If you sell products online, then it is quite likely that you have already explored a range of digital marketing options. Yet one prospect, known as affiliate marketing, has several distinct advantages when advertising your product. In the geographically isolated base of Nova Scotia, it can get leads from local and global sources. Below, we give our guide to affiliate marketing and how you can benefit.  

What is Affiliate Marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is the practice of using third parties to direct traffic and leads to your business. They often do this through reviews, or discussing products on their blogs, videos and social media. When they recommend a product, people can click on the link provided and they are directed to a sales page. In return, the affiliate marketer gets a small percentage of the profit.

 

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For this to work, the affiliate marketer has to have created a level of trust with their readers or followers. Therefore, you can’t just expect them to sell anything on your behalf. You must also find the right format for affiliate marketing to take place. The iGaming industry is one sector that has got this down to a fine art. Using well-built, established review websites such as Stake.com Canada, they can get consistent traffic due to honest, trusted experts in their sector. Not only do they get traffic, but they also get valuable product feedback from reviewers which may have cost money and time to divulge elsewhere.  

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing 

The benefits of affiliate marketing for Nova Scotia businesses are obvious. You get increased sales, often from global sources and as long as you direct this traffic to quality landing pages, they should become conversions. Yet there are a few other less obvious advantages of affiliate marketing.  

One is that most affiliate networks provide a large amount of data on the traffic and effectiveness of campaigns. This can provide valuable insights. You don’t even have to use affiliate marketing to sell products. You can use it to direct people to email sign-ups on third-party sites like mailchimp.com and use it to get even more customer information for forthcoming campaigns.  

Another advantage is that like PPC advertising, it is performance-based. You only pay any money to marketers if people make a sale. Therefore, you are not depleting your marketing budget on campaigns that may not be fruitful. If it does not convert, then you don’t pay.  

How Do I Start? 

There are several ways you can begin offering your products to affiliate marketers. One of the quickest and most trouble-free is to join an affiliate network, such as Awin.com. They have a large cache of marketers who will look for products that are relevant to their niche. They then make an application and you can choose who you wish to work with. The relevant links to direct people to your product are provided and this is tracked on the website itself.  

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Another option is to find affiliate marketers yourself. Search relevant Google keywords and see which websites are coming out on top for your area. You can then approach the webmaster directly and ask if they would be interested in a collaboration.  

Using these techniques, you should be able to get into the world of affiliate marketing quite quickly. Try a network to begin for ease of use, and make sure you keep watching the key performance indicators as you would with any marketing project. Soon, you may find they are one of the most successful areas of your business.