Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular means of making some extra income online and letting people know about your business/products. To make affiliate marketing succeed for you, conversion is important, which is why you must engage actively with your visitors to purchase products from your affiliate links.

The earning potential is massive as long as you are willing to put in the hard yards to sharpen your affiliate marketing strategies. While it can be a vexing task to manage your affiliate program along with your regular activities, you need to track its growth and analyze the statistics to keep your income from dwindling. 

To help you with your affiliate marketing and media buying, we have provided some tracking tips to help you succeed.

• What are the Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Tracking Software?
• 10 best Practice tips for a Profitable Affiliate Marketing
• Which Platform is best for Affiliate Marketing?
• What are the best Affiliate Marketing Niches?
• Who are the key players in a typical Affiliate Marketing Transaction?
• How can I Maximize my Affiliate Marketing?

What are the Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Tracking Software?

1. Everflow.io

Everflow is arguably the best affiliate tracking platform out there with a great UI and an extensive feature set. Everflow has some of the most advanced campaign management and reporting functionality. Also, starting at only $200/ month, Everflow is one of the most cost effective solutions out there.

Read Also: Top Affiliate Marketing Spy Tools and Why they Work

Its prominent features include:

• Live data in the form of graphs and reports • Advanced notification system • Super fast response times • Advanced media buying tools • Graceful handling of mobile and desktop traffic * Fully exposed API 100 percent of the time • Private partitioning of traffic • Multidimensional reporting and analytics system.

2. LinkTrust

This affiliate and digital marketing tracking software can track leads, add, calls, sales conversion, as well as networks. It tracks and optimizes the success of your internet affiliate marketing endeavors with efficacy, enabling you to operate a successful campaign. 

LinkTrust has a customizable interface that lets you track all types of offline and online advertising through pixels, server posts, cookies, CPA, CC, mobile traffic, and Pay-per-call.

Other features include:

• LinkTrust RTA (Remote Traffic Agent) • Lead distribution and management • Affiliate management • Campaign management • Customizable lead validation • Fraud detection, lead management • Real-time reporting • Mobile tracking  

3. AffTrack

AffTrack happens to be the lone enterprise SaaS solution that offers unlimited clicks. Being leveraged by numerous big affiliate networks since 2009, it is more than just another affiliate tracking system. With an extremely mobile friendly interface, this program makes it very easy to track on the move.

Its prominent features include:

• Proxy detection service (free) • 100% Real time analytics • Brandable interfaces • Suppression file management • Invoice and billing tools • Access to granular level • File manager • Unlimited advertisers and affiliates • Device targeting • Client side tracking • Geo-targeting • Affiliate referral program

4. Hitpath

Hitpath allows clients to efficiently attribute the numerous factors of their digital marketing endeavors. It is leveraged to evaluate measurable, smart customer engagements. One of the most user-friendly tracking software in the market, Hitpath is fast and productive, enabling affiliate tracking in real-time.

It also offers free training for this software along with 24/7 support. Other features include: Affiliate management, Real-time campaign tracking, Accounting module, Cross pub campaign accelerator, and a pleasant interface  

5. Impact Radius

Established by the founders of Savings.com and Commission Junction, Impact Radius has created quite a buzz since 2008.

Its key features include: • Automation of onboarding, contracting, reporting, and tracking of direct affiliates • Call tracking • Monitoring of promo codes • SEO-friendly links • Flexible tracking options via FTP upload, Pixel, Data Post, REST API, Mobile SDKs, etc. • Integration with CRM and Salesforce.com • Real-time analytics  

6. Click Inc

Click Inc has its intuitive interface is great for those who aren’t quite comfortable with HTML, whereas the Trulink format is a wonderful tool for boosting SEO as it will directly link to your sales page rather than using a coded link.

Other key features include: Insightful reports providing traffic status commissions, graphs, and sales. Click Inc. also includes popular management tools which provide you with the power of creating coupons and following up with merchants. The starter plan is available for $25 per month, and you can also opt for the $69 or $149 monthly plan.

