How Affiliate Marketing Generates Revenue

Affiliate marketing is a quick, inexpensive and very effective way to make money online. It quickly helps marketers to be their own bosses. With affiliate marketing you can stave off many business hassles associated with working for someone else, actually selling a product, worrying about customer feedback, or customer service. Every marketer works to earn money and affiliate marketing is no exception from that rule. An affiliate earns a commission if he helps to sell products from products merchants. There are multiple ways in which this affiliate commission can be calculated. It can be fixed or a percentage of the profit made by the product merchant on pre-agreed terms. It is all about commissions, commissions and more commissions. That’s where the revenue is. Generally, affiliate marketing generates revenue in the following ways. 

1. Pay-Per-Click, PPC: With PPC, what an affiliate does is to redirect buyers to a merchant’s website. The affiliate simply needs to perform deliberate actions that can lead a buyer from the affiliate’s platform to the merchant’s website. It is all about redirecting traffic from the affiliate’s website/platform to the product merchant’s website. Once a click is made on the merchant’s website, the affiliate earns a commission. That means the merchant pays the affiliate to simply help increase traffic to the merchant’s website.

2. Pay-Per-Sale, PPS: With PPS, a commission is earned only when an actual sale is made. It entails paying a commission to the affiliate by the product merchant in terms of a percentage of the sale price of the product/service being promoted. In actual fact, a buyer must actually buy a product for an affiliate to get paid a commission. Characteristically, this appears to be the standard mode of payment in most affiliate marketing arrangements.

3. Pay-Per-Lead, PPL: With PPL method of compensation, what an affiliate needs to do is to drive the conversion of leads. The main job of the affiliate is to lead consumers to the merchant’s website to make them complete a desired action. Such actions could include but not limited to signing up for a trial, subscribing to a newsletter, filling a contact form, downloading some software or a combination of several other desirable marketing actions.

 

Generally, Affiliates can only make money if they are running a good blog or they are influencers with a large following/audience. Many affiliates are known to market specifically to a niche audience that they command a lot of influence over. If they promote products based on the interests of their target audience, they get better conversions. An affiliate or a publisher can be an individual, a group of people, or a company that markets the product/service of a merchant to prospective customers. The affiliate simply plays a role in helping consumers to make their buy decisions and he earns a commission from these efforts. An affiliate helps in persuading and influencing the decision-making process of the consumers, appealingly. Affiliates earn commissions as sales are being made through these efforts.

Smart Ways to Identify Valuable Affiliates

If you’re an affiliate marketing newbie, it may at the beginning seem to you as if choosing an affiliate partnership is no big deal. Ordinarily it is, but with the preponderance of effective affiliate marketing software and tools on the internet, it really isn’t a big deal. No doubt every merchant needs to be concerned about who they choose to represent or market their brand since most consumers see affiliates as real extensions of brands. In addition to that, carefully choosing the right partners can save merchants valuable time, stress and expended efforts in dealing with evasive, unserious and at times very difficult persons as affiliate partners. It is for these reasons many expert marketers believe that it is well worth the while to spare some extra time and efforts to source for and find the right affiliate partners.


 
Because of the intricate relationship between Merchants, Affiliates and Consumers, the partnership arrangement is as good as the weakest affiliate. Every merchant thus needs a good affiliate who is already doing very well as an influencer on the internet. Such affiliates must be persons who’ve already built up a body of engaged fans and followers and have worked hard to gain and maintain their trust over some time. These are the types of affiliates you can really benefit from if you’re picky about whom you choose. In a well-chosen affiliate partnership arrangement, it is the affiliate’s job to personally refer a merchant’s business to his/her followers. The reason adequate care must be taken to make sure he/she is the right partner for the job. It is the duty of the merchant to ensure that the affiliates he/she settles for have the right capacity to bring real value on board the partnership since it is the affiliates who must act as true representatives of the brand. As such, they must have the right capacity to promote and educate others about the product/service they are marketing.

Here are some tips which can assist you to determine which affiliates are really capable of adding value to your business.

Dutifully Track Affiliate Performance
 
The only credible way to truly measure affiliate performance value is by way of in-depth analytics using available tools online. It is easier to make decisions on whom to work with when you have the correct performance data at your disposal. That is irrespective of whether the affiliate is a new, up-and-coming affiliate or he/she already has considerable experience in affiliate marketing. The data you get from the analytics helps with the decision to determine which affiliate is bringing in real value to the business.

Evaluate the Quality of their Content 

In influencer marketing, content remains king. It is good content which attracts readers and retains followers. In affiliate marketing, the best affiliates to use are the ones who are steadily churning out high-quality, heavily trafficked content on their website, blog and social media profiles. The key is to always look out for original, well-written affiliate content featuring rich imagery and graphics. That is, the type of content which major search engines such as Google like to rank high. That is what guarantees the much needed traffic every marketer craves for.

