If you’re a small business selling online, you already know how the holiday shopping season can make or break your entire year.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday established as the biggest shopping events in November and December, it’s important to use every opportunity and marketing tactic to maximize your sales.
The great news is there are some shortcuts to find your next customers that you might not have thought of, and the even better news is it’s not too late to put them into practice ahead of this year’s peak trading.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based tactic that helps maximize sales by connecting you with online audiences you wouldn’t have been able to reach on your own. How? Brands work with publishers (also known as affiliates or partners) to promote their products across the publisher’s developed channels. Publishers work hard to provide value and build trust with their audience, which may otherwise take you years to replicate.
Ultimately, with affiliate marketing you can work with these trusted authorities to leverage their existing audiences for new customers and increased sales.
Better still, affiliate marketing can suit any niche or budget. Because you only pay publishers when a sale is made, it’s a low risk solution to grow your business.
Learn more about some must-read insider tips to help hit your Q4 targets for 2022.
1. Affiliate partnerships are a great way to diversity your marketing activity
Have you ever wondered how to get featured on a cashback or coupon site? Or would you love to work with bloggers, influencers, or price comparison sites?
Our research shows two-thirds of consumers look for a coupon or discount code before making a retail purchase. And almost half of shoppers consider the opinions of bloggers and editorial content sites before making an online purchase.
Affiliate partnerships offer great tactical exposure for your products. During peak, these sites are some of the most widely viewed places for people seeking out holiday promotions or researching where to buy their gifts.
Don’t just take our word for it. Shopify’s Future of eCommerce Report found half of US shoppers were influenced by personalized discounts (i.e. promotions you could offer across these sites.)
Working with them doesn’t need to be time consuming or admin heavy. And all tracking and payments can be managed through one interface. Another major perk of partnering with these sites is they only charge a commission when you make a valid sale.
When they feature you – typically for free – on their websites, they generate a new customer who buys one of your products and you just pay them a percentage of the sale based on what margin works for you.
The good news is that even if you decide discounting isn’t right for you, there are plenty of partners to choose from until you find the ones that are the right fit for your business.
If this still sounds daunting, don’t worry. There is plenty of help and support available to help you get up and running in a matter of days.
Top tips:
- Decide a margin that works for you; use a cashback site like Honey to see what commissions other retail businesses like yours are paying to get a sale.
- If you want to use coupon codes, why not set a minimum or stretching spend, ex. “Spend $100 to get 10% off.” Use this tactically to increase your average shopping carts.
- If you’re not interested in discounting, decide what partnerships would be a good fit: Influencers? Content sites? Price comparison or cashback sites?
2. Go early!
Ten years ago, everyone was focused on December but when Cyber Week emerged as the premier online shopping event, it shifted the highest ecommerce sales period to the end of November.
Over the past couple of years, though, advertisers have been launching sales earlier and earlier. In fact, some of the first holiday promotions are now launched in October.
This means consumers are hunting for bargains well before the end of the year.
Therefore, you need to think about how to sustain your promotions across multiple sales events, which now also includes additional peak spending days like Singles Day on November 11, a relatively new event originating in China that is catching on in the US.
One of the best qualities of the affiliate channel is it benefits all players – when you are successful, so are your partners and vice versa – so leverage their knowledge and experience. As we head into Q4, it’s not too late to build new affiliate partnerships and see how they can help you maximize your sales for the holidays.
And remember, savvy consumers are anticipating these events, so make sure you’re taking advantage of this awareness.
Top tips:
- Do your homework about all the peak events during Q4. Don’t see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a four-day sprint, think of it as a month-long marathon.
- If you can, spread your offers across the weeks of October through December rather than jamming everything in one generic promotion.
- Affiliate partners can help advise, support and promote your marketing plans across the holiday shopping season; ask how they can help you do the heavy lifting.
3. Find your next new customer
Loyal customers are worth their weight in gold.
But how do you find your next new ones? Our numbers show that around 30-40% of customers you attract from affiliate partners are ones that have never shopped with you before. And that figure can rise to more than 50% depending on what partners you choose.
That gives you the opportunity to target first time shoppers with exclusive offers, discounts, content and promotions and focus on turning them into your next new loyal customer.
Online sales now represent 21% of all retail in the US and the recent surge in online shopping has created a fresh set of shoppers new to buying from ecommerce sites.
Through an affiliate program, you’ll be able to check the details of every transaction and discover which partners are driving new customers, as well as those pushing your average shopping carts up. In other words, you can focus your attention on the affiliate partners driving the right type of customer.
This is really important as the more you focus on metrics that matter, the more you’ll get the biggest bang for your buck from the affiliate channel and your affiliate partners.
Top tips:
- Build new relationships with affiliate partners who can help drive new customers for you.
- Keep in mind other metrics that can indicate they’re pushing good quality shoppers, like those who are spending more than average.
- Don’t forget influencers and bloggers. If they love your products they can share details about them with their loyal followings.
4. Play to your strengths
Working with affiliate partners can be confusing. There are new rules and processes to learn, but once you’re up and running, it is a low risk way to trial new marketing tactics.
Small businesses have a few things going in their favor when working with affiliate partners. First, they can be nimble, quick to respond to new opportunities and fast in turning things around. Use the reporting metrics and data to gain insight into what campaigns and strategies are working. The available tracking can help you understand affiliate performance relative to other clicks and actions that occur in a single transaction. With this data, small businesses are able to quickly pivot their approach when they find success.
And the beauty of the affiliate channel is it is only paid for when a valid sale is made on your site. So, it is a great platform for brands to trial new activities.
Also, one of the lessons we learned from the pandemic is consumers like to shop local and support small companies. Use this to your advantage over the big box stores and find affiliate partners who want to support small businesses over corporate retailers.
Top tips:
- If you’d like to trial new campaigns during Q4, consider using affiliate partner technology to make data-driven decisions.
- Think of affiliate marketing networks and your affiliate partners as an accelerated development team who can help boost your ecommerce proposition.
- Consider how you can push your local or small business credentials.
5. Peak shopping isn’t just for retail (or gifting)
Something interesting happens around Cyber Weekend.
You may think people are focused on buying presents for friends and family, but our research suggests as many people are looking to buy for themselves as they are for others.
So, think about how that could impact your messaging. Rather than just focusing on gift finders for others, consider how you speak directly to shoppers treating themselves to something from your store.
Q4 this year will be tough for many retailers and consumers alike as budgets have become increasingly limited. That could reduce what people are willing to spend on others, so it is important to promote lower ticket items to consumers on your site along with the more expensive items.
One other interesting Cyber Weekend trend is that people are looking at all sorts of products, not just traditional retail. So even if you sell things that you don’t think fit into popular Black Friday and Cyber Monday categories, don’t forget to take advantage of the big surge in online traffic around the end of November.
Top tips:
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday are about self-gifting as much as for others. Consider this in how you position your products on your website.
- Consider your messaging: “If you’re buying for others, why not treat yourself!”
- Even if you sell services, office supplies or insurance, remember people are in buying mode and more inclined to shop this time of year.
ShareASale is a simple to use and affordable affiliate marketing solution. Designed for online retailers of all sizes, it gives ecommerce stores the chance to build direct partnerships with over 241,000 active affiliate partners, and seamlessly integrates with ecommerce plugins like Shopify, Shoplazza and WooCommerce.
It’s low cost, risk free and you can get your affiliate program live in less than two weeks to start reaching new customers and generating online sales.
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Ready to grow your online business with affiliate marketing?
