Tips To Start an Affiliate Program for Your Ecommerce Business

Are you the owner of an online store who wishes to:

• Increase the awareness of your brand.
• Drive targeted customers to visit your online store.
• Increase income and sales?

As a bonus, affiliate networks help increase product and service awareness and search engine optimization while driving immediate demand.

Affiliate marketing makes up 16% of US eCommerce sales.

eCommerce SEO services can completely shift the game for you to reach your objectives.

This blog will walk you through setting up an effective affiliate network for your e-commerce store.

What is an Affiliate Program in eCommerce?

An affiliate program is a performance-based marketing in which you collaborate with other people or companies, known as affiliates, to market your goods and services.

Affiliates get exclusive tracking links or codes and are paid a commission for each sale they bring about.

Affiliates make money by marketing goods they support, and you get access to a larger audience and increase sales.

Examples of Affiliate Marketing

• Amazon Affiliate Marketing
• Etsy Affiliate Marketing
• eBay Affiliate Marketing
• Buzzfeed

Amazon Associates held 47.3% of the affiliate market share.

Here is a high-level explanation of how affiliate marketing functions:

• An affiliate markets an affiliate link to their social network, blog, or website users.
• A viewer clicks on the hyperlink.
• The audience member buys something.
• The affiliate network notes the transaction.
• The commission that the affiliate receives is monetary.

  Source: images.ctfassets.net

Steps to Create Your Affiliate Program

1. Setting Your Goals

Decide what you want to accomplish with your affiliate program.

Are you trying to get more people to know about your business, attract new clients, or raise the average order value?

Your goals drive the design of your program and subsequent optimization efforts.

Which kind of potential affiliates, like bloggers, will help you reach your objectives?

What objectives do you have for your affiliate program? These are a few shared goals:

• Do you wish to expand your brand’s reach and introduce it to a new market niche?
• Is getting new clients to your online store your main objective?

Affiliates can send targeted traffic made up of people who are already considering your products.

• Also, you want to get them to spend more money on each transaction. In addition to your main products, affiliates can upsell supplementary items or product packages.

  Source : referralrock.com

For instance, you can concentrate on finding a wider variety of affiliates if increasing brand exposure is your top goal. On the other hand, if increasing sales is your top priority, you can prioritize collaborating with affiliates who have a highly engaged audience in your niche.

2. Selecting a Solution to Run Your Affiliate Program

Once your objectives are clear, you should look for software or other resources to assist you in launching your own affiliate network. A platform can assist you in expanding and overseeing your affiliate program while centralizing your data.

You have three options for getting started with your affiliate program: employ a SaaS solution made expressly to support affiliate programs, join an affiliate network, or launch your

program internally.

Here’s how to select affiliate marketing software:

• First and foremost, you need something suitable for your needs. List the precise issues that your software needs to solve.
• Second, make sure this session includes your affiliate marketing expert. If they love the software, think about making it your primary choice.
• Thirdly, confirm that it works with everything you use, including your ecommerce platforms and any third-party products you plan to incorporate.

For example

Refersion is a tracking and affiliate management tool for stores using BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Shopify, and other platforms.

They oversee everything, including organizing and managing campaigns and ensuring you pay your affiliates on schedule.

3. Deciding on Products to Include

Online business owners can designate which of their products to have an affiliate market for, or they can designate only a handful.

Having affiliates market your high-value products with substantial profit margins is a smart strategy.

For example, giving your partners a 10% commission on every sale can result in a far larger profit from a $100 product than from a $5 one. It’s also important to remember that not every product works well with affiliate marketing.

Look for ways to make the things you chose for your program as appealing to your clients as possible (to help improve sales).

For example, you can provide free shipping for orders above a particular amount or offer first-time customers a discount.

Also, ask yourself

• Would my targeted audience find value in this product?
• Is it relevant to my field of expertise?

4. Setting Affiliate Commissions

Regretfully, there’s no one-size-fits-all method for selecting the ideal commission structure.

The standard Affiliation Commission rate varies from 5% to 25%.

Certain businesses provide affiliates with a fixed fee for each customer they suggest, while others give them a share of the total sales amount.

A tier-based commission structure could be used to reward desired behaviour.

Let’s say. You have a 40% profit margin on the cosmetics you sell. According to industry data, a 10–20% commission rate is considered normal. A tiered structure or a flat 15% commission could be used. In exchange for encouraging higher-value purchases, affiliates who generate sales of $100 or more in a given month may be eligible for a 20% commission.

