Affiliate marketing for your business

As we have mentioned affiliate marketing previously as a cost effective way to drive traffic and sales, in this article we are going to explain into details what exactly affiliate marketing is, why you should really look into it and how to kick-start affiliate marketing for your business.

So, what exactly is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing. It can be summarized in the following steps:

1. The merchant’s ad(s) or link(s) is shown on an affiliate’s website

2. Customers click the ad(s) or link(s)

3. Though this link, the customer is sent to the merchant website

4. Customer makes a purchase

5. Affiliate program registers the details of the transaction

6. The purchase is then confirmed valid by the merchant

7. The affiliate is credited for the transaction

8. Commission is paid to the affiliate

Reasons why any online merchant would love affiliate marketing

• Cost effective: You can have a very low number of sales staff (if at all) to run your business. You don’t have to pay to keep employees and risk going under budget when sales is not going up.

• Only pay when sales are made: And affiliates get paid only when their marketing effort is working: the customers referred from their websites decide to make a purchase on your store.

• Exposure to a larger pool of audience: with affiliate marketing, your ads will be featured on multiple blogs and websites, thus increase the exposure for your products and can drive traffic.

• Total control: Your whole affiliate program is designed by you, from commission rate to promote ads and banners and transaction validation.

• SEO Friendly: Inbound links plays a crucial role in page ranking on search engines. The more quality links you have, the higher ranking and authority your website will get.

How to kick-start your affiliate marketing program

• Create your very own affiliate program: Set your level of commission, discount and payout requirement based on your marketing strategy and budget.

• Start affiliate recruitment: Make sure that your program is attractive and the signup process simple enough for potential affiliates to follow and refer friends.

• Track affiliate marketing performance: Monitor to make sure that the information your affiliates are presenting about your products is not wrong or misleading, take note of conversion rates, average order value and your affiliates’ behavior (how action they are).

• Payout: Choose payment requirements and payment methods to best suit you and your team of affiliates.

Are you ready for the flux of traffic and sales boost?

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