• 09 Nov 2020
  • 4 Min read

Why it’s worth giving affiliate marketing a second chance

There are some factors that can result in an affiliate campaign failing, leaving both the retailer and their partner feeling disappointed. If you’ve experienced this in the past, you might be hesitant to give this area of digital marketing another look. But the affiliate space has grown dramatically in the past couple of years, so it’s likely there are new solutions or partnerships available that you haven’t explored before.

Our affiliate marketing team have helped brands who’ve been burned in the past to achieve exceptional results. So, here’s why we think you should give the channel another chance.

Never tried affiliate marketing before? Check out our guide to affiliate marketing and how it works.

You can set a clear timeline

We advise clients to launch their affiliate campaigns a couple of months before they would usually see their peak sales to ensure that all of the necessary partnerships are in place and they can gain some traction before we really want to start seeing results.

We always present our clients with a clear timeline, which shows what tasks we’ll be working on when. We also include what kinds of results we expect to see along the way. While you can start to see results very quickly, the prep time can also be quite lengthy, so this is something you should bear in mind.

You can set your own objectives

One of the biggest benefits of affiliate marketing campaigns is that you can design them to suit your goals. So, for example, there might be a particular product you’re looking to push. In this situation, you could send some of these out as PR gifts and provide the magazines, bloggers, or influencers you’ve chosen to work with an affiliate link that they can use to encourage people to buy this particular item. It shouldn’t be long before they’re flying off the shelves.

Or, if you want to increase your site’s average order value, you could devise a campaign that provides people with a discount once they spend over a certain amount. Whatever your goal might be, there’s usually an affiliate marketing technique we can use to help you achieve it.

It’s a performance-based area of marketing

While you might have been disappointed by the results you’ve gotten from affiliate marketing campaigns in the past, they probably haven’t lost you much money. That’s because affiliate marketing is performance-based — this means you only pay the publisher promoting your product if they help you make a sale. And, most of the time, they’ll only receive their commission once the returns period ends, ensuring you don’t end up paying them for the sale of a product that was eventually sent back.

You can also set the rate of commission that you’re willing to give the partners you work with, which will allow you to protect your profit margins. Affiliate marketing is a very flexible and cost-effective area of digital marketing that will typically only cost you if it works.

There are lots of different techniques you can use

In affiliate marketing, there are a lot of different techniques you can use, which means you shouldn’t write this area of marketing off completely if you’ve had a bad experience in the past. Chances are, there will be a better route you can go down, or more suitable publishers and individuals who you can work with.

Here at Glass Digital, we always ask our clients whether they have previous experience with affiliate marketing and how it went. Plus, we always want to know about their ultimate goals so we can keep those in mind. We then devise a bespoke strategy that will help them to reach a relevant audience and make as many sales as possible. While it isn’t an exact science, we have a wealth of experience to draw from, and this means we tend to know what kind of approach is going to work best.

We also help our clients to pick out the best possible partners to work with. These can be voucher code sites, bloggers, online magazines, Instagrammers, and even news sites. There are so many options — there’s always one that will work for you.

Something we also like to do is identify any opportunities our clients are missing with their current marketing strategies, and then fill those gaps with affiliate campaigns. So, for example, we can run re-targeting campaigns, send re-marketing emails, and build CSS partnerships on an affiliate basis. Again, all of these techniques work on a cost per action (CPA) basis, which means they’re extremely cost-effective.

If you’ve tried affiliate marketing in the past and haven’t quite gotten the results you were after, don’t worry — it’s still worth giving it another go. Working with experienced affiliate marketers can make all of the difference.

Here at Glass Digital, we know how to get results because we have lots of experience when it comes to helping our clients reach their goals. We’ve also worked with a wide range of different companies, use the best possible tools, and offer a transparent delivery method to give you peace of mind. If you are considering trying this area of marketing again and would like us to help you, get in touch today. We’ll be more than happy to discuss your plans.


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