Good, fast and cheap. It is the age-old golden rule – you can pick only two. But what are your options if you really want to see the noticeable results right away, or at least in the next couple of months?
Obviously, if your goal is to get an instant result, you can find your way. However, you should be aware: these methods have side effects, such as an increased cost of developing your CPA channel and your personal involvement in this process. But if you are ready for that, let’s dig into it! Below, you can find five methods to boost your affiliate programme and get some immediate results.
Spoiler alert: if all of these ways do not work for you, and you are ready to work for long-term results, we have prepared for you a list of useful tips. They will help you build sustainable partnerships with advertising platforms and achieve constant growth of your CPA sales.
Method #1. Raising rates
If you want to gain leadership as an advertiser and become an all-time favourite for publishers, there is one simple and obvious way to achieve this. Just raise your commission rates. The higher the reward in your affiliate programme, the more attractive it is for partners. Therefore, you get a better chance of attracting active partners with a large amount of traffic.
Nevertheless, the disadvantages of this method are quite obvious. You might attract a lot of partners who are interested in high rates only, but not in your product. In this case, you might spend a lot on CPA and be disappointed with the result.
To avoid this scenario and negative consequences, we recommend using a technique that will not give you instant results but will help build stable, mutually beneficial relationships with partners. Create a bonus programme for those who work with online traffic. Meaning, you have to raise rates in a reasonable amount for those advertising platforms that bring an impressive number of orders. You can increase rates gradually – for example, you can increase the basic commission rate by a few percent after 50, 100 and 200 confirmed orders. As a result, you reward only those who provide high-quality traffic in large volumes. And for your business, it will bring an increase in the number of sales.
Another way to improve your relations with publishers and the quality of traffic they drive is to enable dual-channel attribution. Opening and closing sales channels work in different ways, but both help to make the sale happen. The opening channel is responsible for the first contact. It is usually provided by influencers, information websites, forums, price comparison sites, social media accounts, targeting and contextual advertising. They introduce your products and services to the user. The closing channel (cashback services, coupon sites, loyalty programmes, landing pages for sales) helps users to save some money and make their purchases more profitable.
With dual-channel attribution, sites from different channels don’t have to compete for the audience and rewards, but they can complement each other, making advertising even more effective. Thus, you can optimise costs for different types of traffic and motivate content creators to attract new users. With this method, you won’t be able to see results right away, but it will help you develop the programme further, improving the result of CPA work in the long run.
Method #2. Allow all types of traffic
Each traffic channel has its own peculiarities of work. Sometimes advertisers do not allow certain types of placements. This can be understood when it comes to competing with the marketing activities that are held by the company on its own (for example, when it comes to banning so-called brand-biding, simply put – targeting paid search ads to branded keywords).
However, sometimes advertisers simply do not want to cooperate with certain advertising platforms (for example, with cashback services that make the purchase more profitable, or targeted advertising). Meanwhile, the practice has shown that the more different traffic channels cooperate with you, the more exciting results you can get and the higher the sales figures become. Therefore, make sure to give it a try and test out the effectiveness of certain traffic types before deciding to forbid them.
Method #3. Individual approach
As you might have noticed in life, the individual approach works in any situation. Not only do different types of placements have different special needs and aspects, but also the partners themselves. If you want to build a sustainable basement for long-term cooperation and attract partners to work with your affiliate programme, try delving into the functional details of each advertising platform. Answer their questions and explain what makes you reject some actions they drive. Another benefit of personal communication with your top publishers is the ability to find out key downsides of your affiliate programme and fix them quickly.
Method #4. Exclusive promo codes and thematic marketing activities
Not so long ago, all Instagram users, regardless of their number of followers, got the opportunity to share links to their stories. This update has simplified the Instagram monetisation process a lot. However, even before this feature appeared on the market, affiliate programmes had a solution for this problem – exclusive promo codes. They retained the attribution of the order, regardless of the traffic source.
Exclusive promo codes are a good way to increase the loyalty of publishers and stimulate sales. Landing pages with special offers or any thematic promotions for holidays and events work in a similar way. Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Halloween — whatever you do, try to take the advantage of an upcoming event in your own way and invite publishers to use this activity
Method #5. Promote your affiliate programme
Have you already tried out all well-known techniques? You still have one more option available – promote your affiliate programme within the affiliate network. The official blog, forum, newsletters for partners, and posts on social networks are the most obvious channels to make your programme popular. However, you can go further.
Do you want to tell partners how to make your cooperation more profitable and effective? Are there any specific details about your programme that should be considered? Host a webinar and share this valuable information with publishers.
Did you manage to achieve some good results? Share your success story with external online media and get even more interested partners.
Participate in marathons and festivals hosted by the network, explore all the available opportunities and do not hesitate to try them out. For instance, the Admitad Affiliate network offers its advertisers several types of promo activities at once to make your programme popular among publishers.
Bonus tips for those who are ready to wait for results
Of course, the sooner you can see the result, the better, but sometimes it is worth considering long-term marketing investments.
And finally, here are some tips for those who are ready to handle a longer wait for their anticipated changes:
- You will never see results if you don’t analyse the performance of your affiliate programme on a regular basis. Keep an eye on statistics, try different methods and make decisions based on your data.
- Always stay connected with the manager from the affiliate network and your affiliates in order to exchange ideas, goals, and priorities. Teamwork and open discussion can spark new ideas.
- Share your plans and information about sales or special conditions with publishers in advance. And be prepared to invest fixed amounts to increase the programme’s visibility.
- Be open to testing out new ideas. Even if you’ve already worked with a business model that didn’t work with one partner, it might work with another.
- Diversify investments: don’t focus on one top partner, pay attention to small promising publishers, support them, give them bonuses.
- Having a long-term plan of promo activities while remaining flexible for new opportunities is your key to success in a modern world of ever-changing conditions.
