Advertisers: 5 tips to choose the right affiliate marketing platform for you

For retail websites, generating consistent, significant, and qualitative traffic is a strategic lever. Without visitors, there are no clients; and without clients, there’s no revenue. However, when one doesn’t have the striking power of the retail giants, one must raise the question of the right conversion channel.

That’s where affiliate marketing comes into play. It’s an ROI-oriented lever that brings attention to your offers and your brand and diversifies your points of contact. However, you won’t need to spend days or weeks finding the right websites or the right influencers to spread the word. Online sales are your profession. No searching for publishers.

That’s why there are professionals who are experts in this field. But, they are not all the same. So how can one be sure of making the right choice? Thanks to our 5 tips, you’ll choose the affiliate marketing platform that will boost your sales!

The Size and Quality of Publishers’ Networks

This is the raw material of an affiliate marketing platform. The more it invests in maintaining strong, powerful, historic connections to content producers, the greater the chance that your products and services will be showcased in a suitable digital environment. Take the time to compare the services on offer and the relationships between the platforms and publishers, paying particular attention to the practical, concrete angles.

How many potential targets are there in your industry? Is your product or service to be found in the publishers’ digital ecosystem? Is the platform in question dependable? How long has it been around? Is it a well-established organization or a new player in the market? Finding the right affiliate marketing platform is like recruiting an associate. You must take the time to do some research — and don’t hesitate to ask (yourself) the right questions.
Well-Suited Tools and Tracking
A good platform must, of course, provide the connection between the publisher and the advertiser, but it must also offer a clear dashboard with accurate information about concrete KPIs.

Getting involved in affiliate marketing also means investing time and money. How exactly do you know whether your campaigns are working? How can you be certain that the cash-back commissions paid to affiliates are associated with actual sales? Or how do you connect your numbers to the affiliate marketing platform‘s numbers? All of the technology that is at work behind this platform must be well-suited to your needs. An indispensable tool to measure your return on investment and create a solid relationship with your future partner.

Responsive Tech Support

Do you have a question? A bug? A problem? You can’t manage an affiliate marketing campaign on your own. Demand tech support that can team up with you and work with you to implement tracking mechanisms and manage your product feed. You may not have the technical skills, team, resources, or time to do it all on your own. Since getting into affiliate marketing requires a certain degree of technical know-how, demand real, responsive back-office support.

An Omni-Channel, Cross-Device Approach

Your visitors can be inconsistent. They change channels often and are always on the go. Choosing a good affiliate marketing platform, then, also involves the need to provide detailed data on the full range of the customer journey, from start to finish. Mobile phone, tablet, computer, marketing email… a true affiliate marketing professionals will leave no stone unturned. Omni-channel marketing is at the heart of all current priorities. Your affiliate marketing platform must possess all the techniques and strategies to meet those challenges, accurately measuring the impact of your promotional campaigns.

A Human Team

Behind the miracles of technology, there are, of course, servers, algorithms, computers, and automated processes. But it’s always good to be able to talk to a human at any time. Advice, assistance, best practice… An affiliate marketing strategy will only work if human relationships with your platform provide a high degree of added value. Are you getting no response? Are you unable to get anyone on the phone? Run!

By applying these five tips to your prospective initiative, you’ll eliminate much of the risk of choosing the wrong partner. Jumping into online sales requires you to master all the levers of web marketing, from A to Z. By outsourcing affiliate marketing to experts whose job it is, you will save time and money — and you’ll gain some peace of mind to grow your online business.

You can explore our performance marketing solutions or contact us to find out more!