Best Affiliate Marketing Strategies for Brands

Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative strategies to attract potential customers and grow your business sustainably.

Do affiliate marketing strategies yield great ROI?

They certainly do. According to a recent report, the global affiliate market sales revenue in 2024 is over $18.5 billion, and It’s expected to grow at a rate of 8% over the next few years.

Image via Cognitive Market Research

Considering the increasing popularity of affiliate marketing, marketers need to adopt new affiliate marketing strategies that are effective in boosting sales.

In addition, it is an extremely cost-effective lead generation method where you pay for performance only. That is why more and more brands are using this performance-based marketing strategy more often.

In this extensive guide, we’ll discuss affiliate marketing, how it works and its benefits. We’ll also explore 11 proven affiliate marketing strategies to generate revenue.

Let’s get rolling.

Disclaimer: This content contains some affiliate links for which we will earn a commission (at no additional cost to you). This is to ensure that we can keep creating free content for you.

Table of Contents

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a revenue-sharing model where people who own products but don't have a captive audience can increase their market by collaborating with people who have an engaged audience but not a product.

It is a modern and tech-enabled version of commission selling. With this approach, brands (affiliate merchants) pay an affiliate marketer (i.e., influencer) a commission for every sale they make.

When consumers buy affiliate products from an affiliate website or social profile using a unique link, the affiliate earns a commission.

Moreover, since most websites use cookies to track visitors, the affiliate earns a commission regardless of whether the customer makes the purchase at a later time.

It is a modern and tech-enabled version of commission selling. With this approach, brands (affiliate merchants) pay an affiliate marketer (i.e., influencer) a commission for every sale they make.

The affiliate marketer earns a commission when consumers buy affiliate products from an affiliate website or social profile using a unique link.

Moreover, since most websites use cookies to track visitors, the affiliate partner earns a commission regardless of whether the customer makes the purchase at a later time.

Here, influencers make ideal affiliate marketers because they come with a pre-built online target audience. Once they sign up for an affiliate program, it is their responsibility to choose the right marketing channels and create promotional material to market the products.

Brands or merchants use affiliate marketing software to streamline affiliate marketing campaigns and manage affiliate revenue. Affiliate marketing success relies significantly on robust affiliate marketing strategies to maintain a healthy ecosystem.

How Does an Affiliate Marketing Program Work?

All parties involved benefit from affiliate marketing.

Implementing the right affiliate marketing strategies allows merchants to attract new customers, enables affiliates and networks to earn commissions, and helps customers discover new products.

Before we explore the top affiliate marketing strategies, let’s understand how affiliate marketing works. A typical affiliate marketing program consists of 4 key players:

Sellers/Brands: These firms manufacture the goods for sale. These parties have multiple titles, i.e., creators, sellers, merchants, retailers, vendors, or brands. They run the affiliate programs and provide affiliate marketers with promotional resources. Merchants or brands end up receiving a greater share of the profit.

Affiliate Network: Affiliate networks gather a list of products for affiliates to sell and distribute them. These are the optional parties on this list as there are two types of product creators: those who work directly with affiliates and those who use an intermediary.

Affiliate Marketer: An affiliate generates sales links on their websites or reviews sites to promote and generate sales for one or more merchants. They’re also known as influencers or publishers. They have a loyal audience base and generate original content like blog posts, videos, email campaigns, and even paid ads to market products. They encourage their online readers, viewers, or contacts to purchase the product.

Consumer: At the end of the day, someone must purchase the items. The consumer notices the affiliate marketers' suggestions, follows their customized links, and buys the items. In doing that, they would also enjoy exclusive discounts and offers.

Depending on your affiliate marketing model, you can run affiliate marketing campaigns directly from your website or popular networks like ShareASale, Amazon, and so on. Similarly, the way you distribute affiliate revenue will also vary.

The true key to running a successful affiliate marketing program lies in winning the trust of your potential customers. Brands and affiliates should collaborate to create dynamic affiliate marketing strategies centered around customer benefits to reap the best ROI.

To run a successful affiliate marketing business, publishers can use multiple channels to engage followers and distribute affiliate links.

Some of the trusted channels include:

Blogs
Social media marketing
Email marketing
Review websites
Deals and Coupons Websites
Marketing Podcasts
Native advertising
SMS marketing

Actively promoting products and services through diverse channels ensures a broader reach. Affiliate marketers need to fine-tune their approach for each channel to maintain authenticity and provide a better conversion rate.

