How to Create an Affiliate Program & Increase Your Sales

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Want to increase your ecommerce sales without investing in expensive advertising and marketing campaigns? Learn how to set up an affiliate program and let someone else do the marketing for you.

After all, your best marketers are your happy customers.

So why not reward those customers who are vocal about how much they love you? Setting up an affiliate program for your online business allows your most loyal and enthusiastic customers to share in your success. And you only get paid when you make a sale.

Setting up an affiliate program can seem complicated, but we're here to help!

In today's article, we'll share with you the tools and tips that will help you create an affiliate marketing program. By the time you finish reading this article, you'll know exactly how to start an affiliate program that will grow your business, increase customer loyalty, and increase your revenue.

• What is an affiliate program?
• Two aspects of an affiliate program
  • Affiliate
  • Business
  • 1. Identify your goals and choose your products
  • 2. Decide on a structure and rates
  • 3. Choose affiliate management software
  • 4. Onboard your affiliates
  • 5. Track and pay affiliates

  What Is an Affiliate Program?

  An affiliate program is a system where online businesses partner with content creators and websites. These partners, called affiliates, promote the business's products through their content. Affiliates receive a commission if their promotion leads to a sale or achieves another goal, such as driving traffic to your site.

  How does setting up an affiliate program increase sales? The success of an affiliate program depends on two key factors:

  1. Extended Reve: Blogs, YouTube channels, and social media influencers all have their own built-in reputation. Affiliate programs make it easy to reach these audiences.
  2. Social Proof: Consumers look for customer reviews and testimonials to make purchasing decisions. Affiliate programs attract new customers by getting quality content creators to brag about your brand.

  How is this possible? Affiliate links are the backbone of an affiliate marketing program. Each affiliate uses a unique link on your website or product page. This allows you to track the traffic and sales from each affiliate and pay them a commission.

  Amazon is probably the most famous affiliate network in the world. Every holiday season, you see gift guides in the news and stuff, right? They're full of links to Amazon products, right? They're all affiliate links, and the news sites earn money when you click on those links and buy those products. This is all part of the Amazon Associates program, the affiliate platform of the retail giant.

  Let's take the New York Magazine website as a common example:

  The 2 Sides of Affiliate Programs

  There are two sides to an affiliate program:

  1. The Affiliate

  First, there's affiliate marketing on the affiliate side.

  There are two sides to an affiliate program:

  First, there's affiliate marketing on the affiliate side.

  For example, let's say you're a travel blogger. In your blog post, you recommend booking your flight using an online booking service called “Travelmonster” (not a sister company of OptinMonster):

  If you sign up for the TravelMonster affiliate program, you can receive a commission on sales from your blog’s affiliate links:

  For these content creators, affiliate marketing is a passive source of income. Once you share your affiliate links and optimize your SEO, you can keep making money from a single blog post or video.

  2. The Business

  Want to know how to make money with affiliate marketing? Check out our guide: What is Affiliate Marketing? How to Make Money While You Sleep

  But now let’s take a turn and look at affiliate programs from the business side.

  If you’re an ecommerce marketer and you’re generating enough traffic and business for your site, you might want to start an affiliate program to reward your content creators.

  In this case, you would start an affiliate marketing program, provide customized, localized links to other content creators, and be responsible for paying them commissions for sales made using your affiliate links.

  In short, your users promote your products and you receive more sales. A true "win-win" scenario.

  How to Create an Affiliate Program

  In the rest of this article, we will focus on affiliate programs from the perspective of a business that wants to promote its products.

  1. Determine Your Goals & Choose Products

  Let's create an affiliate program in five steps:

  • A successful affiliate marketing program should start with a clearly defined goal:
  • Drive traffic to your e-commerce site and get x number of daily visits.
  • Increase sales of a specific product by x%.

  Acquire traffic with the number of active affiliates within one year

  2. Decide on Your Commission Structure & Rate

  In addition, it is necessary to identify the products that affiliates want to advertise. If you are a beginner in small business or affiliate marketing, you should start with one or two affiliate products. If you have a main product, it is wise to start this way.

  Next, let's decide the reward for affiliates.

  • Here are three general commission systems:
  • Percentage for sales: If you have a sales via an affiliate link, you will pay the percentage. This percentage is usually 5 % to 25 %.
  • Pay by pay: Pay the amount set for each sales or conversion. The fixe d-price reward is especially common in hig h-priced products and regular purchases.