Examine their Online Presence 

Expert marketers believe that it is best to partner only with influencers and publishers who have a positive and commanding online presence. That is, online presence which is devoid of controversy or damaging criticisms. You can easily gauge affiliate reputation from the comments and replies to their contents on social media from the general public. Since it is best to work with affiliates who have solid online presence, it helps to look out for affiliates who are actively engaged with their audience by way of quick responses to comments/concerns and the quality of the responses. 


 
Pay Attention to their Ethics Indicators 
 
An affiliate partner is a very important link in affiliate marketing strategy. That is why it is good to make sure you know how much information affiliates willingly reveal about themselves and their business without deliberate embellishments. It pays to research this information as affiliates’ ethics indicators. Such indicators are usually voluntary disclosures on an affiliate’s website or social media posts. The more affiliates reveal about themselves, the better for the indicator judgements. These indicators are good for affiliate partnership because they help build trust between the consumers and the promoters. Affiliate marketing works well through personal referral which relies heavily on trust.  Personal referrals can be grossly ineffective unless there is trust in the relationship.

Actively Search for Good Affiliates

The internet has lots of individuals and enterprise affiliates who are actively looking to partner with merchants. An active and deliberate search on the web can unveil many good and reputable affiliates looking to partner with merchants. Some deep searches can actually reveal highly informative stats indicating how active and successful some affiliates have been with previous campaigns/promotions.

Evaluate Affiliate Communications 

Effective online affiliate communication is indicative of how active such affiliates are. It is possible to know even from the very first couple of e-mails whether or not a person is going to be a good partner for your business or not. A lot depends on how quickly affiliates respond to inquiries and how much sense their responses make. Their response time and meaningful engagement are indicative of how serious they are with their marketing business. Tardy and unintelligent affiliate responses to inquiries are real indicators of poor affiliates.


 

How to Retain High-Performing Affiliates

Among experienced marketers, affiliate marketing now has a reputation for boosting conversion rates, strengthening brand awareness and helping to increase search rankings. This comes about as a result of the highly rewarding partnership between Merchants, Affiliates and Consumers. Merchants rely on Affiliates in the mold of bloggers, publishers and influencers who act as steadfast promoters of the Merchant’s products to attract Consumers/buyers. It becomes a win-win situation for all the three parties involved in the partnership if it is well deployed as a business strategy. That is the reason why businesses always seek to nurture and retain high performing affiliates as business partners.

Find below some very simple ways you too can nurture and retain high-performing affiliates for your business.

Provide Valuable Incentives: Yes indeed! Business persons give incentives for a reason and it is always for the benefit of their businesses. To attract new affiliates and to keep them engaged even after the initial deal, some high-value incentives come in very handy. From experience, some of the best affiliate marketing incentives out there include but not limited to giving affiliates special discount codes and offering them competitive commission rates. Others include giving them extra freebies and branded business paraphernalia like caps, T-shirts, key-holders, mugs, tea cups, notebooks/pads etc.


 
Reward High Value Affiliates: A valuable reward system is also an effective business incentive some of which may be intangible and immeasurable gestures like simple “thank you” notes and remembering anniversaries with tokens. If feasible, occasional telephone calls are also helpful. That is in addition to occasionally giving away gift cards, freebies and bonuses. These token gestures amazingly go a long way to show affiliates how much they’re appreciated and valued.

Focus more on the Positive: You must learn to focus more on the positive if you want to build enduring business relationships. Yeah, everyone gets to make some mistakes once in a while but that shouldn’t take away the good they’ve been doing all this while. It pays better to focus more on the good while doing everything to avoid greed and presumptuousness. In a business partnership, ensuring everyone gets their dues out of the relationship is what helps to nurture the relationship. Consciously making decisions with utmost respect for what benefits all parties is what helps business relationships to blossom.

Recognize Affiliates Success: Everyone likes to be recognized for what they do if they’re doing it well. It is not out of place to share in the success of your affiliates by helping them to showcase it in whichever way you can. That makes them proud and willing to continue to be in partnership with you. It can make other marketers easily notice their efforts thus engendering more business referrals for such affiliates. Since referrals can have two-way benefits, appreciated and grateful affiliates are much more likely to recommend your business to their fellow publishers, bloggers and influencers. That helps in no small measure to grow your business reputation. As a marketer, reputation can sometimes be the key that unlocks the real growth potential of your business. You can retain affiliates if they genuinely recognize their own benefits from that growth potential.

Foster Seamless Partnerships: Uncomplicated partnerships have a very strong way of making all the partners happy and contented. Working with unpleasant, presumptuous and difficult partners is usually not good for business. The best way to keep a partnership relationship alive and in good stead is to always be open and transparent in your communications with your partners. That helps to keep everyone in the relationship well informed and comfortable. If you habitually act unpleasantly, difficult to reach and generally evasive, it is difficult to foster seamless partnerships.