7. HasOffers

Has Offers Tracking Software is the preferred choice of over 11,500 online businesses. Accommodating global brands such as Social, Living Social, and Zynga, among others, you can rest assured that this software is replete with all the features you’ll need to operate and maintain a profitable affiliate marketing program.

Some unique features include: Fraud protection, unlimited affiliates, 99% tracking uptime, comprehensive API, superior measurement, great tracking metrics and devices, an option for dedicated solutions, among others. You can also leverage as an ad agency for advertising your e-commerce store. You can try HasOffers for free for 30 days and can also test the software yourself.  

8. Voluum

Voluum is one of the best platforms to control, track, assess, and optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.

Using Volume performance tracking software, you can: • Monetize your campaigns by purchasing the most optimal converting traffic, • Separate as well as control your traffic by devices, OS types, and GEOs • Create swift black and white lists within your CPA dashboard • Track every user who purchased your conversions • Add tons of new campaigns • Make landing pages • Monitor each factor which can shape your funnel.  

9. CAKE

Those who’re seeking a robust management tool to optimize and monitor your affiliate networks would do well to explore the cloud-based CAKE. Within one convenient dashboard, you can check your network’s overall performance and manage contacts while reviewing the results.

This tool has a wide range of interesting features that include: • Fraud protection • Pixel management • Targeted campaign by device or location • Real-time metrics • Individual portals for affiliates as well as clients • 24/7 support • Referral rewards • Customizable The pricing is intrinsically based on usage and depends on what your business necessitates. The three price levels include Pro, Select, and Enterprise.

10. Post Affiliate Pro

Post Affiliate Pro is another useful affiliate marketing tracking software trusted by over 2,700 companies globally. It can link to more than 170 CMS as well as best payment gateways.

Features: • Customizable interface • Themes • Multilingual support • Forced matrix • Direct tracking of links • Affiliate link styles • Fraud protection • Image, flash, and text link banners • Trends reports.

10 best Practice tips for a Profitable Affiliate Marketing

Here are the Top 10 Commandments for affiliate marketing success to make sure your readers get value and take the actions you want them to take so you can maximize your success with affiliate marketing.

1. Know Your Audience

The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to only promote products, services, and offers that match the needs and wants of your audience. Consider why they are coming to your site, joining your email marketing list, or following you on social media.

What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience’s problems.

If you are writing about sports, don’t put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get stats for their favorite teams aren’t thinking about those things when they’re on your site.

The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them. An interesting way of looking at affiliate marketing is this: educating your audience about relevant products and services they may be interested in can be considered a value-added form of content.

Not only can knowing your audience give you better success with the products you are promoting, but it can help guide you on the best places to market, advertise, and promote your website to attract visitors in the first place. 

The more you know your audience the better you can use demographics, psychographics, and other information the better target your audience when advertising on platforms such as Facebook.

The bottom line here is to promote products that are directly relevant to the audience you are serving. The more relevant the offers; the more sales you’ll generate.

2. Be Trustworthy

Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don’t believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don’t think you’re being honest or think that you are only recommended products and services due to a profit motive, they won’t read anything else you have to say.

If you promote products and services that aren’t high value, they’ll lose trust in your recommendations and stop acting on them; costing you sales and profits.

With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure that your #1 priority is adding value to your website visitors and email list. Only share products that you know are relevant, useful, and can truly help them.

Also, you’ll want to disclose any affiliate relationships you have with the vendors you are promoting. Most people are perfectly fine with this and the increased level of transparency you are providing can help you build more trust with your audience.

If you do that, you’ll make much more money in the long run with repeat sales.

3. Be Helpful

Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.

Don’t put up a list of your favorite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale.

Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information.

Even better, if you have a personal testimonial or case study to share; write a detailed post about it then include your recommendation with your affiliate link in your review.

That’s what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get affiliate sales credit for that.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors who don’t take any action at all.

Remember the main idea: always provide valuable content that adds value to the visitor experience. The sales will follow.

