A Guide to Successful Affiliate Marketing, Part 2

By Cameron Horton

In our last article on successful affiliate marketing we explored this important method to grow customers and sales and talked about some ways to get started. Now we’re going to dive deeper and explore some ways to grow your affiliate marketing program and achieve continued success. Let’s get started!
 

Keep your affiliates happy

It sounds pretty simple, right? Happy customers (in this case, affiliates) will help you achieve growth of your affiliate marketing program. To do this, however, it requires understanding some of the challenges and pain points that affiliate marketers run across with the other programs they might be involved in.

One big issue that affiliates face is how payout are handled, and the sometimes inflexible payout rules that some affiliate marketing platforms use. Just as your business is unique, your affiliate program should have the flexibility to pay your affiliates when and how makes the most sense.

Platforms like Attribution’s Affiliate Marketing tool do just this. They put the power in the hands of the brand to tailor their affiliate payouts exactly how they need them, including one-time commissions, monthly commissions, fixed or percentage-based commissions, even getting as specialized as a per-category or product commission.

Happy affiliates are more likely to promote your product and are incentivized by their commissions to send you more customers. Having the flexibility to do this will ensure you will be able to build loyalty among your affiliates.

 

Create a scalable affiliate program

Tired of managing your affiliates using spreadsheets and other manual methods? Not only can this be time-consuming, it can also cause potential oversights such as underpayment, overpayment, or simply missing payments altogether, causing unhappy affiliates, as well as an administrative nightmare. This limits your ability to grow your affiliate marketing program, which could be a significant revenue source when done effectively.

A scalable approach to your program should identify bottlenecks and find ways to solve for them. Automating payouts for your affiliates is a great example of this. Instead of manually checking across a multitude of spreadsheets and the headaches that entails, you can use a product like Attribution’s Affiliate Marketing platform in order to alleviate this pain point, and ensure your affiliates get paid accurately, and on time, at the frequency you dictate.

Finding ways to easily scale your program will ensure you can continue to grow your efforts, and make affiliate marketing a significant component of your revenue stream.
 

Create a plan to measure success

Last but not least, you need a way to see the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing efforts. While basic reporting can tell you how many sales you are making, being able to aggregate and attribute success of your affiliate marketing efforts to specific campaigns, channels, and other investments can help you direct your efforts in the most effective ways.

Attribution’s Affiliate Marketing platform leverages our highly effective multi-touch attribution reporting system that can give you the insights and visibility you need to be most successful. Combining this with the flexibility and scalability of the platform gives marketers the tools they need to grow their affiliate marketing program beyond the limitations of more traditional manual methods.
 

Conclusion

We hope you’ve enjoyed this two-part series on affiliate marketing success. Taking your affiliate marketing program to the next level requires happy affiliates, the ability to scale your efforts, and a plan to easily and effectively measure your success. With these elements in place, you will be well on your way to continued affiliate program growth.

For more information, read more about Attribution or contact us.