What is Affiliate Marketing?

To make things easier, let us make it clear from the outset that affiliate marketing is kind of paid sales, but online and based on new technologies. The sales collaboration system was first used by Amazon and has since become one of the most popular online monetization methods and digital marketing strategies worldwide.

Affiliate marketing involves earning commissions by promoting a product or service created by a retailer or other advertiser. Affiliate marketing is a monetization model that rewards an affiliate partner (sales partner) for delivering a specific result to the retailer or advertiser.

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing tactic in which a business owner (usually online) submits to websites or other people (affiliate publisher) who offer to buy their products on the website. And for every customer who enters the website through the affiliate publisher link and makes a purchase, a commission will be awarded to the affiliate publisher by the business owner. Do not confuse this action with ordinary advertisements at all, because you have to pay for ordinary advertisements, if affiliate marketing has no cost and is paid only based on the customer.

The affiliate system can be used in all areas from cooperation in the sale of clothing to cooperation in the sale of educational products and there are no restrictions in terms of the type of product.

For example, suppose you have a smartwatch sales website (product owner) and you want to use a watch sales collaboration system. You place your ad free of charge by affiliate marketing method on a similar website such as mobile sales (affiliate or publisher) to increase your sales. For each customer from which the mobile sales website came to your website and made a purchase, you give a percentage of the purchase amount to the mobile sales website.

How does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing includes the referral of a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media, podcast or website. The partner company receives a commission every time a person makes a purchase through a unique link related to the partner offer.

By the fact that affiliate marketing works by expanding marketing responsibilities and product creation among different people, this marketing method is able to use the capabilities of different people for a more effective marketing strategy while providing a share of profit to the participants. To implement affiliate marketing, three different groups must be involved:

• Merchants seller and product makers
• Affiliates or advertiser
• Consumer customers

First, let’s look at the complex relationship between these three parties to ensure the success of affiliate marketing.

1. Seller and product manufacturers

A salesperson, whether a sole proprietor or a large company, is a salesperson, trader, creator, or retailer who markets a product. This product can be a physical good such as household products or so on.

The salesperson, also known as the brand, does not need to be active in marketing, but they may be advertisers and make profit from affiliate marketing revenue sharing.

For example, the individual could be an e-commerce salesperson who wants to have access to new audiences by paying for affiliate websites (through affiliate marketing) to promote their products. He may also be a salesperson of software that needs affiliate marketing to increase sales.

2. Affiliate or publisher

An affiliate, also known as a publisher, may be an individual or a company that markets the seller’s product in a way appeals to potential consumers. In other words, the affiliate promotes the product to convince consumers that it is valuable or useful to them, and ultimately persuades them to buy. If the consumer eventually buys the product, the affiliate receives a portion of the revenue earned.

Affiliates often have very specific audiences for whom they do marketing and are generally committed to the interests of their audience. This leads to branding that helps the affiliate company attract customers who are more likely to follow the ad.

3. Consumer

Whether the consumer is aware of it or not, consumers (and their purchases) are actually affected by affiliate marketing incentives. Affiliates share these products on social media, blogs and websites.

When consumers buy a product, the seller and the affiliate share the profit. Sometimes an affiliate company announces that they are promoting a product or service. At other times, the consumer may be completely unaware of the affiliate marketing infrastructure.

However, it is rare for customers to pay more for a product purchased through affiliate marketing. The affiliate company’s share of profits is included in the price. The consumer completes the purchase process and receives the product normally.

Types of affiliate marketing programs

Affiliate marketing is an easy, fast and efficient way and in many cases, its implementation will be very successful, which will benefit both sides of the story. But how does an affiliate get paid after connecting the seller to the consumer?

The answer to this question may be a little complicated.

The consumer does not always need to buy the product, depending on the type of marketing planning, the affiliate company’s share in sales will be evaluated differently.