4. Be Transparent about Affiliate Relationships

Always disclose your affiliations. Your readers will appreciate your honesty and will feel better about contributing to your earnings. If they sense that you are being less than honest about your affiliations, they are savvy enough to bypass your link and go directly to the vendor just to avoid giving you referral credit (even though the price is the same it’s just something people do; strange but true!).

Honesty and full disclosure is a necessary part to building a loyal reader base (and it’s also the law!). They know they are supporting you by using your referral links. Make them happy and eager to do so.

In some cases, not only do you want to be transparent about your affiliate relationship, you may even want to offer a bonus or some type of incentive if they take action and use your affiliate link.

This is an extremely powerful tactic that can significantly increase the amount of affiliate sales you generate and a great way to stand out from other competing affiliates.

When there are many other affilaites out there promoting the same vendors, offering a bonus is a great way to make them want to purchase direclty from you – giving you credit for the sale.

5. Select Affiliate Products Carefully

Take the time to go through all the different options for products or services available through different affiliate marketing programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones, and use different graphics and text to see which are the most effective.

It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

In many cases, the product creators will provide you with a handful of ads to use on your site, on social media, and via email. Test different ad creative to see which ones work best for you.

You may also want to create your own ads (if allowed by the vendor) so that you can stand out from the crowd.

One thing you should strongly consider is promoting digital information products. These products are attractive for two reasons. First, they have higher conversion rates because the customers can get instant access and instant gratification when they purchase.

Second, they typically offer much higher commission rates than physical products — which means more profits for you.

Also, consider promoting higher priced products as well as products that renew monthly to get higher commissions and ongoing monthly commissions. Getting a monthly recurring affiliate sales is a great way to make the income in your affiliate business more predictable and stable.

6. Try Different Programs

If one particular program doesn’t seem to be working for you, try another one.

Affiliate programs aren’t all the same. They offer different products, services, and payment structures. Some vendors will have better marketing and sales materials than others.

Some programs will have a lifetime payout on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the types of ad units available, as well as colors and design so it fits better on your site’s layout.

Also, check your favorite vendors to see if they run their own affiliate program. Sometimes you can go directly to the source. You’re not limited to big affiliate networks.

Integrate systematic ad testing into your strategy to maximize your profits.

By continually testing different programs you’ll see which ones convert the best and which ones your audience responds to the most – increasing your overall conversions and sales.

Also, constantly be on the lookout for new products and services that you can test and add to your affiliate marketing portfolio.

Another tip is to negotiate higher payouts with affiliate programs where you are doing well and driving a consistent amount of sales. Many vendors are happy to reward good affiliate with higher ​commissions.

7. Write Timeless Content

Your old content can still be valuable even though it’s no longer on your front page. Take advantage of the long-term opportunities by making sure you provide timeless content.

If visitors come across your older content first and find that it offers dated information, they will leave right away. Of course, information moves forward, so relevant content changes quickly. You can make your content timeless simply by adding links to your updated articles on your old ones.

Constantly updating your older articles is also a great way to maintain or even improve your search engine rankings.

Many platforms allow you to show “most recent” or “most popular” or “related articles” on every page, so no matter how old the article is, it will always show access to your new ones. Your old content can make money for you indefinitely.

Although writing about new and up to date information can be beneficial, another strategy is to focus on writing about “evergreen” content – that is content that is timeless.

This will give you more mileage out of your content and drive traffic for years to come, and you can always change up the products you are promoting related to the content.

The name of the game here is to have content that is relevant, useful, and up-to-date.

You’ll want to use both strategies in your content; for every two pieces of new and updated content consider writing an evergreen content piece.

Another tip is to remove the dates from your blog posts. Even though the content may have been written a while ago and the information is still completely relevant, many people will dismiss it simply because it has an older date. Removing the dates from your blog posts can easily solve this.

8. Be Patient

Affiliate revenue grows and builds up with time. Remember that some programs offer lifetime payouts. If you refer a visitor, you may continue to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn’t come back to your site. Also, as long as you have referral links still active in your old posts, they may still payout for you.

If you focus on promoting recurring billing / continuity type products (as mentioned above) you can continually earn commissions every month on the same products which can add up over time.

