In addition to leveraging a team of distributors, many direct selling and network marketing companies are embracing the social sharing economy and rewarding anyone who is willing to promote and share their products and brand. Companies are introducing complementary affiliate programs that provide an option for entrepreneurs and influencers not interested in more traditional direct selling opportunities.
Affiliate programs have long been proven effective in driving customer acquisition, increasing sales, and stimulating the growth of ecommerce stores. Although affiliate marketing is certainly powerful on its own, executing it with an omnichannel marketing strategy makes it much more valuable.
With affiliate marketing, conversational commerce is maintained with an entrepreneur or influencer that has a certain closeness to a group of people, who in turn recommends your products as part of the content they share. This makes the most of word-of-mouth marketing, which is a compelling strategy for digital businesses.
Affiliate marketing is a natural fit to:
Expand the reach of your brand and online business
Leverage viral marketing strategy
Connect to affiliates and influencers
Access a hyper-targeted audience
Improve your brand’s SEO
Easily integrate into the compensation plan
Here are some intriguing affiliate marketing stats as of late 2022:
Affiliate programs are used by 84% of businesses. (Mediakix)
64% of affiliate marketers use blogs to generate traffic. While video has been the hottest trend, blogging is still a highly effective way to attract search-engine traffic. Because blogs are evergreen yet can be updated, they are easy, cost-effective content generators. Affiliate marketers report a 240% revenue increase using content marketing. (Awin, BloggingX)
74% of users trust social networks to guide them toward purchase decisions. (Tradedoubler)
79% of marketers use affiliate marketing to engage existing customers, and 83% use it to increase brand awareness. (Get Cake)
40% of U.S. merchants use affiliate marketing programs as their top customer-acquisition channel. North America accounts for more than 66% of global affiliate marketers. (Backlinko)
The affiliate sector is responsible for 16% of all internet orders and Advertisers generate between 15% to 30% of all sales via affiliate programs. (Uniqodo, Truelist)
Mobile devices account for more than half of all affiliate referral traffic. (Saas Scout)
32% of affiliate marketers are ages 35 to 44; ages 25 to 34 make up 28%; and ages 45 to 54 comprise 22%. (Influencer Marketing Hub)
Perks of becoming an Affiliate include:
Earning commissions when sharing favorite products with friends, family, clients, or social media following. Earn commissions any time someone purchases through a personal link.
Receiving long-term rewards that extend beyond the first purchase – anytime customers buy, whether they’re new or returning, earn commissions.
Sharing savings with friends, followers, and family.
Qualifying for a discount off the retail price for personal purchases, plus additional savings when signing up for a subscription to favorite products with Auto Order.
The InfoTrax product suite combines our extensive experience with new technologies to produce the platforms, applications, and services you need to be successful. FlexCloud provides the ability for you to successfully operate your own affiliate marketing program to drive traffic to your online store and increase sales. Our FlexCloud platform lets you quickly and easily track the performance of affiliates and influencers, allowing you to only pay them commissions on actual sales.
Schedule a time to talk to the experts at InfoTrax to see how an affiliate marketing offering can help expand your business in 2023!
Steve Hooper
VP, Consulting Services, InfoTrax Systems
Steven Hooper is Vice President of Consulting Services at InfoTrax Systems. He’s worked as senior vice president, chief compensation strategist, controller, and compliance officer and headed up the technology and commissions groups for two global hypergrowth companies. Steve has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and a Master’s degree in Accounting Information Systems. After launching a career in public accounting, Steve joined the direct selling industry and quickly acquired a passion and expertise for developing, implementing, and analyzing strategies in compensation, business information systems, and global market expansion.
