How to use affiliate marketing for e-commerce in 2024? There is no doubt that affiliate marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase sales and revenue for online stores.

Affiliate marketing is even responsible for 16% of global e-commerce sales globally.

But how can you make sure you use it effectively in 2024?

In this article, we'll share tips on making the most of your affiliate program and boosting your bottom line. So read on for ideas you can use today!

What is an affiliate marketing program for e-commerce or affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing involves promoting a website product and receiving a commission for the resulting sales. Merchants and affiliates are the pioneers of the affiliate program. Contacting the affiliate and the merchant is the basis of affiliate marketing. Affiliates use the brand's website to promote the product or company link; The affiliate earns a commission once buyers purchase from the link.

Some use paid marketing to promote their products, such as Facebook ads. You may not have a return on investment or even decent sales, so it is full of uncertainty when using paid promotion.

Alternatively, you can use an e-commerce affiliate program to increase your sales at no additional cost.

6 reasons to use an e-commerce affiliate program for your store

An affiliate program can serve as a revenue channel for any e-commerce store. When you have an online store, e-commerce affiliate marketing helps you stand out, retain your audience, and maintain your store. At least 40% of online marketers believe that ecommerce affiliate marketing is a critical skill to have that helps build your online career in the first place. This is why e-commerce affiliate marketing is growing so quickly.

Let's find out more then.

Expand your target market and grow your business

The ultimate goal of every business is to increase brand reach. Since affiliates bring traffic to your website, they also provide reach for your brand. You will constantly gain new audiences through your affiliate.

Affiliate marketing helps you reach wider audiences who will find your service useful.

It also all depends on the affiliate you choose, which enables you to get a targeted audience in the long term. When customers observe your product, they provide a constructive review while purchasing the product.

Moreover, at least 95% of customers read reviews before purchasing products, which helps generate traffic and leverage your store. So, customers play a crucial role in growing your business.

2. Increase the average order value

( AOV) by offers is the average order value, or AOV
One of the key metrics that tracks the average amount a customer has spent. Measures AOV

Long-term value to the customer.

AOV measurementVery simple: average order value ( AOV
) = Total revenue/number of orders

For example, in June, your total sales or revenue were $40,000, and your number of orders was $1,000, so your total order value is $40,000 divided by 1,000, which is $40.

And AOV helps youWe measure your online marketing efforts and pricing structures to help you see how worthy a customer is of a long-term relationship.

In affiliate marketing, when marketers focus more on their costs to drive traffic, following simple strategies will help you maintain your AOV .Low cost and effective.

This way, effective and low-cost affiliate marketing is ensured all the way:

•       Cross-selling and up-selling. Upselling and cross-selling recommend customers to purchase more upgraded or additional pieces. For example, ask the customer if they want to purchase more upgraded parts of purchased products or if they want to spend a larger amount than their current orders.

•            Discounts and coupons. Offer customers to save some money when purchasing products in bulk or place some coupons on their purchase.

3. Low cost and high return on investment ( ROI) .)

Such as AOVROI is one of the fundamental factors in the e-commerce sector. ROI shows the profit margins generated from specific marketing actions.

Determining ROI can be a difficult task, and all ROI activities depend on profits.

Also, most companies only benefit from sales, not from creating impressions or clicks. This is why most small businesses reach out to affiliates to sell their products.

Through affiliate marketing, you can connect yourself to a large target audience to reach a greater reach. Ultimately, this provides high returns on investment in the long term due to increased access and cost savings.

4. Reduce advertising cost

While running an online store you need to advertise your products to gain publicity and attract visitors. This costs you a significant amount at the end of the day.

On the other hand, affiliate marketing enables you to reach a wider audience, get publicity, and sell products. Therefore, you get much more than usual marketing.

5. It helps differentiate yourself and stand out from competitors

An affiliate program helps you discover the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. You may not have the power to control others, but looking at graphs of competitors' performance over the years using affiliate analytics and tools gives you a clear view of your potential.

Also try to outperform your competitors and discover their flaws. Add additional value to your partnership program to surpass your competitors.

Furthermore, you need to find a competitor niche that is similar to your affiliate program and use it to run an effective affiliate program.

Using your competitor niche and search values ​​in popular areas will help you stand out from the competition.

6. It helps boost your sales through influencer marketing

There are influencers on various digital platforms and social media, such as YouTubersAnd bloggers. Moreover, you can use these media influencers to advertise and increase sales of your products.

As you use these media influencers, they use your promotion link and advertise your product or service. This way, your service is promoted and your sales are boosted.

How do you start with the e-commerce or affiliate partnership program?

You can start your own affiliate program if you have the mindset and dedication. Getting started only requires proper focus on the program to know the strategy and implementation of the subsidiary.

Let's head over to the steps to creating a successful affiliate program.

1.     Keep this in mind before launching your e-commerce affiliate program

Before launching an e-commerce affiliate program, there are countless tasks that need to be done. You need to reach a wide audience, follow product trends, and know the audience's requirements first and foremost. There's more to know if you want to launch an e-commerce affiliate program: • Commission payment. There are commission payouts every month, which depend on the publishers you hire and the traffic you get from them with the final sales. • Capacity management. Your store, its size, available products, and time management are key factors in launching your e-commerce affiliate program. • Research related to competitors. Stay up to date on your competitor's niche and affiliate program structures. Learn about their strategy for implementing the affiliate program.