As an example, if you promoted a product or service that pays a $5 commission every month and referred 100 sales; you’d make $500 in that month. At the same rate and assuming all the sales stick; after just one year that would translate into a monthly recurring revenue of $6,000.

Also, as discussed above, sometimes you may have to test different offers, products, and services until you find the best ones that are a match for your audience.

Affiliate programs aren’t a get rich quick plan, but it provides an opportunity to make passive income from your blog.

As you continue to add more content to your website, promote more products, drive more traffic to your website, and build your email marketing list, you’ll continue to grow the affiliate marketing side of your business and make more money.

9. Stay Relevant

Keep up to date on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more visually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.

Don’t get lazy about monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities. For instance, if a certain diet or clothing trend is no longer popular you may want to remove that content and recommendation from your site; or update your post to acknowledge and reflect that.

Constantly be on the lookout for new products that are useful and relevant to your audience — the more products your promote and the higher the relevance to your audience, the more money you’ll make.

10. Content Comes First

Above all else, your content marketing strategy must be your highest priority.

Your content is your foundation, the life blood on which the site exists. Without valuable and helpful content, readers won’t come. Focus on providing excellent content and the monetizing strategies will work out.

Once you start compromising your content to cater to the affiliate programs or any of the other ways to make money online, you will lose your readers. Once that happens, you will lose the opportunity to receive any earnings from any of your ads, be they CPM, CPC, or referral based.

It can’t be stressed enough that the quality of your content will be the single biggest factor in the credibility of your website, blog, or business.

Which Platform is best for Affiliate Marketing?

1. ShareASale

ShareASale is one of the most popular affiliate networks out there. Whereas Amazon Associates is focused entirely on Amazon products, ShareASale houses affiliate programs for 4,500+ merchants, both big and small.

From one spot – the ShareASale dashboard – you can sign up to all these merchants, generate links, and view your statistics.

Overall, ShareASale is a great option for both digital and physical products.

For example, on the digital side, you’ll find plenty of WordPress theme and plugin shops, hosting providers, etc.

And on the physical side, you’ll find plenty of big and small merchants. For example, there’s Warby Parker (sunglasses), Sun Basket, Wayfair, Reebok, NFL Shop, plus thousands of other small and large businesses.

Basically – no matter what niche your website or blog is in, you can probably find some offers worth promoting.

2. Awin

Awin, a shorter rebrand of the original Affiliate Window, is another popular affiliate network that gives you access to over 13,000 different merchants.

Awin actually acquired ShareASale back in 2017, though the two are still run as separate entities and have different merchants.

With 13,000+ merchants, you’ll find a lot of options for both physical and digital products at Awin.

Some of the notable big names are:

• Etsy
• AliExpress
• HP
• XE (money transfer)
• StubHub
• Under Armour
• Gymshark

You’ll also find lots of smaller merchants across a range of niches.

Awin was founded in Germany, so you’ll find a little bit more of a European tilt to the merchant list, though there are also plenty of US/global companies.

Like ShareASale and CJ, you’ll need to individually apply to merchants within the network. Then, you can generate your links and start tracking statistics.

3. Amazon Associates

If you want to promote physical products on your website, Amazon Associates is a good option.

With Amazon Associates, you can earn a commission on pretty much anything sold at Amazon.com.

What makes this program even more valuable is that you earn a commission on everything new that someone you refer purchases, even if it’s not the product you linked to.

For example, if you link to a $5 toothbrush but that person ends up buying a $500 TV, you still get the commission (as long as it’s within the cookie duration, of course. Also, the product can’t have already been in that person’s cart).

In the past, Amazon Associates paid you a commission rate based on how much revenue/sales you drove. However, since 2017, Amazon has moved to a flat-rate commission structure where you’re paid a flat percentage based on the category that each product is in.

While some high-volume affiliates didn’t like the change, this shift makes Amazon Associates even more attractive for smaller sites as you no longer need to worry about hitting a certain amount of sales volume to earn a higher commission.

