another key to success. A knowledgeable marketing agency will help you approach a targeted audience, maximize lead generation and conversion rates, as well as handle on-going management too.
They’ll be as driven as you are to ensure the success of your partner program and advise you on the best strategies to do this.
Here are a few qualities to look out for when choosing the right affiliate marketing companies;
Subject Specialists
The first thing to look for is a company that’s a specialist in the field.
Lots will claim that they can take care of your affiliate campaigns alongside SEO, marketing automation, social media, and a host of other options.
But because they offer such a broad range of services, these agencies tend to have a surface-level understanding of the affiliate eco-system.
They may be able to do the basics but won’t be experts in running successful affiliate networks and programs that generate long-term results.
Data-Driven
Many agencies can get caught up in the ‘creative’ aspect of digital marketing and lose sight of the end goal: sales.
Don’t be seduced by a trendy business name or uber-cool offices, concentrate on exactly how they’ll get you results.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that you can track every aspect and evaluate exactly what’s working.
So, look for a company that’s data-driven and will use all the available information to maximize campaign results.
Proof of Results
A sound affiliate marketing agency will have delivered demonstrable results for other clients.
They’ll be able to talk about the outcomes of previous campaigns and how these aligned with client business goals.
Ask to see case studies and testimonials from their previous clients so that you know they’re up to the task.
It’s one thing to promise fantastic conversion rates but this will help ensure you pick a company that can deliver.
Top-Performing Partners
There are currently over 360,000 publishers and content marketers running 1,000,000+ affiliate sites which means there’s a huge choice of partners.
But a staggering 92% of them are either fraudulent or simply don’t perform well. It therefore pays to work with a company who’ll focus on the high-performing 8%.
Look for an agency that chooses quality affiliate partners instead of large-volume non-performers.
This will ensure you reach more people and get the best revenue results for your marketing strategy.
Strategic Approach
A good affiliate marketing company will do more than run your campaigns. They’ll develop a strategic plan that’s tailored to your business goals.
It’s not just about outsourcing the management of your program – they should be able to add value at the highest level.
This means improving on existing campaigns and bringing new ideas to the table. So, look for a company that takes a strategic approach (as opposed to ticking the boxes).
The best affiliate marketing companies will be specialists in their sector and up-to-date on the latest industry developments.
They’ll take a data-driven approach to campaigns and be able to share results from other clients they’ve successfully worked with.
By working with top-performing partners, they’ll generate high-quality traffic and increase revenue. They’ll also take a strategic approach that raises your affiliate game for years to come.
Specialist Affiliate Marketing Services
At Advertise Purple, we specialize in the management of affiliate marketing programs.
Most other agencies offer generic services that cover a wide range of channels, from social media to PR and digital marketing to blog post creation.
This means that they aren’t experts in field of affiliate marketing – they cover a lot of areas at a surface level but don’t know this industry in depth.
However, we do things differently. Unlike your average marketing company, we focus on just one area – the affiliate channel.
By specializing in just one niche, we can focus all of our energy, efforts, and resources into becoming the very best at it.
Our team can advise you on the right commission structure, program terms, and how to handle monthly payments.
We concentrate on being the top affiliate marketing company so that we can get outstanding results for our clients – results that other agencies simply can’t achieve because they don’t have the expertise or experience.
Here are a few of the bespoke services that we offer;
Connections to Top Affiliate Partners
There are hundreds of thousands of affiliates in today’s marketplace, but only a small percentage are top performers that actually drive quality visitors.
The key to a successful referral program is to target affiliates with the perfect audience for your brand and a strong ability to promote products.
They need to be trusted by their followers so that when they start promoting your offering, you receive the highest possible volume of high-quality visitors and conversions. But how can you tell which publishers are the right ones to partner with?
Our affiliate manager team will connect you with the best producers to maximize your earnings per click and overall revenue results.
They work closely with a partner network of the world’s top 6,100 content producers so that you are always paired up with the right affiliate in your vertical.
A Focus on Traffic and Conversions
Most affiliate marketing companies will make bold claims about their ability to increase traffic to your website.
But what’s the point in boosting traffic if these extra visitors aren’t being converted into paying customers? Our team’s approach to selling products involves a focus on driving the highest quality traffic to maximize conversions.
We can target people at various stages of the sales funnel to move them along the journey from strangers to loyal customers.
But if your ultimate goal is revenue rather than brand awareness, we will tailor our strategy to focus on those people with the greatest propensity to purchase right now.
We have extensive partnerships with the leading blogs, websites, and online business owners in various sectors so can always target the right people for your brand.
Media Buying Support That Multiplies Results
Unlike other affiliate marketing companies, we can also support you with purchasing ad placements on top consumer websites.
Carefully targeted adverts can multiply the results of your affiliate efforts and create an even stronger ROI. It’s worth noting that we have access to an exclusive ad inventory of top consumer sites and a dedicated team of media buying experts.
They will identify best-in-class ad placements for your brand that have statistically performed well and generated the highest return.
Program features like this can help to ensure that consumers who are sitting on the fence actually get out their credit card and purchase.
We are fully resourced to provide media buying services that will support your affiliate channel efforts and increase returns.
Inhouse Program Testing
We run our own in-house affiliate testing to ensure everything is operating to its optimum potential.
This allows us to identify improvement opportunities before a program is launched or promoted on networks like Commission Junction.
We stay on top of the latest trends in affiliate marketing by running our own campaigns and keeping track of new traffic sources, industry compliance, and landing page combinations.
Our team of in-house affiliate testers will assess your offer to ensure that it will quickly become the top converting one in your vertical.
It is this strategic planning and attention to detail that helps our client programs pay for themselves by generating the strongest possible ROI.
#1 Affiliate Management Agency in the USA
Advertise Purple is the #1 affiliate management agency in the USA.
We help clients across the country to super-charge their affiliate revenue and get the most out of the channel. In fact, our clients see an average of 131% growth in affiliate sales within our first six months of campaign management.
This is done for any niche, whether you are in it for direct e-commerce sales or lead generation.
Through our extensive network of high-quality affiliates, we’ve driven over $22 million in revenue for clients. With over nine years of successful affiliate management experience and a team of dedicated experts, we’re revered by networks and publishers as the leading affiliate management company.
We strive to position clients as the top advertiser in their vertical. If we cannot ensure this, then we don’t take them on as a client.
Through close affiliate relationships, proven strategy, and proprietary affiliate management tools, our affiliate management has proven to be the best in the business.
So if you’re looking at affiliate marketing companies or need advice on where to start, our team can help. Simply send us a message using the form below, call us on 866.833.0574 or email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!
CONNECT TO AN EXPERT
Headquarters: Advertise Purple
2200 Michigan Ave, STE A
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone: 424-272-7400
For new partnership and affiliate management inquiries please email:
For General Inquiries please email:
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