Affiliate Marketing and Ecommerce in 2020

With increased competition in the online retail world, more and more companies are looking for interesting ways to increase their sales and market themselves well. One such idea is the concept of affiliate marketing.

This is the process when you let other related websites to advertise your product to reach out to a wider set of audiences. And what does the affiliate marketing website get in return? A share of the total sales!

For instance, if affiliate marketing leads to a sale, you get 80% of it and the marketing website receives 20% of the earnings. But the important point to note here is that irrespective of the mode of sale (directly or through affiliate websites), the product price remains the same!

Let’s have a look at a few stats related to affiliate marketing and eCommerce:

81% of brands used affiliate marketing in 2016. This number would have surely become bigger now.

16% of all online orders are produced through affiliate marketing.

So what is making affiliate marketing so popular? Let’s find out.

Increased sales

The first and the most important benefit that affiliate marketing has on eCommerce is the increase in sales. The idea is simple. If you are selling a product, all you would need to do is make a suitable video or related graphic for your product and advertise it on another website.

Of course, these are only related websites and not random links. Once the user of the other website sees the graphic and reads through the description, they will purchase the product. While the earnings will reach you directly, the commission will be held by the affiliate website. This is the most significant role that affiliate marketing plays in eCommerce.

Economic method

Affiliate marketing is a rather useful process in increasing your eCommerce company’s performance. You do not have to pay any additional charges for it. All you have to do is set aside a part of the total product price for commission.

For instance, if you sell a product for $10, you could keep $8 and give away $2 for commission as per your commission model. If you are selling a significant number of products, this $2 will not be a huge part of your profit anyway!

Brand popularity

Affiliate marketing can go a long way in making your brand a household one. This is because your potential customers come across your website on multiple pages and related websites. Add to it suitable offers and discounts, and your eCommerce page is quite the hit!

This means via the internet, the awareness of your business or eCommerce platform spreads amongst different groups. This ensures that your website always has high traffic and the leads are converted well into purchases!

Optimize SEO rank

The SEO rank of your website also increases with appropriate affiliate marketing ideas. The more the users visit your page and make clicks on the website, the higher is your visibility. This means, your site gets the chance to feature on the top of the search results.

Also, the fact that your website and product references are found on various other links and sites makes your platform a more popular one. This is one very important role that affiliate marketing plays in the eCommerce world.

Customer behavior analysis

Affiliate marketing is a good way of understanding the behavioral patterns of your customers. How does that work? For instance, you can understand when and where your potential users are clicking on products related to your website. Where they scroll, where they click, where they ignore your advertisements are common inferences from these marketing ideas.

This can build a pattern of customer behavior and actions for you that you can leverage to understand their future actions. Also, you could figure out possible changes to bring to your marketing strategies that could help increase your sales.

Further, since you can understand the emotions of your customers from tracking their activities, this gives you the opportunity to make more products and ideas that make your clients content.

No sales staff

The best part about affiliate marketing is the fact that you don’t need to hire any sales professionals. And thus, there is no extra money going out on useless grounds.

If the affiliate website is able to generate a sale on your website, you pay them the required commission. However, if the product advertised on their page does not bring you any business, then you simply do not give them anything.

This thus has a pay per product rule where you do not waste money at all. In other terms, you do not pay for these marketing strategies or marketers who sell products on your behalf. This is important because this approach leads to a lot of savings at your end while generating website traffic.

Social network integration

Affiliate marketing proves very useful for eCommerce platforms since it can be well integrated with your social media accounts and profiles. There are multiple advantages to this.

For starters, this idea helps you reach out to a broader audience base. So, your options are not limited to people visiting your website or the affiliate marketing website only. Via social media, you can reach out to more connections and advertise the products and services that you sell.

Secondly, you also have the chance of inviting reviews and testimonials from social media users. The potential clients on your website will always be influenced by this feedback and comments. So, these reviews and suggestions come in handy for future sales. This is another way in which affiliate marketing influences your eCommerce business.

Business growth

This works more as a culmination of all the factors mentioned above. All the benefits offered by the concept of affiliate marketing together contribute to enhanced business growth.

How does that work? For instance, affiliate marketing leads to more site traffic, which in turn generates more leads on the product pages. The more the popularity on the website, the higher the SEO rank. This, in turn, leads to increased sales while bringing down the overhead marketing costs. As a result, your eCommerce platform grows in an exponential manner.

The Wrap Up

Affiliate marketing has the most important benefit of providing the platform for your online store to grow. This increases your market presence and your visibility amongst the competitors in the industry.