What Is Affiliate Marketing?

PR, influencer marketing, and social media as a whole has made it easier than ever for brands to connect with their customers. With so many businesses across the world vying for attention, the competition can be fierce! That’s where affiliate marketing comes into play. Affiliate marketing has become an easy way for brands to increase sales, drive traffic to their website, grow their reach, or generate leads.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing where third parties promote a brands’ products to their friends, family, or followers and earn commissions on any sales generated from their unique URLs.

You’ll hear different terms when talking about affiliate marketing:

• Affiliates, publishers, creators, inlfluencers, or third parties - the person or people that will promote the products.

• Brand or merchant - a business that sells the product being promoted via affiliate marketing.

Affiliates have the freedom to choose how and when they promote your products. Brands can partner with social media influencers, PR media (like TV talk shows, newspapers, TV news segments, or magazines), bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, and anyone else who has an online presence for affiliate marketing.

Why is affiliate marketing important for your business?

81% of advertisers used affiliate marketing to increase brand recognition. If your competitors are doing it, it’s always a good idea to learn more to see if you want to implement it too.

Affiliate marketing is just one piece of the marketing pie but it could be a very impactful one for your business. Affiliate marketing can help your brand in 4 distinct ways:

1 

Passive income

Once you’ve selected and onboarded your affiliate marketing platform, a big chunk of the work is done for you already! Sure, you’ll need to recruit affiliates and review any inbound requests, but the rest of the process is automated. From there your affiliates will take care of most of the work, the sharing and promoting your products, creating passive income for your brand. And you can have as many or as few affiliates as you’d like.

2

No overhead

Since your affiliates aren’t considered employees, there’s no salary to provide, overhead (think office space, utilities, computers, office supplies, HR services, etc.), and you don’t need to worry about providing healthcare benefits. This can result in a huge savings over traditional sales employees.

3

Low risk

The benefits of affiliate marketing far outweigh any risks you might face. If an affiliate doesn’t generate any sales, it won’t cost you anything because affiliate commissions are based solely on sales.

4

It’s becoming more of a requirement

Most media—and a lot of social media influencers— ask you to have an affiliate program if you want to work with them. Many people recognize the mutual benefits of this type of relationship, and having a program in place helps to streamline and automate the process to be totally hands-off.

How can I start selling products with affiliate marketing?

Most brands opt for an affiliate marketing platform to do it right. As a business, you cover the cost of the affiliate platform and the commissions paid to affiliates. There are a lot of options when it comes to affiliate marketing platforms but here are a couple of the biggest players:

Affilio

Affilio allows for unlimited affiliates, unlimited promo codes, unlimited orders, and they pay out to affiliates via PayPal. The cost is low but you don’t get a lot of bells and whistles, which could be a good thing for a business new to affiliate marketing.

Platform Cost: Starts at $24 a month

LeadDyno

With LeadDyno, you can manage affiliates and referrals easily with automated link tracking, commissions, communications, and more. Every plan includes unlimited clicks and conversions.

Platform Cost: Starts at $49 a month

LTK (formerly LIKEtoKNOW.it)

LTK is the first and largest influencer monetization platform, plus it is now integrated with Shopify. Influencers have to apply to be included and the focus remains in the fashion, beauty, lifestyle industries. Their followers can click to find the outfits or decor that the influencers featured in their posts and they receive a commission on purchases.

Platform Cost: Varies depending on services selected.

Awin (formerly ShareASale)  

Awin offers multi-layered commission management that ensures you pay only for results. It easily integrate with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce making setup quick and simple for your business.

Platform Cost: Starting at $49 a month with a 3.5% fee per transaction

Amazon Associates

This one's a little different, where the affiliate signs up for Amazon Associates (Amazon’s affiliate program) and will link to your products being sold if they are on Amazon. As a brand interested in affiliate marketing - you don’t need to pay for or sign up for an affiliate program, the influencer does. While it is free to use, you do not get to determine the commission structure and have no control over which influencers are approved to promote your brand. Amazon affiliate program commissions vary based on the product type but are 0% - 10%. They also offer an Amazon Influencer program for established YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok influencers where there are a couple more perks like a storefront.

Platform Cost: Free

Target Partners

Target’s affiliate program is similar to Amazon, where a brand has little control but can always offer it as an option to affiliates if your products are sold there. Influencers earn up to 8% on sales.

Platform Cost: Free

Impact

Manage affiliates, creators, and customer referrals in one unified platform, at no additional SaaS cost. This platform is much more robust and built to combine multiple programs in your tech stack.

Platform Cost: Starting at $30 a month

Spend some time doing research to choose one that works best for your business and budget!

The bottom line

There’s a lot to love about affiliate marketing. It’s a low-risk venture with tons of flexibility and the potential for a huge ROI. If you haven’t made affiliate marketing part of your overall strategy, now’s the time to jump in!

Need help navigating affiliate marketing and finding the best, most influential, social media influencers and PR personalities to help sell your products? Contact us today to see how Thrive Marketing Consultants can help!