Study: Affiliate Partners Influence the Entire Customer Journey

Brands and retailers tend to think of affiliate marketers as the last step before making a sale, but a new report indicates they influence purchases throughout the customer journey. You can use this data and the tips we’ve provided to turn your affiliate marketing program into your top source of sales.

The Partnerize study, Mapping Affiliate Marketing Experiences & Tactics Across the Consumer Journey, has revealed new ways brands can (and should) engage affiliate marketers, leveraging each step of the shopper’s journey to reach new audiences and further engage existing ones.

To understand why affiliate marketers have such a broad impact, one need only look at what motivates shoppers to make a purchase through an affiliate partner.

What motivates shoppers to make an online purchase from an affiliate marketing site?

  • 63% Coupon or discount offers
  • 61% Cashback or reward incentives
  • 41% Positive affiliate user experience
  • 40% Access to new products or brands
  • 40% Positive customer reviews
  • 30% Option to buy-now-pay-later (BPNL)
  • 28% An affiliate’s positive review

Are shoppers more reluctant to buy from an affiliate marketer?

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Contrary to what regulators appear to believe, virtually all online consumers are well aware of affiliate marketing (96 percent) and have no problem with it.

Whether the business model is based on savings, content, or social media influence, the best affiliate marketers are sales machines because shoppers trust them. Eighty percent of online shoppers surveyed said they are just as, or more confident buying through an affiliate’s website as they are buying from a brand’s site.

Their buying behaviour reflects that viewpoint. Seventy-one percent of online consumers said they spend the same amount or more buying from affiliate marketers as they do from retailers. Fifty-seven percent have made a purchase through cashback or other type of reward websites (such as Rakuten or Swagbucks).

“If your brand is not in the affiliate space, there are customers who you certainly are not talking to, who don’t have an awareness of you, who will make a purchase from you if you have a compelling offer or some really strong content explaining why yours is the product for them,” says Chris Hardisty, founder and principal owner of Hardisty Digital Consulting. “But until you get in the space, your competitors who are already there are the ones they will buy from.”

Identify Your Ideal Affiliate Partner

What does your ideal affiliate partner look like? Outline a profile of the kind of website you’re looking for based on general data, then refine it based on your own testing.

For example, the affiliate marketing publishers in Canada who have the highest revenue growth are Content/Blog/Media (16 percent), Influencers (20 percent), and Product Comparison/Reviews/Discovery (18 percent) websites. You can start by reviewing websites in those categories, and then track sales to determine which work best for your business.

Helping & Encouraging Your Affiliates to Make Sales

The large reward sites are one thing, but the average affiliate marketer and influencer are quite another. If you want affiliate marketers to become active participants in your customers’ buying journey, as well as create awareness of your products and increase brand recognition, you have to work with those goals in mind.

Affiliate program managers should work with your partners to maximize sales and engagement through every step of the consumer’s online journey.

Generally speaking, they should:

  1. Do everything they can to facilitate affiliate sales.
  2. Encourage affiliate marketers to feature your products by showing them how you’re worth the extra effort.

I’ve worked as both an affiliate program manager and affiliate marketer for 25 years. Following are a few ideas and tips that have consistently generated the best results for me.

1. Extend special offers of a higher commission to some affiliates. A mistake often made with this strategic move is basing the decision on traffic alone. Your competition will be greater on the most popular websites anyway.

Instead, select affiliates who are specifically targeting your ideal market, such as Canadian niche bloggers. Lure them into your program with higher commission rates, exclusive deals and coupons, samples, merchandise, company swag, performance bonuses, contests, content, and free affiliate training.

2. Arrange special promotions with individual affiliates who are bringing sales to you, such as supplying products for blog contests or paying for a sponsored post. Don’t be afraid to work outside the standard program box and ask them about their PR options.

3. Offer products for reviews. It’s much easier to sell something you’ve used yourself. Don’t be stingy. For example, nobody is going to be excited by free access to a program for a couple of months, just give them a membership and let them promote it over and over again. If it’s a physical product, send full sizes (not tiny samples). If the product is on the expensive side, negotiate additional features like a review plus unboxing video.

4. Keep affiliates updated with emails, but don’t go overboard. The most successful affiliate marketers are very busy and you don’t want to annoy them with repeated “how can I help you” emails, promotions, or the like. Instead, publish a regular newsletter and encourage your affiliates to contact you if they need anything. Mention what you can offer them as well.

5. Make it easy to promote your products by including the affiliate’s ID in the ad code when you send out newsletters. For example, if you’re promoting Boxing Day deals, include the personalized code for banners and text links so the affiliate can easily copy and paste. The easier it is to promote you, the more you’ll be promoted.

6. Provide content for websites and email newsletters. Good content should be useful to the reader, with the promotion part being a mere mention. Encourage publishers to customize articles to avoid duplicate content penalties from search engines. If they’re making a lot of money for you, create original content just for them.

7. Consider holding contests or offer bonuses as an incentive to make a first sale, increase sales, or place a certain type of link (such as a banner on the home page or a text link in a product review). Popular rewards or prizes are cash, gift cards, and electronics like iPads.

You can get creative with this. For example, you could have a bonus offer that allows the affiliate to earn a free product if they make 10 sales of that product. Incentives are a much more effective tactic to increase sales than threats of program removal (which instantly takes it from a partnership to an “us vs. them” situation).

If you’re new to affiliate programs, please read How to Start an Affiliate Program for a Canadian Business.

Do you have an affiliate program for your business? Please share your experience or questions in the comments below, or join us in the Online Business Canada Facebook group!

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Melody McKinnon
Digital Business & Marketing Manager at  | Website |  + posts

Melody McKinnon is an internet entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in a wide range of online business models, backed by a formal business/marketing education and enhanced by training and mentorship. She has owned or managed both educational and ecommerce websites. Her book, 7 Recession Proof Online Businesses to Start From Home, is available from all major ebook retailers.

Melody has worked with many businesses in a multitude of capacities. She can often be found on CanadianDigitalMedia.com, CanadiansInternet.com, CanadianFamily.net, and AllNaturalPetCare.com, as well as other quality digital publications. Her content has earned reference links from highly-respected websites, magazines and university textbooks.

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Nic

Go affiliate marketers! It’s great to see us getting the recognition as a critical part of online sales and customer engagement. Businesses can do so much more with affiliates than they do now. Most of them don’t seem to get it at all.

Dolly

I don’t think this is news to affiliate marketers but some businesses seem oblivious especially in Canada. Broadening their vision one post at a time!