4. CJ Affiliates

CJ – formerly known by the lengthier name of Commission Junction – is another affiliate network that brings together thousands of different merchants under one roof (a lot like ShareASale).

Along with ShareASale, CJ is one of the biggest affiliate networks out there, which means that you’ll be able to connect with thousands of both big and small merchants. Currently, the exact number is 2,696 different merchants.

Some of the big physical and digital companies using CJ are:

• Lowes
• Overstock
• Office Depot
• Priceline
• GoPro
• IHG (Hotels)
• Grammarly

You’ll also find lots of smaller merchants, as well.

Like ShareASale, you’ll individually apply to these merchants from the CJ dashboard. Then, you’ll be able to generate links and view statistics.

CJ’s affiliate dashboard has a bit of a higher learning curve than ShareASale, but most persons prefer it to ShareASale once you figure out how everything works.

5. Rakuten Marketing

Rakuten Marketing (formerly known as LinkShare) is a popular affiliate network that includes a lot of big merchants. Notable merchants are:

• Walmart
• Best Buy
• Macy’s
• Papa Johns

They also have some smaller merchants, though their network isn’t as large as ShareASale, CJ, or Awin (it’s “only” around 1,000 merchants).

So if you want access to a huge variety of merchants, you might be better off with one of the other networks. But Rakuten is a good option for getting access to the big guns, and they also have some nice features like the ability to rotate ads without the need for an external solution.

What are the best Affiliate Marketing Niches?

The biggest mistake we see most people making when picking a profitable niche online is that they look for smaller “niche” markets or try to go into niches that don’t currently exist; thinking, “if nobody is doing it I can be the only one making money in it”.

The reality is that you want to go into big, proven, profitable markets. A lot of competition is a healthy a sign of a healthy market where there is plenty of money to be made by everyone.

Profitable Niches that Never Go Out of Style

“Shooting star” fads come and go, but the following three (3) niches are going to be popular forever because as consumers, we will always need and desire information in these areas. Let’s take a look at the top three niche markets you should consider as an affiliate.

• Romance: Online Dating, Attracting the Right Partner, Marriage Counseling, Reconciliation (Getting Your Ex Back), etc.
• Health and Fitness: Diet and Weight Loss; Healthy Eating; Quit Smoking; Group Fitness for Women, etc. There are many opportunities to start an online business in the health niche.
• Wealth and Money: Making Money Online, Foreign Currency Exchange Markets (Forex), multi-level marketing, real estate, jobs/careers, credit repair services, etc.

Products and services in these evergreen niches are always in demand because people are always looking for solutions to specific problems in their day-to-day lives.

You’ll want to operate in one or two sub-niches, to begin with, because it is impossible to make meaningful offers in such gigantic broad categories. In the example above, “group fitness for women” is much more targeted than “how to lose weight”. It’s easy to tackle a sub-niche within a large niche then grow from there.

Internet marketing itself is a special niche where your expertise with specific skills (e.g. sales copy, getting website traffic, search engine optimization, etc.) can make you money. If you start a successful online business in any of these markets you can always create a side business showing others how to do it as well.

It can also be a niche where your reputation allows you to market high-ticket items yourself of as an affiliate – in other words, you can still brand yourself or your business as an affiliate marketer.

Hobbies and Extracurricular Activities where People Spend Money

Whereas health, finances, and romance are affiliate-friendly niches because they touch our daily lives, you can also be successful if you target popular hobbies.

Sports are a good candidate, because many of them extend beyond state and national borders, giving you a massive audience from the outset. However, be careful to choose hobby-oriented sports instead of big-time spectator sports like football and basketball.

Some good choices include golf, sailing, hunting, fishing, and camping.

People just love to indulge themselves by purchasing equipment, tools, and gear to better enjoy their passions. More often than not, they will find the money for training, accessories, “how-to” guides and other things that promise to help them with their activity of choice.

The key here is you are looking for markets where people are accustomed to and willing to spend a lot of  money without thinking about it – as these purchases bring them joy and pleasure.

The Pet Market

This is a market where people are willing to spend unreasonable (by a lot of people’s standards) of money on their pets; including high end food products, luxury clothes and accessories, grooming, etc.