2.     Find the right affiliates or influencers

At this point, you need to find the right affiliate. Create a social media page to help you connect with affiliate marketers and promote the program. Decide if your affiliates are able to promote your program. Here's what you need to know: • The ability to reach an audience. Find out if influencers have social media followers and ask about their email list. • Business monitoring. Ask about their business values ​​and how they prefer to run their business, and if they match yours, they're all set! • Consider using influencers. There are a lot of influencers out there to promote your show. Inquire about their credibility and whether they would be willing to serve you on your program. With all these factors combined, you can find the best affiliates or influencers for your product and help boost your sales.

3.     Offer a good commission rate to your affiliates

Consider extensive research on competitive analysis and make the business structure more intuitive.

Consider whether you want to use different payment methods such as PayPaland Visa وMastercardTo pay for online transactions or store credit and the percentage of the cost of the service that you will pay to your affiliate.

Also remember these points: • Cost of customer acquisition. This is a cost term related to the amount your service must spend to acquire new customers. Using web analytics, you can easily know your customer acquisition cost. • Customer lifetime value. This determines the total revenue your customer generates over their lifetime. • Survival rate. The number of customers a company achieves over time. If a customer visits your store regularly, you calculate the company's percentage of current customers who are loyal customers of your store. Pro tip: Your average affiliate commission should be around 5 to 20 percent.
     
     
     

4. Create a content marketing strategy for affiliates

When you are about to take advantage of affiliate marketing, you hire an affiliate; They take complete control.

Sharing your content on social media, an email marketing campaign if you have a subscriber list, and adding a quick list to your resources page are all work done by your affiliate. Here are some tips for an effective content marketing strategy for affiliate marketing:

•       Use keywords and research. Your affiliate partner should search for and add keywords that are suitable for your content and that bring you more visitors. Use search volume, cost per click, and apply search engine optimization ( SEO) .) effective way to take your content to the next level. • Be creative and add value to your content. Add value and generate impressions from your website visitors through your affiliate. Once your content becomes creative and creates value, your chance to reach the audience and raise the rankings for these products is higher. So remember:
     

Focus on audience first rather than sales. • Use attractive images and optimize content. Images are the center of your successful content. Images also help enhance your content and add extra value to it. The text just looks messy, so the images make it more attractive.
     

You can also enhance your content by arranging paragraphs, adding bullet points, and well-organized, easy-to-read text.

5. Create marketing materials for your affiliates

Although the success of affiliate marketing e-commerce depends solely on your affiliate sales, an alternative way to increase traffic is to have a tutorial at a specific event or offer. You provide an educational program that solves visitors' problems and demonstrates the value of your product. You can also add a video tutorial for a new product.

This way, you can give the customer a stronger signal about your product or service. This will convert visitors into potential customers.

Therefore, creating a tutorial is a productive way to improve your user experience.

6. Launching a cashback rewards program

While there are many ways to increase your sales, a cash back bonus is another way to increase your affiliate marketing magic. When your typical e-commerce conversion rate increases by 2.87%, a cash back bonus can increase it ten times faster. Cash back rewards programs give users additional benefits and also offer some commissions to your customers. This results in repeat sales or returning customers, which is crucial to customer acquisition.

You provide customers with an excellent way to save money by providing coupons. When customers know about these offers, they will receive them faster.

So, how do you get started using our cash back rewards program?

You can find some cashback solutions, such as EnactSoft, which provides an automated script to run the cashback program.

Simply select the percentage of cashback you want your customers to receive in your admin panel, and the process will automatically run the rest of the work.

It provides an affiliate link with the merchant's campaign formula once you contact them. The Application Programming Interface ( API) .) import their data, coupons and deals into your website.

7. Take advantage of discounts and coupons as an e-commerce marketer

Coupon affiliate marketing enables you to increase your brand's reach through a promo code or affiliate link. Your affiliate partner can use coupon sites to post your affiliate link using the promo code.

Websites like Offers وTecBargainو Rakutenand RetailMenotOne of the most used affiliate marketing sites.

Since 90% of users use coupons, this could be part of your marketing strategy.

Remember that you are giving away some percentages of your customers' products, which is a highly effective marketing strategy.

But you must have good reasons behind the thing you are giving up. Otherwise customers may question the quality of the product. So use discounts or coupons on a special occasion or contest to arrange a gift.

8. Use your affiliate's promotional content in your marketing activities

Use social networking sites such as Facebook وTwitterAnd InstagramTo publish and promote your products. These social media platforms include different tools to promote and share your marketing activities.

Post photos, product reviews, or videos to promote them on social media to attract attention. Make sure to share your affiliates' content that promotes your products.

But how do you find the right social media platform?

Find a social platform where you can easily impress customers with attractive images and posts. Use an image-focused social platform like Instagram
Or Pinterest. Since these platforms are the most used by influencers, referral links and discount codes are everywhere.

9. Create a promotional calendar for the holiday shopping seasons

Get promotions on special occasions, like a big discount on Cyber ​​Monday, and share the promotion with affiliates. Promote specific products you have more than enough in stock.

Some online stores offer week-long discounts, so stay on the lookout for holidays and times of year when they have discounts.

Frequently asked questions about affiliate programs for online stores, affiliates

Before we close this article, let's go over some frequently asked questions!

How do you track affiliate conversions?

You can track conversion using a custom link or icon in each area of ​​your website. You must have an advertiser to track affiliate conversion. The advertiser creates a tracking code, most call it a SID. 

What are some of the best affiliate marketing products? 

 Affiliate marketing products are abundant. Some of the best product categories are financial products, gaming, fashion, and travel. Choose a product that you have sufficient knowledge about, or choose affiliate niches that are more demanding and highly chargeable.