The affiliate may receive its remuneration in various ways:

Pay Per Sale (CPS) or (PPS)

Pay Per Sale is the standard structuring method of affiliate marketing. In this method, the seller pays a percentage of the product sales amount to the affiliate company after completing the product purchase process by the consumer as a result of sales cooperation marketing strategies. In other words, the affiliate must actually force the investor to invest in the product before the compensation process.

Pay Per Potential (CPL) or (PPL)

A more sophisticated affiliate marketing system is Pay Per Lead, where the company that pays the product pays the affiliate company based on the conversion rate or lead earned. The affiliate company must persuade the customer to visit the seller’s website and take the necessary action, this may be filling out a special contact form, registering, subscribing to the newsletter or downloading an application.

Pay by ad display (CPM)

Another type of advertising in the field of affiliate marketing is Pay Per Impression. In this model, regardless of whether the ad leads to clicks or sales, the advertiser is paid. Some social media influencers make money this way and charge a certain amount of money for your ad to be seen.

Payment based on ad display, for example, for every 1,000 ads displayed, regardless of whether or not the ad is clicked.

This method is similar to more traditional advertising, such as print advertising and billboards, and is done to view and create brand awareness.

This ad will still be displayed even if the ad is not clicked. Some advertisers prefer to pay based on ad display because it is usually cheaper than paying per click.

Pay Per Click (CPC) or (PPC)

Pay Per Click focuses on motivating the affiliate to redirect consumers from their marketing platform to the seller or product owner’s website. This means that the affiliate company must engage the consumer to the extent that it is transferred from the affiliate company site to the owner site. The affiliate company is paid based on the increase in website traffic.

In fact, in this method, the affiliate receives a fee for each click on the ad.

Comparison of Pay Per Click (CPM) Pay Per Click (CPC)

Understanding the difference between pay-per-click advertising and pay-per-click is the first step in defining your digital advertising strategy. The next step in evaluating is which criteria or considerations are most important to the brand. These criteria also include the following:

Advertising budget. How Much Money Does a Business Make for Advertising?

The purpose of the campaign. Is the goal of the brand awareness campaign, or is the business looking to increase traffic and sales?

The amount of knowledge about the brand. Is this business known? Or is it in the early stages of marketing?

Marketing channel. Will this ad appear in search engines like Google and Bing? Or will they be shared on social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter?

Pay per click is best for companies that want to focus on conversion, whether they want to increase sales or increase newsletter subscriptions. Pay per click ensures that you only pay for each person who clicks on your website, so this method is very effective for people who need real interaction and want to track clicks.

Pay-per-click advertising is suitable for brands with limited budgets and small audiences, such as startups or new businesses. You pay for every 1,000 hits, so you can run your ad and not pay until you reach a certain amount of hits.

Why is it necessary to use affiliate marketing?

All e-commerce players want to reach more users and customers, and this is one of the things that makes affiliate marketing or sales collaboration attractive.

In this case, the sales partner (publisher) can be the owner of several websites, applications or social media channels or know email marketing well. The stronger the sales partner network, the wider the reach of potential customers.

The goal of affiliate marketing is to increase sales volume, a win-win solution that benefits the salesperson and sales partner. In addition, marketing comes with a lot of costs, and using the skills and facilities of others in this win-win environment can save a lot of marketing costs while increasing sales.

How are sales cooperation programs implemented?

Determining the terms of cooperation in sales

In order to implement a sales cooperation plan, the sales company (advertiser) must determine the conditions under which the sales cooperation plan is formed. This requires significant implementation experience and structures, and it is important to provide these to create a successful affiliate marketing plan.

Brands can also set up their own exclusive sales collaboration system, or purchase ready-made platforms as white labels and launch with their own brand.

Accept the terms of the publisher and proceed to advertise

If the publisher accepts the terms of the advertising company to cooperate in the sale, it will inform and advertise the products on its network. This can be done by implementing banner ads, text ads, or placing links on publisher-owned websites via email to your audience or other marketing methods. These publishers use advertisements in the form of articles, videos and images to attract the audience’s attention to the product or service.