  3. Choose Your Affiliate Management Software

  Jewelry Comment: In this commission system, more affiliates can get a higher commission rate. This strategy allows affiliates to optimize the product promotion method.

  Before you start an affiliate approach, you need to choose which affiliate management software to use. Software sets affiliate links, tracking affiliate, and managing payments.

  If your online store is built on WordPress, there is a great plu g-in that will take all of these.

  Here, we will introduce the WordPress affiliate management plugin that is ideal for beginners:

  AffiliateWP is the best affiliate program plu g-in for WordPress. A powerful and eas y-t o-use solution full of functions. You can start immediately by simply installing and enabling plugins.

  Affiliates can be added or registered manually. You can have unlimited affiliates and creatives to advertise your products, services, and websites faster and more effectively.

  AGREATEWP also comes with an integrated payment service that pays your affiliates quickly and immediately.

  Affiliate management is also easy. On the dashboard, you can easily monitor affiliate performance.

  Finally, AgreteWP can be used seamlessly with other popular E-commerce tools such as WooCommerce, PayPal Buttons, and MemberPress.

  The price partnership plan is $ 149, 60 to $ 299, 60 per year.

  Easy Affiliate is an al l-i n-one program plu g-in for WordPress. With Easy Affiliate, you can set up a sel f-hosting affiliate program just by launching the installation wizard and following a simple step.

  It has a built-in affiliate dashboard where you can receive links, track your commissions, and view your payment history. Easy Affiliate also automatically takes you to the necessary information like affiliate apps and links, and other important pages.

  If you are a beginner and want to get started with an affiliate program, Easy Affiliate makes the process as easy as possible.

  4. Get Affiliates on Board

  Price There are plans ranging from $99, 600 to $199, 600 per year.

  • The next step is to find content creators who will promote your brand! You want to find content creators whose audience overlaps with your target audience. For example:
  • Blogs related to your niche
  • YouTube channels that post product review videos in your industry

  Social media influencers who promote products like yours, such as popular Tiktok users

  If you are selling physical products, reach out to these content creators and offer to send them a review copy of your product. If it is a digital product, you can even offer them a product key or a free trial.

  Then you will start seeing your product promoted on their blogs and social media platforms.

  Here is an example of a YouTube review for OptinMonster. The video description includes an affiliate link:

  Here are some ways to find affiliate marketers who will use your program:

  1. Reach out to people in your personal network: If you’ve been in your field for a few years, you probably have friends in your field who aren’t your direct competitors. Let them know that you’ve started an affiliate program.

  If they already have a content marketing plan, they’ve probably built an audience that’s interested in your products as well.

  2. Reach out to people in your niche: You may not have people who know you personally, but with social media, you can always reach out to influencers in your industry.

  Explain to them what makes your product unique and why your affiliate program is worth checking out.

  5. Track and Pay Your Affiliates

  4. Rely on your email list: This is super important. Having a strong, active email list will do wonders for your affiliate marketing program (not to mention your ecommerce site as a whole). This way you can use Affiliate Royale alongside OptInmonster, the #1 affiliate generation tool on the market.

  If you have an affiliate management program set up, this last step is easy! Our software will help you keep everything running smoothly so that you can pay your affiliate commissions.

  Method 1: How to Start an Affiliate Program with AffiliateWP

  Speaking of which, let's take a look at the ease of use of the two affiliate plugins we suggested.

  Step 1: Install AffiliateWP on WordPress

  The first step in getting started with an affiliate program is to choose a platform to use. Let's start with AffiliateWP.

  Go to the AffiliateWP website and click the Get Started button.

  Choose one of AffiliateWP's plans and follow the checkout process to complete your purchase.

  Once you've purchased the plugin, you'll receive an email with installation instructions:

  This email is very important for two reasons. First, it tells you the latest version of AffiliateWP to download (this will be your plugin).

  It also tells you the license key you'll need to activate the plugin later.

  Once you've downloaded the latest version of AffiliateWP (above), go to your WordPress control panel.

  Look for Plugins in the right column and click Add New:

  At the top, you'll have the option to upload your plugin:

  Just upload the . zip file from AffiliateWP and click "Install Now":

  Step 2: Set Up Your AffiliateWP Program Settings

  Finally, click the "Activate Add" button and go live.

  And you're all set! AffiliateWP makes it as easy as possible to get started with your affiliate program.

