As corporate brands go overseas, affiliate marketing, as a win-win business model, is becoming more and more popular with advertisers overseas.
Taking the United States as an example, Statista data shows that by 2022, domestic companies in the United States will spend US$8.2 billion on affiliate marketing. According to the BigCommerce blog, 81% of brands and 84% of publishers in the United States have adopted affiliate programs, and it is estimated that as many as 16% of online orders come from promotions by affiliate program participants.
So, what is affiliate marketing? How is it different from influencer marketing?
01 What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is also often called Affiliate Program or Referral Program. It mainly involves brands cooperating with promoters such as bloggers, Internet celebrities, and individuals through the Internet to invite them to promote their products on the Internet. Promote the brand’s goods or services (whether through its own website or social platform FB, email list, etc.). When conversions are successfully brought about through the assistance of these promoters, the brand will share the profits with these promoters. Promotional partners.
In order for Amazon to be recognized by more people quickly, they invite members to join the partner program, promote products on the platform, and give corresponding commission feedback, thereby bringing a large amount of traffic, voice (notability), and business to the website.
Step 1
Promotional staff put your product (banner, video, text) on their website (including blogs, social channels, etc.);
Step 2
User clicks and converts
Step 3
Clicks and conversions in this process can be tracked
Step 4
Affiliate gets the commission from the sale, and you get the order
The main participants
The unique feature of affiliate marketing is that it pays according to the promotion effect and requires the close cooperation of multiple participants to achieve it. These participants include:
Brand owner
Often called an advertiser, it is a company that has a product or service that needs to be sold. Brand owners need to pay reasonable advertising fees to affiliate members based on the actual results of affiliate marketing (such as sales, number of leads, number of clicks, etc.) ;
Alliance customer
That is, affiliate marketers, they choose suitable brands through affiliate marketing platforms and earn commissions by playing brand advertisements, easily turning website visits into profits ;
Alliance platform
Also commonly referred to as affiliate marketing platforms or advertising alliances, they are actually advertisers’ agents, responsible for supervising and managing the daily operation and strategy formulation of alliance projects from the advertiser’s perspective , including partnerships, alliance customers Recruitment, promotional guidance and advertising campaign optimization. Common foreign alliance platforms include Commission Junction, ShareASale, etc.;
Consumer
It is the specific user group that advertisers and affiliates hope to market to. They will eventually produce consumer behavior , or submit contact information, subscribe to company emails, try a certain service, become a new customer, etc.
Other professional terms
Affiliate Link: Also known as tracking link. This is a unique URL used to track clicks and conversions from affiliates.
Conversion : An event defined by the merchant that is considered a payment to an affiliate. It can be anything the merchant defines, but is usually a lead or purchase of the merchant’s product.
Affiliate Network : An optional intermediary between merchants and affiliates that helps facilitate commercial activities.
Affiliate Manager : A person who works with affiliates as an intermediary with merchants. Their goal is to maximize the performance of their affiliate program.
Affiliate Program : An arrangement in which merchants pay commissions to affiliates.
Offer : A specific promotion for a product.
Click-through rate (CTR) : — The percentage of affiliate link clicks per page impression.
Conversion rate CR (Conversion Rate) : The percentage of clicks converted.
Cost per action CPA (Cost per Action) : A commission model in which merchants only pay conversion fees to affiliates.
CPC (Cost per Click) : A commission model in which merchants only pay click costs to affiliates. It is usually used with advertising banners rather than affiliate marketing.
URL Tracking (Postback URL) : — A URL used for server-side conversion tracking; also known as server-to-server tracking.
Pixel : Track hidden images when web page viewing events occur. In the context of affiliate marketing, pixels track when conversions occur. Today, pixels are typically snippets of JavaScript code embedded on web pages, rather than images.
SubID : A text string embedded as part of an affiliate link, defined by the affiliate and used to track the affiliate’s conversions.
Creative : Advertising banner images or text used by affiliates to promote merchant products.
Copy : Written text that helps promote a merchant’s products.
Landing Page : The merchant’s webpage to which members direct traffic through affiliate links.
Ad Blocker : Web browser technology that prevents affiliate clicks and conversions from being tracked. Additionally, it prevents advertising banners from being displayed.
Attribution : The process of correctly identifying which affiliates are generating conversions.
