To get a good return on your marketing investment could keep many of us awake all night. How does your spending on a PR firm comparable sales and dollars? How can the large-scale ad campaign which cost you a lot of dough have an impact on your company? The vast majority of marketing initiatives, working out Return of Investment (ROI) is a waiting game that’s utterly unpredictable with no guarantees of a positive outcome.
One model of marketing has different rules, though. These rules are base on making payment for your performance only once the results have been achieved. Affiliate marketing was once seen as a total long shot, but now today, as it’s driven by smart technology and transparency with the partners as well as compensation that’s linked to measurable, distinct results.
An affiliate program that’s healthy needs the right partners as well as the experience. If you want to begin an affiliate program, or perhaps improve your current affiliate program, you will need a team of influential individuals behind you. There are the leading five players that you will need to make sure you are leading the ROI you desire.
An Agency
If your business has the bandwidth and resources to build up a small team of people who have good knowledge of affiliate marketing as well as experience, then hiring the help of an agency is a good idea. Marketers from agencies have lots of experience in handling the often multifaced complexities of growing and building an affiliate program that’s high performing.
You need to look at the set of the agency clearly and make sure that it is performance-based. Once, I saw Robert Glazer’s speech. Glazer is the CEO of a worldwide affiliate marketing business. His book, “Performance Partnerships,” focusses on matching affiliate programs with their performance. It is quite easy to end up with a company which promises to bring in sales, but you need to make sure that the company stumps up the goods too. If the company fails to deliver over a short period, the chances are that it won’t be able to make long-term promises either.
A Scalable Platform or Network
No matter if it’s a SaaS platform or an affiliate network, all programs for affiliate marketing must have a technological platform on which to operate. The platform needs to be able to offer you all the right coverage geographically and the right features as well as supporting your plans for growth, especially if you have a global brand.
One such example of a platform like this is Awin. This company provides the tech that helps face the challenges of the industry like data light and third-party tracking, and advanced commissioning and attribution. Years ago, this type of data was not available. However, with the new advances in tech, you can find what works and when it works and why. Not only is it valuable as a part of an affiliate program, but also for learning how things work so that you can use this knowledge in your different channels to drum up sales.
Loyalty Partners
If you are looking to scale your affiliate program at a quick speed, you will need to find a partner who is focussed on maintaining loyalty with customers. One of the more significant players in this loyalty sector is Ebates, operating on performance success. This brand is expanding all markets and categories to include dining, cashback rewards, and ride-sharing as well as the usual retail.
You need to decide if the type of partners you are looking for will create loyalty to your brand or will attract a kind of customer that you don’t necessarily need. If you choose the right loyalty partner, it will result in a loyal customer base, which is the key to the survival of your brand in the long term.
Mobile Partners
Customers spend more and more time on apps and mobile devices, so it is vital that you partner with an affiliate program that dominates the mobile networks.
An example of such an app in the USA is Ibotta. It connects customers with retail, lifestyle, and grocery brands and offers cash rewards when they buy things. I managed to use this app reasonably easily when I was in a line for customer service after I had bought something. I took a photo of my receipt, and the cashback was then added back into my account. It’s great to look for partners who have mobile experience as this will make things more comfortable and more accessible to customers.
Tech-Driven Publishers
Affiliate marketing has expanded beyond deal partners and coupons. To push incremental revenue within a program based on performance, it’s essential to partner with a publisher who is well-experienced in the tech for e-commerce, such as artificial intelligence and website integration.
One such example is RevLifter. This company allows brands to deliver more incremental sales and conversions to its customers as it personalizes deals across the marketing channels for advertisers. It uses artificial intelligence to understand the signals from users’ behavior on-site on its pay-per-performance model. It delivers customers with the appropriate deal right on time and is available worldwide.
If you’re new to the whole affiliate marketing scene or want to increase your potential, ticking the right boxes will make sure that your affiliate marketing program is secure. It’s challenging to manage ROI if you have a multitude of applications, but, with a good team behind you, you’ll get to grips with it and achieve the outcome that you desire.
