As education, social, and retail verticals continue to flourish online, Internet marketing has an ever-growing appeal. Online affiliate marketing provides low-risk, performance-based opportunities to raise ROI while accurately tracking goals.
But how is a successful campaign created, from start to finish? Here, DMi Partners’ Network Manager, Amy Smerdzinski, explains what affiliate marketing is, the importance of identifying goals, and how to maximize your reach using affiliate marketing.
Why Turn to Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing allows you to target consumers and increase your brand exposure across a number of channels and through multiple sites, optimized for your needs. This highly measurable targeting ensures that you’re reaching the right audience while only paying for performance; purchase only the leads that include the information you need at a price point that makes sense for you.
Which Type of Affiliate Marketing is Best for Your Business?
As in any facet of marketing, there are a number of specific affiliate marketing methods, suited to various types of businesses. The main types of affiliate marketing are:
Email
This campaign type is best for engaging a large number of consumers from your email lists. Segmenting these lists by certain demographics will allow you to precisely target users with specific offers.
Display/Banner
Display/banner ads are most useful when placed on sites that attract visitors in your target demographic. You can reach your audience by displaying content (or creative) designed to entice users to click your ad and visit your landing page.
Social Media
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to reach your exact demographic. The gender, age, interests, etc. that a user has listed on his or her social media profile will allow you to place ads with offers that are specific to that user.
Mobile SMS Text Messages
The prevalence and reach of text message marketing campaigns are rapidly increasing. Since collectible data is limited through SMS, this technique is best used to grow customer databases and send out offers or coupons for clients to redeem. The most successful campaigns deploy enticing text messages that allow users to opt in with a simple reply, for example, sending a certain word to receive free coupons.
Mobile Display
Mobile display campaigns, for example, ads between levels on popular games or between songs on popular music sites, are a great way to reach younger, more trendy and tech-savvy markets who have shown an increased usage of smartphones.
Mobile Pay-Per-Call
Campaigns that allow mobile users to click-to-call representatives will generate leads that have voluntarily opted in. Each call is an expressed interest in purchasing/signing up for your product and provides the opportunity for representatives to further educate consumers and eliminate their hesitations in real time.
How Do Goals Affect Your Campaign?
To form a successful campaign, first decide what information you are looking to gather about your consumer and how you will qualify leads. Setting goals will help determine the best method of distribution for you and create performance metrics that will show whether a certain site, email list, etc. is working for your brand.
Potential goals:
- Building email databases: Aggregating consumers’ email addresses while making sure you are targeting the consumers who will actually open your emails
- Selling a certain volume of product ‘X’: In affiliate marketing, you’ll only pay for completed consumer purchases
- Increasing website traffic: Using the correct distribution method to direct consumers to your website
How Can You Reach Your Audience?
Knowing who to target with your campaigns is one of the most important aspects of affiliate marketing. Consider the following to determine how to best reach your consumer:
Distribution Method
Each method of distribution will change your audience exposure. For example, if your target market includes young adults, the best way to get your message out may be by placing a banner ad on a social media outlet or placing ads between levels in smart phone games as part of a mobile campaign.
Gender
The gender of your customer base plays a role in which site you choose to run your advertisements on. Placement on a sports site will reach more men, while ads on retail or cooking sites offer a better chance of being seen by women.
Location
Many publishers have the ability to target certain states or regions, meaning you can attract consumers in an area that best supports your brand.
Social Media
Social Media allows you to target consumers using groups, interests, etc. If you’re looking to get users to subscribe to a magazine, find groups with topical interests or those who enjoy reading.
No matter what your goals are, DMi Partners can help you meet them in the most efficient way. By learning your needs, we can transparently walk you through the process of setting up, running, and analyzing the success of your affiliate marketing campaigns.