Types of Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based online business model. As a brand, you are responsible for setting up a program and managing it effectively to attract new customers. Whereas, affiliates need to do all the hard work.

Marketers adopt different affiliate marketing strategies to achieve maximum traction and attract more leads. The three major types of affiliate marketing methods are:

1. Unattached Affiliate Marketing

An unattached affiliate marketing structure is when the affiliate lacks connection or authority within the niche of the products they are promoting. An affiliate marketer will distribute the affiliate link on various platforms, hoping interested people will click on it.

Although it may seem random, affiliate marketing operates on the same principle as paid ads. While your brand is visible to a wider audience, it may not generate quality leads for you.

2. Involved Affiliate Marketing

As the name suggests, the affiliate partner is fully involved in the campaign. The affiliate has personally tried the products or services they promote and confidently endorses them. These affiliates typically have a large, loyal follower base who trust their recommendations and are willing to try the suggested products.

This is the best method to generate warm leads and even pay customers for your brand. As a result, you would end up paying higher compensation as well.

3. Related Affiliate Marketing

The related affiliate marketing structure is a midway between the two methods mentioned above. Here, the affiliate partner understands the product but does not necessarily test it first-hand.

Lifestyle influencers and content creators promote various products or services. Their marketing tactics focus solely on generating a passive income. Because they have thousands of followers, you can expect them to drive quality traffic for you.

Why You Should Start an Affiliate Program

An investment in affiliate marketing strategies can offer a substantial ROI while lowering the marketing risk, the required effort, and the required time, allowing a company to advertise a product effectively.

Here are the most common benefits of affiliate marketing for business strategies:

Minimum Marketing Investment

With effective affiliate marketing strategies, your affiliates will create and post content for you. This means you won't have to buy ad space, create ad visuals, or even hire sales teams.

Aside from the initial step of selecting and screening affiliates, little effort is required to market your products, which is why affiliate marketing strategies are so popular.

Once a firm is comfortable working with an affiliate and has built up a good relationship, it can let it market its services or products for the most part.

Targeted Traffic

As an affiliate marketer, it would be a dream come true if you could generate high-quality leads without much marketing effort.

Affiliate marketing strategies can realize that dream.

Affiliate marketers introduce your brand to a curated audience interested in your products.

For instance, if a fitness influencer endorses your fitness accessory brand, users who follow these influencers will be genuinely interested in fitness products and more likely to convert.

Complete Automation

The advantage of investing in affiliate marketing strategies is that they can be completely automated. An affiliate marketing tool can help you design your campaign and run it on autopilot.

You can promote your affiliate marketing campaign on an affiliate website to attract publishers, and the tool will manage the workflow.

Easy Maintainance and Scalability

Since most of your marketing activities and communications are handled by affiliate partners, they will bear the bulk of the cost.

Also, you can partner with as many affiliates as you want because it is a commission-based program, and you will only pay affiliates for sales they generate.

Unlike other marketing strategies, such as pay-per-click advertising campaigns, affiliate marketing makes it simple to keep track of expenses and does not impede your cash flow.

Greater ROI

Using affiliates to promote a product or service has been shown to provide a much higher return on investment than most marketing strategies.

Since you personally select the affiliates, you can be sure that the traffic to your site is made up of audiences who find your product or service valuable.

Affiliate marketing is particularly effective because your target audience will learn about your offerings from affiliates who are part of their social networks and interest.

Thus, your marketing efforts are channeled through an affiliate with direct access and influence over your target audience.

This creates the most cost-efficient stream of branding for brands that don't want to spend thousands of dollars on marketing.

Alright, the benefits of affiliate marketing seem promising. But how can you create the best affiliate marketing program? What are the best affiliate marketing strategies that can drive you faster revenue?

Let’s discuss.

11 Best Performing Affiliate Marketing Strategies for Affiliate Marketers

Finding and partnering with different affiliates to promote their business, product, or service is part of an affiliate marketing strategy.

You can use the following affiliate marketing strategies to improve your sales and brand image:

1. Find the Right Affiliates

With affiliate marketing, you may use influencers to persuade people to buy from you.

If you want to influence your targeted consumers' purchasing decisions, you should partner with someone who has an active audience that trusts them.

For starters, using Fiverr Marketplace and Upfluence can help you find the right affiliates. These affiliate marketing tools can help you create processes for finding and employing high-performing affiliates at scale.

If you have trouble finding the right influencer/affiliate via Fiverr, you may use the following three strategies to find the right ones:

Reach Out to Niche Bloggers

Since bloggers/vloggers already have a built-in audience that trusts what they say, they can prove to be excellent partners for your affiliate marketing efforts.

