A Forbes report indicates that affiliate sales now account for 15% of all eCommerce sales. With the global e-commerce market projected to total $5.55 trillion in 2022, the field is filled with opportunities.
However, affiliate marketing is quite nuanced, and it’s very common for affiliates to see a slump in sales. For many, the sales never pick up.
If you’re wondering how to increase affiliate sales, it can be as simple as implementing the right strategies.
10 Best Strategies To Increase Affiliate Marketing Sales [With Infographics] 🖼️
Here are ten ways to increase your affiliate marketing sales.
1. Ensure You’re Engaging Your Readers
Publishing engaging content on your affiliate website is essential to becoming a successful affiliate marketer. The right content will encourage the readers to feel more connected to the product and brand and establish your site as a reliable information source.
Using simple phrases and posing questions can engage readers and make their reading experience more personal. Some questions you can incorporate in your content include:
- What is your favourite way to use this product?
- Do you have any questions about the product’s workings?
- How would you use this product to improve your life?
If you can answer your target audience’s questions and make their purchase decision easier, they will believe that you are familiar with the product and know it’s working inside and out.
Understanding what your target audience is looking for and catering to those needs by tailoring appropriate content will ensure the readers never believe that you’re promoting the product purely for commissions and not because it’s a genuinely good product.
Well-written content that addresses a searcher’s questions, uses the right keywords and incorporates backlinks will optimise the webpage for search engines. Improved SEO leads to the website ranking higher on SERPs, which, in turn, attracts more readers and drives more sales.
But it’s important to note that not every visitor who visits your website will be primed for conversion. For this reason, introducing clear calls to action is a must in all of your content.
Publishing engaging content is one of the most effective approaches for new affiliates wondering how to increase affiliate sales. Consistently posting content and clearly communicating the nuances of products in any niche is a proven way of building a brand.
2. Integrate Affiliate Links Naturally
Affiliate links can be thought of as the basic building blocks of affiliate marketing. However, visitors won’t have a keen eye for the links and will not respond to just any sales pitch they see on the internet. In other words, making sales online isn’t as straightforward as posting URLs.
It’s critical for affiliates to place their affiliate links reasonably on the site. If your audience finds the link placement unnecessary, they will be less likely to convert.
The “write first, link later” approach is one of the best approaches to integrating affiliate links on your website. Produce the content as you usually go about it, and if you find that the audience could find an affiliate product useful, add the link to it to the content.
The problem with writing content tailored for affiliate links is that the pressure of making sales gets in the way of creating good content. The approach, as mentioned earlier, will ensure that your focus is steadfast on what the visitors are looking for on your website.
This way, the visitors will be more receptive to your affiliate links, increasing the odds of conversion.
That said, burying the affiliate lead is not recommended since the audience may feel duped for picking the product on your word. Ensure that you state your policy clearly and before the audience gets into reading your content to build trust. Here’s an example of a simple disclosure:
Remember that making a disclosure discernible from the rest of the content is key to preventing your audience from feeling misled.
3. Leverage A/B Testing to Identify Your Strongest Performing Content
When affiliate sites don’t drive enough sales, it can feel like the effort put into the site went to waste. A/B testing tools can be a godsend for such sites and affiliates wondering how to increase sales affiliate marketing.
A/B testing is a proven way to improve conversion rates, with 77% of businesses using it on their website. It’s also known as an effective approach to improve conversions in email marketing.
The good news for affiliates is that integrating A/B testing on WordPress sites is as simple as installing and setting up the right plugins. Besides applying A/B testing on blog posts, you can also use the technique on banner ads and web pages to find what generates the most sales for you.
Some of the most popular A/B testing plugins for WordPress include Nelio A/B Testing, Split Test for Elementor, and Split Hero.
Running an A/B test is straightforward:
- Begin by choosing which elements of your site you want to evaluate. Most affiliates choose either the copy, visuals, calls-to-action or layout.
- Determine which KPIs will most accurately indicate the success of the test.
- Select a sample size, which is the number of tests the tool must perform before declaring the winner.
- Create two versions of the test, only changing the test element.
- Run the test.
- Evaluate the results based on the pre-determined KPIs and make sure you take note of any external factors that may have influenced the results.
4. Post Your Affiliate Links on Several Platforms
As mentioned earlier, good calls to action are key to making more affiliate sales. But the nice thing about this idea is that it is not limited to your affiliate website. You can post your affiliate links on social media platforms to maximize reach and drive more sales.
Besides, posting affiliate links on social media will make your content feel more cohesive. Ignoring posting on social media can result in a disconnected web presence.