5. Establishing Program Policy and Structure

The products you promote as an affiliate marketer must be worthwhile to your audience to generate income.

Terms and conditions detailing the relationship between your business and its affiliates are necessary for any affiliate marketing program.

• The terms and conditions specify the regulations controlling paid advertisements and using branded products by affiliates.
• The terms and conditions also describe the commission schedule and the dates on which affiliates will be paid.
• Although a basic template might assist you in getting started, depending on your business, you might need to add more details.

Naturally, you want to be as detailed as possible, but it’s also critical to write clearly and concisely enough for readers to read it.

6. Selecting an Affiliate Platform

Spending time, effort, and research on the best affiliate program is necessary. As an affiliate, you must be confident in the products and brands you wish to endorse.

• Conformity to your niche

Does the program highlight goods that will interest the people in your audience?

For example, a food blog specialising in baking and cake decorating should use an affiliate program to promote electronics, gadgets, baking supplies, and materials for decorating baked goods.

• Rates of commission

Are the prices appealing and competitive enough to spur you on?

For instance, the Pay-per-sale model typically offers a fee of between 5% and 30%.

• Cookie Duration

The time a customer’s visit to the business website is logged and added to the affiliate’s account is known as the cookie lifetime or duration.

For instance, if a business has a 30-day cookie lifespan, you will be qualified to get a commission on any purchases the consumer makes during this time.

• Upsells

An excellent illustration of an upsell commission scheme is the Affiliate Partner Program for Individuals offered by different companies.

Referring new leads and customers to DataToBiz’s digital goods and services is another way affiliates can boost their earnings in addition to the substantial commission since DataToBiz also manages it. 

Source: assets.affilimate.com

7. Recruiting Affiliates

The reputation of your affiliates directly impacts your brand equity. Promoting your brand by individuals viewed as inferior or unreliable could harm your brand’s reputation.

These are our six recommended methods for identifying and enlisting affiliates.

•  Ensure that it is simple to locate your affiliate program.
• Use Social Media to Advertise Your Affiliate Program
• Make a Supporting and Selling Affiliate Page
• Make Contact with Influencers
• Seek Out Rival Affiliates
• Use Paid Advertising to Strengthen Affiliate Recruitment

  Source: cdn.prod.website-files.com

8. Providing Affiliate Resources

The affiliate resource hub is the website that offers resources beneficial to your affiliates. The customized Affiliate Dashboard is one of these features.

Here, you can set up a homepage for your affiliates and give them the resources and information they require to complete sales successfully.

All you have to do to use Easy Affiliate to establish a resource hub is navigate to Easy Affiliate > Settings > Affiliates and scroll down to Dashboard.

You can customize the welcome message that your affiliates receive and include more navigation pages.

Anything from reference sites to privacy rules to FAQs can be found on these pages.

9. Tracking and Optimization 

 Source : linkedin.com

You must monitor and assess your program’s performance to get the most out of affiliate marketing. You can use the following measures to assess the effectiveness of your program:

• Clicks: Tracking the number of clicks through affiliate links lets you determine which affiliates bring you the most business. You can then use this information to identify your most and least valuable affiliates.
• Conversion rate: The conversion rate is the percentage of clicks that result in sales. Monitoring this number for both your program as a whole and individual affiliates is a smart idea.
• Cost of sale: Keeping an eye on your sale cost will help you determine how much you spend on each transaction.

Conclusion

Running an affiliate program could seem like a difficult task. There are undoubtedly many variables to consider and moving pieces to control. However, amazing outcomes are possible if the proper program is designed and implemented.

To help you achieve your objectives, research the market, create your program and commission schedule, and, last but not least, choose the best affiliate networks and affiliate software suppliers.

FAQ 

What is an affiliate program in eCommerce?

An affiliate program is a cooperative marketing approach in which outside promoters or affiliates are compensated for bringing customers and sales to your online store through commissions.

What are the three main types of affiliates?

Affiliates can take many forms, but three main examples include discount websites, social media influencers, bloggers, and content creators.

What is an affiliate program, and how does it work?

Affiliates can receive commissions for promoting your products on their platforms through an affiliate program by using their unique tracking links to drive completed purchases.

How do I choose the right affiliate platform?

When choosing an affiliate marketing platform, consider cost, reporting capabilities, scalability, and ease of use.