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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 their product or service and if an affiliate generates a sale then they receive 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 publishers to facilitate effective partnerships with high-quality affiliates.
Another benefit of affiliate marketing companies is that they handle all of the management for you. It’s essentially like putting a channel on autopilot so you can focus on other areas. They’ll take care of the day-to-day running of the programs and keep you updated with regular reports.
Are There Any Downsides?
Of course, there can be downsides to working with affiliate marketing companies, just as there are if you work with an advertising firm or SEO agency. Partnering with a third party 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 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.
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. 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 commission.
This model also works for recurring revenue too. If you offer software as a service for a monthly fee, then affiliates can receive 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.
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 publishers that drive results. 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 affiliates instead of the technical details.
Choosing the Right Affiliate Marketing Companies
Partnering with the right affiliate marketing companies is another key to success. A knowledgeable company will help you approach a targeted audience, maximize conversion rates, and take care of on-going management too. They’ll be as driven as you are to ensure the success of your campaigns and advise you on the best strategies to do this.
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 ecommerce 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 424.272.7400 or email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!
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