Careful planning is essential when it comes to identifying the types of affiliate partners to pursue as one begins an affiliate or partner program. Since recruitment is the most time-consuming aspect of managing such a program, it is advisable to approach targeting strategically.
When it comes to recruiting affiliates, the nature of your niche and products certainly plays a significant role. Therefore, it is wise to begin by examining your customer base and target audience. Determine which segments possess the ability to become successful partners. As you widen your partner network to include not only customers but also individuals interested in earning through referrals, you will encounter various kinds of affiliate partners.
1. Agency partners
When searching for partners in a B2B affiliate program, it is important to find those who have the capability to appeal to business buyers. This does not necessarily imply that affiliates promoting B2C products should be excluded. However, it is essential that potential partners have knowledge about the longer sales cycles typically associated with B2B transactions.
Agency partners are of utmost importance for a SaaS company such as Supermetrics as they possess immense potential in generating third-party sales. These professionals not only have expertise in their field but also possess their own client networks which can be utilized effectively.
Most often, a common partner in the digital marketing industry is a marketing agency that offers services such as SEO and PPC to their clients. They directly endorse your product to clients and typically advertise your offers by means of personal recommendations, direct messaging, and email communication.
Becoming affiliate partners with many agency partners, who are your own customers and have a deep understanding of the products they promote, ensures their loyalty to your company as they have a vested interest in using your product.
These agency partners, as users of your product, have the ability to effectively demonstrate the worth of your tool to their clients. Regardless of their social media following or website traffic, they can still generate conversions through their client networks.
Your customer base is the main source for recruiting agency partners. If you have a large customer base, you can select them based on their satisfaction with your product. You can use a net promoter score (NPS) survey to group your highly satisfied customers who are willing to recommend your products to others. After that, invite them to join your affiliate program.
2. Content affiliates
This category includes bloggers, podcast hosts, and YouTubers – the most commonly known type of affiliate partners in the marketing industry.
Individuals who have their own website or blog, typically create tutorials, reviews, and product comparisons, as just one example. Due to the demanding task of generating high-quality content, these affiliates often allocate a greater amount of their time and energy to endorsing products in their specific field and expanding their audience.
Content affiliates who are successful understand the importance of using keywords with a strong intention to purchase and meeting the demands of their audience. The preferences of their audience dictate the products they should focus on promoting, emphasizing their audience’s needs above all else.
In addition to generating sales and leads, content affiliates also supply genuine and captivating user-generated content (UGC) that offers valuable social proof.
UGC’s effectiveness lies in the genuine perspectives shared by individuals who have gained the confidence of their followers. Their content, encompassing tutorials, guides, reviews, and comparisons, holds the potential to serve as lead generation magnets, attracting both trial users and conversions.
The method of locating
The affiliate partnerships that top content marketers choose can be selective. Your success in attracting them relies on various factors, not solely on your commission rate. Other factors to consider are market demand and growth stage, product price, their target audience, and extra incentives like promo codes and rewards based on performance.
To achieve the desired outcome, it is recommended that you identify suitable keywords in your specific area of interest and look for the most prominent content creators in those areas. Utilize SEO tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs, or market research tools such as SparkToro to aid you in this process.
SEMrush and Ahrefs enable you to conduct research on your desired keywords in order to determine the highest ranking pages and authors in those specific areas. You can assess these using metrics such as search traffic and referring domains.
3. Social media influencers
Social media influencers, a subset of content affiliates, have successfully built a dedicated audience on social media platforms. They possess significant influence over specific niches, thanks to their strong personal brand.
To put it briefly, social media influencers are valuable in driving both conversions and raising awareness of your products among their followers. The latter serves as an indirect advantage and supports your brand awareness endeavors. Nevertheless, judging solely by the number of followers can be deceptive, hence it is preferable to evaluate the average level of engagement their posts receive.
This category also includes Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), who are influential experts in their field, regardless of whether they are promoting anything. In SaaS affiliate programs, KOLs hold significant value as their expertise holds greater importance than social media following. Ultimately, the success of the program is determined by actual sales.
The effectiveness of incorporating social media influencers into your affiliate program is contingent upon the compatibility between the product and the influencer. It is essential for the influencer’s persona to align with your product. The quantity of followers and level of engagement hold little value unless the influencer’s audience genuinely exhibits interest in your product.
