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The success of an affiliate marketing campaign is dependent upon its conversion rate. Regardless of which advertising networks you use, traffic alone won’t lead to commissions. Rather, you must convince users to click and engage with your affiliate offers.
A low conversion rate indicates that users aren’t taking action after seeing an affiliate offer. They may click it, but they won’t follow through with the commission-triggering action.
The good news is there are several easy steps you can take to increase the conversion rates of your affiliate marketing campaigns.
1) Use Landing Pages
Sending traffic to landing pages can lead to higher conversion rates. Some affiliate marketers send traffic directly to their affiliate offers.
They assume that landing pages are an unnecessary step that harms conversion rates, so they avoid using them.
In truth, landing pages promote higher conversion rates by allowing you to presell your affiliate offers.
Landing pages do, in fact, add another step to the conversion process.
To generate a conversion, a user must visit your landing page, click an ad or link to your affiliate offer and then complete the commission-triggering action.
With a landing page, though, you can presell users by telling them why they should engage with your affiliate offer.
You can also create custom landing pages for specific traffic segments.
Landing Page Software
2) Choose the Right Affiliate Offers
Some affiliate offers are easier to generate conversions for than others.
When browsing an affiliate network’s offers, put yourself in the shoes of a typical user. If an offer doesn’t compel you to take action, it will probably convert poorly.
High-converting affiliate offers can convey the value that drives the action or actions needed for a conversion.
An affiliate offer’s commission structure can affect its conversion rate as well.
Affiliate offers that use a cost-per-action (CPA) structure, for instance, tend to have higher conversion rates than those that use a cost-per-sale (CPS) structure.
Unlike with CPS offers, you don’t have to convince users to buy a product or service when promoting CPA offers.
CPA conversions are triggered through non-purchasing actions, such as subscribing to an email newsletter, downloading software or completing a form.
Many of the affiliate networks such as ShareASale and Awin list the conversion rates of an affiliate program.
3) Create Tracking URLs
Creating tracking URLs is an easy way to increase your campaigns’ conversion rates. A tracking URL is a unique link that redirects to an affiliate offer.
They are designed to help affiliate marketers segment their conversions.
If you promote the same affiliate offer on Facebook and Twitter, for example, you can create two tracking URLs: one for each of the two social media networks.
Tracking URLs are available in most affiliate networks. From within the affiliate network’s interface, you can create tracking URLs for your affiliate marketing campaigns.
If your affiliate network doesn’t support tracking URLs, consider a third-party tracking solution like Thirsty Affiliates.
I use Thirsty Affiliates for WordPress. I can add a link and get a short link and a personalized link. I can then use those links anywhere and monitor the total links.
It’s also cool because I can enter a keyword associated with a link. Then, anytime I use that keyword, Thirsty Affiliates adds the link automatically.
4) Capture Email Addresses
Another easy way to increase conversion rates in affiliate marketing is to capture email addresses.
You can send users emails to promote your affiliate offers, allowing for higher conversion rates. If a user doesn’t engage with your affiliate offer initially, you may be able to convert him or her later with an email.
Assuming you use landing pages, you can collect users’ email addresses with an opt-in newsletter form.
The opt-in form shouldn’t be the focal point of a landing page. Instead, make it secondary to the landing page’s sales copy and its call-to-action (CTA).
With a discreet placement, the opt-in newsletter form will capture users’ email addresses without drawing attention away from your affiliate offer.
5) Establish Trust
To generate conversions in affiliate marketing, you must establish trust with your target audience.
Trust is a fundamental component of all forms of marketing, including affiliate marketing.
If users don’t trust your ads or landing pages, chances of a conversion are slim at best.
You can establish trust through the use of transparent sales copy. Don’t try and deceive users by making false claims about an affiliate offer.
Whether you’re writing an ad or the content for a landing page, keep your sales copy honest.
If you are doing a product review, be honest. Don’t give a positive review on something you don’t really like just because you get a commission if it sells.
I will generally share pros and cons.
6) Enhance Usability
Improving the usability of your website and landing pages can lead to higher conversion rates.
Users are less likely to interact with landing pages that suffer from poor usability. If your landing pages take an excessive amount of time to load, for instance, some users will likely leave.
In addition to long load times, other usability problems that can affect conversion rates include a cluttered design, small and hard-to-read text, lack of contrasting colors, and broken links.
Your landing pages may have persuasive sales copy, but if they suffer from poor usability, they won’t generate many conversions.
I use SEMrush to run regular SEO Sitechecks. I also like Grammarly for helping me to catch those pesky typos!
To evaluate a landing page’s usability, navigate and use it from the perspective of a typical user. If you encounter any hiccups, address them so that they don’t bring down your campaigns’ conversion rates.
Jeff and Paul at Ballen Brands build great websites for affiliate marketers. Give them a call at 702-917-0755 and tell them Lori Ballen sent you.
7) Buy Retargeting Ads
You can achieve higher conversion rates for your affiliate marketing campaigns by investing in retargeting ads.
Also referred to as remarketing ads, they are distinguished from other types of online ads by their targeting method.
Retargeting ads allow you to selectively target users who’ve visited your landing pages but didn’t perform the action or actions required for a conversion.
Retargeting ads are available through several online advertising networks.
You can create them in Google Ads, Bing Ads, and even Facebook Ads. While each advertising network has a different retargeting system, they all require the use of a list.
To create retargeting ads, you must build a list of users whom you wish to target. You’ll have to place a tracking snippet or pixel on your landing pages.
When a user visits one of your landing pages, the tracking snippet or pixel will capture his or her information for retargeting purposes.
In affiliate marketing, traffic is just one piece of the puzzle. You can send boatloads of traffic to an affiliate offer.
Unless the traffic converts, however, you won’t generate any commissions for it.
Optimizing your affiliate marketing campaigns for higher conversion rates will maximize your commission earnings by encouraging more users to take action.
Lori Ballen is a real estate agent in Las Vegas. She’s a digital marketing specialist, speaker, and marketing coach and loves to share her “Ballen Method” to generate website traffic and leads online. Lori’s specialties are SEO content writing (ranking on the search engines), social media strategies, and affiliate marketing. Need a website? Contact Lori’s brothers Jeff and Paul Helvin at Ballen Brands.