Take action on behalf of the customer and pay the obligations

Sales associates direct visitors to their desired page through links or banners and persuade the audience to take a specific action. If these individuals perform a specific action, such as purchasing a product or service, the advertising company pays the agreed commission to the sales partner, an amount that can be a percentage of the final sale price.

In the book sale example, the seller can specify that the publisher will receive a fee for clicking on the book purchase link and finalizing the purchase. In addition, the publisher should not advertise the brand on unethical channels. Advertising on social media is not possible and there are other restrictions. Informing and implementing all of these requires a structure that is provided either by the bookseller or the broker.

Key points in affiliate marketing or sales collaboration

Creating a suitable cooperation platform

Most companies now pay for traffic (pay per click or CPC) or pay per thousand impressions (CPM). With the advancement of technology, the attention of many e-commerce activists has been drawn to the payment of commissions for sales or quality sales leads (leads). This great opportunity also brings with it challenges, previous sales affiliate programs have been vulnerable to fraud, as some publishers generate traffic or impress ads with the help of bots.

Most sales affiliate programs now have specific terms and conditions on how to generate sales leads. Certain methods are also prohibited, for example the use of malware to display links to sales collaborators is prohibited.

The main feature of affiliate marketing: paying for sales or sales leads

There are important points about sales collaboration that are important to pay attention to. First, sales collaboration is based on the sales company’s reliance on the partner’s advertising capabilities. This means that companies pay their sales partners for the final results they get. Naturally, in most cases of affiliate marketing, payment per sales unit or sales leads is generated, and usually in fewer cases, this cooperation is based on clicks or Ad number of display views.

Establish a proper mechanism to prevent ad fraud

The second important point is that with the advancement of technology, scammers can more easily create multiple clicks or display more impressions through bots and software. In such an environment, it is important to have solutions to detect and circumvent fraudulent acts. This makes it important to have an intermediary that can establish a relationship between the brand and the publisher, validate the parties and build long-term relationships based on the volume of their activity.

Consider the example of a bookseller, he must gain the trust of the advertiser. Also spend a lot of energy monitoring publishers’ activities. Finally, follow the payment processes and their complaints, and in case of complaints from the publisher, stop cooperating with him.

Need a broker in affiliate marketing programs

Many marketing managers now try to monitor how their product or service is displayed in the content displayed by the sales partner to verify the validity of the sales partner link. However, this requires a lot of energy and therefore it is necessary to use brokers to validate and create a mechanism for cooperation in sales. Booksellers need mechanisms to automate affiliate marketing. This issue requires special personnel and technical infrastructure.

Tips for Successful Affiliate Marketing

Success in affiliate marketing, like other marketing methods, requires research and work. But in order to be successful in affiliate marketing, what strategies should be taken?

Identify the persona

Now that you have your niche, you need to think about who to target with your marketing strategy. Researching and defining your target audience and creating a buyer personality and identifying a persona is a good way to clarify this issue.

Your audience is a group of people who are likely to be interested in the products or services you are promoting. This group is identified by the following characteristics:

• Gender
• Age
• Income
• Interests

Grouping and naming each character type helps identify and evaluate them. By doing this, you can put yourself in the place of the person and find out how you can plan your marketing plan based on their person. To continue planning, you can use a simple project template to inform the organization.

Content marketing on the site

Content marketing is a tool that an individual or brand of online content can use to create and share content for their audience. Although not all content needs to explicitly promote a brand, content marketing is often used to increase the reader’s understanding of the content creator and increase their interest in the product or service.

Since businesses that also have blogs grow 126 percent more per capita than businesses that do not have blogs, it is not surprising that marketers invest in creating educational and valuable content on the blog and follow the content marketing process.

With the growth of social media, email listings and other marketing channels, content marketing is no longer limited to blogs.

In this regard, for affiliate marketing, both content production and marketing through it are very important. In fact, publishers convince a group of customers to buy with the content they produce, as a result of which both publishers and product owners benefit.

