Almost all online businesses are doing affiliate marketing these days. As e-commerce grows, affiliate marketing does the same. It’s a billion-dollar industry.

It’s one of the smartest digital marketing strategies businesses can use to generate sales and grow since it’s a performance-based business model.

But what’s affiliate marketing? What are the affiliate marketing benefits that can help you for your affiliate sales?

Well, it’s the process of promoting affiliate products and getting paid a share of the revenue. Most of the time, it involves signing up for an affiliate network, getting a unique affiliate link, and generating affiliate sales.

Affiliate Marketing Benefits
TL;DR Summary

  • Affiliate marketing has many benefits, which can be divided into sections, including benefits for businesses, affiliates, or customers.
  • Businesses benefit from increased exposure and social proof while also saving money on advertising costs.
  • Affiliates have low risks when joining an affiliate marketing program and can make sales without much experience.
  • Customers can get discounts and special offers from affiliates they may not find elsewhere.
Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!
Table Of Contents

How do affiliate marketers earn money?

Affiliate marketers make money through different models, such as pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-action (PPA). That means they can get paid for the leads or sales they bring along.

Most affiliate networks use pay-per-action, such as signup, booking a call, or selling. However, others have now begun paying for genuine clicks, as well.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 2

Tell me the benefits of affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing has a ton of benefits. To get it all, we have to divide the benefits into sections. It can be the benefits for businesses, affiliates, or customers.

Let’s start off with the benefits it has for businesses:

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Benefits of affiliate marketing for small businesses

Even though small businesses often have limited resources and budgets, they can benefit immensely from affiliate marketing. And since the process is cost-effective, it’s easier for smaller businesses to engage in and drive leads and sales.

As a small business owner, affiliate marketing efforts can help you gain the needed exposure. The exposure increases leads and sales.

Here are additional benefits:

1. Enhance social proof

Customers buy from brands they trust. That means if you are selling a new product, getting the first few sales may be challenging unless you are an established brand. But since affiliates already have an audience, they can help to enhance trust and increase product uptake.

Social proof is essential in sales. Even in Amazon marketing, you will need to gather the first few reviews to convince new buyers that your product is authentic.

There are a ton of fake products online hence the need for social proof. As a business owner, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to gain social proof.      

2. Saves you money

As a small business, you may incur a lot of costs on advertising methods such as Facebook and Google ads. They tend to take time to deliver results if not well-optimized. They also require a ton of experience compared to affiliate marketing.

Launching an affiliate marketing program for your small business can save you money. Starting it doesn’t need any startup costs and gives results almost instantly. You only pay for sales that your affiliates bring along. That means it’s a results-based model that can save you a lot of money.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 3

3. Reach a more targeted audience

As a new small business, it is sometimes difficult to target newly defined audiences using some marketing techniques. Hence, affiliate marketing can be the best marketing method for such audiences. You can easily tap into the already existing audience and drive leads and sales for your business.

If you take time to choose the right affiliates who have the perfect tools to reach your defined audience, you are more likely to get an increase in leads and sales. Choose affiliates who have a niche blog that receives average to a lot of traffic.

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

4. Has a high ROI

Compared to Google ads, for example, it’s easy to determine the return on investment when it comes to affiliate marketing. You see, with paid ads, you are paying for clicks and leads. But for affiliate marketing, you will be paying for sales.

Thus, affiliate marketing has a high return on investment (ROI). With Google ads and other marketing channels, the clicks may not end up converting to sales.

That means it can be challenging to determine the affiliate marketing spend and the ROI. That’s not the case with affiliate marketing.

5. Improves conversion rates

An affiliate marketing campaign can help you improve conversion rates. It allows you to understand your audience and develop a more optimized business process that enhances higher conversion rates. You can track customer behavior on your affiliate marketing dashboard.

From the information on the website, you can change your website content, alter the prices of the products, add visuals to enhance readability, and offer a seamless browsing experience. All these will improve leads and sales.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

6. Boost brand awareness

The main goal of any small business owner is to get their products and services noticed. As you get noticed by potential customers, you will gain leads and sales. And since affiliates act as brand ambassadors, they will only make sales if you make sales.

That means they will promote your offers in the best way possible, build trust with your defined target audience, and help drive sales. The increased traffic to your website will boost brand awareness and hasten business growth.

Affiliate marketing benefits for affiliates

What benefits does affiliate marketing have for affiliates? Well, there are a ton of them. And if you have doubts about whether it is worth it, these benefits will reveal why you need to make that move as soon as possible.

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

1. Involves low risks

Affiliate marketing spending is low. It presents itself as a low-risk business model. It requires little to no capital to start and has high returns if well executed. I have seen most successful affiliates leveraging SEO and email marketing to make income from affiliate marketing.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 4

2. It is performance-based

Affiliate marketing is performance-based. That means you are paid based on your performance. If you make a sale, you are given a certain percentage. As a result of that, you can make as many sales as you want or not make any at all. It will all depend on you.

3. You can promote a wide range of products

Unlike other businesses where you only have to sell a particular type of products, affiliate marketing allows you to promote a wide range of products in different niches. You can have more than one blog to promote different products.

