Want to earn through affiliate marketing but not sure on how to start? Check this guide on how you can do affiliate link building – the correct way.
Affiliate link building is like commissioned sales for the 21st century.
The concept is simple: With an affiliate marketing program, brands and businesses select leading influencers to promote a service or product by using a unique affiliate link.
Affiliate link building provides businesses an opportunity to earn additional sales through user-generated content. Profits are shared with influencers based on the number of links clicked or purchases made.
3 Benefits of Affiliate Link Building
Affiliate marketing is an effective way to gain exposure, drive traffic, boost conversions, and increase sales.
Let’s take a look at the three main reasons your business should be using affiliate link building strategies.
1. Easy Tracking
Affiliate marketing tracking software monitors the affiliate program and tracks links. When your company joins an affiliate network, the network’s program tracks the numbers for you.
Being able to track the effectiveness of each campaign or influencer is an essential part of an effective affiliate marketing strategy.
Some affiliate marketing programs provide detailed reports based on different marketing tools used, such as text links or banners.
2. Targeted Ads
If your business is running an in-house affiliate program, you have the freedom to accept influencers to join your program based on their reach and relevance.
When your business is partnered with an influencer through an affiliate network, there are steps in place to ensure that the influencer will reach your target audience through their content.
When an influencer creates new content using their affiliate link, their campaign (your advertisement) has the potential to reach your target audience in high volumes through channels like social media and the influencer’s website.
3. Cost-Effectiveness
Affiliate link building can boost conversions and increase sales with minimum effort and investment.
When setting your business’s marketing budget, consider these four costs for affiliate marketing:
Platform
Will you be running an in-house program, or joining an affiliate network?
Running an in-house program may be more expensive and take more time initially, but is lower-cost in the long run.
It gives your business full control over every aspect of the affiliate program and enables you to communicate directly with your influencers.
Joining an affiliate network is much cheaper to begin with, but might not be as cost-effective in the long run, since the network itself does take a fee.
illustration: Jan Siemen
