Affiliate Marketing

When it comes to selling online, it is often a good idea to have allies who do part of the work for you. And that is precisely what affiliate marketing is about : getting new leads and conversions through third parties.

The affiliate marketing has over 20 years between us and it seems to remain an indispensable tool for the digital marketer for many, many more. So that this type of marketing has no secrets for you, today I want to offer you the best affiliate marketing guide to know what it is, how it works, the different types that exist and the principles that you need to apply as an advertiser to succeed with this strategy.

What is affiliate marketing?

The affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing in which the advertiser pays only for results (conversions, leads, clicks, etc.). To achieve these results, products or services are promoted through third-party or affiliate sites, which give them space for advertisements in exchange for a commission.

The affiliate marketing first emerged in 1996 when Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, devised a way to link pages on other vendors so that these a commission for each book sold will take. More than 20 years later, this model is more alive than ever, and it brings advantages for all those involved:

The advertisers manage to attract new customers with much lower marketing effort, and then only pay for the results achieved. This makes it easier for them to manage their budget while always ensuring a positive return on investment.

The affiliates obtain an economic return, since they take a commission for each result. Therefore, affiliate marketing is an easily accessible solution to monetize websites and blogs. And finally, if this type of marketing is managed correctly, the consumer also benefits through highly personalized recommendations, for example, from a blogger who explains how he uses the product or service in his day to day to introduce the link. affiliate.

When talking about affiliate marketing , it is important to distinguish this term from two others that are often used synonymously, but do not mean the same thing: online performance marketing and performance based advertising.

The online performance marketing has in common with affiliate marketing that both are based on a pay per result. However, in online performance marketing there is room for all kinds of digital marketing techniques and tools in order to achieve the desired results, so it is a much broader concept.

On the other hand, performance based advertising or results-based advertising, as its name suggests, is an advertising model in which the advertiser only pays when their objectives are achieved. A typical case is that of pay-per-click ads. Although this technique can be used as part of a broader affiliate marketing strategy, it includes many other solutions.

Affiliate Marketing Actors

To better understand how this model works, let’s take a look at the three big players in affiliate marketing:

The advertiser . We call “advertiser” the company that sells the products or services promoted through affiliates. From online subscriptions to home appliances, the world of affiliate marketing has room for all types of advertisers. In addition, this strategy can be adapted to very different company sizes and budgets, from large multinationals to sole proprietorships. The advertiser is in charge of designing the creative material (from a banner to a simple link or phone number) that the affiliate will be in charge of promoting.

The affiliate . Affiliates are the intermediaries who connect advertisers and consumers in exchange for a commission. As with advertisers, the world of affiliates fits all options and sizes, from the individual blogger looking to monetize their website to large affiliate companies. Where the advertiser provides the creative material, the affiliate is generally free to create the promotional content, for example, writing a post for his blog where he talks about the product.
The consumer . At the end of this whole process, we have the consumer or end user, who makes sense of this strategy. They are the ones who see the ad posted by the affiliate, click on a link (or submit their information through a form) and end up visiting the advertiser’s website to complete the conversion.

Cookies, the allies of affiliate marketing

This affiliate marketing guide would not be complete without a mention of cookies, as they are essential for correct attribution of results.

As you may already know, cookies are small files that web servers send to Internet users’ hard drives and which contain information about their preferences and browsing patterns. Although invisible to us, cookies are essential in our day-to-day internet. If you have ever asked a website to remember your username and password, or have seen ads related to something you just searched, you have already used cookies.

In affiliate marketing , cookies are used to “remember” a user’s behavior, for example the links they click on . In this way it is possible to track your actions to know how you have come to buy from the advertiser.

Thus, when the user clicks on the link of an affiliate, the link through which he reaches the destination website (the advertiser’s page) contains information about the affiliate, the ad he has clicked on and the amount of the commission. We are going to see the whole process in more detail:

The affiliate establishes an agreement with the advertiser, through which it will promote its products or services in exchange for a commission. From that moment on, every time the affiliate mentions the advertiser’s products or services on his website, he will include an affiliate link .
The consumer visits the affiliate’s website and clicks on one of the links. At that time, a cookie is stored on your computer.

