Getting a new business or venture off the ground can feel, in many ways, like a triumph. After months of hard work, researching opportunities, and refining your concept, the fruits of your labor are up and running and out in the big wide world. Affiliate marketing can be key to your new business success.
However, for many start-ups, reaching such a point actually means hard work is only just beginning.
The importance of marketing
There is a range of things for entrepreneurs to consider when they establish a new venture, with a fundamental issue being just how they intend to ensure their idea reaches a wider audience. Marketing is an essential tool of any business or start-up, with digital advertising, in particular, growing to become a fundamental part of the promotional mix.
From simply having a website to running social media accounts, there are a host of digital marketing tactics that new businesses can use to push their services. However, one which should undoubtedly be part of the conversation is the concept of affiliate marketing.
Valuable referrals
For the uninitiated, the idea of affiliate marketing is that companies advertising online pay commissions to websites that help them generate sales or traffic through referrals. Such strategies are used in a range of sectors and can offer benefits to both the businesses involved and the publishers who get paid.
For example, affiliate marketing means you can make money like this new online casino affiliate website which promotes and shares links to a range of websites, with the sites then benefitting from new registrations. Another successful site that follows this strategy is GearPatrol, a site that links to Amazon and other retailers and is thought to generate around 25 percent of its revenue from affiliate marketing. According to Publishers Daily, Hearst Magazines recently acquired a minority stake in the brand.
A major industry
While affiliate marketing may not seemingly get as much attention as other forms of online marketing such as using social media, the concept has become a hugely important part of the modern advertising industry.
Related: 5 Cost-Effective Marketing Ideas Ideal for Small Business
According to research by Forrester Consulting for Rakuten Marketing in 2016, almost 90 percent of advertisers feel such programs are important to their overall marketing strategy. Furthermore, around 80 percent also stated that they devoted more than 10 percent of their budget to the tactic. In addition, a number of publishers added that such partnerships generated more than 20 percent of their annual revenue, while the study also predicted that affiliate marketing will grow to become a $6.8 billion industry by 2020.
Affiliate marketing has different types of pricing models – CPC, CPM, CPA, CPT – which are so-called models of buying traffic in ad networks. Learn more about CPA marketing at Optimize To Convert.
Worth considering
Such figures mean that the possibilities of affiliate marketing are hard to ignore. Whether you are a business looking to drive traffic to your website or an online publisher keen to generate revenue from your new site, the strategy could have a key role to play in helping you achieve your targets.
While there are many digital marketing tools now at the disposal of entrepreneurs, this concept is certainly one worth considering.