If the right blogger creates affiliate content to endorse your affiliate marketing products and posts a unique affiliate link to your website, this trust factor will lead hot clients straight to your door.

Use search engines for your benefit. To search the niche blogger, you can search the following: [“your industry niche” “blog”]

Image via Google

You can even search for your industry on YouTube and find popular vloggers in your niche.

Image via YouTube

Once you've identified the affiliates you'd like to work with, it's time to contact them directly. Look at their about/contact page or social media accounts to find out how to reach them.

Do note that the first message is the ideal chance to make a connection and inform them about the advantages of working with you as an affiliate.

So, don't be generic; describe how the partnership will benefit them and how their content will (or will not) assist your company.

Joint Venture with Similar but Non-Competing Websites

When you’re looking for bloggers to write for you, you may come across websites that match your niche and have the same niche audience but aren’t competitors. It is one of the most effective affiliate marketing strategies.

You can ask if they’d be willing to advertise your offerings using an affiliate product link. By collaborating with these websites and cross-promoting each other’s businesses (as part of a joint venture), everyone wins.

For instance, if you’re into hospitality, you can partner with a travel company. They can promote your hotels by using an affiliate link in their blogs and video recommendations.

Image via Greater Miami & Miami Beach

Work with an Affiliate Agency

Finding the right affiliate service provider is perfect for brands that want to grow their affiliate networks.

Although end-to-end affiliate marketing services are included with affiliate agency services, you may only ask them to locate the right cohort of affiliates.

While you manage the strategic aspects of affiliate marketing, affiliate agencies may still assist with designing an attractive offer and commission structure to entice prospective customers.

They can negotiate better terms with affiliates through their connections to foster stronger affiliate relationships.

2. Optimize Your Website for Conversions

Affiliate marketing strategies don’t produce the desired results unless you have a good Search-optimized website. It should be ready to turn relevant traffic into leads.

To run successful affiliate marketing programs, ensure your content marketing, search engine optimization, and robust customer support align.

Conduct a detailed content audit to determine whether your website is ready to engage interested visitors. Check if the website has all the relevant information and CTAs to convince and convert them into customers.

Create a content marketing plan focusing on the following elements:

Informative blog posts and comparison articles highlighting the benefits of your products or services.
Videos showcasing the production process and customer testimonials to build trust.
Specific pop ups and CTAs will guide the affiliate leads in taking the desired actions.
An FAQs page loaded with information to answer all the regular queries your leads may have.
Chatbot and live chat to converse with interested visitors and provide relevant information.

Consider analyzing your competitors’ websites to observe how they have optimized them to boost conversion rates. Include innovative content marketing tactics in your affiliate marketing strategies for better ROI.

3. Leverage Discount Coupons, Deals, and Offers

Coupons continue to be popular in the digital age, even when people only save a few dollars. In fact, 60% of online shoppers worldwide search for coupons before purchasing online.

Coupons are excellent because they save money and can be measured.

Due to their manageability and affordability, coupons allow you to distribute them in more locations. Also, a luring coupon or discount code can encourage previous customers to return while acquiring new customers.

In markets that are extremely competitive, such as food, beauty, travel, or gadgets, coupons are the most effective. And Groupon and Offers.com are among the coupon websites you can use for your affiliate marketing strategies.

Image via Groupon

However, you must be cautious when using them, as an extravagant discount offer might eat up your profits. You should choose a small number of quality sites for your coupon affiliate marketing efforts.

Also, try to identify where their visitors come from. For example, do they rely heavily on search traffic or have their own user base?

Lastly, ensure that the site is genuine before using their coupons. Try using their coupons for a few well-known brands to see if they work. If they don’t, it’s a warning sign.

4. Partner with Niche Influencers

In recent years, influencer marketing has grown beyond a marketing buzzword. Successful marketers are constantly learning to employ this resource for their referral programs.

This is because influencers have more genuine connections with their followers. Hence, they can effectively get their audience to trust your company and encourage them to utilize your products or services.

Even though coupon sites send a lot of visitors, they don't send a targeted audience. You can boost your conversion rates by establishing effective affiliate partnerships with influencers.

Image via Instagram

Some influencers are even willing to offer their services for complimentary products or a portion of each sale they drive, although most expect monetary compensation.

One challenge brands face while partnering with influencers for their affiliate marketing strategies is how to track the sales from multiple programs.

