Can I make money from affiliate marketing in my business?
Doctor Digital Says
The affiliate marketing industry is a multibillion-dollar industry with exciting professional opportunities for creators. It’s fast becoming a common way for ecommerce brands to market their products and services. Statista reports that in 2020 alone, over two billion people purchased goods or services online and e-retail sales surpassed $4.2 trillion dollars worldwide. Amongst those billions of people now buying things online, Awin’s review of affiliate marketing in 2021 showed that by April, 37% of people were buying products through affiliate links.
Affiliate marketing can help you earn money by referring products and services to customers via your blog, website or social media channels. The affiliate site will give you a personalised link to place on your various sites. Every time a sale is made through that link, you earn a small portion of the profit. You can drive traffic through an email list, social media channel or your own website and earn commissions whenever products or services you link to are sold.
So what kind of businesses suit the affiliate model? Affiliate marketing can work well for influencers and thought leaders who promote products or services that align with their brand and values, a fitness influencer having an affiliate arrangement for protien shakes or leggings for example or a leadership consultant that promotes a personality typing online tool. There needs to be an alignment that makes sense to your customers and genuinely value-ads and extends their experience of your product or service. According to Shopify, the top affiliate marketing segments are: lifestyle and wellness, technology, personal finance and pet care. If you fall into one of those categories, this might be a good avenue to explore.
Affiliate marketing is more than just an influencer promoting a product or service for a kickback. Affiliate businesses are set up to ensure that there is a seamless flow of transactions so the consumer isn't inconvenienced or has a poor brand experience for either the affiliate or the referral business. This means that often affiliate businesses are large well organised logistics machines (think Amazon) that can deal with multiple sources of demand simultaneously and track the revenue flows.
Affiliate marketing is usually not based on significant funds, rather small regular commissions that support your existing business. Absolutely some people make their living purely from being an affiliate marketer, but if you already have an existing business, think about this type of revenue as icing rather than the whole cake. The other benefit from affiliate marketing is that it can bring a halo effect to your business when you partner with a well known brand that elevates your brand into their category, which is a good secondary outcome for brands that are establishing themselves and building their audience.
There are many ways to share affiliate content with users. Some tried and tested methods include publishing guides about retailers or their products, reporting on new product launches, sharing links with your email database, creating deals content for big shopping events and promoting brands to your social media followers.
Whichever strategy you end up using, the key is to include external links to a potential financial transaction. Every time a reader hits that purchase button, you get a cut of the profits. And you can let your community know that they're helping to support the content you create.
A few things to look for when choosing an affiliate program include:
- Does the program have a great market reputation? You don’t want to work with partners that people don’t trust.
- Does the program have a good commission rate? You want to earn good money for your time and effort. Many programs pay upward of 10% to 20% commissions for a sale. Choose a rate that works for you.
- Does it have a high earnings per click (EPC) rate? EPC is an industry-wide metric that shows the average affiliate earnings per 100 clicks across a merchant’s program.
Here are some of the affiliate programs active in Australia for you to have a look at and see if what they offer, offers your business an opportunity:
As always, the Digital Ready Coaching team are available to help you understand your options and the best ways to engage with the digital economy.
Book a session using the booking link here.
