Affiliate link building is like sales commissions. While it’s a simple concept, a lot of people either do it wrong, or they don’t’ do t at all. It’s a very simple concept since brands and businesses will choose the influencers that can be used to promote products and services with the correct affiliate link, which helps with earning more sales. This can then be distributed amongst the influencers via the clicks or purchases. It’s a good way to build your brand since it helps you gain exposure, boost conversions, increase sales, and drive traffic, but let’s take a moment to talk in greater detail all about of course affiliate building.
Why affiliate?
Why should you do affiliate marketing? Well, it’s very easy to track. When someone joins the affiliate network, it’s automatically tracked, and being able to track the effectiveness of this is a big part of affiliate marketing strategies.
Some of these are based on different tools and text used, such as banners and links.
You also get targeted ads out of this. If your business runs an affiliate program in-house, you can accept the influencers that you want to join, based on of course reach and relevance, so when your business is partnered with these influencers, this will, in turn, help the influencer reach and target the audience via their content. When influencers create new content using the affiliate link, the campaign, which is, of course, your advertisement, has the ability to reach the targeted audience in higher volumes, especially through social media.
It also is very cost-effective. Affiliate link building boosts sales and conversions with the most minimal of investment and effort. You can figure out whether or not you want to run an in-house program, or join an affiliate link, figure out your platform, and get an idea for the type of building that you want to do with your affiliate link as well.
You also can do this with a marketing network, where you’ll be able to get the most out of this through creative means.
How to set it up
So, whether you choose to go within an in-house program or join networks, you will want to make sure that you’re creative first and foremost. Look at the images and banners that you’re using, the copy for the text links, the videos and flash content, along with the other tools that influencers will use for this.
Landing pages and product fees are another big part of this, since they give a detailed feed to influencers, including the product names, descriptions, the prices, the categories, the creatives associated with this, and so much more, and the product feed is a resource for those influencers when there is a new concept.
If you know that your business is selling services that have limited products, you will want to create a landing page that’s unique for every single influencer that are out there.
How to manage the Program
To do this, you first and foremost need to have an affiliate marketing manager. This person will recruit the influencers and onboard them, create policies and rule sand monitor these, communicate with the affiliates or the network, update and optimize the affiliate program, and so much mor.e and of course, you need to compensate the influencers that you’re working with.
Understand that the influencers get a share of the profits based on the links that are clicked, purchases made, and a rate that works for you.
You should also keep in mind that some people will opt out too, and that’s fine, that’s how it is.
So, how do you begin with this? Well, there is the right way, and the wrong way to go about doing this. Here, we’ll tell you how to have a plan for this type of thing.
First, you need a plan, get yourself organized and figure out what you want to do with this, including the budget, platform, how many or how you select the influencers, and also the commission rates. Create timelines and content calendars, and design the creatives, and look at the competitors. The time you put into this part is probably the most important element of this.
Next, you need to have an affiliate marketing manager that knows how to talk the talk and walk the walk. They should know how to reach out to your influencers, keep the influencers updated on the campaigns and products, and provide the current copy and creatives to the people that are interested in working with them. Some will use private facebook groups or forums to communicate with these people.
Your next step is to build that relationship.
You’ll need the support when needed. You can ask the affiliates questions, and send the pools to get the different feedback, so you can let these people know that you’re a brand that can be trusted, what you’re doing, the listening you put into place, and that you want to work with them.
When you do begin affiliate marketing, the influencers are partnering with you, so the voice is, of course, your asset at hand.
Finally, you need to be open to change. This is a big part of all types of marketing, but affiliate marketing especially. Always check your numbers and metrics, because of course, that’s crucial to a sudcc3ssful affiliate marketing program.
Look at what works, and what isn’t working, and from there, make the decisions based on this information, in order to understand your KPIs and the ROI as well. Follow the campaign with an eye that’s keen, and run those A/B tests with different campaigns and different influencers as well. The affiliate marketing is a good way to help get what you need, but you have to understand that you don’t just sit around like a bump on the log while the numbers go up you need to start building the strategy and make the changes that are necessary to it. It isn’t a form of passiveness if you’re running the show, you have to tell people about these links, and get them to work with you.
Build those Marketing Strategies
Affiliate link building is a very popular way to grow your channel of marketing so that more brands and businesses work with you. While there is a lot of freedom with the types of different marketing that you do, you have to have a plan, and stay organized. Figure out the strategies that you want to implement, and the types of influencers that you’d’ like to work with, both for content and for exposure too. It’s a performance marketing type, with focus on the content, that’s going to reach the audience in a way that benefits not just you, but the affiliates too. For most people, they don’t’ realize it takes a lot on the end of the person running the campaign, not just the influencers too, so putting in the right program an and the right ideas for this is integral, and you’ll need to understand that, with this as well, the right ideas and the right implementation make or break the program.