Many affiliates now go above and beyond by making their affiliate links as accessible as possible by using tools such as Linktree.
With Linktree, affiliates can consolidate their links on one webpage, providing users with a smoother experience.
In addition to using such tools, it is worth taking the time to streamline your social media strategy. Equipping your WordPress site with tools such as Revive Old Posts enables you to promote your content on social media automatically. This way, your affiliate links will get more exposure.
5. Continually Build Trust with Your Visitors
The most successful affiliate marketers are also the most trustworthy. Fostering a good relationship with your readers and being clear in your communication is a proven tactic for increasing affiliate sales in the long run.
The best way to build trust with an audience is to promote products you use yourself and can vouch for. Taking this approach to affiliate marketing ensures that you only promote high-quality items, removing the possibility of your audience ever finding you untrustworthy.
Furthermore, being authentic with your audience in this way will also help them perceive the brands you promote as more trustworthy.
The best way to promote products you can vouch for is to integrate the product’s experience into your content. Whether you write blogs, do a podcast, or live stream, make sure you demonstrate your familiarity with the products since it can have a big impact on sales.
It’s important to remember that authentic promotion of products isn’t only about the products you can vouch for. It would be best if you never are afraid to say no to promoting products that may not be a good match for your personal brand.
Doing this will show your audience that you take great care when curating your recommendations.
6. Always Consider Search Intent
Performing keyword research will help you find topics that you should be publishing content about on your affiliate site. However, considering only the monthly search volume and the competition for the keyword will never provide you with the full picture of content demand.
A nice way to get more perspective into the potential of a keyword is to consider the search intent of someone searching for the keyword. Is the searcher looking for information or wants to be entertained? Is the searcher ready to buy a product?
Matching your affiliate content with your target audiences’ search intent is an excellent approach to increase traffic, and subsequently, sales.
For instance, when someone searches for “best 2.1 speakers,” they’re likely ready to buy new speakers for themselves and are expecting to find their best options when they run the search. The affiliate ranking for this keyword can therefore be aggressive with including affiliate links in their content.
On the other hand, if someone searches for “Philips vs. Bose speakers,” they may not be ready to purchase yet and are still considering the decision.
Therefore, the affiliates that rank for this keyword must keep the content focused on providing the searcher with relevant information. While affiliate links can be included in the content, natural placement is a must.
7. Promote Products that Offer Recurring Commissions
Publishing content about high-quality products can introduce your visitors to brands they will trust for years to come. You see, you introduce one of your visitors to a brand, and they decide to buy from the brand every month.
The customer’s lifetime value is massive, and it costs companies less money to retain existing customers than acquire new ones.
However, if the affiliate program you participate in doesn’t offer recurring commissions, you only get paid once, and the company gets paid every month when the customer makes a purchase.
To get a slice of the upside, you can participate in affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions. These programs will pay you a monthly commission as long as the customer continues to purchase the product or service from the company.
Joining a program that offers recurring commissions is an excellent approach to increasing your affiliate marketing income if you’ve been wondering how to increase affiliate marketing sales.
You only have to convert the visitors once, and the commissions will keep flowing in. Your monthly income will increase quickly as you convert more visitors.
How to Find Affiliate Programs with Recurring Commissions
Most Software-as-a-Service businesses offer this kind of affiliate program, which is why promoting SaaS products is trendy for affiliate marketers. However, there are other kinds of subscriptions that you can promote to earn a recurring commission, ranging from supplement subscriptions to digital products.
Joining the ClickBank marketplace is an excellent way to find affiliate programs with recurring commissions. All you have to do is for an icon that indicates “rebills” since these are the programs that offer recurring commissions.
8. Find the Right Products to Promote
It’s common for new affiliates to join dozens of affiliate programs initially. However, seasoned affiliates understand that picking the right niche is more important than finding the right program.
The Amazon Associates affiliate program is by far the best-known affiliate program. In this and similar affiliate programs, an affiliate’s revenue grows as the traffic on their website increases. This results in the affiliate earning a high volume of small commissions as more and more content is added to the website.
But this is a lot of work for little reward. Instead of earning a lot of small commissions by driving many sales, you can choose an offer that gives you a higher commission.
9. Select The Best Affiliate Program
When picking an affiliate program, you must consider the three factors that influence your earnings.
1. Conversion Rate
The conversion rate of a product depends on how well the brand is perceived in the market. Even if an affiliate does everything right when promoting the product, the audience may not click on the link and make the purchase if the brand isn’t positioned correctly.