It’s safe to say that some pets live a better lifestyle than their human counterparts – there is money in this market!

Any Affiliate Niche with High Payouts

Marketers willing to learn about new niches and develop their expertise have the freedom to seek out areas that offer large commissions and big upfront payments for directing paying customers to their sites.

Bloggers who have high traffic websites can translate their blogging success into membership to exclusive affiliate networks. If you have a high traffic blog, making money with your blog with affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to get started online.

These networks may offer high-end continuity programs, home study courses, or items typically associated with the good life (e.g. travel-related charters,  luxury cruises, casino vacations, luxury goods, etc.).

Who are the key players in a typical Affiliate Marketing Transaction?

There are typically four parties involved in affiliate marketing:

• Affiliates: The promoters of the product
• Product creators: The creators of the product
• Networks: The networks managing the affiliates
• Consumers: The end users of the product

You don’t always need a network to become an affiliate, but the other three parties (the affiliates, the product creators, and the consumers) form the core of an affiliate program.

How can I Maximize my Affiliate Marketing?

Many successful brands work with a lot of affiliates to increase their sales. But not all of them use the same techniques to increase the visibility and demand for their products.

In fact, there are several different affiliate marketing strategies and channels you can leverage.

1. Choose the right Affiliates

Affiliate marketing allows you to leverage the power of influence to get people to buy from you.

If you want to influence consumers’ buying decisions, you should choose to work with someone who has an engaged audience that trusts them.

When choosing an affiliate to help you with your product promotions, check whether or not:

• They have a good rapport with their audience
• Their audience might be interested in your products or brand
• They have a good following, site ranking, views, engagement, and authority

All of this is important to ensure that your efforts aren’t in vain.

For instance, if you are a food company, choosing a coupon site that offers discounts on travel tickets wouldn’t make any sense.

Similarly, a blogger who receives only 10 unique visitors a day can’t help you grow your sales funnel.

So you should choose your affiliates wisely to gain maximum conversions with minimum effort.

2. Attract Sales with Coupons, Deals, and Promotions

Everybody loves a great deal.

Leveraging coupons and deals is one of the best affiliate marketing strategies to boost sales. That’s because many consumers love the savings power of coupons. They often search for discount vouchers on various coupon and deals sites before shopping for any product.

There are many coupon and deal websites that allow you to attract more customers by offering a significant discount. Groupon and Offers.com are a few such sites that you can use to drive huge traffic to your business and increase conversions.

Coupons work best in markets that are highly competitive such as food, beauty, travel, or gadgets. However, you need to manage them well as an extravagant discount offer might simply eat into your margins.

To make the most out of your coupon affiliate marketing strategies, choose working with a few, high-quality sites. See where their visitors come from. Do they highly rely on search traffic or do they have a user base of their own?

You should also check the authenticity of their site. Try using their coupon codes for a few popular brands. If they don’t work, it’s a red flag.

3. Leverage the Power of Niche Influencers

Influencer marketing has become much more than a buzzword in recent years. And brands are continuously learning to tap into this source of referrals effectively.

Many brands choose to work with a large number of social influencers and bloggers in their niches. Influencers have more authentic relationships with their followers. They can effectively get their audience to trust your brand and convince them to use your products or services.

Influencers may not send you huge amounts of traffic compared to coupon sites. But the audience they send is targeted and more likely to be interested in your product.

Thus, you can boost your conversion rates with effective affiliate partnerships with influencers.

While most influencers expect monetary compensation, many agree to work for free products or a portion of each sale they drive as well.

To track the number of sales that an influencer is driving for your website, you can use tools like Voluum. It helps you monitor a wide variety of parameters like referrer links, browser versions, devices, creatives, and more.

Nordstrom Rack, a US fashion retailer, gifted their products to a number of influencers. The influencers then featured those products in their blog posts and social media posts effectively. These series of posts helped them reach 500,000 potential customers and increase sales in a cost-effective way.

However, to get the best results, you need to associate with influencers who are relevant to your brand. This demands that you look at much more than their following size.