You can track how many sales an influencer drives for your website using tools like LinkTrust and Google Analytics. With just a click, you can gather valuable insights like where their traffic and sales come from.

4. Leverage Multiple Sources for Affiliate Promotions

When creating an affiliate marketing strategy, most merchants make the mistake of concentrating on only one source or coupon website.

The following are some possible sources to utilize for affiliate promotions.

Product review blogs/vlogs: An active review-focused affiliate blog or vlog can help you drive more customers to your product or service. This affiliate group can capture customers actively seeking products or services to consume.

Social media platforms: Social media is where most influencers, aka digital celebrities, engage with their followers. Therefore, working with social media marketing influencers can significantly increase sales for your business.

Webinars: A well-tailored affiliate program can be built around webinars from experts in your field since these lead generation campaigns are highly targeted.

Email marketing: Your affiliate marketing strategies should include affiliates with an extensive list of niche-specific email subscribers.

Affiliate Marketplace: Popular affiliate marketplaces like ShareASale, Awin, CJ, and hundreds of others are excellent places to promote your affiliate program. You can join these affiliate sites for free as a merchant, and qualified affiliate partners associated with the platform will join your program directly.

Having multiple platforms in your affiliate marketing strategy will allow you to target a wide variety of consumers and achieve the highest affiliate marketing performance.

You can also identify which platform your audience is most engaged with so that you can further customize your strategy.

6. Diversify Your Affiliate Program

An investor's diversified investment portfolio reduces financial risk. Similarly, diversifying your affiliate program is beneficial.

It is a great start to rely on one to two affiliates, but it may not be a sustainable affiliate marketing strategy in the long run.

A diversified affiliate program is the best way to maximize program potential. It can also help you reach new audiences and create future opportunities.

With this affiliate marketing strategy, researching prospective affiliates and establishing a connection with them on their own platforms is essential. You should recruit more affiliates and review the existing affiliate mix every quarter.

Also, designate a marketing strategy for every affiliate. Determine which promotions would be appropriate and effective for each class, and specify a target return on investment.

If an affiliate marketing campaign has performed well over a specific period, consider expanding your advertising effort.

It would be great if you could share some information about your affiliate programs' results. Your peers may benefit from the solution, and it can be a great collaboration opportunity.

7. Build a Large Affiliate Network

Building your own affiliate network is a relatively better strategy than joining various affiliate networks.

Although, when you first start recruiting affiliates, it can be difficult. But making your approach clear and straightforward to attract affiliates can ease the process.

You can provide your potential affiliates with all the information they need, such as how it works, how to do it, how to generate a discount code, and how much commission you will pay. Also, it would be best to encourage your affiliates to recruit additional sub-affiliates.

With this affiliate marketing strategy, spending some time to reward and appreciate your most dedicated affiliates is critical. You should track their performance and gauge the long-term value of clients they bring to your business.

8. Choose the Best Affiliate Marketing Platform

You may have a tough time recruiting your first few affiliates if you just joined a marketplace that isn’t popular.

To begin, you may join well-known affiliate marketing networks where you offer affiliate program options to a large group of affiliate marketers.

Amazon Associates is one of the world's largest and most successful online affiliate programs. The platform has over 900,000 affiliates promoting various items offered on the web store.

Image via Amazon Associates

There are dozens of networks and platforms you can use for your affiliate marketing strategies. Other than Amazon, ShareASale is another popular affiliate site.

There are over 4,500 affiliate programs listed on ShareASale. Where Amazon Associates is dedicated exclusively to Amazon goods, ShareASale has affiliate programs for nearly everything.

Here are some more affiliate marketing platforms you can consider for your affiliate marketing strategies:

Awin (Formerly Affiliate Window)
CJ Affiliate (Formerly Commission Junction)
Rakuten Marketing (Formerly LinkShare)
Avangate Affiliate Network

9. Make Your Customers Your Affiliates

Customers can be some of the best affiliates for your product or service if you ask them nicely. Unfortunately, this method is often neglected, but it is one of the most effective.

Delighted customers are more likely to recommend your product to family and friends, and earning money while doing so is even better.

There are high chances that your customers are using Facebook or Instagram.

And given the fact that an average Facebook user has 155 friends and the average friend on Facebook has 359 friends, you can reach 500+ people with this strategy.

Every order confirmation or delivery email you send to your customer can be used to mention your affiliate offer or enroll them in the referral programs.

If your customer is pleased with your product or service, there is a good chance that they will be happy to promote it.

However, before requesting that your customers recommend your product to their family and friends, ensure they are pleased with the item or service. You should have fantastic and active customer service to address any customer difficulties.

