Hello there!
Are you interested in becoming an affiliate partner for your favorite service or product (or any kind of product/service really)? Then this post is for you!
Today I would like to introduce you to the most important metrics to look out for when choosing an affiliate program, where you can find those programs, and how to promote the product/service chosen. Hence, this article is structured to give you an introduction so you feel confident with the metrics and have a place to start your side-business.
The 3 main commission structures
Before showing you how to find your affiliate program I think it is important to introduce you to the three main commission structures of affiliate marketing programs.I believe this knowledge is essential when choosing your affiliate program later on.
The three main structures commission structures are:
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Creating a lead for a company can be identified as establishing contact to potential customers for a company. Even if the lead you generate is in the form of a free sign-up (where the customer provides his name and email or other data), companies are reimbursing you for your marketing efforts. This is due to the fact that companies now have the option to retarget those referred customers and convert them into paying customers. Furthermore, a percentage of the customers will upgrade to the paid service after getting familiar with the service/product.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
When acquiring a customer for a company you not only create a lead for the business, but the customer you referred it’s also fulfilling certain acquisition criteria (which are defined in the referral program). This often comes down to the purchase of a product/service or a deposit of a minimum amount of money into the company’s account. For Example, Coinbase will pay you & me 10$ worth of Bitcoin if you register using this link here. But you have to buy cryptos worth 100USD minimum, otherwise, you are not considered as an acquired customer.
Revenue Sharing
(As the name indicates…) After you acquired a customer through your referral link, the company will reimburse you in the form of shared profits over a period of time. For example, you could receive 15% of a customer’s trading fees for one year.
Find your first referral program
1.Find referral programs for products or services that you personally use:
This is probably the most convenient and easiest way to start affiliating products/services. I was amazed when looking at the services/products I use, by how many companies offered affiliate programs. For example Adidas, Amazon, Coinbase, Skillshare, hi.com are products/services I am using and paying for. All of them are offering affiliate programs with different commission structures. It is usually very easy to become an affiliate partner, after which you are provided with a unique referral link (and often also resources to promote the product/service).
2. Use an Affiliate Marketplace:
If you don’t know what products to promote or you simply want to find new affiliate partners, there is the option to utilize an affiliate marketplace. There’s an abundance of marketplaces but the most established one is probably Clickbank. Essentially any affiliate marketplace enables you to find affiliate programs suiting your interest. You can search within multiple industries, filter for certain categories and identify all conditions of a potential referral program. You then have to create your own link or you have to apply to become a partner for the specific program.
To give you a place to start, here are some of the most popular affiliate market places:
How to promote your product/service?
Well, it certainly depends on your preference again. I for instance prefer writing blog posts on multiple platforms about the products and services I use. I write about news regarding those services/products, “how to” posts, and much more. And of course, there’s YouTube for example for videos, where you can put your referral link in the video description. Here you get to choose!
Thinking about it, the options are actually nearly limitless on the internet. I believe it comes down to exposure and reach when promoting anything. Usually companies use advertising to get exposure and they use channels such as TV- or YouTube commercials (which have a lot of reach). We could certainly spend money on advertising for our affiliate products including our link, but I think this is beginner unfriendly and I personally have never done it.
I definitely recommend everyone to start on a platform where they can publish their content for free and grow homogeneously. Furthermore, the platform should have enough traffic so you’re content actually gets exposure. For example, I repost my content on 5 platforms and I continuously try to find more ways to get more exposure (building my own website atm). Doing this continuously and posting good content frequently will further increase their exposure (due to rising followers and most AIs). And it really works, you just have to be consistent.
Platforms to publish your content on:
Publis0x (Blogging)
Peakd (Blogging)
Medium (Blogging)
Leofinance (Finance Blogging)
Torum (Crypto Blogging)
Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, LinkedIn (Known Channels)
The best referral program I’ve found | hi.com
Hi is a not-for-profit bank, which itself sounds paradox. And believe it or not, the company is so very well founded that their marketing budget must be crazy. I mean they bought the domain “hi.com” (probably costed them a few bucks).The former bitcoin.com CEO and the former Crypto.com CMO are part of the team behind this project.
They are essentially letting you claim 1 HI$ per day (~0.70$) as a daily reward. You simply have to signup using your mobile number. In addition, you get half the daily reward for any friend you referred who claims daily. And the friends of your friends give you rewards too (downstream referrals). And that makes me 15$ a day passively after only 8 weeks.
Of course, you have to KYC and pay a fee to withdraw your HI$ but this is industry standard by now and furthermore incentivizes to hold the assets.
Join here
If I did it, you can certainly too! Find your game/project/service/product, promote it, and start growing!
Cheers,
NFInsights