Affiliate Marketing is taking the digital marketing industry by storm with both the affiliate and the brands. With competition in this space growing day by day, it is important that every affiliate marketing program regularly update itself with changing times. This blog is your one-stop for the best affiliate marketing strategies in 2023 so do read till the end.
Must Read: In-Depth Business Model of Zomato
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a kind of marketing technique in which a company compensates a third-party publisher to generate leads or traffic with the end goal of promoting the company’s products and services.
The third party here is referred to as affiliates and the commission or fee is what incentivizes them to generate leads or traffic for the company. The purpose of affiliate marketing is to increase sales and generate revenue. Simply put, it is when It is a win-win situation for both brands as well as affiliate marketers.
Let’s understand an affiliate program better with a diagram-
Types of Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing strategy are of 3 types: Unattached, Related, and Involved. Lets understand them in detail:
(a) Unattached: As the name suggests, unattached affiliate marketing is all about promoting a product/service that the marketer has never used or tried on their own.
Unattached affiliate marketers generally run campaigns with a hope that shoppers might make a purchase with their affiliate link. Unattached affiliate marketing type is best for people who do not wish to spend money on investing in any product/service and simply earn out of it.
(b) Related: In related affiliate marketing, the marketer may not use the product/service but is somehow related to the niche of the product/service they are promoting.
For example, let’s say you’re a dietician and you’re promoting a herbal tea brand. Here, you may or may not use the product but since you’re a dietician with a good social media presence, this affiliate marketing strategy will work best for you where you won’t be spending money on investing in the product but earn out of your social media influence.
(c) Involved: In involved affiliate marketing, the marketer has tried and tested the product/service before promoting it within its audience.
With this affiliate marketing strategy, the marketer gets a chance to include personal experience and touch to the marketing campaigns that will increase the credibility for its users.
3 Best Affiliate Marketing Methods:
There might be times when marketers and businesses think if they should spend on affiliate marketing or do they actually work. The answer is YES!
As per the Performance Marketing Association, affiliate marketing gives ROAS of 12:1.
Now without any further ado, let’s dive into 5 best affiliate marketing methods that will help you increase your revenue.
- Social Media
Social media plays a pivotal role when it comes to affiliate marketing. It is a vast pool of people who share content, do research or scroll through the app during leisure time.
With best affiliate marketing strategies in place like using social media organically or running paid campaigns,affiliate marketers can harness its power by making an engaging community and spreading a word of mouth about the product/service they’re promoting.
It is one of the cheapest yet effective affiliate marketing methods that can be used by marketers to sell the product/service.
- Blogging
Hands down, one of the efficient affiliate marketing methods to build credibility and promote any product /services.
Writing blogs and providing information to your readers helps in increasing authority and position you as subject expert. Marketers can also write blogs about the products/services they’re promoting that can help in boosting its sales among the users.
- Referral Code
Use of referral codes are increasing with each passing day. Affiliate marketers and brands are using referral codes that allow users to get some discount while making a purchase.
This persuades the users to buy with a sense that they’re spending less. Affiliate marketers make a commission on every purchase, thus, it’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.
Who can be your Affiliates?
Whom should you target as your affiliates? Let’s look at the types of affiliates-
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Influencers
An influencer is a kind of opinion leader who can impact purchasing decisions of a large segment of the population. An influencer can really benefit from affiliate marketing since they already have an established following.
Hence it is easier for them to direct their followers to the landing page for conversions. These influencers work on a commission basis.
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Bloggers
Bloggers are affiliates who write product reviews to promote the brand in a way that the blogs drive traffic back to the seller’s site. The bloggers are compensated for their efforts of spreading the word about the product or service.
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Email Databases
Some affiliates have email databases for particular products or services. These lists are specific to those users who might be interested in the product. The affiliate earns a commission after conversion is made by the consumer.
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Microsites
Microsites can really garner a large number of sales. These sites are displayed and promoted on partner sites or as paid ads. The content is more focused and relevant to a particular audience leading to more conversions.
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Media Websites
Media websites are designed to create large traffic with a huge audience. They promote products and services through the use of banners and affiliate links. This works well for both the seller and the affiliate.
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10 Best Affiliate Marketing Strategies in 2023
Here are some of the most effective and proven affiliate marketing strategies that will help you make money with affiliate marketing –
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Choose the right affiliates
Picking the right affiliates for your brand will really help. This is a good tip for Facebook affiliate marketing strategies as well. One needs to check if the affiliates have a good rapport with their audience or not and if your product would appeal to this audience.
Also, don’t forget to check their reach and engagement rates. Choosing the right affiliates is not just one of the best affiliate marketing strategies but also the building brick for a successful affiliate program.
