Purchase

The first step is to find onsite partners that provide customers with similar incentives without having to leave the site and search elsewhere. Leaving the site can cause a significant disruption in the customer's experience, resulting in the consumer getting distracted and not returning, or worse still, finding a competitor. Instead, you should look to create incentives onsite that are tailored to your affiliate goals, (oh, and they don't always need to be the same as those on voucher sites).

So, whether it be increasing the conversion rate of your traffic, the average order value, or the likelihood of your customers making repeat purchases, you can achieve these goals with award-winning technology partners. ‘Increasingly’, ‘Particular Audience’, or less visible options such as ‘Honey’ can make a real difference in keeping a customer's focus on reaching the checkout page with all of their needs met.

Our dedicated account managers continually monitor and optimise performance with these partners, ensuring everything is brand-safe and effective.

Research

Now that the conversion rate has been improved, directing larger traffic volumes is much more constructive as the site has everything it needs to convert different types of customers. This does not mean jumping straight to expensive dedicated articles that can absorb entire annual marketing budgets, as there are many customer journeys to consider. You should target specific demographics rather than the wholesale audience to help focus your efforts on groups that will truly benefit from your products.

Utilising the cost-per-acquisition model (CPA) means that securing traffic no longer has to incur high up-front fees with no guaranteed results. Instead, you only pay commission to the partners when an order is confirmed as unique, has been paid for, and has not been returned within 60 days.

We believe in a shared success philosophy, where partners are better compensated for stronger performance and are incentivised at every conversion.

Retention

The extra traffic usually impacts the conversion rate, so you should then target customers who have abandoned their baskets mid-purchase. Abandoned baskets are not a lost cause, as there is actionable information that you can use, such as re-incentivise those interrupted in their journey or who have decided to continue browsing other products.

Other users may leave before they have had a chance to see the products, so using a partner like Revlifter, which can identify exit intent and showcase data-driven opportunities, is another integral part of this stage.

Tools such as this can increase your conversion rate (CR) is 30% on average, and are an absolute must-have for any affiliate programme.

Awareness

Having a highly converting site, and high-quality traffic satisfies the majority of businesses. However, if you need to continue building or maintaining a strong brand identity, you can also work with influencers and household-name publications.

Naturally, large elements of this are bespoke to your sector, audience, and budget, but it's possible to determine a robust content mix for these campaigns and establish the most effective timing to go live. Ensuring that these pieces of content reach their peak engagement when organic interest is at its maximum will vary from product to product.

Your audience will look to purchase your product at different times; understanding these reasons and traversing the buying journey from their perspective helps you to identify relevant, supportive, and engaging opportunities to create awareness for your brand.

Advocacy

Once a customer has made a purchase, some would say the goal has been achieved. However, you should be encouraging your existing customers to re-purchase. Every positive experience your customer has is an opportunity for them to become an advocate for your brand.

Word of mouth is well known to be one of the strongest forms of endorsement. With the advent of social media, personal recommendations have the freedom to travel globally and immediately.

To do this successfully, your affiliate programme must allow customers to seamlessly become advocates and speak about their experiences genuinely and captivatingly. Too much involvement and your brand looks rigid and unable to communicate with your community.

Expanding your Affiliate toolkit to reduce the reliance on lower-funnel voucher codes will develop a more rounded, balanced, and diverse programme. Growing your affiliate portfolio adds revenue that would not otherwise have been accessible in your previous form.

This incremental revenue is separate from the results being achieved by your other affiliate activities, ensuring that sales are not being lost. This requires an in-depth understanding of your customers, the interplay of other digital channels, and the ability to build great relationships in the affiliate space.