What You Need to Know about Affiliate Marketing

You probably realize that more and more people share shopping links through their social media for things that they do not even sell. These people are called affiliates of an affiliate marketing program. Interestingly, they are not paid by the seller of products they advertise, but rather by the e-commerce where the links are redirected to. If you are curious about affiliate marketing and how it works, read more below.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

In general, affiliate marketing refers to the engagement of affiliates to support sellers in offering items or services to potential buyers. However, the currently popular affiliate marketing is a digital marketing technique in which you can earn money when a product that you promote through the affiliate link that you have made is bought. When you join an affiliate marketing program, you will be given a unique link or code that will enable the e-commerce to monitor every buyer you refer to them. Only when the potential buyer ends up purchasing an item from your link you are given a commission.

Here is an infographic of how affiliate marketing works, as illustrated by Shopify:

Why Affiliate Marketing is On The Rise

Among many types of marketing there are, affiliate marketing has been gaining quite a popularity since 2020. A study by Awin on affiliate marketing in 2021 found that by April, 37 percent of people worldwide were purchasing goods using affiliate links. The main reason why this marketing strategy is desirable is that it benefits all parties involved; affiliate marketers, sellers, and e-commerces. Affiliate marketers get a certain amount of share for every product purchased. Sellers generate profit because their goods are sold. E-commerce does not mind giving affiliate marketers commission, since more buyers from affiliate marketing means more traffic on the e-commerce part.

Affiliate Marketers and Personal Branding

People have their own creative way of promoting affiliate links and what sorts of goods they advertise, based on their audience’s niche. Affiliates frequently promote to a relatively particular audience, typically sticking to that audience’s interests. They attract more customers who are most likely to engage with the ad by creating a defined niche or personal branding. For example, someone who is keen about exercising may share affiliate links for health and fitness products, such as sport apparels, diet supplements, fitness gadgets, and so on. Not simply they do share links, but they create engaging social media contents that will lead to their audience wondering what sorts of products are used or recommended. 

Finding Niche

Having a personal branding alone is not enough to optimize affiliate marketing; you need to find your niche. A niche is a portion of a wider market that is characterized by its own particular characteristics. It becomes your specialty and the subject for which you will be known for. The goal is to find a specialty that you are passionate about. Over time, you will want to become the go-to person in your field of interest and one way of securing expert status is to constantly adapt and keep up with trends.

Compiling Links in One Place

After defining their personal branding, finding their niche, and creating contents, affiliate marketers can further optimize their marketing strategy by posting affiliate links in one place. For example, they use Linktree, Milkshake, and Campsite. Simply put, these websites work as a personal catalog of affiliate links. Through this service, affiliates can compile multiple links to make it easier for their audience to handpick items that pique their interest.

Affiliate Marketing around Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, there are plenty of e-commerce platforms that make use of affiliate marketing. One example of a rather successful affiliate marketing approach is Shopee Affiliate, which is now available in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. This is a program that allows anybody to advertise Shopee items on the Internet. Shopee Affiliate is a program that allows anybody to advertise Shopee items on the Internet. This is an open door, particularly for people who enjoy spending time on social media. Shopee Affiliate Program allows you to earn additional money online by offering compensation rates ranging from 3% to 10%.

Other than Shopee, Zalora e-commerce also incorporates this marketing approach to attract more customers in purchasing items from their platform. Zalora is one of Singapore’s most famous fashion platforms, retailing some of the region’s most well-known brands including, Cotton-On, Adidas, and Converse. Through its affiliate program, Zalora offers a 6% commission every sale to new clients and a 4% commission each transaction to returning customers.

So, are you interested in starting a journey as an affiliate marketer? The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you can do it free of cost; it only takes creativity and consistency to make sure that you keep your audience engaged and attract more people to follow you. This is also a great way to shoot your shot if you aspire to become a social media influencer later on. Good luck!

Read Also: What is TikTok Ads and How to Optimize It

image source: freepik