Charge Back : Invalid conversion that results in forfeiture of affiliate commissions.
Commission (Commission) : The income earned by members for generating conversions. It is also known as a referral fee, finder fee, or bounty.
Cookies : Information stored in a potential customer’s web browser to identify a specific visit. With affiliate marketing, cookies are used to track affiliate link clicks and potential conversions.
Link Cloaking : Hide affiliate links using URLs that are more concise than those provided by the merchant. Link hiding can be used to better manage links and track clicks and conversions.
02 Advantages and profit forms of affiliate marketing
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
Easy to implement
Affiliate marketing is relatively simple and does not require a lot of bandwidth to implement. Once a brand has a mechanism in place to create a unique URL for each affiliate, all they need to do is track conversions for each sale. However, it is important to note that a brand must be mature in order to support a successful affiliate program.
Pay only for results
Affiliate marketing is a risk-free strategy because affiliates only make money when they make sales through affiliate links. Contrary to traditional advertising, brands do not pay for impressions or clicks. Commissions are only paid on sales, regardless of clicks on affiliate links.
Increase website traffic (and sales)
While affiliate links have no direct impact on search engine rankings, they do increase traffic to your web page and increase your chances of converting into a sale. The excitement an affiliate creates around a product or service creates a “halo effect,” increasing consumer trust and prompting more people to search for your product and navigate to your page.
Profit form
Studies have pointed out that the global affiliate marketing industry is worth as much as 6.5 billion, and the industry spans the retail industry, personal finance, gaming industry, tourism, education, publishing industry, etc. Most affiliate marketing profit sharing methods are calculated on a single basis, but larger organizations will also give different commissions based on the degree of promotion. According to the return payment method of the merchant website to affiliate members, affiliate network marketing can be divided into In three forms:
Pay per click (CPC)
CPC stands for Cost-Per-Click. The affiliate network marketing management system records the number of times each customer clicks on the text or picture link (or email link) to the merchant website on the affiliate website, and how much the merchant (Merchant) pays per click. way to pay advertising fees.
Pay per lead (CPL)
CPL stands for Cost-Per-Lead, or CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition). After a visitor enters the merchant website through an affiliate link, if he fills out and submits a form, the management system will generate a lead record corresponding to the affiliate member, and the merchant will pay the member according to the number of lead records.
Pay Per Sales (CPS)
CPS stands for Cost-Per-Sale. The merchant only pays the affiliate after the customer introduced by the affiliate’s link makes an actual purchase on the merchant’s website (mostly online payment). Generally, a commission ratio is set ( ranging from 10% to 50% of sales).
03 Affiliate marketing VS influencer marketing, which one should you choose?
Main difference
Revenue sharing often blurs the lines between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, but just because both methods may involve creator commissions, that doesn’t mean the compensation models work the same way.
Affiliate marketing is almost exclusively used to drive traffic to a brand’s website in order to close deals. Brands do not pay affiliates for brand awareness, increased web traffic, or cold lead generation. Affiliates only get paid for making sales , which means they must be motivated and continually work to increase conversion rates.
In influencer marketing , brands establish longer-term KPIs such as click-through rates, user-generated content and increased SEO . The influencer model focuses on content creation when promoting a brand, product or service, with marketers working with influencers to increase their credibility, authenticity and sustainable inbound traffic. Therefore, influencer compensation includes commissions, product gifts, flat rate fees, or a combination of the three.
Internet celebrity + alliance, bursting out new energy
As the world turns its attention to social media, consumers are now increasingly “reliant” on others to help them make purchasing decisions. For example, comments and recommendations from popular celebrities, topical figures, professionals in a certain field, or well-known beauty and food bloggers will have widespread influence and appeal.
This also gives new energy to the new marketing model of alliance + celebrity: the former can bring direct income, while the latter has great potential in promoting brand information and awareness. By combining the two, we can reach a wider audience audience, thereby generating a greater ROI.
So, how should brands go overseas?
04 Operation process
1. Find the right alliance platform
First, you need to join the alliance platform , create a member recruitment landing page with event introduction, product promotion guide, etc. for your marketing activities, and generate links and discount codes so that you can track the revenue generated by each alliance and return on investment Rates are attributed to each individual performer as well as to the program as a whole.
