What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing campaigns are where businesses pay affiliates (or an affiliate network) a commission for sending them website visitors, leads or customers. Affiliate marketing campaigns continue to grow in popularity. In 2017, the UK saw £1.578 billion spent on affiliate marketing, with it having no signs of slowing down in 2018.
For example, large well-known companies such as L’Oreal work with affiliates such as make-up and beauty bloggers, to promote their new products. The affiliates may post the specified links to L’Oreal’s new product on their YouTube video description box, or via their blogs or websites. The bloggers may even just have L’Oreal advertising banners on their website as viewers read the content.
So, what are the benefits of using affiliate marketing?
Increased Traffic & Exposure
Without a doubt, exposure is key to any component of a marketing strategy. By having affiliates, you can have your product or service held out for the online world to see. And by staying present on appropriate sites, your exposure will increase exponentially by staying in tune with the correct, targeted demographics. What’s more, if your brand or company isn’t particularly well known, by using affiliates this can help to increase awareness of your brand in a very quick and efficient manner.
On top of this, most search engines rate inbound links highly for page ranking, so by developing a network of affiliate advertisers this will help to increase your rank on search engines.
Usually, as the affiliates will be in the same field or sector, this will potentially help boost your Google or search engine ranking even more.
Only Pay for Results & Fixed Costs
As affiliates are only paid once the desired action has taken place, it ensures you’re getting what you pay for with your marketing efforts. As affiliates are only paid upon conversion, It also motivates the affiliate to drive the conversion.
On top of this, there are no unexpected costs which means there’s little risk involved compared to other forms of marketing. There’s generally no huge upfront investment which has to be made, so there’s a lot less to lose.
On top of this, easily cancelling an affiliate program is quick and easy, letting you move onto a new affiliate program with ease.
Easy Tracking & Transparency
A major appeal for companies is the transparency of the return on investment. By being able to trace the origins of sales you can see exactly where and when sales are made.
For example, affiliate marketing programs allow you to see click-through rates or views of your website as a result of the affiliate ad. This is essential in building an effective affiliate marketing plan because it lets the brand or company know which affiliates are working and which aren’t getting results. In the long term, this can help reduce costs, and produce a more targeted clientbase.
Overall, there are numerous benefits and reasons to pursue affiliate marketing. Although you must invest considerable time, energy when you start out, it can be worth it in the end if you stay consistent and you are in a niche that people are interested in.
If you are thinking about using affiliate marketing as part of your marketing strategy, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected] or call on 01427 808870.