The consumer makes a purchase (or other conversion) on the advertiser’s website. While completing the process, the advertiser checks your computer for affiliate cookies. Upon finding the affiliate cookie, the advertiser records the corresponding commission . This commission is added to a report where the advertiser collects all the traffic and conversions that come to him through the affiliate link.
At the end of each billing period (generally monthly), the advertiser pays the corresponding commissions to the affiliate.

The 6 Great Types of Affiliate Marketing

Within this basic model (advertiser-affiliate-end consumer), we can distinguish different types of affiliate marketing . These are the most common:

Through website marketing . It is the simplest model and the one we all have in mind when we talk about affiliate marketing. In this case, the affiliates are webmasters of pages with content related to the advertiser’s products and services. The website promotes these products and services and takes a commission for each lead or conversion. For the strategy to be successful, it is essential that the website’s audience is aligned with the advertiser’s buyer persona .
Through “cash back “. This model is based on sites that share their income with users, that is, they return part of the commission for purchases made through their websites. This refund can be directly in money, in points redeemable for other products and services or in discounts and special promotions. Here the benefit to the end user is evident.
Through search engines . In this case, the affiliates get conversions on the websites of the end advertisers through search engine ads (based on a pay-per-click system). That is, the affiliate is responsible for promoting the advertiser’s products and services through the purchase of keywords on sites such as Google AdWords . For this model to be profitable, it is essential that the payment per click or per conversion is less than the commission received from the advertiser.

Through email marketing databases . Here, the affiliate makes profitable its database of users, who must be interested in topics related to the advertiser’s product or service. Good targeting, by both the advertiser and the affiliate, is essential for the success of this type of affiliate marketing.

Through co-registry databases . Here, affiliates combine several companies in the same newsletter, to which consumers interested in a certain topic can subscribe. The consumer consents that their data be sent to companies in the sector in which they have expressed interest. Through affiliate networks . Affiliate networks are intended to serve as intermediaries between advertisers and affiliates. Thus, they are responsible for facilitating the relationship between both actors on a large scale and provide the necessary tools to monitor sales and commissions.

The 5 principles of affiliate marketing

To finish this affiliate marketing guide , we are going to review a very important question: the principles. In everything we do in digital marketing, it is essential to maintain a series of good practices that help us obtain long-term profitability. So let’s see what are the 5 key principles to be successful in affiliate marketing.

1) Be Transparent

To create a good relationship between advertiser, affiliates and consumers, it is necessary that all parties are very clear about the terms of that relationship. And ultimately, it is the responsibility of the advertiser to ensure that these conditions of transparency are met.

Advertisers and affiliates must reach an agreement that satisfies both parties and makes it clear what behaviors are desired and unacceptable. In particular, it is necessary to clarify that affiliate links must be labeled as such and that possible conflicts of interest have to be communicated to consumers.

2) Look For Relevance

There is no use working with tons of affiliates if what they have to offer is not relevant to the advertiser’s desired customers. In other words, if you have a vacuum cleaner brand, you don’t want to be advertised on gardening blogs. Placing trust in your affiliates does not free you from “doing your homework”: you have to research your audience and your potential affiliates to find a good compatibility between the two.

3) Go To Credible Sites

It’s not exactly a secret that the internet is full of spam, but you want (and should) do things right. If your ads are shown on unbelievable sites, that lack of credibility will end up infecting your brand. So before you establish a relationship with an individual affiliate or with a network, do your research thoroughly and make sure you control what type of sites your advertising will be displayed on.

4) Avoid Intrusive Advertising

Half-screen stealing banners, loud pop-ups … Users are getting fed up with intrusive advertising, and the rise of ad blockers proves it.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t have to be synonymous with low-quality advertising. If the links to your products and services are wrapped in content that provides real value to the user, you will have a lot to win to establish a good relationship with him.

5) Work Long Term

If you focus on immediate results, you will be much more likely to fall for tactics that do not add anything to your brand. Focus on looking for quality affiliates and take care of your relationship with them step by step. You will see how the investment of doing things well always ends up being worth it.