Do you have a group of friends counting on your words while shopping, trying out new products and services? Are you enthusiastic about getting into the technical details after purchasing new products or sending across helpful reviews to the merchant sites? If your answer is a resounding yes, then the career of an affiliate marketer might just be the right thing for you.
Contributing to about 16% of E-commerce sales in the United States, affiliate marketing is expected to be the next big thing in the domain of digital commerce. If you are planning to sign up for an affiliate program, here are the 12 essential dos and don’ts of the marketing strategy.
Let’s get started.
Do: Know Your Niche and Stick to It
First things first, you got to be consistent by sticking to your areas of specialisation. Affiliate marketers are apparently trying to make more money by promoting too many products and services beyond their domain.
This is what causes major damage. At times, the marketers end up promoting and reviewing products without even using them.
The idea is to focus on relevant products and stick to making quality referrals without coming up with ambiguous promotions of services that are not even related to your domain of specialization.
Don’t: Agree to the Affiliate Terms of Service in its Truest Form
Don’t even think of violating the Affiliate Terms of Service. You are supposed to read the entire document prior to signing up for an affiliate program.
The agreement is essential as it lays the ground rules for what one can and cannot do when promoting a product or service.
The guidelines typically revolve around:
- Promoting competitors in conjunction with their product, service or brand
- Instructions for bidding on advertisers with branded keywords on various search engines
- Guidelines, terms and conditions associated with the deal and coupon sites
- Pay per Click Policy and terms of agreement related to commissions
Violating the terms and conditions of affiliate marketing might not go down well with your affiliate manager. In some of the cases, you could be removed from the entire affiliate program, or an email from the higher officials might ask you to discontinue the service.
Do: Produce strong and engaging content
Coming up with regular or drab content will only make the entire promotion boring. There are chances that half of the prospective users will not even go through the content if it appears to be less engaging right from the very beginning.
Focus on:
- Maintaining a steady flow of traffic by creating valuable and engaging content for the users
- Trying out creative videos, flash ads, out-of-the-box feedback formats and the likes
- Citing real-life examples based on industry case studies and the likes
Don’t: Allow Coupon sites to affect your business
There are chances of rampant fraud in affiliate marketing. Even though there are some affiliate coupon sites that can help in creating new buyers for the merchant, many would only take advantage of their natural search engine rankings to attract existing buyers. And that won’t add up to the value down the road.
They may even go to the extent of bidding against you in paid search ads. So, the idea is to being tricky here. Identify the misleading adverts to drive up your marketing investments.
Do: Maintain relevance while placing links
Some blog posts can give a promising endorsement of their products and services. However, when it comes to linking, you may find those blogs lacking links directing back to the company website. This can cause major glitches as the users might remain at a higher risk of being misguided.
This is why affiliates must try and come up with the best strategies to help readers in navigating to the brand’s site via a relevant affiliate link.
Here’s what you can do:
- Make sure the brand’s name is mentioned throughout the content
- Never miss out on adding a hyperlink to the brand’s name
- Link relevant keywords in your blog and hyperlink the same
Don’t: Focus On the Quantity of Affiliates
If we are to look at the current market trend, only a handful of good affiliates can drive in satisfactory merchant sales. So, don’t be excited to discover hundreds of sites joining your affiliate program.
More than half of them will never send across any relevant leads. Remember, an affiliate who doesn’t start producing quality traffic in the first couple of months will never be productive for the business.
Do: Work in collaboration with your Affiliate Manager
Even though it is commendable to manage affiliate programs independently, seeking help from senior managers has never caused any harm. You will be paired up with an affiliate manager who would supervise your work. You are expected to pay heed to the significance of the job and work in collaboration with your manager.
In addition, consider using all effective affiliate marketing tools at your disposal, and report about the same to your manager.
A clear flow of communication is essential when it comes to producing highly functional affiliate marketing ideas.
Don’t: Overstuff blogs with too many pop-ups and banner ads
Don’t you get irritated when banner ads and salesy pop-ups keep you from reading an interesting blog? Believe me; nothing on earth is annoying for your readers than dealing with a bunch of pushy banner ads and pop-ups restricting them from navigating the site seamlessly.
Try and keep banner ads to a minimum or your target audience might lose interest in your post.
Do: Hold your Horses; keep hustling
Being patient is the key to successful affiliate marketing turnovers. Sales are not going to come pouring in right from the very beginning. You have to stay calm, composed and patient. The idea is to implement the right strategy, give your best and wait for the big day to arrive.
You should never stop experimenting. The chances are that the marketing strategy designed by you may not work well with the target areas of your domain. But you got to try.
Here’s what you can do:
- Know your audience to ensure better success with the products you are promoting.
- Disclose your affiliations. Your readers appreciate honesty and feel better about contributing to your commissions.
- Some affiliate programs offer lifetime payouts. Get the hang of them.
Do: Keep an Eye on Market Trends
Unless you are devoting enough time in monitoring and keeping a record of the latest market trends in your domain of affiliate marketing, things will always turn out to be unsatisfactory in the longer run.
So, you got to give your best by tracking all current market trends and reviewing the same in order to cultivate new ideas.
Don’t: Assume “All Sales are Successful Sales”
Outsourced affiliate firms should acknowledge the fact that not every sale can drive in the coveted ROI. Thus, before you go ahead with a sales proposal or an affiliate marketing strategy, make sure the affiliate sites are reputable with authoritative quality.
Detecting the growth graph and the effectiveness of sale at an early stage will help you to save time.
Do: Avoid coming up with Superficial Information
No, it doesn’t work this way. You have to provide readers with the information they are unaware of. Words and phrases like “The best” “Most Successful”, “Leading” and the likes will only add up to the monotony.
There’s no point coming up with a rehashed version of what has already been talked about in the product description. Instead, invest some time in conducting thorough research about the product features and other USPs your target audience hasn’t discovered yet.
Final Thoughts
With 81% of marketers and 84% of publishers already leveraging the power of affiliate marketing, pull up your socks and come up with more strategies that can help you to explore the avenues of successful affiliate programs.
I hope this blog helped you to understand the specific aspects of marketing in a better way. Here’s wishing you all the best with your endeavours.
About the Author
Odin Richard is an experienced affiliate marketer and blogger working on behalf of a leading digital agency in New York, United States. Apart from that, he is a thesis helper associated with the digital brand MyAssignmenthelp. During the time of leisure, you may find him spending quality time with friends and family at the beach.
