Affiliate Strategies. Affiliate Sales Tactics: What Works and Why

The InfluencerMarketingHub released an affiliate marketing report. Is Affiliate marketing worth it is one of the main questions that was asked. It also gives us some affiliate strategies that pro companies use.

Here are the main points:

“Today, the affiliate marketing world has grown to include brand ambassadors, affiliate networks and publishers". In 2013 affiliate marketing spending was $2.9 billion in the US. In 2023 it hit $14.3 billion.
As of 2023 there are 9600 organised companies that are affiliate marketing related. This also is worldwide. To us that doesn't sound a lot
For Rakuten 80% of advertisers use affiliate marketing. "Marketers use affiliate programs at all stages of the customer journey: 83 percent targeted consumers during the discovery and awareness phase, 79 percent during conversion or purchase and 79 to create ongoing customer engagement".
Depending on the source and research Am Navigator found Fashion to be the top category of selling affiliate products, followed by Sports & Outdoors, Health/Wellness & Beauty, Travel, and Home & Garden. Whereas Hosting Tribunal reported that 41.04% of affiliate marketers prefer promoting computers and electronics products, compared to 39.84% preferring clothing and apparel, 29.88% online services, 29.48% accessories, 27.89% beauty, and 26.69% health and wellness.
Amazon was the top leader of affiliate promoting its products (at 900,000) but when they adjusted the payout structure (reducing commissions) this bolstered the other networks. The next top ones and growing: ShareASale (700,000+), Awin (225,000+), Rakuten (150,000+), and ClickBank (100,000+). But again, when you look at the numbers, there are not that many affiliates in the big scheme of things. 900,000 affiliates selling Amazon products? That is worldwide. Amazon has half the sales online and has a huge amount of credibility and trust. I would have though it would have been in the millions. It is also worthy to note that there are 210,000 Amazon Associate websites. It is worthy to note that "Peerfly is one of the largest affiliate marketing networks in the world with over 250k publisher accounts, 75k active in 165 countries".
14% of Lifetstyle affiliates congregate more on Insta- even though the lifestlye niche has low payouts. Insta? Its where lifestyle topics are generally discussed.
Affiliate commissions average: Arts- 12%, Health & Beauty 10-30%, 20% Business, 13% Fashion, 13-20% Tech, 15-30% eLearning, 35-40% Finance, 10-20% Fitness, 20-70% SaaS.
People working from home? Search results for affiliate marketing increased. Also the home and garden niche increased in revenue
And the payments? "We discovered that 3.78% of our survey respondents made more than $150,000 annual affiliate income, 7.94% $100,000 -$150,000, 5.15% $50,000 - $100,000, 16.21% $10,000 - $50,000, and 57.55% below $10,000". The majority make less than $10k/yr but it is also recognised that they can increase to the other bands.
Blogging has lost its shine, but it isn't dead. 27.8% use blogs as affiliate channels. the other channels to see if affiliate marketing is worth it? 18.7% review sites, 14.8% coupon sites, 7.2% newsletters, 6.5% editorial sites.
48.9% of companies pay a flat rate, 42.4% pay a percentage of the sale
Are the affiliate networks worth it? Well, they used to be. 27% of marketers use them. But how about the 73% that don't? Well, it is to do with the affiliates themselves. The networks did little to incentivise the affiliate and at the end of the day, only a few large affiliates created the bulk of the sales. So now, 73% of marketers are actually being lured away to SaaS packages from the actual brands themselves and bypassing the networks.

People throw affiliate strategies around believing what is out there...but

You might be thinking that all the researched points are quite a lot. A lot of information. It is, but if you are in that world, you would see that all the above is quite welknown. Why would you go on Intasgram if you are getting a low commission for lifestyle products? The answer is much simpler. because it is a channel that you enjoy and have curated into something that you know and manage. Once you "know" a channel you can then use that channel to promote other products.

Jumping from one platform to another is not a wise way to go about affiliate marketing and makes the journey much more painful (and costly). Find a channel you like- whether that be blogging, Youtube, Facebook and then utilise it. If you don't like making videos then initially, don't do it. Regardless of Youtube being high in search- or you have seen people making money on video. They only did so because they enjoy it.

The downsides of affiliate selling are never highly promoted but need to be understood:

how much time and money are you going to put into this to make a sale
what are you good at, what are you bad at- each will influence on your sales
do you have to start from scratch every time you promote a new product?
will you have a website?
will you know the product
how will you chose a product
how much competition is there?

That is the main issue with affiliate marketing. The competition. In the rush to get people to sell their product there can be no cap to how many people are selling the product. Some companies will limit the affiliates, many do not. And you can guarantee that someone will do something cheaper/ more expensive than you and lose profit just to get a sale- everyone can loose.

How are companies selling their affiliate products, what are their strategies that actually work?

Below is a list of companies that are using affiliate products and selling them professionally. We try and analyse how and why they are making a sale. And remember, some of these companies are making millions. All using different affiliate strategies tailored for the medium that they are using.

We also go into separate strategies and link them to real world examples.

Forbes Vetted

WireCutter

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Jasonera updates.