Provide Affiliates Valuable Information: Good communication is always vital in partnerships. Content marketing affiliates thrive on providing high-value content to the users. Without it, they find it very difficult to attract the needed traffic to patronize their partner-merchant’s products. So, it behoves on merchants to provide affiliates a hefty flow of valuable information relating to the products they are marketing. That enhances the ability of such affiliates to churn out very valuable content for the benefit of the products. When merchants provide good information to help affiliates write high value content, it also helps to ease up their writing and ability to produce more content at faster rates. That helps to nurture and maintain the partnership in good stead.

Partner only the Right Affiliates: It is best to work only with affiliates who like your brand and are ready to identify with it. That is the only way they can get to represent your brand adequately. It helps a great deal therefore to start off your partner relationship on a very strong footing by working only with affiliates who make sense, are easy to work with and capable of providing real value to your business. No doubt you are aware life is a whole lot easier when you’re doing what you love doing and working with people you actually want to work with who share your ideals about your business and your brand. When you work with the right persons as affiliates, sustaining such relationship and benefiting from it is a lot easier.

Involve Affiliates in Company Promos: Why not? They are your business partners remember? When your business has a promo going, making available to affiliates promo paraphernalia like branded mugs, key-holders, stickers, t-shirts, caps, etc. is one great way to get them interested and be fully involved in your promo efforts. As a business owner, you get to benefit from giving affiliates these items in several ways. Firstly, they help to incentivize your affiliates and make them feel appreciated for being part of your business. Secondly, the products help to put your affiliates in good stead to effectively promote your product/brand on and offline. Your business can actually get immense benefits from such promos if influencers actually get to lead the way in your promos. You must however ensure that all persons in the partnership get their full measures and benefits accruing from the promo. That is what helps to nurture the partnership.

Work Only as Real Partners: As marketing experts always like to say, genuine partnerships yield better results. There must be mutual respect and understanding for real partnerships to yield these results. Affiliate marketing partnerships work well when all parties to the relationship are rewarded appropriately in line with the partnership understanding. Anything short can lead to a sour relationship among the partners, particularly when one partner wants to take undue advantage of the others by scheming to get more out of the arrangement than the others. To promote better affiliate relations, a merchant should never try to eke out free promotions from other partners. Every partner must transparently be on board and rewards due to everyone from any promo appropriated transparently as well in line with the partnership understanding. That is what real partners do that helps the partnership to endure and benefit all parties.


 
Pay Affiliate Commissions Promptly: All business persons work to get benefits from the work they do. For affiliates, the commissions they earn serve as such benefits. Product merchants must never lose sight of the fact that their affiliate partners put in a lot of work and effort to promote their brand. This they do by constantly producing engaging content to grow their followers who patronize the products thereby helping merchants to grow their businesses. These affiliates deserve prompt and adequate rewards for their efforts. For that reason, merchants must endeavor to always keep them as active members of their payroll making sure they are remunerated in line with agreed terms and promptly too. That helps to motivate them well enough to enable the partnership endure.

Provide Free/Discounted Products for Trials: Influencers are opinion molders and the people who follow their lead do so out of trust. Because merchants should not expect every affiliate partner to automatically share their passion for the product/service they are marketing, these affiliates deserve to have a foretaste of the free/discounted products from the merchant. That puts them in a better stead to genuinely promote the products. You get much better results as a consequence of that.

Adopt Structured Commissions Payment: This is one great way to reward affiliate partners in direct proportion to their efforts. In online affiliate marketing compensation plans, it is well known that not all links, promotions, and conversions should pay the same. This is because some of these promotional efforts require more time and effort from affiliates than others. The real reason some need to be better compensated than others. Some merchants deal with this problem by using a tiered commission structure. That way, different affiliate actions garner different rewards. For instance, some merchants tend to pay more commissions if the consumer opts into marketing e-mails after making a purchase or if they convert a new customer rather than a repeat customer. That is why it makes a very good business sense to tier your affiliates’ commissions payment based on performance. That means, you’ve got to pay top performing affiliates more than others thereby incentivizing all your affiliates to work harder for their pay. Business-like no doubt!

How to be Purposeful

“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.” --Washington Irving

Purposefulness is all about staying focused and determined to achieve your goals. It builds desire and provides the reason to continue to strive until some achievement is made. Without a purpose, we all drift through life and end up as failures. Drifting through life is certainly not one of God’s intentions for creation. This is why everything in the universe has a purpose and a place in a meticulously arranged order.

Napoleon Hill, in his best-selling book, “Think and Grow Rich” tells the story of the great Chicago fire which once consumed all the stores in the business district of the city. A group of Merchants among them Marshall Field assembled in the streets the morning after watching the smoking ruins of what had been their stores. Emergency meetings and conferences were hurriedly convened. The big question was whether to rebuild or to move to safer locations? The Merchants quickly reached a decision. All except Marshall Field decided to leave Chicago. Mr. Field pointed a finger at the ruins where his store once stood and declared, “Gentlemen, on that very spot I will build the world’s greatest store, no matter how many times it may burn down.” That was many years ago and today the Field Stores edifice stands as a prominent land-mark in the skyline of Chicago.