However, once you successfully recruit suitable social media influencers, you not only gain advantages from the affiliate sales they generate, but also benefit from their extensive audience, devoted followers, as well as the social validation and captivating content they produce on their platforms.
If your main objective is to boost sales, it is advisable to focus on influencers who are open to receiving payment based on conversions. The actual worth of brand awareness cannot be determined unless the leads generated by influencers result in conversions.
To successfully recruit an influencer for your program, it is essential to establish a personal connection. Start by converting them into enthusiastic supporters of your product, possibly by giving them complimentary licenses or trial versions. In the B2B sector, you can usually find influencers on Twitter and LinkedIn.
In case you are unable to locate an email address, make use of those platforms to directly message them. On Twitter, you can also interact with them and establish trust before initiating contact. Regardless of the communication channel, ensure that your messages are personalized.
4. Coupon sites
The most popular kind of affiliate site today is undoubtedly the Coupon or Deal sites. And with valid justification: These are websites that cater to the needs of online shoppers seeking discounts, and this happens to comprise the majority of consumers on the Internet.
Examples of this kind include RetailMeNot, Offers.com, Coupons.com, and Red Plum (soon to be known as RetailMeNot Everyday), where affiliates can provide their users with coupon or discount codes and earn commissions if someone makes a purchase after clicking on one of their links to the merchant’s website. Additionally, certain platforms even enable users to upload their own coupon codes.
5. News and media sites
Indeed, news and media sites have started engaging in affiliate marketing. Although this practice does not support the dissemination of false information, numerous prominent media companies are capitalizing on their content by incorporating native advertising through affiliate links within articles.
Ziff Davis and other major media giants regularly acquire online publications, while others are seeking to diversify their sources of income in order to cope with declining ad sales. Regardless of their chosen strategy, these companies are major contenders in the industry.
6. Review sites
Review sites that specialize in a specific niche are commonly used to evaluate various advertisers. Amazon is widely recognized as a top platform for hosting such sites, and affiliates and partners are encouraged to consider building an Amazon review site to effectively establish their business and generate income.
However, do not simply select any website. Seek out those with URLs that contain relevant keywords, clean and organized content that is not overwhelmed by excessive popups or widgets, and well-thought-out reviews that cater to the reader’s requirements.
7. Loyalty or cashback sites
Users also find cashback sites to be popular. These sites effectively reimburse members by returning a portion of the money spent on purchases made through the site’s affiliate links. Essentially, the cashback site earns a commission for each sale but now shares a percentage of that commission with the user who made the original purchase.
Although each sale may result in reduced profits for the publisher, they compensate for this by actively motivating members to make purchases through different promotions and incentives. Among these, eBates stands out as the most popular and extensively utilized platform.
8. Shopping comparison
Comparison shopping sites heavily depend on data feeds containing products linked to affiliate links in order to provide eCommerce tools. Websites such as Shopping.com enable users to search for an extensive range of products and display relevant outcomes. If a user selects a product and proceeds to buy it on the merchant’s website, they do so using an affiliate link, thereby assisting the comparison shopping site in earning a commission.
9. Email
Even though text messaging is extremely popular, email continues to be utilized by individuals for communication purposes. Moreover, numerous affiliates leverage email to generate income. Prominent publishers have established email lists as an alternative to being heavily reliant on Google traffic and being susceptible to penalties resulting from algorithm updates.
Email campaigns that focus on a particular customer demographic are frequently used, and there are also opportunities for multiple merchants to collaborate on email promotions or offers. However, it is important for sellers to be cautious (Caveat venditor, Latin for “let the seller beware”): there are risks associated with working with email affiliates, particularly if they do not comply with CAN-SPAM regulations.
Occasionally, affiliate fraudsters may label themselves as “Email” affiliates within networks, as this allows them to carry out their promotional activities without attracting much attention from the merchant/advertiser.
10. Mobile
Some sites incorporate affiliate links into their apps. This applies to both coupon or shopping comparison sites that offer an app, as well as standalone apps. Even well-known apps like Shazam and Pandora utilize affiliate links to direct users to Apple’s iTunes Store, while free gaming apps generate revenue through incentivized offers.
Side notes
Merchants must take into account how each affiliate generates traffic to promote their offers, ensuring that they align with the product being marketed, adhere to regulations, and follow the guidelines. Ultimately, this consideration is crucial for successfully selling their products.