  Now that you have the AffiliateWP plugin installed, let's see how to use it.

  After activating the add-on, go to Affiliates' Settings and enter your license key right away.

  After activating your license key, on the same page you can choose which page you want to use for your affiliate site. AffiliateWP will create one for you automatically, but if you want to change it you can choose a different page from the dropdown menu.

  You can also create a "Terms and Conditions" page, which you can configure as well.

  After that, scroll down to set other settings for your affiliate program, such as referral fee type (percentage or flat rate), cookie expiration, and currency.

  Don't forget to click the "Save Changes" button once you're done.

  You can select the integrations you want to enable in the Integrations tab. You can connect AffiliateWP with popular plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, MemberPress, WPForms, and more.

  Just put a check mark next to the plugins you want to enable the link for and click Save Changes.

  Then move to the email tab. AffiliateWP allows you to easily edit emails to send to affiliates. On this page, you can upload logo, create a custom mail template, and add a business email address to send emails.

  Click Save Changes to the next step.

  The MISC tab allows you to set other details of the affiliate program. This includes choices whether the user is needed before becoming an affiliate, and to automatically register new users as affiliates.

  You can also enable recaptcha from this page to prevent bots from registering as affiliates.

  Step 3: Manage Your Affiliate Program with AffiliateWP

  When the setting is completed, click "Save Change".

  The setting is now complete! The setting of the affiliate program is now complete.

  Here are some things you can do with affiliates as the affiliate program setting has been completed.

  Your affiliates can be linked to the affiliate loyalty area created by affiliates automatically. On this dashboard, affiliates can track their own referrals and payments, access creative, and generate the referral URL with the buil t-in referral link generator.

  Also, by purchasing AdviliaTe Portal Addon, you can automatically make the affiliate site a modern appearance.

  AffiliateWP offers a lot of free and paid ad d-ons that can be used to expand your affiliate programs.

  To see the affiliates that participated in your program, you can move to the affiliate page. Here you can see affiliate partnerships, revenue, percentage, paid and free introductions and complete lists.

  You can also get an overview of how your referral program works by accessing Affiliate Report.

  Here, you can see powerful insights such as the revenue paid and the average referral amount. The report period can be narrowed down by time and specific affiliate name. You can also see affiliates, payments, visits, and campaign reports.

  Method 2: Starting an Affiliate Program With Easy Affiliate

  AffiliateWP facilitates the operation of affiliate programs, and these are just a few of its powerful features.

  Step 1: Install Easy Affiliate

  Next, I will introduce how to set an affiliate program with an easy affiliate.

  Now, I will guide you to start an easy affiliate.

  Step 2: Configure Easy Affiliate

  To create an affiliate an affiliate program, go to the Easy Affiliate website and buy a plugin.

  Install the plu g-in and enable it.

  Now that the Easy Affiliate plugin is installed, let's see how to use it. Right after activating the plugin, you will be redirected to the Easy Affiliate tab in your WordPress control panel.

  On the Easy Affiliate page, scroll down a bit and click the Start Wizard button. The setup wizard will walk you step by step through setting up your affiliate program.

  The first step is to enter your Associate Affiliate license key (you can find your license key in the setup email mentioned earlier or in your Easy Affiliate account).

  Copy the license key and paste it into the specified domain.

  Once the key is verified, click the Save and Continue button.

  Easy Affiliate will check if you have an affiliate program installed and give you the option to migrate to it. If you don't have one, click the Save and Continue button.

  Next, you need to select the ecommerce plugin you want Easy Affiliate to track your affiliate sales for.

  Easy Affiliate seamlessly integrates with the most popular shopping carts like WooCommerce and easy digital downloads.

  Click on the toggle button to enable the option you want. For this tutorial, we will enable WooCommerce. After that, click Save to proceed.

  After that, enter your business details including name, address and other details.

  Once again, click Save and continue to proceed to the next step of the installation process.

  Now it's time to set up your affiliate program registration. Easy Affiliate allows you to choose from three options:

  We recommend that you select the Application option so that you can get to know more about the applicant before accepting them as an affiliate of your brand.

  You can also enable other options such as when to collect the affiliate's address and tax information and whether to display the affiliate terms on the registration page.

  Once you have enabled the options you want, click Save to proceed.

  Next, set your commission type. You can pay affiliates a flat rate for purchases on your site or set a sales percentage.

  Before proceeding, select your payment method and choose whether you want to pay commission on all sales or only on the first sale.

