In today’s digital world, affiliate programs are like rocket fuel for businesses looking to increase sales through gift guides. They’re all about teaming up with influencers and reporters to boost brand exposure, traffic and sales.
Through affiliate programs, publishers earn a commission by promoting a product or service using an affiliate link. The affiliate partner gets a payout for providing a specific result to the retailer, including sending someone to your business’s website or leading someone to make a purchase.
The reality today is that it’s getting increasingly difficult to secure inclusion in gift guides by top-tier publications without an affiliate program with a competitive commission rate. Magazines run by Hearst (i.e., Cosmopolitan, Food Network Magazine, HGTV Magazine, Good Housekeeping, etc.) and Dotdash Meredith (i.e., PEOPLE, Better Homes & Gardens, Food & Wine, etc.) will only review or list products in roundups that have affiliate programs. If you’re looking for coverage in major outlets, you need to have an affiliate program.
But how do you make these programs work for you? First, it’s important to choose the right program for you.
Affiliate networks, like ShareASale and Rakuten, are destinations where brands can partner with a wide variety of affiliate publishers. This performance-focused partnership lets your partner drive the action (subscription, purchase, etc.), and for their efforts, they are compensated in real time. Each program offers different benefits, so your Uproar team will weigh the pros and cons of each based on the goals discussed during our first meeting.
Affiliate ambassadors on the other hand include platforms like DoveTale and Refersion, which are specifically designed for influencers and content creators. In this kind of affiliate setup, brands partner with specialized content creators to help elevate awareness or hype a specific campaign to the influencers’ core audience.
Joining one of these affiliate program websites is just the first step. Setting a competitive commission rate is the next step, and just as important.
Many editors are looking for around 30% commission. Anything less than 10% is almost never considered for inclusion, ultimately making your affiliate program ineffective.
Even with an affiliate program, the competition for attention is fierce. Product inclusion is never guaranteed, but our teams at Uproar PR have seen great success with tier-one publications.
For example, through a roundup inclusion Uproar secured for a pet technology product in Mashable, product sales on Amazon grew 207% the day the article went live. This wasn’t a singular occurrence, either, as the Mashable reporter included the same product in more roundups. Why? Because the product was well-received by the outlet’s readers.
If you’re looking to boost sales for special days like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Prime Day – or give your overall sales efforts a boost – now is a great time to start your affiliate marketing program. Reach out to us here if you’d like to learn more about affiliate programs and how they can be an important part of your PR campaign.
