Affiliate 101: affiliate marketing for beginners

TAGS: Affiliate marketing |

Open your text books as Client Service Manager, Emma Adcock, takes us back to basics and explains affiliate marketing in general, along with some helpful tips to ensure you get the most out of yours.

Without being patronising, it’s easy to forget that there are many yet to be in doctored into all that is affiliate, interestingly the many sites I’ve found that don’t tell you the whole story, or make it really complicated to understand - this blog is dedicated to those net newbies with a willingness to learn and others who’ed simply like to understand the affiliate process and some of the jargon terms attached to it.

Explain affiliate marketing in one sentence:

(I could go overly technical here but let’s keep it ultra simple):

A website owner (affiliate) who promotes you/your products and in exchange you pay them a small commission if they make a sale- usually a percentage of the value of the product they sell.

Yes it really is that simple; but imagine how many website owners are on the internet!

Lots! So managing hundreds of thousands of affiliates is a little different to a single website owner.

What is an affiliate?

Simply a website owner, a website owner who is attached or “affiliated” to your brand and products. Meaning they advertise your products on your behalf for free in the hopes that their audience will like them (your products that is!) Then make a sale- and get paid the commission you promised for that sale.

When I explain this to merchants/clients I usually draw a direct comparison to something they can understand easily- for example- affiliates are like a massive sales force. A sales force that doesn’t sleep, take breaks or ask you to reimburse them for their travel expenses at the end of the month. A sales force that doesn’t get paid until they make that sale.

What is a network?

I think of networks as big online broadcast channels, a bit like television or radio for affiliates- they are an online information hub and facilitate an interface between affiliates and merchants/clients (you). They allow clients/merchants to communicate directly with affiliates, send them promotional news and special content, set affiliate commission levels, give them banners and creatives to use and generally keep them interested and informed. Information can be sent to individual affiliates through the networks and mass comms can be sent to all to affiliates connected to that particular affiliate program too.

Now for the science bit......

Networks also act in a technical capacity- they track the sales made by the affiliates and ensure they are recorded and validated.

How does it all work together?

Lets imagine I’m on the internet and I go to my favourite voucher code site (for ease lets call the site “my favourite codes”) – luckily “my favourite codes” has just become one of your affiliates- and I spy your brand and a nice discount code. I will then click on the link, learn more about the promotion, and decide to click on a further link to go to your website to use the discount code. I find a product I like on your site and pay for it (using the code to receive my discount) and the transaction is complete. In the background and completely unbeknownst to me (the customer) the network has tracked my progress, recorded that I’ve visited your website from “my favourite codes” and confirmed that I’ve made a purchase- this means “my favourite code” is entitled to their percentage of that sale. A percentage that’s predetermined by you.

To see this in action type a big brand into Google or Yahoo followed by “voucher codes” i.e. “Asda voucher codes” and you can complete the process for yourself.

Are there different types of affiliates?

There are many different types of affiliates, they can be mainly classified by their function or the content found on their sites, other affiliates can be classified by their technical expertise. Promotional affiliates will host special offers, discounts, voucher codes and prizes on their sites, changing them seasonally and updating them daily to ensure frequent visits. Content affiliates will concentrate upon the information found on their sites and usually target niche subject areas they are passionate about. Technical affiliates will employ their skills in (you guessed it!) a technical capacity such as pay per click strategies.

What do affiliates need from me?

To get started affiliates need these basic items – there are more items to add to make your program stand-out (but I’ll keep the word count down and promise to post those in another blog.)

-A commission level i.e. 8% of sales made (this differs depending upon your industry sector and the commission levels offered to affiliates by your competitors)- Don’t wish to boast but we complete a competitors review pre-launch to ensure your commission level to affiliates is erm.. competitive.

-Creative and banners and logos- Usually of different sizes and orientations so they can be used by many different affiliates- seasonally banners are also highly effective.

-A product feed- A product feed is simply a large database which hosts a description of each of your products; the networks use this to help affiliates populate their sites with your product descriptions, costs, colours, dimension, weight, etc, etc. It’s best to keep this up-to-date to reflect the products on your site/any sales you might be having.

-Program description- A description which tells affiliates about your program, product proposition and target audience, and the different elements of your program including commission and the program terms and conditions.

-The tracking in place – the tracking relates to a small piece of HTML code placed on your website which allows the network to track purchases made on your site relative to affiliate traffic and record them.

How do I ensure my affiliate program works?

There are lots of things you can do to help affiliates and ensure the success of your program, the main thing is to keep in communication and employ an online promotional strategy. If you want a lot of detail it may be best to go to my blog Romancing your affiliates for extra tips and help. Best of luck with all your affiliate activities- remember you don’t have to go it alone, come and talk to us if you’d like further guidance and information.