Affiliate programmes can be a useful string to your marketing bow, and they come in all shapes and sizes. In its basic form, an affiliate programme essentially pays someone for recommending your business or services.

How is an affiliate programme used in marketing?

This technique of affiliate marketing is more commonly found in blog posts, reviews and videos. For instance, a blogger writes an article describing how to make something recommends a product which was used in the project.

Their article includes an affiliate link provided by the business, which the audience click on and purchase the product. The business will pay the blogger either a percentage of the sale or a fixed sum in exchange for the recommendation.

Are affiliate programmes worth trying?

Nowadays, influencer marketing is a key part of a business’s marketing strategy. Personal recommendations carry immense weight, and consumers are far more likely to go for a brand recommended by someone they admire.

It’s a win-win. Businesses get their name out there and affiliates get a monetary reward for doing so.

How do I set up an affiliate programme for my business?

The way you structure an affiliate programme depends on the goals you want to achieve with it.

Research competition and opportunities

You will need to do a fair amount of research to find opportunities to promote your affiliate programme to the right brands and individuals.

Hire help

If you’re unsure how to build an affiliate programme yourself, it’s well worth hiring an affiliate management agency to handle it all for you.

A solid affiliate programme can take a lot of time to nurture so it’s might be too much to take on alongside your regular business responsibilities.

Use an affiliate marketplace

Setting up affiliate links that automatically compensate those who recommend your business is easier than you might expect if you use a dedicated service. A simple way of doing it is to set up an account with an affiliate marketplace such as ShareASale.

Platforms like this one are designed to help you stay on top of your affiliates whilst tracking your progress and sales. To get started, we would recommend researching the best platforms and marketplaces for affiliate programmes.
 
 

Promote your affiliate programme

Once you’ve set up with an affiliate manager or marketplace, the next step is to tell people about your programme.

Make sure that details of the programme are easily available on your website. It’s also worth taking some time to let existing customers know they can earn a bit of money by writing about your business for their own audience.

Using affiliate programmes yourself

If you have a blog or YouTube channel for your business where you typically recommend a lot of products, apps or services, it is well worth checking whether any of those brands offer an affiliate programme you can sign up to.

If you want to recommend something like tech products, Amazon Affiliates is a popular one to use. If you want to recommend software or apps, you may be best going through individual programmes on their websites. You can typically find details of these in the footer of a website. They usually take just a few minutes to set up and get approved.

When you sign up, you should get an affiliate or partner login which will give you affiliate links and banners to put on your website or video descriptions.

Where to be careful

Affiliate programmes can get a bit of a bad reputation at times because it’s easy to abuse the system. There are entire websites or individuals who recommend solely for the affiliate commission, with no thoughts on the quality of the content or the trustworthiness of the brand.

This leads to people recommending poor quality products or services. Most of the time, this only really does damage to the blogger’s reputation, but it can hurt the business too. Integrity and trustworthiness are so important when it comes to recommending other businesses. That’s because trust is the key component in any recommendation.

Are you considering an affiliate programme for your business? Do you use affiliate links for other businesses to boost your income? Let us know your thoughts or experiences with affiliate programmes below.