An advertisement is an engine of commerce. This quote dates back to the dawn of the advertising era, but it never gets old. Why? Because no matter what forms does advertising take, no matter what types of advertising are created and what marketing channels are being used – the very concept of advertising and its efficiency are never questioned. People invest millions in the business optimisation, but if there are no ads – the results can be frustrating.
Affiliate marketing has become one of the most highly-efficient marketing tools for advertisers for the last 10 years and a source of stable income for millions of affiliates around the world. Let’s see what affiliate marketing is and why it gained so much attention.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising that is available from any corner of the planet wherever there is Internet access. Surely you have seen huge billboards on the street, advertising banners on the subway and ads on TV. All owners of ad spaces and TV channels receive payments for advertising placement. Advertising on the Internet partially works exactly the same way – the owners of websites charge advertisers for placing ad banners for a certain period of time or for a certain number of views.
However, many advertisers have noticed that this form of advertising is not very effective: it’s unclear how many people actually go to the company’s website and place orders, so an advertiser has no choice but to rely on the traffic statistics data provided by the webmaster. Of course, the website owner won’t have any motivation to create catchy content: payment is made, and no matter what kind of further actions a user will take, it won’t impact the webmaster’s income.
Search engine marketing, which is mostly represented by Google Ads and Bing Ads, can be very efficient, but the problem is that high-trafficked key phrases usually cost a fortune, making prospects for profit very unclear.
CPA marketing, which is actually affiliate marketing, has become a rational solution. Under this type of online promotion, webmasters (in affiliate marketing referred to as affiliates or publishers) receive payments only after their users complete targeted actions, which form the basis of affiliate marketing. An affiliate receives a commission every time a user clicks on an affiliate link and makes a purchase, downloads an application or simply registers on the advertiser’s website, depending on the required type of the targeted action.
Targeted actions are defined in the description of affiliate programs, which contains conditions for promoting the company’s goods and services, and is also called the affiliate program (offer). An advertiser indicates in the affiliate program the amount of commission to affiliates, allowed and prohibited types of traffic, key metrics (such as conversion rate, average earnings per click) and other information that they consider necessary for affiliates. The most widespread targeted actions are: sales, app downloads, filling up registration or application forms.
Let’s see why millions of businesses and affiliates swear by this type of marketing and why affiliate marketing is a highly efficient marketing tool, no matter if you’re going to boost your business or if you want to make money on online promotion.
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No strings attached
If you have a company or a brand, you’ve most probably encountered a situation when you couldn’t say if the money you had spent on an ad campaign actually brought you clients or sales. It’s a common problem with traditional advertising. CPA marketing is safe and budget-savvy. Advertisers pay when they get real results, i.e. completed targeted actions. Also, advertisers have a hold period during which they can check these targeted actions to make sure they fulfill the requirements determined in the affiliate program.
The same applies to an affiliate. There are no entry fees or contracts forcing you to deliver a certain amount of leads or sales. Only you decide how much you want to earn and which goals you want to achieve in this area.
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Audience growth
By working with affiliates who have hundreds of thousands of readers, viewers or subscribers you can easily broaden your audience and not just for today, but also in a long-term perspective. A customer, who just read a blogger’s review on your beauty products, will not just click on an affiliate link, make a purchase and forget about your store. Most likely, they will come again and eventually become your loyal customer.
As an affiliate you benefit the same way. By promoting your audience high-quality products and services you will gain even more trust from your users and most probably even attract new ones.
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Brand recognition
Affiliates with a targeted audience most probably will advertise your products and services in the same tone as you would do. Thus, they will quickly turn into your ambassadors, strengthening your recognition on the market.
Being an affiliate, you have a vested interest in promoting advertisers’ products and services in the most positive and colorful way, because it will bring you more users. Also, if the advertiser is quite famous and has regular ad campaigns, you can use the same approaches in your promotion, because these campaigns are most probably successful.
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Market expansion
If you want to expand your business to foreign markets, this is the best way to do so. Millions of affiliates have huge active audiences in almost all countries of the world. By promoting your products and services through affiliates in other countries you can at least understand if they have any shot in this particular country anyway. You don’t need to waste your ad budget on setting up ad campaigns in countries where you’re not familiar with local customer habits and tastes. In contrast, local affiliates have a deep understanding of their country’s customer behaviors, they use their knowledge and experience in this particular country to promote your products and services in the most efficient way.
If you’re an affiliate, promoting foreign products and services can turn you into one of the few sources in your country which introduce a local audience to them. If you’re a blogger, you can create reviews on foreign products, which due to their rareness in your country, will attract more attention to your website or blog.
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High ROI
Being an advertiser, you can not only minimize your advertising costs, but also win in terms of revenue. On average, great content can create 3 times more leads than ads and cost at least 60% less. Affiliate marketing has a higher ROI than traditional marketing methods and that’s why so many companies are giving it a go.
As an affiliate you obviously benefit from promoting on CPA model, because your income depends only on you – the more useful and interesting your content is, the more users trust you and click on your affiliate links – the more you earn. Thus, you’re the one who determines how much time you will put into your online content and how much you will get from it.
How to get started?
If you’re a company or brand owner, you can launch your affiliate program from scratch hiring It specialists or using special software. This is doable, but definitely not time and money efficient. You will need to deal with millions of details, which let’s face it – you don’t have spare time and money to.
If you have a website and want to make some money by monetizing your content, you’re free to search for affiliate programs on the Internet. But don’t forget that signing up for a new program will require some time for moderation, maybe an interview with the company manager and again some time for technical integration. Want to sign up for another affiliate program from a different brand? Repeat from the top: search, compare conditions, moderation, technical integration. It will literally eat up your time!
The rational solution was found – a CPA network.
CPA network connects advertisers to affiliates and takes all operating activities – monitoring advertisers and publishers, providing statistics for both parties and making payments to affiliates. Choosing a reliable CPA network saves time and money for both advertisers and affiliates, who can finally focus on what they do the best – providing great products and services and efficiently promoting them.
Indoleads is an international CPA network with more than 2000 affiliate programs from 180+ countries and more than 30 000 affiliates from all over the world. The company helps clients to grow their business and provides publishers with a huge selection of affiliate programs from all profitable niches: from eCommerce and travel to finance and mobile offers. Nike, Farfetch, Mercado Bitcoin, Missoma, H&M and thousands of others already work with Indoleads. Its unique Affiliate Marketplace offers affiliate programs from other partner networks, so publishers can choose any, sign up in a few clicks and start making money.
Affiliate marketing is a choice for those who want to make the most out of online marketing. Or you can email to [email protected] if you want to grow your business. The results will amaze you!
