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Affiliate marketing has existed since the early days of the internet and has recently gained popularity. According to trends and statistics, affiliate marketing is not going away any time soon. The eCommerce affiliate marketing is now a common strategy for increasing sales and generating online revenue that benefits both brands and affiliate marketers.
Estimates show that 94 percent of publishers use multiple affiliate marketing networks, with nearly 65 percent of affiliate marketers globally generating traffic solely through blogging. The big question is, “how does affiliate Marketing drive eCommerce sales?” Well, this question is answered with clarity in this article.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Before getting into how various affiliate marketing strategies drive sales, it is crucial to understand the framework of affiliate marketing and the processes in the background that lead to the conversion of potential consumers of a product or a service to actual consumers.
We are in an information age, and the world population is hyper-connected through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and dozens of websites now available on the internet. With this social networking, marketing has shifted from plain Vanilla newspaper and TV ads to more personalized forms like informative stories on blogs, social media, and videos. These blogs, social media posts, and videos on YouTube create a platform for affiliates to engage potential buyers by enabling them to make informed decisions on purchases.
Once the buyers land on the target website, the affiliate earns a commission, and the seller sells the product or service and gets additional revenue. The buyer makes an informed decision based on information provided by the affiliate. The process is explained below.
1. The business and the affiliate get into a relationship directly through a third party (an affiliate network).
2. Affiliates include a link in their educational content.
3. Reader clicks and converts to buying.
4. Conversions are tracked.
5. The vendor gets a sale, and the affiliate gets a commission; the buyer makes an informed decision.
Actionable affiliate marketing ways that drive sales in 2021
1. Call to action buttons
Call to action is more visible than links, and readers can easily spot the action item and get more CTR (click time rate) which translates to more conversion.
2. Use of “exit intent” pop-up banners
The term “exit-intent” means that the pop-up appears when users are about to leave your site by clicking the close button. This will lead to chances of potential buyers clicking the link.
3. Keywords to woo potential buyers to check out
These are informational, transactional, and commercial keywords that buyers can easily understand and increase their chances of buying. The words include:
- Best
- Cheap
- Alternatives
- Compare
- Improve
- Offer
- Discount
- Promo
- Coupon
Other affiliate media strategies that have led to more sales in 2021 include:
- Reviews – according to dixa.com, reviews produce an 18 % uplift in sales.
- Social media shoutouts – converting owners of one influencer’s social media account by tagging the seller’s page.
- Email blast
Managing Affiliate Marketing
Your affiliates and you are in a mutual relationship. They help you sell faster and more while they earn a token from you. You will need to manage your growing affiliates, track their performance, and pay them on time for your business success.
However, there are usually some management issues that arise as long as affiliate marketing is concerned. The prevalence of fraud in affiliate marketing is hotly debated. According to CHEQ, 9 percent of app installs are fraudulent, resulting from attribution fraud. Many marketers report much higher rates of fraud in their affiliate programs.
To ensure you keep resisting fraudulent activities and retain your affiliate relationship, you will need an all-in-one affiliate marketing platform that helps you manage partnerships in one dashboard.
Conclusion
In the recent past, affiliate marketing has gained popularity with the growing social media networks. As a result, consumers are constantly taking in the information available in these networks.
Marketers have used their following and trust to promote products to their target audience. By allowing an affiliate to promote products by incorporating links, call to action, or reviewing the product, the affiliates earn commission from converting potential buyers to genuine buyers while vendors benefit from increased sales.
You may also like: Best Affiliate Programs
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