Affiliate Marketing
Influence purchasing decisions by the internet's word-of-mouth
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing leverages the authority of third party companies, publications, and individuals to promote your products and services.
This opens up your brand and introduces them to a new audience, turning casual visitors into loyal customers and increasing brand awareness, all with a low cost-per-lead.
Whilst this is probably best associated today with social media 'influencers', a lot of online publications also benefit from affiliate relationships. For example; articles detailing the 'top 50 christmas gifts your mum will absolutely love' often have affiliate links attached to those products, meaning the company can see who has come to their website via that article, and so can redistribute credit (and commission) for any resulting transactions.
Merchant
You as the brand/site.
Publisher (aka Affiliate)
The third party referring the customer to your business.
Customer
The visitor referred by the publisher who then clicks through to the merchant as a result of that referral.
Network
The hub that tracks and connects the clicks between the merchant and the publisher.
Will promote the merchant to publishers- or provide a merchant directory
Crucial to a good experience using this strategy.
Payments
Affiliate marketing is charged on a Cost per Acquisition (CPA) basis, so you will only pay fees to the publisher if they refer a fully qualified lead. (This is often a purchase although it can also be from filling out a form, signing up for a trial or mailing list.)
Whilst some publishers are paid a flat fee for each referral, most affiliate relationships work by a commission of between 5-30%.
This is always decided upon by the merchant and doesn't necessarily apply universally, or even be the same year-round. You may want to offer different rates at different times of year, accounting for events such as Christmas and Black Friday.
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Network management
With an extensive affiliate network, each company can have dozens of different sources for affiliates, usually tracked via the UTM parameters on the URL link. Managing all of these different sources, tracking all valid referrals that resulted in a conversion, and then paying these affiliates the agreed-upon commission for the conversions, especially when they differ between publishers.
The merchant pays the network for all approved commissions each month, and the network in turn distributes this to the individual publishers. The network also manages the affiliate relationships by making sure the merchant is being advertised to the correct publisher, and that any guidelines set by the merchant are being adhered to via regular spot checks.
Keeping up-to-date with and managing all these affiliates is a big task to manage in-house, and many of our clients find this a balancing act to deliver the best results. Network managers are often employed to manage this process, including cross-referencing the order vs the merchant vs the publisher and approving all fulfilled orders.
FAQ section about affiliate marketing
Remarkable Commerce boosts affiliate success
Remarkable Commerce partners with leading affiliate network managers and reputable publishers to promote your products in the most effective way, as well as managing all technical integration and commission validation services.
We fully integrate the website with the Network. This will be tested thoroughly to make sure that all future clicks are tracked and attributed accordingly. We also make sure tracking is set up via the appropriate analytics platform so each click can be tracked for internal reporting.
We support the Publishers by working with the Merchant to provide resources and information so they have everything they need to produce content straight away. This can be in the form of banners, images and sales copy as well as key Merchant information.
We search the Network and identify high-quality publishers to work with on the campaign. This will be a mix of the larger well known sites as well as relevant, niche, and smaller up-and-coming Publishers.
Continuing support for Publishers, answering questions and providing solutions to any issues they may have. We also make sure Publishers are sticking to agreed rules from the content of their copy to adhering to brand guidelines.
Orders are reviewed weekly and cross-referenced with the sales report in the website admin. If the order number and value match and the order is confirmed as legitimate, we will authorise it on the Network to allow the Publisher to gain the commission.
We continue our search for new Publishers to add to the network, keep tabs on competitor affiliates, and Publisher adherence to rules. We also stay in ongoing communication with the Publishers to make sure the affiliate relationship remains happy and proactive.