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Use promo codes and discounts
Most customers love the fact that they could save. Leverage this to your advantage. More often than not, they look for deals and discounts before even seeing all the products offered.
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Use Niche Influencers
Using influencers specific to your industry will generate more conversions since the audience is relevant to your field. Compensations vary from influencer to influencer. Some may prefer products or even a collaboration. Do thorough research on the following metrics –
- Engagement
- Reach
- Demographics of the audience
- Number of followers
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Optimize Landing Pages
Ensure that your landing pages are optimized for the best customer experience. Your site needs to load fast, it needs to be mobile-responsive, include high-quality photos, and try including product reviews as well.
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Brand Collaborations
You can collaborate with other brands for an affiliate program that has the same audience and brand value as yours. It can be a mutually beneficial program where you can become the other brand’s affiliate partner for one campaign and vice-versa for the other campaign.
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Hype Offers
We talked about how promo codes and offers are one of the best affiliate marketing strategies but an offer that is hyper and creates an impression of being highly useful can always be a top-up on that strategy. For example, a one-time 50% off on a certain product expiring in just 15 minutes.
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Analytics
Using analytics to derive a target audience that is the same as that of your affiliates is both one of the quickest and best affiliate marketing strategies.
Must Read: Know everything about Digital Marketing Analytics.
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Highest Selling Products
Take it as one of the best affiliate marketing strategies for products, you must promote your highest selling product in the affiliate program. The chances of the affiliates converting leads into customers are more than other products.
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Affiliate Automation
Automating your affiliate program tasks is new but a very effective affiliate marketing strategy. You can add chatbots for 24/7 customer service, shorten the URL to hide the affiliate’s ID, and also track each of your affiliate’s progress.
Scaleo is a very good affiliate automation program that helps you ease the affiliate marketing process.
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Social Proof
Earlier people were afraid of being called an affiliate or even openly running an affiliate program, at least in India. But today, with the rewards, high commissions, faster sales and social media exposure, it is important that you put your affiliate program out there as social proof so that it attracts more and more attention and hence action.
Still, confused about affiliate marketing? Watch this FREE masterclass-
Best Affiliate Marketing Strategies Examples in India
Here are a few advanced affiliate marketing strategy examples –
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Jio Fiber
According to me, Jio Fiber has really kicked the ball out of the park with its affiliate program. They targetted the masses and targetted one area, one building at a time. Even if this is a referral program, you can totally say that they ensured that every home that they are present in becomes an affiliate.
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BreadnBeyond
BreadnBeyond, a video production company included their ratings and reviews of different video tools and software companies. These reviews were unbiased, detailed, and insightful. It helped build their trust with the audience keeping in mind a long-term relationship.
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Kinsta
Kinsta, a cloud-based host, started to reach out to affiliates with personalized emails. Even though it is a big company, they realized that these conversations were fruitful. The emails included the content they wished to push out as well as the service with their affiliate link.
This meant minimum effort on their part which turned out to be a good thing with a high success rate of the emails.
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Apollo Scooters
Apollo scooters, an established brand in the electric scooter industry actively engaged with influencers on social media. This really boosted their sales due to the affiliate marketing strategy. They offer a 6% commission rate as compared to a 3-5% by other brands.
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Amazon
Amazon offers a commission range of 0.2%-10% depending on the product category. It allows you to build text and image links
FAQs
Q. What is the best strategy for affiliate marketing?
One of the most effective affiliate marketing strategies is PPC (pay-per-click). Affiliates are paid based on every click that they get. This is a preferred strategy, however, the leads may or may not convert.
Q. How can I improve my affiliate marketing business?
You can improve your affiliate marketing business by providing them with attractive offers and deals for promotions. They’ll be motivated to get you more clicks and also secure more customers.
Q. What are the four pillars of affiliate marketing?
The four pillars of affiliate marketing are –
- Affiliate communication – Providing brand updates and promotional updates to your brands is very important
- Incentivizing through Commissions – Your commissions need to be more attractive than the competitors
- Use a promo strategy – In a recent study, more than 90% of users were attracted to promos. Hence, use this to your advantage.
- Full-funnel strategy – Analyze data on upper-funnel sites and find affiliates that suit your brand the best.
Q. Which are the best affiliate marketing websites?
The best affiliate marketing websites are –
- Shareasale
- Shopify Affiliate Programme
- Affiliate Window (AWIN)
- Amazon Associates
Q. Which are the best affiliate marketing strategies for merchants?
For merchants, a good strategy is to sign up as an affiliate marketing merchant through an affiliate network. This will enable them to connect with various individuals who can market their products for a commission rate.
Conclusion
We really hope that you enjoyed reading our blog on affiliate marketing. If you have some more interesting strategies that you applied to your business that helped it grow, do let us know in the comments below.
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