Are you ready to add an extra 6-7 figures to your annual income without adding extra time and effort to your already-busy day? 

The key to supplementing your income in today’s volatile economy is diversification, and building an affiliate program is the perfect way to achieve this while attracting new customers, building trust in your brand, and increasing your total revenue.

Building an affiliate program can seem daunting, but with East 5th Avenue, you don’t have to go through the process alone. We take the guesswork out of it by offering our expertise and resources to help you build a thriving affiliate program. 

Whether you’re an established company looking to expand your reach or a new business just starting out, our team is here to make the process smooth and successful. In this blog post, we’ll provide you with an overview of the key elements involved in creating an effective affiliate program and show you how East 5th Avenue can help you achieve your business goals.

First things first, let’s talk about which types of businesses can best utilize an affiliate program. 

What Types Of Companies Benefit From Affiliate Programs? 

An affiliate program can be beneficial for a variety of companies, particularly those that sell products or services online, but it can also help companies with physical products find new customers as well. Some examples include:

• E-commerce companies 

• Software and technology companies

• Service-based companies

• Alternative medicine & supplements

• Educational institutions and course providers

• Media companies such as publishers, bloggers, or content creators

• Digital online products

• Coaching companies

• Parenting advice companies

• & more

What Key Elements Are Crucial For A Basic Affiliate Program? 

The five components of a basic affiliate program are:

• An offer. Your offer can be a digital product, service, physical product, educational course, or anything else that a person can buy online. 

• A landing page or funnel. This is where the offer can be shopped and purchased. It should have a multistep process in place where a customer can see and learn more about the offer, then purchase it.

• A cart system. The online shopping cart is the final crucial component, this is how the sale is finalized

• A tracking system. What makes this an affiliate system, as opposed to a regular online shop, is a tracking code software and system that ensures visibility into who is getting customers to your site. 

• A commission structure. That’s how you reward your affiliates for sending traffic and helping convert sales on your offer.

While there are a lot of moving parts to have a successful affiliate program, these 5 will be enough for you to dip your toes in the water and test out this marketing channel.

Now, if you think you’ve got the basics down, you can start working on the advanced structure and scale this channel to add an additional 6-7 figure revenue stream for your business.

How Do You Build A Successful Affiliate Program?

Building an affiliate program involves several steps:

• Build out your basic affiliate program elements: Determine and build out the offer affiliates will promote. Build and test your funnels to make sure the sales convert and track properly. If everything checks out, continue to the next steps to scale.

• Create a Commission Structure: Establish the commission rate for each sale or lead generated by an affiliate. This can be a percentage of the sale or a flat fee. 

• Choose an Affiliate Network: Decide whether to use an existing affiliate network or create your own. While there are many pros and cons to each path, Goldenberri is great because it saves a ton of time and even helps you create revenue faster. This network is primarily built for offers in the Health & Wellness and Financial niches. 

• Develop Marketing Materials: Create banners, links, and other materials that affiliates can use to promote your products or services. It is beneficial to thoroughly test these assets before sending them to affiliates.
  

• Recruit Affiliates: Reach out to potential affiliates to recruit them to your program. This can be done through email, social media, or other marketing channels. This is where your chosen affiliate network can really help you expedite your affiliate program and recruit affiliates more quickly.
  

• Track and Measure the Results: Use tracking links and analytics to measure the performance of your affiliates and the overall program. Remember, with the proper affiliate system, tracking links can be auto-generated and easy to use for your affiliates and advertisers.
  

• Continuously Optimize Your Program: Continuously analyze the program and make adjustments as necessary to optimize the results. In most cases, setting up an affiliate program isn’t enough to create success. Having an affiliate manager and/or solid affiliate network can be crucial in your ability to test your offer and create continuous success.
  

• Join Affiliate Mastermind Community — Traffic Tribe –  a vetted group of partnership marketers who build stronger and more effective affiliate programs together. It will play an essential role in helping you network with other affiliate managers and business owners, learn from top online marketing experts, make deals, and help grow your affiliate revenue.

If you think your offer could benefit from an affiliate program, there is a bit of investment involved when setting up affiliate marketing as a marketing channel for your business. 

What Is The Cost Of Setting Up An Affiliate Program? 

The upfront costs of setting up an affiliate program may vary based on the choices you make with structural setup; however, even if you choose to go with premium plans all around, your investment will still likely be way below what you might be investing in other marketing channels already. 

With our Build An Affiliate Program course, we help set you up for a healthy return on investment while sharing all the key elements of building an effective affiliate program. 

Before you start, here are some important costs you should prepare for.

• Commission Structure: One of the main costs associated with an affiliate marketing program is the commission paid to affiliates for each sale or lead generated. This commission can range from a small percentage of the sale to as much as 50 percent, depending on the industry and product or service being sold. We cover this a bit more in-depth in the course.

• Technology and Tracking: Another cost associated with an affiliate marketing program is the technology and tracking needed to manage the program. This can include affiliate tracking software, analytics tools, and marketing materials such as banners and links.

• Affiliate Manager: You can certainly start the program on your own if you have the time. But if you decide to hire an affiliate manager, the cost will be the salary and benefits for the person. We have a proven system to help you recruit and train the right affiliate manager.

• Recruitment and Promotion: There may also be costs associated with recruiting affiliates to test and promote your offer..Joining affiliate mastermind communities, such as Traffic Tribe, is an easy way to meet vetted affiliate partners. 

• Legal and Compliance: As with every industry, there are some rules and best practices to follow that help ensure you don’t run into legal issues. 

Affiliate marketing start-up costs are relatively low compared to other marketing channels, plus they are designed to be paid for primarily through sales. This makes affiliate marketing much easier to budget for and justify from a business standpoint. 

Need Support Creating Your Affiliate Program?

Supercharge Your Affiliate Revenue with everything you need to know to grow your partnership marketing channel in a free mini-course Everflow of Partner Connections.

You’ll get 15 lessons and 7 actionable tools designed to meet you at any level (beginner, intermediate and advanced) and help you build a steady affiliate revenue coming month after month, year after year! 

TAKE IT – ABSOLUTELY FREE… 

Sources:

VIP Membership Lesson: Build a Successful Affiliate Program

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