You need to analyze various metrics to see if an influencer is fit for your affiliate marketing strategies. A few important metrics that you should check include their:

• Reach
• Engagement
• Audience demographics
• Follower growth over time
• Alignment with your brand’s values and niche

All of these factors contribute to whether or not an influencer is a good fit for your affiliate marketing program.

To improve the reporting from your influencers, you can use Voluum. This tool helps them understand their performance through detailed reports, and they can share the same with you too. As a result, you’ll be able to figure out which influencers are performing better than the rest.

4. Build a Robust Affiliate Network

Instead of tapping into various affiliate networks, build your own. It can be really difficult to recruit your first few affiliates. But expanding your affiliate network is comparatively easier.

To attract affiliates, you should follow a clear, to-the-point approach. Provide your potential affiliates with all of the necessary information such as what to do, how it works, and the commission you’ll pay.

You should also encourage your affiliates to recruit more sub-affiliates. You can offer them a small commission of the sales that their sub-affiliates drive. That can be quite encouraging.

You should always take some time to appreciate and reward your most loyal affiliates. Track their performance, and analyze the lifetime value of the customers they bring to your brand.

To track their performance, you can use tools like Voluum. The platform allows you to see your reports in real-time with details of 30 data points to help you understand the performance of your campaign.

You can reward them with a slightly higher commission rate in the future. You can also offer them benefits such as buying any product at the best price or one free delivery every month.

These affiliate marketing strategies can help you build a strong network and encourage affiliates to give their best shots.

Amazon Associates is one of the largest and the most successful online affiliate programs in the world. They have a network of over 900,000 affiliates who proudly promote various products listed on the ecommerce site.

5. Leverage Affiliate Promotions From Multiple Sources

Instead of focusing on just Instagram influencers or coupon sites, spend the time to reach out to your audience through affiliates from multiple sources.

You can test a variety of affiliate marketing strategies to see which audience responds the best and is the easiest to reach.

Some promising sources to leverage affiliate promotions include:

• Product review blogs: A review-focused affiliate blog can help you promote your products effectively. They are more likely to drive customers who are really interested in making a purchase.
• Email marketing: Affiliates with a huge list of email subscribers in your niche can help you drive more conversions.
• Webinars: Experts who host webinars on topics relevant to your niche can also be an amazing source of targeted leads. With an audience who trusts their recommendations, they can boost your affiliate marketing strategies.
• YouTube videos: Getting your products featured by a popular YouTuber can help you drive instant sales. After all, 40% of millennials admit that their favorite YouTubers understand them better than their friends.

Using multiple platforms can help you drive the best results from your affiliate marketing strategies. This can also help you analyze the platform where your audience is most engaged on.

To track the effectiveness of each channel to drive traffic and sales, you can use Voluum. It can help you track your traffic from multiple sources, and you can also find out your ROI using it.

6. Optimize Your Product Pages for Conversions

Many brands invest in affiliate marketing strategies and expect their affiliates to drive conversions on their own. You can’t rely completely on your affiliates and sit back to watch sales come in.

Read Also: What Are The High Earning Categories For Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing can help you to drive interested consumers to your product pages. But it’s your job to make sure that they buy your product once they reach there.

If you want to generate more sales, you should deliver a good customer experience to them. For this, you need to optimize your product pages to boost conversions. It’s simple, just make sure that:

• Your site loads fast
• You provide sufficient information to help your customers buy the product they want
• You display impressive, high-quality product photos that grab your visitors’ attention
• Your product descriptions include engaging copy that speaks of your brand and tells them why they should buy from you
• You should clearly feature customer reviews to build trust

For this, you can use leverage tools such as Voluum. It has a traffic distribution AI that can help you direct traffic to the high-impact pages.

You can also set up customized rules for directing traffic to various pages of your website. It’s also possible to conduct A/B tests to figure out which campaign paths are performing better.

Optimized product pages can give a boost to your affiliate marketing strategies and effort. They can help you retain more customers.

In fact, you can also use your product pages to upsell and cross-sell relevant products.