Whether you run a B2B or a B2C business, affiliate marketing is something that you must add to your marketing mix in order to grow. Even if you are starting from scratch, let’s say from building a website where you write reviews for products and driving organic traffic to them, that will eventually use links to purchase from a shop, so affiliate marketing needs your full attention on many aspects that we will tackle in this article. 

Affiliate marketing is a good way to supplement your income, and one of the best ways to this, as an affiliate, is to be good at SEO optimization. Knowing how to add links to a website is not the only way to make things work, so you’ll also have to consider how to do some SEO activities and update a website. As Rick first started, he had a website where he was writing reviews for products, which led to organic traffic to them, and by placing the right keywords and links, the readers would be able to purchase the products from a specific shop. In this way, whether you are an affiliate that earns a passive income or a business that is investing in affiliate marketing, both sides of the discussion will have something to earn by implementing affiliate marketing in their marketing mix. 

Ways to implement affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing isn't just one channel, it encompasses all the channels, so you can have an affiliate that promotes on social media, you can have an affiliate that promotes on Google, you can have an influencer, you can have an email marketing affiliate. All the channels that you can use on social networks can experience the presence of affiliate marketing and you, as a business owner or an affiliate, can use it by expanding your brand and creating valuable relationships and content for customers.

Finding the right people and engaging with them 

One of the most challenging parts to start with when it comes to affiliate marketing is finding your people. They're not going to just come to you. You got to go find them. And that's the majority of the effort that goes into these programs: recruiting and activating. Always be reaching out, always be finding new potential partners because they're not going to just come to knock down your door and want to work with you. It's something that you're gonna have to go find them. And it's not easy, really it's not. After finding the right people for your business, you need to start building relationships with them, treating them as a marketing partner, not just someone that you’re paying a commission to work for you. The moment they’ll truly engage with your brand, the affiliates will be your marketing partners, but it’s up to you to figure out what your affiliates need in order for your partnerships to be successful.  

Tracking and budgets 

The decisions from the beginning of your affiliate marketing programs will be hard to understand or make. Things such as budgets, tracking, and ROI need to be taken into consideration, but it’s hard to know what’s best to do if you are new to this. We’ve gathered some useful information from Andrei’s and Ricks’ conversation and we found out that in the beginning, your budget can levitate around $1000-1500, and that is a one-time investment. When it comes to tracking, things get easier when you invest in a program that has everything you need in order to tracking, reporting, and managing the affiliate partnerships. Programs such as Refersion, Post Affiliate Pro are just two of the services that will guide and support you in the affiliate marketing road.  

Judging by the diversified ways affiliate programs can be present in your business, you can play around a lot with them and implement this service in very useful ways. Because it boosts your income, affiliate marketing has developed many variations and ways that can help you, something that the digital world had a great impact on. 

If you ever need a piece of advice regarding your next campaigns for affiliate marketing or your future strategy, don’t hesitate to contact us by booking a 30-minute online meeting. 

This article is inspired by the conversation Andrei Tiu and Rick Magennis had on one of the episodes from Marketiu podcast - The Marketing Innovation Show.

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