Video marketing on the site

Video content plays an important role in increasing conversions and sales in your affiliate marketing campaign. An article published in Forbes claims that 90% of people find product videos useful for purchasing decisions. Simply put, without a product video, you lose out on affiliate marketing and online sales. According to statistics:

About 50% of people watch videos about a product or service before buying.

According to the Wordstam website, 59% of people prefer watching movies to reading text.

Compared to traditional methods, the use of video in affiliate marketing helps you increase conversion rates.

Using video in sales affiliate marketing may give you a competitive edge in the marketplace and help you be more productive than traditional methods. There is no need for complexity and high cost to effectively use video marketing in affiliate marketing. There are many free tools available that can help you produce great video content.

Landing page conversion rate optimization

Landing pages are one of the main factors when launching a campaign. Proper design, attention, great animations, proper use of negative space and proper layout, proper call to action are important factors in increasing the conversion rate.

You can use Google Analytics to track sales conversions on various landing page pages to improve the progress of your affiliate marketing campaign.

In fact, in marketing collaboration marketing, like other digital marketing methods, users will reach your landing page, and if the design of this page is not appropriate or what you promised to users is not available on this page, these users will easily leave your page. They will. You want to turn these leads into customers, so a high conversion rate by designing the best landing page is essential to the success of a sales affiliate marketing campaign.

Collaborate on social media sales

So far, the question may be whether affiliate marketing is just for the website? It must be said no. Collaboration in the sale of goods on any online platform and for anyone is possible. All you need is a website, a telegram channel or an Instagram page, and you do not need a large number of contacts. If even one person is persuaded to buy, you will receive your commission. For example, to cooperate in the sale of Telegram, put the link of the desired store (product owner) in your Telegram channel and receive a commission for each customer’s purchase. Work at home so easily!

Amazon is a global example of the best sales collaboration system

Amazon Associates is one of the best affiliate marketing systems in the world. As we said, Amazon was the first and most reputable company in the world to establish an affiliate system. Amazon is still one of the best affiliate systems after years of working together.

The way it works is that you register in this system and you are given a special affiliate link. You put this link on your website or social network, and each person who clicks on it, a cookie is added to their Browser, through which you can specify the customer’s login and find out from which source.

Advantages of sales cooperation system

• Product owners can sell their products and services on a larger scale.
• Product owners get to a bigger market without having to spend time finding a customer.
• Programs that track purchase statistics on the Affiliate Publisher website are a reliable and willing source for examining customer demand.
• Affiliate marketing programs for content creators and websites are an easy source of revenue along with other sources of revenue and are a very low cost platform for product owners to advertise.
• The sales cooperation system does not require investment.
• The affiliate publisher earns money by simply placing a link without any hassle.

Disadvantages of sales cooperation system

• Product owners may initially persuade you to cooperate with a high percentage of commissions, but then reduce the commission. You have to be careful and work with reputable and well-known stores.
• Hackers may steal your affiliate links and steal your commission, which is a form of cyber theft.

9 ways to earn money from the sales cooperation system

1. Build a website

First of all, we must point out that before building a website, you must determine your area of ​​interest so that you do not jump into the water. Once you find the topic you are interested in, start building a website. Try to use free website building platforms such as WordPress or IM creator tools so that you do not spend too much in case of possible regrets.

Naturally, the blog section of the website is the most important part of the site for affiliate marketing. But other parts of the website also need attention, such as:

• About us: Personalize this section a bit and write about yourself so that visitors can get more information from you and trust you.
• Contact us: This section should include all your access information such as a contact number or address so that product owners and advertisers or potential affiliates do not get confused to contact you.
• Disclaimer: In this section, you must inform the customer of the possible risks and issue a warning under the heading that you are not responsible for tracking the purchase and you only work as an intermediary.
• Privacy Policy Terms and Conditions: If you collect certain information from the customer, be sure to inform him.
• Advertise: Be sure to design a separate page for your advertising rules and specify the parts of the page that you want to dedicate to the affiliate link or ad.

It is very important that you state your rules and regulations clearly so that there are no complaints or excuses from the customer.

