Ketchup’s guide to affiliate marketing

If you’re looking to build brand awareness to better promote your products and services, affiliate marketing could be the answer you’re looking for.But what is affiliate marketing, and is it suitable for your brand? We delve into these questions and more, giving you the knowledge you need to figure out whether an affiliate marketing strategy is the right way to drive more viable leads to your website.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a method of advertising where brands compensate a third party, known as an affiliate, for generating leads or sales. Affiliates can be found either directly or through specialised affiliate marketing platforms designed to simplify the process.

By referring customers, an affiliate earns commission for each successful outcome. This is most often sales, but could also be leads, free trial sign-ups, downloads or website visits.  It’s a very popular form of marketing, with an estimated 80% of advertisers utilising affiliate programs.

Affiliates have their own audience and platform, and are often bloggers, social media influencers or website owners. One of the commonest ways for them to earn commissions is through an affiliate link, which they share on their blog, website or social media post when promoting a product. This link is unique to the affiliate and uses cookies to track visits and attribute any purchases to them.

Which industries can benefit from affiliate marketing?

If you sell products, there’s a good chance that an affiliate marketing strategy can help you to reach a wider audience, boost sales and meet your business growth goals.

AM Navigator found that more than 50% of the top affiliate programs fall into four categories: fashion, sports, health & beauty, and travel. If your brand represents one of these industries, you’ll likely see great results from affiliate marketing.

However, that’s not to say that affiliate marketing services aren’t viable for other industries. The key to success is finding the right partner for your niche and developing a mutually beneficial relationship.

Should I work with an affiliate marketing agency?

If this all sounds like a step in the right direction for your brand but you’re not sure where to start, you might want to consider using an affiliate marketing agency. Here are some of the benefits to this approach.

In-depth knowledge of affiliate marketing

It can take some time to get to grips with the world of affiliate marketing, which is why many brands choose to appoint an agency with a proven track record in this area.As well as having the knowledge to create a successful affiliate campaign that complements your overall marketing strategy, an experienced agency will be familiar with affiliate tools and platforms to manage your campaign.

Lower overall costs

Working with an agency helps to improve your ROI and avoid silly mistakes that could negatively impact the impression of your brand. It’s important to not only work with the right ambassadors for your brand, but to know how to identify what makes an affiliate a good fit before approaching them.Using an affiliate marketing agency also gives you access to an experienced team for a fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house marketing department, and removes the need for staff training or software purchases.

All the results with none of the work

Outsourcing the management of your affiliate marketing strategy means that all the hard work is being taken care of while you focus on other areas of your business.Your affiliate marketing agency will also take care of benchmarking, KPI reporting and monitoring the overall success of the campaign, presenting the outcomes in an easy-to-understand format that directly relates to your business goals.

Affiliate yourself with Ketchup

Ketchup offers an affiliate marketing solution for brands of all sizes, giving you all the benefits of this profitable form of advertising without having to do all the hard work yourself.From working with you to develop your affiliate marketing strategy to managing the day-to-day admin, you can rely on our expert team to deliver great results for your business.