10. Collaborate with Other Brands

One of the best affiliate marketing strategies is collaborating with brands that complement your business. This introduces your products to a wider audience base.

For instance, a perfume brand collaborates with a cosmetics manufacturer or clothing brand. Both brands can create affiliate content to co-promote, create combined offers, and be visible to a wider network of affiliates. Affiliate partners from all three niches will be interested in promoting you.

Even businesses offering services and digital products can benefit greatly from collaboration and co-promotion. Establishing an affiliate marketing relationship is more lucrative than paid ads because the audiences are genuinely interested in your offerings. This online marketing strategy also reduces your customer acquisition cost.

11. Opt for the Best Affiliate Payment Method

You can choose different payment methods based on your affiliate marketing business goals. Here are the most lucrative affiliate income structures:

1. Pay Per Click: This is the simplest structure where the affiliate income is calculated based on the organic traffic an affiliate marketer drives towards the merchant sites. Like PPC campaigns, the goal here is to drive more traffic to your website, and the commission is usually nominal.

2. Pay Per Lead: Most affiliate programs operate on this payment structure as it generates leads for brands. The brands pay the affiliates only when they successfully persuade users to share their contact details with a brand by subscribing, downloading, or signing up for their offering. Once the lead enters the sales pipeline, the affiliate is responsible for nurturing and converting them.

3. Pay Per Sale: Here is the most preferred affiliate revenue structure. The affiliate partner does all the hard work to convert a user into a paying customer. In return, the brand will pay him a commission for a hefty portion of the affiliate sales.

Consider this affiliate payment structure adopted by BigRock. The brand pays its affiliate partner based on the sales they generate. The percentage of commission varies based on the product category.

Image via BigRock

FAQ

Q1. What is the difference between an affiliate marketing network and a program?

A. Affiliate networks are platforms that connect marketers and companies. You can use an affiliate network for your strategy, get in touch with influencers and ask them to promote your products. One example of this is Amazon Associates.

Whereas affiliate programs are run by individual brands to enforce their strategies. You can establish your own affiliate program and invite affiliates to promote products.

These affiliates profit by selling affiliate products through their links as with a network. For example, you can create your own affiliate program with Easy Affiliate plugin for WordPress.

Q2. What is the best strategy for affiliate marketing?

A. Following affiliate marketing strategies are among the most promising ones:

Partner with niche bloggers
Optimize your website by creating how-to guides, comparison articles, videos and more
Leverage discount coupons, deals, and offers
Partner with niche influencers
Leverage multiple sources for affiliate promotions
Diversify your affiliate program
Build a large affiliate network
Choose the best affiliate marketing platform
Make your customers your affiliates
Partner with other brands to collaborate and co-promote
Choose the best payment structure

Q3. What are the 4 pillars of affiliate marketing?

A. Following are the four pillars of affiliate marketing:

Merchants: The brand that wants to market its products.
Affiliates: People who encourage their audience to purchase the products.
Consumers: People who buy the products using the affiliate link provided by affiliates.
Affiliate Network: The marketplace or platform that connects and manages brands and affiliates.

Q4. What is an affiliate marketing strategy?

A. There are numerous ways to utilize affiliate marketing, and these are known as affiliate marketing strategies. An affiliate marketing strategy can also suggest the type of payment structure the brand should offer to the affiliates.

Pay-per-click, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-sale are all common payment models.

Q5. What are affiliate links, and why should I use them?

A. An affiliate link is a URL that directs customers to a company's website or product sales page. It is composed of a company's domain name followed by tracking parameters.

Using affiliate links, you can monitor your conversions and affiliate marketing strategy performance. In addition, affiliates are compensated based on the number of clicks, sales, and leads they generate through the affiliate link.

Q6. What are the top tools I can use for my affiliate marketing strategies?

A. Following are the top 5 tools you can use for your affiliate marketing strategies:

LeadDyno
LinkTrust
Post Affiliate Pro
AnyTrack
Affise

Best Affiliate Marketing Strategies for an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing strategies work like a charm if they're focused on the target customer base. Many affiliate marketers leverage affiliate promotions and strategies to drive greater business revenues.

Moreover, the importance of affiliate marketing is clear, but you must choose the best affiliates, channels, and affiliate marketing strategies to boost conversions.

If you need any assistance in finding the right affiliates and creating an affiliate strategy, feel free to reach out to us for affiliate marketing services. We’re experts in creating performance-oriented affiliate marketing strategies.