2. Producing quality content is the key

Some advertising and affiliate service networks or stores that want to sell their product expect you to pre-generate content on the website before any collaboration and make your monthly visits and website traffic transparent. Propose to accept cooperation with you. Make sure you follow their rules before applying for any cooperation and then take action.

Of course, this does not mean that you have to publish up to 100 pieces of content on your blog and then think about collaborating in sales. But you should publish at least 5 great posts on your blog so that reputable stores can count on your website and want to cooperate.

Publish content and stay active on time. The more content you produce, the more likely you are to transfer the buyer to the seller’s site, and if you buy, you will receive your commission.

3. Choose the advertised product yourself

If you work in a specific field and have defined your position, you should definitely choose the advertised product yourself and your choice should be consistent with your content to increase your chances of sales.

• Advertise the product that is most in demand. Examine your audience’s problems and chats and present products that you think will solve their problem.
• Advertise a product that you have used and liked before. Do a Google search and check out the affiliate site’s affiliate programs, and then request a link.
• Offer products that your co-workers advertise. Take a look at websites and social networks and see what kind of products do those who produce similar content to you most recommend? You can even find many of them with the hashtag #afilit.

4. Put affiliate links in popular posts

If you are a content creator, you know that the popularity of different posts on your website is not the same and some posts get more attention. At this stage, two situations occur:

• The suggested product is related to the same popular content
• The product offered has nothing to do with popular content and is irrelevant

In the first case, you can easily put the link to the seller’s site between the content or the end of it and there is no problem. In the second case, you should try to refer the contact to the posts where the affiliate link is located in that popular post.

5. Include affiliate links in your email marketing campaign

If you are sure that the product you want is related to the email you want to send to the user and email marketing helps you, there is no problem in putting an affiliate link in it. However, if you are producing content and have users who are members of your site, it is also very wise to introduce a complementary product with the right content, and if you build enough trust with your audience, it will most likely lead to sales. .

Otherwise, if the product is irrelevant to the content, do not do it at all, as you may be led to spam on suspicion of unnecessary advertising. Certainly a user who has subscribed to read business articles on your site does not like to see cosmetics and toy ads in his email!

6. Collaborate with different affiliates

A sales collaboration system takes a lot of time to produce results and requires a lot of patience. But if an affiliate system is not effective, do not worry at all, because there is no obligation in terms of adherence to a particular sales cooperation system, and you should know that this system is a win-win equation, so neither legally nor morally an obstacle to cancel cooperation with There is no store and you are free to work with different people and companies. Of course, do not forget to diversify the various affiliates, because by doing so, you are playing with your own credibility.

7. Use different link models

Affiliate links can be created in various formats and models such as banners, product photos, discount codes or even in the form of a simple link. This model can vary depending on the type of product you are advertising. For example, if the proposed product is visually appealing, put the link in the form of a photo, or if you are advertising a training course, placing a banner seems appropriate.

8. Create a source page

Resource page is the page where you put all your suggested products to be available at once. Of course, having a source page is not necessary, but in the long run and as you progress in affiliate marketing it can be a necessity. For example, if you are a beauty blogger or you produce content in the field of skin and beauty, a source page from all the cosmetics and care brands that you introduced can be like paradise for your followers.

Try to put the most purchased products at the top of the source page to get more attention, or even dedicate a section to the products you have used yourself and separate it from the others with the title “My suggestion”.

9. Ask the product owner for a discount for customers

After you have sold a number of products through your links and you have become known to the product owner and gained his trust, ask them to consider special discount codes or special sales for the customers who come on your behalf, and Put more people on the seller’s site by placing it on the product.

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing system is actually a type of two-pronged marketing that refers to the online marketplace sales collaboration system. In this deal, the parties benefit and there is no loss and there are no serious contracts. In any case, it is true that this type of marketing is an easy and free way to earn money, and from large companies to ordinary people can participate in it. But the result requires a lot of time and patience, and certainly building a platform based on user trust will help make progress in this regard.