In this blog, I’ll share my thoughts on Affiliate Marketing strategies that have helped me increase my sites and product conversions. We’ll also be looking at some examples from my own experience.
Affiliate marketing isn’t hard to do, but it’s hard to do well. There are many strategies out there, but not all are designed to give you the results you want – conversions! If you’re looking to boost your conversions, try out some of these affiliate marketing strategies!
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
Affiliate marketing is a unique type of marketing that’s based on a direct business relationship between an affiliate and a merchant. In affiliate marketing, your job as an online marketer will be to link up with those businesses, recruit new affiliates and then drive sales leads to them. Essentially, you get paid whenever someone clicks on one of your links and buys something through your link. It’s that simple.
How much money can I make as an Affiliate?
The income potential is a big appeal of affiliate marketing, especially for those with blogs. As one blogger (who’s been able to earn over $150,000 per year from affiliate marketing) said, Blogging is an amazing way to make money online. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it feels to wake up in the morning and know that your business is already making money while you sleep!
That kind of freedom is particularly appealing if you have a day job or other obligations that prevent you from working a more traditional 9-to-5 job. For example, there are plenty of military spouses who work outside of standard business hours because their spouse’s military service requires it.
Affiliate Marketing Statistics
1) Find an affiliate product with a clear call to action
A clear call to action is a must when promoting affiliate products. One of your main jobs as an affiliate marketer is to give potential customers a reason to buy. Why should they buy from you? What’s in it for them? It’s also up to you to make that purchase process as easy and smooth as possible by providing all sorts of information about your product.
If someone lands on your website and isn’t quite sure how to proceed, or doesn’t know what they are looking at, it will be difficult for them to convert. It’s just human nature—we like having all the facts upfront before we make decisions or complete purchases.
2) Target your traffic with relevant ads
Perhaps you have a broad product or service that could appeal to many different types of customers. If so, it’s probably best to target your traffic with relevant ads to convert them into paying customers.
Google AdWords makes targeting your potential customer base easy; as an example, if you sell widgets to both small and large businesses, it’s best to create two different advertising campaigns – one for small businesses and one for large businesses. The more specific your ads are and the better they target your audience, the better chance you have of getting conversions from those users who are interested in what you have to offer.
3) Work harder at selling your products
It’s far easier to sell your products than it is to sell someone else’s. The reason for that is simple: There’s no stress in selling a product you know and love. Make sure your affiliate marketing efforts always direct people back to your site, where you can offer them something that you’re truly passionate about.
If you’re not excited about what you’re selling, neither will be anyone who reads your affiliate sales page. This isn’t because they’re silly, but because it simply won’t resonate with them as something worth spending their hard-earned money on. When it comes down to it, affiliate sales work best when there’s an inherent value in what you’re promoting.
4) Promote using social media channels
Social media marketing is huge. Not only can you use social media to promote your website, but you can use it to generate new affiliate product ideas, or even find affiliates who will sell your products for you. For example, one way to promote your affiliate products is through YouTube—create a video featuring your favorite book and make sure to include a link to Amazon in the description! When people watch that video, they’ll often check out other videos of yours and buy things.
You might be surprised at how easy it is to make money off of affiliate marketing if you put in a little effort!
5) Create unique landing pages
Landing pages are your best opportunity to convert a visitor into a customer. After all, they’re on your site precisely because they want to do business with you. Since they’re hot prospects, you want to take every opportunity to make them feel welcome and entice them enough to follow through.
Make landing pages easily accessible so that you can send prospective customers right there when they click on an affiliate link. Also, add social sharing buttons so that visitors can share your offer with their friends on Facebook or Twitter immediately after converting via email capture or lead generation forms—that way you spread awareness of your business through word-of-mouth marketing at no additional cost.
6) Improve conversions by removing distractions
One of your main goals is to improve conversions so that you can make more money. Many things can distract your visitors away from doing what they came to do, so keep them focused by removing distractions such as pop-ups or anything else that might distract your visitors. It’s also a good idea to not get too wrapped up in page design because it takes time away from helping you increase conversions, which is key for affiliate marketing success.
Although having a well-designed website with attractive graphics and content is important for all businesses, especially affiliate marketers since their conversion rates will be lower than most other business owners; it’s also just another distraction that keeps people from making a purchase.
7) Special offers increase signups
Special offers get people to sign up for your newsletter, your ebook or engage with you in a variety of other ways. Try offering something like a discount on your product or service, a free workbook, coupon codes, or prizes. Use one special offer as an enticement to gain leads and use another as an incentive to increase conversions.
What’s best? Combine them both! But whatever you do, test them first—offering something valuable is no good if it doesn’t work. For example, I once offered a 30-minute phone coaching session with each new subscriber and found that two out of every three subscribers took me up on it.
8) A/B test different calls to action
An A/B test compares two versions of a web page to determine which one performs better. Each version contains one variation in a particular area (such as a call-to-action copy or design). The results tell you which page is more effective at getting your desired result, like a click or signup.
The logic here is that if people prefer version B over version A, then you can conclude that whatever it did (i.e., what was different about B) caused that preference. Use data gathered from an A/B test to make improvements to future landing pages, email campaigns, and other content marketing tactics for boosting conversions.
9) Try sending email newsletters out regularly
By sending out regular newsletters, you can ensure that they are consistently exposed to your content and remain familiar with your brand. Don’t forget to include CTAs at the end of your emails so that subscribers can easily complete desired actions or resources mentioned in previous communications.
Make sure you have an easy-to-navigate email newsletter signup form on your website so that visitors can subscribe on their own. If relevant, you might also consider creating a landing page for all of your email marketing initiatives so that users who visit it from search engines will also be able to subscribe without leaving their browser window open.
10) Test various headlines on your landing page
When you’re just starting, it’s important to A/B test headlines and copies as often as possible. That might sound like an obvious suggestion, but it’s surprising how many people don’t do it. We found that only 55% of marketers run tests on their site at all! But if you want to increase conversions, you need to be testing your messaging constantly.
Use Optimizely or another service for split-testing landing pages with multiple headlines and offers. After each test concludes, look back over which version converted best and use your findings in further campaigns.
11 ) Reporting and analytics
Even though reporting and analytics may not fall into your job description, it’s important to make sure you understand how your site’s doing. Make sure you have access to data about how many people are visiting your site, where they’re coming from, what kinds of browsers they use, what pages they view most often, and so on.
If these numbers are low or declining over time, that should be a concern; if they continue on their upward trajectory (which will happen with regular updates), then pat yourself on the back! Keep an eye out for changes in traffic patterns and make sure you know what they mean—because it could spell trouble or promise depending on whether traffic is increasing or decreasing.
12 ) Add images to your affiliate promotions
Affiliate marketing is all about making it easy for your customers to buy. One simple way to make your affiliate promotions stand out from those of competitors is by adding images to your links. A striking image will help you boost conversions, and can also be a great way to build an emotional connection with potential customers. Just make sure you follow copyright laws and don’t use other people’s images without their permission. That would hurt business!
Conclusion
Because of all of their advantages, affiliate marketing strategies should be an important part of your business strategy. From tracking conversion rates to finding new partners for various products, a good affiliate program can help you boost your sales and convert more visitors into customers.
In addition, having partners that promote your product or service helps with advertising costs, and it helps spread awareness about what you’re offering to users who may not have previously known about it. Partnering with affiliates is a smart move if you want to grow sales while limiting expenses—and building those relationships is much easier today than ever before thanks to readily available technology tools.