Okay, so what is affiliate marketing?
It's 2023 and you've not heard of affiliate marketing. Your not alone!
Affiliate marketing is the process of rewarding an intermediary (middle person) for promoting your product to their network online or in person. It may sound as simple as that, but you will need dig further into this.
This affiliate might promote a product online, on social media, by email, or even by just sending a link to a friend via social media. But the important thing is that they’re paid based on conversion, making this a form of performance marketing that’s very easy to track and quantify.
‘At its core, affiliate marketing represents something overwhelmingly positive: paying only for marketing that delivers actual, quantifiable results.’
This makes affiliate partnerships virtually risk-free for a company looking to boost its awareness and acquisition – if the affiliate marketer doesn’t deliver, the company doesn’t pay. Simple as that!
How does it work?
Selecting a Product/Service
This is the company or individual that wants their product or service promoting. Usually, they’ll have created the product and or service – Such as Nike, Dyson, Rolex etc. But sometimes, they might be selling a product made by someone else, as is the case with Amazon and eBay.
The brand doesn’t always have to be a large company like the ones we’ve mentioned above. Brands that use affiliate marketing can also be small companies or sole traders.
The Affiliate Marketer
This is the individual or company that promotes the product or service for a financial reward (Commission).
Affiliate marketers come in forms and sizes. They can range from social media influencer's to businesses, Essentially, any business or individual that’s in a position to promote another brand’s product on a performance basis could be a potential affiliate.
The Customer
The customer isn’t part of the partnership itself. But without them, there’d be no point in affiliate marketing at all! The customer or consumer is the person who sees the affiliate marketer’s promotion page and link and clicks on it. Often, they’ll be aware that they’re part of an affiliate marketing system and would know that it's just a promotion of a product or service. And the person is will be getting some financial gain from successful link conversions.
An affiliate marketing partnership can’t function without all three of these parties working together. But let’s also remember that this whole relationship revolves around the affiliate’s promotion. After all, without the promotion itself, the customer wouldn’t click, the brand wouldn’t get any benefits and the affiliate wouldn’t get paid!
Different affiliates have their own ways of promoting products that they want to promote. Some will use social media, others will write product reviews, send out email marketing campaigns even website blog page. Ultimately, it all depends on what type of affiliate they are, and what their relationship is with their following.
Content or media sites and networks
This could be a big media organisation that run multiple news sites or a smaller online magazines or even blog post online. The affiliate might publish content promoting a product, or they might display banner ads promoting the brand's product or service via the above means.
Bloggers and influencers
Bloggers and influencers can promote a range of products and services or focus on a niche market and following. To drive traffic to an online promotion, while others will use social media to target an existing audience. For instance, many individuals already affiliating, reaching out to followers via posts, DM's etc.
Paid advertising affiliates
Some affiliates use paid ads or social media sponsored posts to encourage consumers and followers to click on their affiliate links, but not every affiliate program will allow it. some chose Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook; even through paid YouTube Ads.