Don’t give up on growing your business if you’ve set up your dropshipping store and driven targeted traffic to it but don’t know what else you can do. Most of the time, it takes more than one thing to change the minds of an audience. An affiliate marketing program is a great way to get more people to visit your site and increase the number of people who buy from you.
How does affiliate marketing work, and what is it?
Affiliate marketing is a system that is based on performance. As a business owner, you ask partners to promote your products in exchange for a commission. Affiliate marketing is, at its core, a partnership in which people refer people to your business and you pay them a commission for each person they bring in.
Many businesses and online stores have affiliate marketing programs that let other businesses and people work with them to promote their products. It all starts when potential partners sign up on the company or merchant’s website and go through an approval process to say they want to become affiliates. The approval process is in place so that they can check out the people who want to work with them.
The merchant gives the new affiliate a unique tracking code once the sign-up is approved. Affiliates can then promote the merchant’s products, but they have to add their own code to the links. The tracking code lets the merchant keep track of customers as they click and buy products. The merchant can then pay each affiliate based on the information gathered from the link with their tracking code.
Most affiliate marketing programs pay either a flat amount of money or a fixed percentage of the total sale. But some merchants give their affiliates more than just a commission. Instead, they give them free or discounted products. Affiliate marketing is great because everyone benefits from it. The merchants get new customers and can sell their goods faster, and the affiliate wins because they can use their audience and expertise to make money.
So, it’s safe to say that an affiliate program is a tool for getting new customers. It can be used in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) campaigns.
In a similar way, you can start an affiliate program, get affiliates for your dropshipping store by giving custom, trackable links to other content creators, and pay commissions on sales made through your affiliate links.
Why you should start an affiliate program for your dropshipping store
Now that you know what affiliate marketing is, you may be wondering why drop shippers like you would want to join an affiliate program. Here are some reasons why affiliate marketing can be good for your dropshipping store:
Low starting costs
Creating an affiliate program for your dropshipping store is cheap, which is one of the best reasons to do so. You don’t need a team department or a lot of money set aside for software and other things. Instead, you can buy cheap software to run the affiliate program and let your affiliates come up with their own marketing content.
Low costs over time
When you set up your affiliate program, you won’t have to spend much money because the affiliates will pay for most of the marketing costs. This means that, unlike other marketing models that need a big budget, the program won’t stop your cash flow.
Low danger
Affiliate programs aren’t very risky for businesses because they don’t have to spend a lot of money or hire a team. Plus, affiliates only get paid when they do their part of the deal by making sure conversions happen.
Target a larger group of people
As the owner of a dropship store, you can only do so much to reach the people you want to sell to. But if you have people work with you in exchange for something, you can reach a new audience that might not have been easy to reach before.
Get a good return on your investment.
You can be sure that your business will get a lot of money back from the money you put into it. This is mostly because people trust influencers and pay more attention to what they say. When your affiliates tell their audience about your products, it’s likely that you’ll make more sales.
You’re behind the wheel.
Many business owners worry about losing control when it comes to running an affiliate program. But you don’t need to worry because you can control every part of the program. For example, you can choose which affiliates to work with, decide how much commission to offer, decide what kind of content affiliates can use, and so on.
How to set up a marketing program for affiliates for your dropshipping store
Now that you know how helpful an affiliate program can be for your dropshipping store, here’s a step-by-step guide to making one.
Set your program’s goals.
Before you start an affiliate program, you need to know what you want to achieve. You should know exactly what you want to get out of setting up an affiliate program. Most dropshipping store owners who set up an affiliate program want to increase things like traffic, sales, order value, conversion rate, etc.
Now, write down the goals you want to reach with your affiliate program in a month, three months, or a year. Make sure to include clicks, impressions, and leads, among other metrics.
Do a thorough study of your competitors.
If you look around, you’ll probably find that your competitors also have affiliate programs. Now is the time to look at their programs and figure out how to make yours stand out. Find at least two of your competitors who have affiliate programs and look at how they are set up. Check out the terms and conditions and other details, such as how their affiliates are trained, how they communicate, what kind of content they use, what software they use, etc.
How much is the commission?
You need to choose the right affiliate commission if you want to get people to work with you. If you looked into the last point, you shouldn’t have any trouble with this one. There are a few things to remember, though. First, if you give affiliates a lot of rewards, they may come to you instead of you having to find them. Second, make sure you’re being realistic and that your final choice fits with the budget of your company. Most of the time, the best commission rate is between 1% and 30%. You can also offer affiliates other incentives, like discounts on your products.
Choose other important parts of the structure of your program.
At this point, you make decisions about other parts of the program, such as:
- Affiliates can use different ways to market.
- What kinds of content are okay
- How long will it be before affiliates can get paid when someone clicks on their link?
- What you need to know
- Whether to do it yourself or hire a dedicated affiliate manager, etc.
- Choose a platform for keeping track of affiliates
You need a way to track affiliates that you can use. This platform will help you and your affiliates communicate with each other. You can run your affiliate program on platforms like Affiliate Royal, Share A Sale, Click Bank, and CJ Affiliate, which used to be called Commission Junction.
Start looking for partners.
At this point, you will need to find the right affiliates to join your program. So go ahead and talk about your affiliate program on social media, in your emails, and on your website where you ask for affiliates. Even if you get a few affiliates and the program takes off, remember that their job is to promote your products, but it’s your job to promote the program.
Find and train partners.
When you tell people about your program, they will all want to join. Evaluate each applicant and pick the one who will be the best fit for your affiliate team. You need to check out everyone to make sure they can work for your business and aren’t trying to scam you. When you’ve chosen your affiliates, don’t forget to teach them how to follow the rules and standards you’ve set.
Follow how well your affiliate program is doing.
After you’ve found affiliates to work with, you’ll want to keep an eye on them and the program as a whole. In other words, you need to check on a regular basis to see which affiliates are making you the most money, see if you’re on track to reach your goals, and talk to affiliates to make sure they’re following the rules and making progress, etc. Lastly, if the program isn’t giving you the results you want, make sure to change the way it’s set up or rethink your list of affiliates.
To sum up
Now that you know what an affiliate program is and how to start one, it’s important to note that you won’t see results right away. You should treat your affiliates like partners and always evaluate the program to make sure everything is going as planned. Also, you’ll need to make sure you’re ready for success by working with suppliers who can quickly send you high-quality products.
Dropship-Empire has been one of the most popular dropshipping websites. Its goal is to connect online sellers with high-quality dropshipping suppliers and products. dropship-empire integrates with the best marketplaces and e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and more. This lets sellers add products to their stores and sync orders with their suppliers so that orders can be filled quickly.