  Click Save to proceed to the next step.

  Creative refers to the marketing materials you can provide to your affiliates such as your website logo, product photos, banner ads, text documents, etc.

  Step 3: Manage with Easy Affiliate

  Click the addition button to upload the creative. If you don't have a creative yet, you can click the "Skip and Continue" button and add it later.

  Setup of sel f-host type affiliate program has been completed. Click the setup completion button; end the wizard.

  There are many things you can do with easy affiliates, but today we focus on the basics.

  Easy Affiliate automatically creates important pages (application pages, login, affiliate dashboards, etc.) required for affiliate programs.

  This can automate most affiliate programs.

  To display the page, access Easy Affiliate Settings from the WordPress control panel. You can preview and edit these pages under the general tab.

  Now you can provide a link to register your program as an affiliate candidate:

  Affiliates can always log in to the dashboard.

  The dashboard allows you to check commission, link/ banner, statistics, and payment history.

  Your users can get everything you need to advertise your business.

  You can manage affiliates from the WordPress control panel and track important affiliate statistical information on the website:

  You can also change settings such as commission system, marketing integration, click history, transaction history, etc.

  Promote Your Affiliate Program

  In other words, you can manage every aspect of affiliate programs from the easy affiliate menu of the WordPress control panel in an intuitive and use r-friendly way.

  Again, this article just introduced only a small part of what I could do when I started an affiliate marketing strategy. In the future, I would like to create marketing materials (banners, etc.) and synchronize Easy Affiliate with email lists.

  The best way to add affiliates is those who are already royal customers in your shop. In fact, it is the most important group to advertise your shop.

  But how do you communicate information to them? If they are already registered in your email marketing list, just send them emails.

  If not, you need to create an email list and spread the information on the site.

  To do so, we recommend using OptinMonster, the No. 1 potential customer generation tool kit in the market.

  OptinMonster is a WordPress premium plu g-in that continues to increase e-mail lists and advertise new affiliate programs in various ways.

  Receiving e-mails through potential magnets and tw o-step optoinforms allows you to start advertising an affiliate marketing program to your current customer.

  Promote With Popups

  Certainly, communication with the network is suitable for gaining new affiliates. However, using your company's email list means approaching those who are actively interested in your activities and content to be produced.

  This is only one of the benefits of having a solid email list to grow your business.

  OptinMonster offers tools and tricks to create unlicensed po p-ups that are required to advertise affiliate programs and add emails to marketing lists.

  With more than 100 kinds of ey e-catching templates and 9 types of campaign types, there is no doubt that visitors will attract the attention of visitors.

  You can also customize all of the campaigns, such as text, images, and colors, using a tool that can be created by dragging and dropping. You can also add advanced elements such as countdown center, photos, videos, and buttons.

  The following is an example of a ful l-page po p-up window for collecting e-mails in business email lists created by OptinMonster.

  What about the powerful targeting function of OptinMonster?

  OptinMonster allows you to customize which visitors will see and when. Therefore, if you want to advertise an affiliate program using existing customers, you can use OptinMonster.

  If not, you can target viewers based on your website activities, interests, and actions.

  Just like tracking partner marketing sales, you can monitor how well the campaign is on a dashboard that is easy to understand. In the A/B test, you can also test different campaigns in real time.

  You can also send emails to users who have left the affiliate product page with the powerful EXIT-Intent® technology of OptinMonster.

  In fact, OptinMonster and Affiliate Marketing are how AdamenFroy. com has increased the sales of affiliates more than $ 20. 000 per month.

  Now, get the same result on your website.

  Benefits: Campaign setup (equivalent to $ 297) Converted an expert design for one free campaign to get the best results! Click here to start.

  That's it! This has everything you need to start an affiliate program.

  • See the affiliate marketing statistical information that all marketing staff should know for the latest trends and growth opportunities in this industry.
  • If you enjoy this article, the following articles will be useful:
  • How to increase the email list faster: 80 or more proven methods
  • Profit per click: How to make a great profit by affiliate marketing

  How to make money while sleeping on an affiliate

  

  Elim Poon - Journalist, Creative Writer

  Last modified: 27.08.2024

  Choose Your Affiliate Management Software. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are. How to Start Your Affiliate Program (In 4 Steps) · Step 1: Set Your Goals and Make Strategic Product Selections · Step 2: Gather Your Tools · Step.