You can identify high-converting brands by:
- I’m looking for attractive, well-structured, and mobile-optimized sales pages.
- Gauging brand recognizability by the quality of the logo
- I’m looking for straightforward UI/UX on the website, ensuring that your visitors can sign up and pay for the product or service without any hassle.
You can also determine if a program converts a good percentage of visitors by noting how often other affiliates promote it. While thinking this way may seem It is counter-intuitive that if the program is often promoted, it means the brand is better-known.
It’s important to bear in mind that affiliates don’t always find retailers and service providers that their audience is familiar with. But this doesn’t mean that your target audience won’t convert.
Writing a solid copy that includes your personal experience with the product or service, the company’s refund policy, customer support, and benefits will help you build trust on behalf of the brand and drive more sales.
2. Average Order Value
While not every affiliate network will show you the average order value, networks such as ShareASale and Skimlinks do. You can use the figures to work out the average commission you will earn per conversion.
If the average order value is a hundred dollars and the commission is 20%, you can expect to earn $20 for every visitor you convert. Choosing a program with a high average order value is an excellent way to earn more commissions.
For instance, if you sign up for a program that pays you a commission for promoting luxury handbags, the conversion rate may not be high, but the high commission rate will make up for it. All you need to do is run the numbers to figure out how many visitors you need to convert to meet your revenue targets.
3. Search Volume
The demand for the product largely determines the sales. Therefore, you can estimate the sales volume you can make by finding the search volume for purchase intent keywords.
Affiliates must always factor in the keyword difficulty since searchers rarely visit the second page of the search results to find what they’re looking for.
Calculate the sales volume by estimating how many of your posts will rank on the first page of SERPs. Assume that between 0.5% and 1% of the traffic will convert.
For instance, if you find a keyword with a search volume of 5000 per month, Doing the math, you could make up to 50 conversions per month for the keyword.
This is much better compared to a keyword that will only drive 600 visitors to your site and, according to the formula above, gives you six conversions per month.
But here’s the kicker:
Both the posts could make you the same amount of revenue if the commissions are higher for the product you mention in the second article. But if you promote a low-cost product or a product with a slim margin, you will need a high search volume to meet your revenue targets.
All things considered, affiliates must balance the three factors to make the most revenue possible.
10. Build an Email List
Coupling email marketing with content marketing is an excellent solution for affiliates wondering how to increase sales in affiliate marketing.
Emails are different from blogs and social media – you can communicate with the reader in a much more personal manner. In addition to offering a high ROI, the odds of readers clicking on an email link are six times higher than clicking on a link in a tweet.
Moreover, since the people on your email list have already shown an interest in hearing from you, they are past the “awareness” phase of a buyer’s journey in the sales funnel.
Besides enabling you to convince people that you’re trustworthy, your emails will also allow buyers to make advanced purchase decisions. In this way, keeping those on your email list engaged will increase your affiliate sales.
Having an active email list also increases the value of your website if you ever decide to sell it to someone and move on to other things.
Some effective techniques for building an email list include:
- Offer special discounts and sales: Giving your email audience exclusive access to discounts and sales is an excellent way to drive more people to join it. This tactic is most effective for e-commerce and retail affiliates.
- Make gated content: You can entice your visitors to join your email list by offering them a valuable eBook or guide for free in exchange for their email address.
- Ask your visitors for feedback. Integrating question forms on your website is an excellent way to learn about your audience’s wants and needs and grow your email list.
- Make your email list a way to subscribe to your blog. If your blog content is enticing, visitors will have enough reason to join your email list and get your content delivered to their inbox.
- Offer a newsletter or an email course: Using your emails as a way to offer subscription-worthy information is a proven tactic to grow email lists. Make sure you offer a deep dive into the relevant topic. Alternatively, you can offer a regularly scheduled newsletter.
- Make quizzes on your site and offer answers via email. The easiest way to do this is to start by finding the results and then posing the questions. Implementing quizzes and email pop-ups correctly is one of the most powerful ways to build an email list.
Conclusion
The ever-changing field of affiliate marketing can be challenging to learn to navigate. However, implementing the right strategies can be very rewarding. It is important to start your affiliate marketing journey and be in a progress.
It’s important to remember that not every affiliate program will be right for you. If you see that a program isn’t working well, move on swiftly to another one.
You must keep testing affiliate programs until you find one that converts the best and earns you the most money. Also, read How to Earn Money from Affiliate Marketing.
But it’s also important to remember that patience can pay off big in affiliate marketing. Jumping ship because you haven’t reaped profits in the first few months is not a good idea.