4. Low cost of entry

With affiliate marketing, you don’t need to pay to join and begin promoting the product. With just a few steps, you are in. Some merchant’s site will demand your website URL and promotional methods, but others, like ClickBank, don’t. So, you can simply sign up, get an affiliate link, and begin promoting affiliate products.

5. Little to no expertise is required  

You don’t need much experience to begin affiliate marketing. You can make sales with a good traffic source and a compelling affiliate offer. You even don’t need to learn skills such as Facebook ads at the beginning. You can make sales if you have a sizeable following on social media. Gradually grow your audience and increase sales in return.   

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Give affiliate marketing benefits to customers

The end deal of every marketing practice is to add value in exchange for monetary returns. Affiliate marketing adds value to the customers. That’s why you, as an affiliate marketer, should always aim to understand the value you are delivering and focus on that rather than the money.

The first way affiliate marketing has helped affiliates is with discounts and affiliate offers. Once in a while, the affiliate merchant could opt to run a promotion on his affiliate products.

And since the affiliates are in touch with the customers, they can relay that information to them and allow them to get better deals.

Customers can also get special discount codes, valuable lead magnets that talk about their problems, and other benefits.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 5

How do I start an affiliate program for my small business?

Before you get started, understand that not all affiliates will want to join your program unless they will also make passive income from it. So, think of it as a win-win case.

Consider Amazon, for example; it has a wide range of products and has set itself apart from the competition. It’s easy to make sales as an Amazon affiliate owing to the fact that it is also an established brand online.

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Here are the steps to begin an affiliate marketing business:

Set marketing strategies and goals

What do you aim to achieve with your affiliate marketing program? I know there are general goals, but what about specific goals which every one of us has once we begin a business? You need goals to create that form of consistency and hasten growth.

  • What kind of leads do you want your affiliates to bring in?
  • Do you have a specific type of affiliates you are looking to promote your goods and services?
  • How much income do you want to get from your affiliate marketing activities?
  • What’s your pricing strategy?

All these questions should help you set the right affiliate marketing goals. These goals can act as guide maps for your affiliate marketing journey. They can serve as metrics to measure your success.

They can also help you determine your business strengths and weaknesses. You can then optimize on your strengths to achieve more.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

Know your competitors and study them

As you are starting out, your competitors can serve as a good source of information. They can help you price your products accordingly and learn much about your audience. You can also analyze their weaknesses and strengths before embarking on crafting a strategy to outperform them.

The easiest way to find your competitors’ data is through search engines. If you type ‘[product] affiliate marketing program’ on search engines, you will unearth valuable data about your competitors and the quality of content they have in place.

You can also use social media. Facebook is an excellent source of information about your competitors. If they already have affiliates promoting their offers, it’s easy to find such posts on Facebook. Key in the keywords, and unveil a ton of posts regarding the same.

Understand their commission structure, the application process, the terms and conditions of the program, the requirements and rules on how an affiliate should promote their products, and the incentives available to the successful affiliates.

You should also check the resources available to the affiliates, the cookie duration, the method of communication with the affiliates, the basic affiliate marketing training, how seamless is the affiliate marketing dashboard, and their promotional techniques.

Having this data will help you better price and offer more value to your affiliate marketers. Yes, you should present them with a better deal.

 

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Find the right affiliates

Once you have studied your competitors and have the right affiliate marketing offers in place, it’s time to look for affiliates to promote your offers. Be sure to set the guidelines on recruiting affiliates since you don’t want to ruin your brand’s reputation by hiring low-quality affiliates.

The easiest way to get this done is to approach the right affiliate network and sign up as an affiliate merchant. One of the best is ShareAsale. They can help you to vet the affiliates before they begin promoting your products. ClickBank is also good.

Creating an affiliate marketing strategy and program to track, analyze, measure, and manage affiliates is challenging. However, with an affiliate marketing network, they will take care of that for you.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 6

Have an appealing commission structure

Your commission structure is how much percentage your affiliates will get from every sale. It’s one of the things you should consider when running your affiliate program. It shouldn’t be too high such that your profit margin is low, nor too low that no affiliate will take it.

Make your commission structure more appealing while at the same time considering your business needs. Include an incentive program for your top affiliates to encourage new affiliates to join your program. You should understand the customer acquisition costs, retention rate, and lifetime value.   

The next thing is merely to optimize and scale your business. Understand what’s working and what’s not before you optimize for better conversions.

How to find an affiliate marketer for your business

How do you find affiliates as an affiliate merchant? Well, it’s not a daunting task, as you may think.

Here are some ways to get it done;

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Contacting affiliates directly: A few top-ranking blogs will come up if you research for keywords related to your services or products. You can contact the bloggers directly on the ‘contact us’ page and ask them to promote your offer.

Affiliate networks: Some sites, such as ClickBank and ShareAsale, are the best for finding affiliates that will drive revenue through their defined traffic channels.

Social media: You can also advertise on Facebook groups or forums where you require affiliates for your new offer. Once they begin contacting you, filter them based on their traffic channels and promotional methods.

