You have an amazing product and want to increase performance, brand awareness and revenue, and do it in a cost-effective way.

Digital marketing is likely an important part of your strategy and you may already be using these digital channels to drive conversions: search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), display, social media, email marketing and traditional media.

These marketing channels are great but can become costly, time consuming and deliver only short-term results. For sustainable long-term results, have you considered affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing works on a cost-per-action payment model, which means you only pay out once your traffic takes an action on your site. It is a sustainable, cost-effective channel that often gets overlooked.

We’ve put together a special blog for you to learn how you can include this channel in your marketing mix.

Get to know affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing and performance marketing are often used interchangeably. Affiliate marketing is when merchants (advertisers) pay publishers (affiliates) a commission for every customer they refer to take an action on their site. This can be signing up for a subscription, making a purchase, or applying for an account.

Commissions are only paid to affiliates upon successful completion of approvals, applications and/or purchases. This depends on what your desired actions are as a business.

You might be asking yourself, “Why should I use affiliate marketing to promote my products when I already use other digital channels?”

Affiliate marketing is one of the most underutilized digital channels for marketing. Performance marketing is increasing in popularity as a method to help brands grow.

By including affiliate marketing with your paid and organic marketing tactics, your marketing mix will become stronger from diversification. You’ll be able to leverage the power of a range of voices and influencers that are relevant and targeted to what it is that you offer.

Utilizing affiliate networks are great as they provide you with a diverse range of publishers you could work with to promote your products.

Hot Tip: The digital space is always changing – don’t be afraid to test out new advertising methods with controlled budgets to see what works best for you! If you find a tactic is working, you can then look to reallocate budget towards that channel. We see it all the time!

Grow your brand awareness

With affiliate marketing, your brand awareness increases as publishers promote your products to consumers.

Along with brand awareness, your traffic also increases.

According to HostingTribunal.com, revenue earned from affiliate marketing programs grew 10% annually since 2015 and accounts for 15% of digital marketing revenue, and in certain verticals even greater!

As a growing channel, you want to get started with affiliate marketing before your competitors. 

Earn third-party endorsements

Influencers and publishers work hard to build trust with their audiences. That’s why they are such a powerful source of new customers for your business.

People trust publishers’ recommendations because they find their opinions unbiased and reliable. Often, publishers also use paid and organic marketing tactics to promote products that they recommend.

Marketing Dive stated that affiliate marketing is starting to become an integral part of content marketing as publishers create trustworthy content for consumers.

Achieve sustainable, cost-effective results

One of the most impactful benefits of performance marketing is its cost-effectiveness. This is, again, because you only pay on results.

Because the channel is also high-intent, the traffic coming through from affiliates are more likely to convert. This means more optimized results and conversion rates.

By only paying when a user converts, you can use your marketing budget more effectively. Affiliate marketing is used to keep your results sustained for long-term growth.

Hot Tip: Be patient as you’re starting your affiliate program as it takes time to nurture and grow. Remember that an affiliate channel is for long-term benefits!

Have complete transparency

Performance marketing is most effective when you have complete transparency.

This means both ensuring you as the brand and the publisher have a clear picture on which campaigns and efforts are achieving in the best results.

Without this, affiliate marketing is not possible — as you need to be able to measure to the point of conversion.

Transparency is especially important in the financial services industry as conversions are often measured as “approved” applications and verified customers.

Next steps

Starting a new marketing tactic can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. If your goal is to increase performance, brand awareness and revenue, have an open mind to new possibilities!

With the combination of affiliate marketing and other marketing channels, your marketing mix will be more powerful than ever. Not only will you see results increase, but your brand will also be top of mind for consumers.

Have more questions on how to incorporate affiliate marketing into your overall mix? Reach out to the team and we’ll be happy to chat with you on your business goals. Contact us here.