Originally written by the Sciart team for EAN-Online and first published there.
Did you know that affiliate marketing, a performance-based marketing strategy where individuals promote a brand's products or services and receive commissions for each confirmed sale or referred customer, is projected to soar to a staggering $36.9 billion industry by 2030, according to a report by Astute Analytica?
With such exponential growth on the horizon, it's evident that affiliate marketing offers immense opportunities for brands looking to expand their reach and boost their performance. However, navigating the intricacies of affiliate partnerships requires more than just signing up affiliates and hoping for the best. For brands operating within restricted verticals such as sexual wellness, sex tech, CBD, vape, etc., affiliate marketing can serve as a valuable tool for navigating compliance in regulated marketing. Whether you manage your own in-house affiliate programme or connect via an affiliate network, it's crucial to be discerning and cautious about who you accept, ensuring their promotional methods align with your brand and stringent regulations. It’s also crucial to continuously optimise and develop partnerships, enabling you to collaborate with your affiliates and foster mutual growth and success.
With more than fifteen years of experience in the affiliate space in various capacities, I'm well-equipped to provide you with some top tips to excel in affiliate marketing!
Set Clear Goals
Setting clear goals is essential for your affiliate programme. Firstly, it helps you understand your motives for running the programme. Are you aiming to expand your brand's reach locally or globally? Do you seek to attract new customers or grow your existing base? Are voucher codes or educational content more aligned with your strategy? Understanding your objectives guides your choice of affiliates and prevents you from veering off course.
Additionally, clear goals benefit your agency if you're running a programme with outsourced assistance, ensuring they work in your best interests.
You can then communicate these goals with your affiliates and potential partners when establishing or refining your affiliate programme's profile.
Let’s Talk Money, Baby
As you set clear goals for your affiliate programme, it's equally important to define your commission structure. This aspect determines how you'll reward affiliates for their efforts and plays a significant role in attracting and retaining high-performing partners.
Consider how you'll structure commissions based on your programme's objectives. Will you pay commissions based on product margins, publisher types, or product categories, for example? It's essential to align your commission structure with your overarching goals. For instance, if your aim is to drive sales of high-margin products, you may offer higher commission rates for those items.
Furthermore, keep in mind any limitations imposed by affiliate networks, if you choose to run your affiliate activity through one, regarding the number of commission groups you can have. Understanding these constraints allows you to design a commission structure that optimally supports your programme's objectives whilst adhering to network guidelines.
Identify Your Audience
Identifying your audience is key to successful affiliate partnerships. If your brand caters predominantly to males, it's advisable to target brands with a similar demographic. Understanding your audience enables you to create tailored creatives that resonate with both the affiliate's site and your brand.
Tracking for Success
When establishing your affiliate programme, one of the critical steps is to ensure proper tracking implementation. Tracking serves as the mechanism to monitor user behaviour and accurately attribute sales to specific affiliates or marketing channels. It provides invaluable insights into the origin of each sale, whether it's through your own social channels, paid advertising, organic search, affiliates, or other avenues, as well as identifying the affiliate responsible for the conversion.
We've encountered clients who hadn't effectively set up their affiliate tracking, leading to challenges in interpreting data from analytics platforms such as GA4 or Piwik. By simply updating the tracking on our end, our clients gained a better understanding of how much of their traffic was driven through affiliate marketing, facilitating informed decision-making going forward.
Quality, Not Quantity!
Expanding your affiliate activity isn’t about accepting every affiliate who comes knocking. While it may seem like more affiliates equals better results, prioritising quality over quantity is key for compliance and effective performance management. Take the time to understand how potential affiliates would represent your brand's products or services. Are they aligned with other brands in your niche? Do you grasp their promotional methods, whether it's through content, discount codes, social media platforms, or influencer collaborations? Keep in mind that some affiliates may operate within subnetworks, which work with other affiliates. Ensure you understand how they would promote your brand across a multitude of platforms. Remember, your due diligence doesn’t stop here; you should regularly monitor your affiliates' promotional efforts to ensure ongoing compliance throughout the partnership.
Bad Guys, Bye Bye
Even though you’ve done your due diligence when accepting affiliates onto your programme, it doesn't always guarantee they'll play by the rules. It's crucial to integrate checks into your process to ensure affiliates are adhering to your standards and compliance guidelines. Working with restricted brands means navigating various limitations – for instance, sex toys can't be promoted via Google Shopping, and vapes can't be promoted across social media platforms. If an affiliate engages in underhanded tactics like these, it reflects poorly on your brand and could lead to trouble with regulatory bodies like the Advertising Standards Agency [ASA] or Federal Trade Commission [FTC]. This breach of trust could also damage your brand's reputation. That's why it's essential to have a clear non-compliance policy in place that everyone is aware of, enabling you to address issues swiftly and decisively.
Sharing is Caring
Once you’ve accepted affiliates into your programme, your work is far from over. To enhance performance and foster a stronger partnership, it's crucial to engage with your affiliates. We believe in regularly sharing valuable insights, whether it's about best-selling products, the latest discount codes, or high-performing content that drives traffic. This not only demonstrates your active involvement and investment in your affiliates but also strengthens the relationship. Sharing insider information empowers them to be more targeted with their endeavours and aligns their efforts with your business goals. If you have overstock and need assistance in selling more, don't hesitate to let them know! Affiliate activity can be an effective extension of your team, designed to help your business achieve more in the digital realm.
With top-performing affiliates, it's important to engage with them and understand their satisfaction with the programme. What would they like or need from you to further their success? Are there specific banner sizes or images they prefer to promote on their platforms? Additionally, they may offer valuable insights and suggest creatives that could benefit your own platform, providing a fresh perspective.
Performance Tracking and Analysis
Effective performance tracking and analysis are essential components of successful affiliate marketing. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates and click-through rates provide valuable insights into affiliate performance. Utilising granular tracking allows for detailed analysis at the individual affiliate level, enabling optimization of campaigns and resource allocation. Techniques such as attribution modelling and data analysis help extract actionable insights from performance data, facilitating continuous optimization efforts. Regular performance reporting ensures stakeholders are informed, accountable, and able to make data-driven decisions to enhance affiliate performance.
Fly High, My Friend
Strategic planning and clear goals are essential for success across all your marketing channels, not just affiliate marketing. Identifying the right audience, implementing effective tracking mechanisms, and maintaining quality partnerships are key factors in navigating the complexities of modern marketing strategies.
However, it's imperative to remain vigilant against non-compliance and engage in regular monitoring and communication with affiliates to ensure mutual success.
Furthermore, the choice of platform or network for your affiliate partnerships warrants thorough research and consideration. But for now, let's leave this discussion for another day!
So, as you venture into the world of affiliate partnerships armed with these strategies, remember: success in affiliate marketing isn't just about numbers; it's about fostering genuine connections, maintaining integrity, and continuously striving for excellence. With dedication and diligence, you can master affiliate partnerships and unlock the full potential of your brand's digital presence. And we’re always here to support you in your endeavours!