Common alliance platform recommendations
1)ShareAsale
Founded in the United States in 2000, it has 225,000+ affiliate resource media and has cooperated with 16,500+ advertisers and brands. The commission rate depends on the situation, generally between 5% and 20%.
For merchants, its core advantages are: merchants can customize the registration page and place it on the footer of an independent site to recruit and attract distributors; it can provide merchants with free distributor recruitment tools; merchants can set differentiated commissions. Meet different promotion needs.
2) Google Adsense
Advertising network owned by Google.
Its core advantages are: for distributors, it has few restrictions, high unit price and no tax deduction, and it can also customize the design of advertisements to match the style of its own website. It has a high degree of freedom and operability, so it attracts all kinds of customers. Various distributors have settled in, and independent stations from all walks of life can use it for affiliate marketing. At the same time, Google Adsense’s powerful reporting functions and optimization tools can help distributors optimize merchants’ marketing content in a timely manner, making marketing more flexible.
3) CJ (Commission Junction – Kisuke)
The world’s largest comprehensive advertising alliance. Founded in 1998, it is the largest and most powerful comprehensive advertising alliance in the world. It focuses on sales and registration guidance, and is a good choice for Chinese overseas merchants, especially novices. Moreover, CJ Affiliate can also provide merchants with comprehensive reports and powerful tracking functions.
4) TikTok Shop Affiliate Program
TikTok Shop has its own affiliate marketing portal. Merchants set up three marketing methods: “targeted plan”, “public plan” and “store plan” to allow sellers to find suitable experts to promote products, thereby increasing product conversion rates.
- For merchants :
The TikTok Shop affiliate program leverages TikTok’s creator resources to help brands/sellers connect with influencers through commission-based collaborations.
- For creators:
The TikTok Shop affiliate program connects creators and sellers with commission-based product marketing. Influencers gain a new way to monetize their creativity and influence by showcasing high-quality products in short videos and live broadcasts.
5) Facebook Audience Network
Facebook’s off-site promotion, huge traffic and strong traffic attraction cannot be underestimated. It has attracted more than 7 million merchants around the world to do affiliate marketing here.
However, in order to take care of Facebook users, it does not allow ads to be displayed too frequently, and it is only available for apps in the App Store or Google Play merchants, which has certain limitations.
6) Amazon affiliate
The off-site promotion of the well-known e-commerce platform Amazon has a very rich product range and excellent user experience, which can easily attract traffic. Traffic means exposure and clicks, which is something that merchants urgently need. At the same time, its application threshold is extremely low and it is very business-friendly.
2. Recruit internet celebrity bloggers
Method 1: Publish the link containing the event landing page to overseas social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to attract Internet celebrities to actively participate.
Method 2: Find Internet celebrities that meet your requirements on various Internet celebrity search platforms and contact them to participate in the event.
Note that once you find the right influencer, you need to be more proactive and take the first step.
Mail samples
The typical influencer has a much better relationship with his or her audience and doesn’t want to risk alienating his or her supporters for the sake of a commercial arrangement.
Therefore, you can offer some free products to any influencer you wish to use as an affiliate so that they can test it and make sure it works for their followers.
You can send emails every two weeks or every month telling your promoters the following information so they have new information to share with their followers:
- What kind of promotions are there during this period?
- Important performance statistics
- hot selling items
- case study
- Small ways to promote
- Possible next promotions
- New products launched
- The method of profit sharing has changed
…
News or content release
Send your partners some news media mentions of your company/products and ask them to include this information in promotional content to increase credibility.
Build relationships
If your partner shares through social media, then when he mentions your product, service or brand name, you need to respond accordingly, integrate into his community, and let your promoters know. You care about him and appreciate the promotion he does for you.
At the same time, you can also forward the share to your own social network to let your existing fans know your influence.
Organise event
If you have enough partners, maybe you can hold a partner appreciation party every quarter, every six months, or every year to let them know how much you value and appreciate them.
Attend seminar
Attending affiliate marketing related seminars is the fastest way for you to find affiliate marketing partners. Through such a conference format, you can not only promote your own affiliate marketing plan, but also directly contact those influential promoters and persuade them to promote your goods or services.
3. Track marketing results
Brands can place tracking links within influencer content to track conversions from affiliates, while also tracking influencer marketing campaigns for analysis and reporting on longer-term goals focused on creating more authentic connections with target audiences.
