How to Increase Sales for Your Small Business using Affiliate Marketing

If you haven’t heard of the term ‘Affiliate Marketing’ – now’s the time to get a bit excited.

You see, affiliate marketing is generally a way to get influencers to promote your brand, sell your products and for you to make more money through sales and brand exposure. There is no cost to you to start up (and we’ll tell you how to go about it), and you pay a commission only on what the influencer or blogger actually sells.  They are effectively doing all the hard work of marketing your business for you.  And the harder the influencers work and promote your products, the more you sell, and the more commission they receive.

Sounds great huh.  That’s because it is.

A good influencer won’t take product for exposure only. A good influencer does their job for a reason – to make a living. So stop giving out free product in exchange for promotion – because you will only get what you pay for. A good influencer has amazing traffic to their social media and will only promote products they love. So by signing up to an Affiliate Program – you are effectively signing an agreement with them where they have to sell to make you money, if they want to get paid.

Also note, affiliate marketing solutions require barely low or no upfront costs. In general, it is a completely hosted solution. Therefore, it requires very minimum technical efforts. The ongoing costs are solely performance based i.e. business owners pay only when their cash register rings.

So how do you get the ball rolling?

Well, you sign up to a reputable affiliate marketing platform (and we have a list of them below). You should NEVER EVER have to pay to sign up to one of these platforms. Once signed up – you will need to provide the platform with ways that influencers can promote your product. This can include some or all of the following:

• Coupon codes
• Website banners of different sizes
• Discount codes
• Deep linking
• Galleries
• Text links
• Videos
• Product images
• Data feeds

But you can start simple and add more marketing material as you go along.

You have control as to which influencers promote your brand – or not.  So if you know they won’t be a good fit for you – you can decline them.  It happens.

List of the Best Affiliate Companies to Work With

1. Commission Factory

This is certainly my favourite affiliate platform.  It is easy to use for influencers, and the platform is easy to navigate.

They have a wide range of brands in order to promote in various niches. Plus, they have a good user-friendly interface for the affiliates. Their member interface is extremely slick and functional. They feature a well-organized support page for WordPress plugins and Data feeder automated software plugins. The affiliate program is suitable for Australia & Asia Pacific.

Cons:

No major cons as such.

Some of the Advertisers they promote:

• Modibodi
• Bellabox
• Lite N Easy
• Onsport
• Skechers
• Lululemon
• Catch
• Marley Spoon
• Showpo 

2. Rakuten Linkshare

Founded in 1997, Rakuten is one of the oldest affiliate networks that are still around today.

Pros:

As mentioned, Rakuten is definitely one of the most credible companies around and they’ve also been consistently awarded. They have also more than a thousand merchants in their network and a worldwide reach.

Cons:

It’s harder to get into Rakuten as they only accept top affiliates. Also, they pay publishers only after they have already been paid by their merchants, which means no definite payout schedule.

Some of the advertisers Rakuten represent include:

• Sephora
• Rockwear
• eHarmony
• Coach Australia
• Country Road
• Jurlique
• House
• City Chic

3. Clixgalore

Clixgalore is a straightforward marketing network, and though they charge for merchant accounts, there are no more fees to be paid afterwards.

Pros:

The affiliates of Clixgalore.com rigorously promote your website’s products & services via an effective Affiliate program in return for a commission payment. It allows you to build your own affiliate marketing program and track the results. For example, you can start your own ‘lead – CPL’, ‘sale – CPA’, or ‘click – CPC’ based Affiliate marketing program.

Cons:

The interface is not that user-friendly and it feels quite out-dated.

Some of the advertisers they represent include:

• Adult Shop
• Australian Ugg Boots
• Mexitan
• Silk Bedding Direct
• Sweet Cures

4. APD Group

Priding on being the largest independent business in this industry in the Asia Pacific, APD Group is another company worth looking into.

Pros:

The platform aims to merge technology, strategy, and digital marketing techniques to create the best-possible customer experience. They are one of the largest and most popular independent affiliate marketing service providers in Asia Pacific. They have an extensive variety of products to promote (across many niches).

Cons:

The user interface is not intriguing and it needs improvement.

Some advertisers they represent include:

• Betta Home Living
• Bras N Things
• Angus & Robertson
• Ancestry
• My Chemist
• Seed Heritage
• Kogan.com
• Spotlight

5. Impelus

Impleus are pretty new to the game, but their payouts are AMAZEBALLS compared to dollars and dimes of most other Affiliate Marketing Companies.  It does work a bit differently though, it works on a ‘Cost per Lead’ rather than ‘Cost per Sale’ – and most of the clients of Implelus are Finance, Telecommunications, Childcare and Competitions.  But if your blog is a great fit – you can make some real money here!

6. VigLink

VigLink is really nifty because you don’t have to go through your website and put affiliate links in manually like most other affiliate sites.  Instead, you copy and paste some code into your website (your web dev can do this easily) – and the code will read your content and will apply any applicable affiliate code automatically.

So it is fantastic for time-poor website owners that want a ‘set and forget’ affiliate marketing solution.

It is also good if you want to monetize your blog without showing advertisements.

7. Share A Sale

This is an effective premium affiliate program that allows a variety of options for you such as Earning Per Click, Average Amount Sale, Average Commission and Reversal Sale. One thing unique about this program is that some products are ShareASale exclusive, meaning most of them are not found on other platforms. It also pays fast.  Many of their merchants are also web-based services which make it great for Australian audiences as we don’t have to cough up for the huge postage that incurs from shipping from the United States.

Merchants include:

• Modcloth
• Grammarly
• Rose Wholesale
• Wayfair.com
• Reebok
• Love Honey

8. iTunes Affiliate program

This affiliate program allows you to connect to millions of songs, books, movies, apps and more perfect for your tech or music blog while you earn commissions on qualifying sales. Its cookie period is 24 hours, meaning you get a commission if a user clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase within 24 hours. The commission rate is around 7% for content like music, movies, and books, and 2.5% for apps and in-app purchases.

9. Udemy Affiliate Program

It is an online learning platform that offers competitive commission rates and affiliate-exclusive coupons, discounts and exclusive content, and payments are always on time.  It certainly isn’t a ‘classic’ affiliate network – but this is great for small websites and bloggers as you can either do your own e-course and sell it to your customers, alternatively, you can sign up with them and promote other peoples courses and take a cut!

Are you looking into affiliate marketing? Check out our Facebook group, Tenacious Business Development Group