Affiliate partners act as your brand ambassadors. Their promotional methods and traffic channels can cause either damage or maintain your brand reputation.

Here are the factors to consider when vetting the affiliates:

  • How authentic are they when interacting with their audiences?
  • How professional is their online presence? Don’t go with affiliates who seem they are not in for business
  • How big is their audience? The bigger the audience, the easier it is to make sales.
  • Which platform are they using to promote affiliate offers? Go with affiliates that have an existing email list since it is easier to make sales.

You can also check their blogs, the quality of content in it, and their ranking online. Note that most top affiliates are also wary of the products they promote. So, strike a balance.   

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

What are the disadvantages of affiliate marketing?

Even though there are fewer disadvantages than advantages, it is good to know them as a business owner or content creator regarding affiliate marketing.

Considering these cons, planning out and minimizing the risks becomes easier rather than focusing on the advantages.

Here are some of the cons to check out.

It requires patience to get traction

Affiliate marketing can create a passive income stream for you. You don’t need a lot of initial investment to begin. And once you have a defined traffic source such as a YouTube channel, niche blog, or an active social media profile or Facebook group, it is easy to get traction.

However, it’s not as easy as it may deem. It requires trust and patience to make your first sale. Think about it – customers don’t just purchase from anyone. They will first need to trust you. Building trust with your defined audience takes time.

There is uncertainty

It’s not guaranteed that you will make sales when you begin affiliate marketing today. I don’t mean to discourage you, but it may not always go the way you expect. In fact, affiliate marketing is like a brick-and-mortar business whereby the actions and consistency we put into it determine results.

I will always advise you to gather as much information about affiliate marketing as possible. The more information you have, the better decisions you will make. But it can be hard to make sales if you don’t have information about building an audience, an email list, or converting it to sales.

So, start off with learning all the basics before you can delve into affiliate marketing. You can also gather valuable experience along the way.

Fake conversions

Sometimes it can be hard to progress as an affiliate merchant when the affiliates send fake conversions to you. This model works more on affiliate marketing payment models such as pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-sign-up.

When that happens, the end result is the merchant will lose money from the fake signups and clicks and no positive results to their businesses. This is yet another con of affiliate marketing that merchants often experience.

If you are an affiliate merchant, take note of heavy traffic on your site but fewer signups, many refund requests from prospects, signups from unwanted prospects that don’t know anything about your brand, or a campaign doing well compared to the rest.

All those are signs of fake conversions that can ruin your reputation as a business owner.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 7

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!

Damaged reputation    

As an affiliate merchant selling a particular product, your reputation should always be intact. Anytime your reputation is harmed in any way, you cease to make sales. Think about it – the affiliates promoting your product act as brand ambassadors.

That means you should always note how the affiliates promote your products. An affiliate network, such as ShareASale, lets you approve affiliate manually.

That is excellent because you will be able to check their traffic sources and advertising methods and ensure they will not harm your brand.

Letting low-quality affiliates promote your offers will most likely damage your reputation. They need to have a high-quality source of traffic and updated promotional techniques. Go with affiliates that have an email list already. An email list generates results fast.

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

What to consider when choosing the best affiliate marketing software?

You will need affiliate marketing software to manage your affiliates and maximize the value of affiliate marketing. There are many platforms to choose from. Choosing one that can give you the best results can sometimes be challenging.

Here are a few things to consider:

Its price: The price of the affiliate marketing software matters. Go with the one that has an average price but has excellent features.

Ability to scale up and down: You will need to scale up after some time. Choose an affiliate marketing software that allows you to do that effortlessly.  

Support: How strong is their support? You will need support every now and then. That means you need a supportive customer care team.  

Collaboration options: You will be running your affiliate marketing business with your team. That means you will need to share reports, work on tasks together, and access the performance of the campaigns. Choose a tool that allows you to do all these.

What are the various types of Affiliate Marketing?

We can categorize the different types of affiliate marketing based on whether the affiliate has used a product he is promoting.

When unattached, they have no relation and have not used the product they are promoting. Related affiliate marketing is when the affiliate has related to the product but has not used it. Involved affiliate marketing is when the affiliate has used the product.  

affiliate marketing benefits affiliate program affiliate marketer marketing channels cost effective effective marketing strategy affiliate sites content marketing generating traffic benefits of affiliate marketing direct access successful sales own business advertising techniques organic traffic influencer marketing affiliate product drive traffic business perspective direct sales business operates targeted traffic niche audience highly targeted audience valuable partnerships social media posts how much revenue network fees ecommerce space low ongoing costs merchant pays active consumers additional income stream consumer confidence revenue sharing promotional materials making money affiliate earns remain competitive cash flow guest blogging affiliates start up costs more traffic other affiliates new markets 1

Conclusion

If you want to make money online, affiliate marketing is a great option with many benefits.

Businesses save money on advertising while getting increased exposure and social proof.

Affiliates have low risks when joining an affiliate marketing program and can make sales without much experience.

Customers can get discounts and special offers from affiliates they may not find elsewhere.

If you are interested in becoming an affiliate, click the link below to get started on your journey to success.

Yes, I want to know more about affiliate marketing!