What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is a type of advertising that enhances sales with the help of referrals. In simple words, Affiliate Marketing is all about referring to a product or service by post, blogs, social media platforms, and websites. To understand it better, let’s know about the 3 parties which are involved in affiliate marketing. These are as follows:

• The User – A user is a potential customer who might visit the referral link posted on social media or through a website.
• The Affiliate -The Affiliate is the content creator or the website owner on which the referral has been posted to enhance sales.
• Merchant – The Merchant is the person who has provided the link of the product or service to the Merchant.

One thing worth noting is that in Affiliate marketing, the merchant does not pay the affiliate unless and until the user gets converted into customers or any purchase is initiated. In some situations, affiliates are paid per click.

Which Platforms Are Used For Affiliate Marketing?

There are various platforms used for Affiliate Marketing. Prominent ones are stated below.

• Your website or blog
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Reddit
• Email

Why Opt For Affiliate Marketing?

Small or big, most organizations these days are opting for Affiliate marketing. Here’s why you should do it too.

• Cost-Effective– If you choose Affiliate marketing, there is no need for any advertising team. All that’s needed is to have a good relationship with an affiliate and you are good to go.
• Low ongoing cost – Merchants need to pay only in the cases when there are sales or any purchase has been initiated. The commission-based programs are highly beneficial.
• Less Risky – Affiliate marketing works in a non-complex manner and even if there is no sale, the merchant won’t have to pay anything.
• Better Traffic– While collaborating with an affiliate, you are already aware of the type of content they create and can choose the one to whom your target audience can relate with.
• Less Rigid – The Affiliate marketing plan does not require high investment and is easy to modify as per situations.
• High Return on Investment -Affiliate marketing has been providing a much higher return on investment than other marketing strategies.

What Are The Different Steps Involved In Affiliate Marketing?

Different steps in Affiliate Marketing are as follows:

• Developing a website – To begin Affiliate marketing, you need to have a website with a user-friendly interface that can easily initiate purchases.
• Knowing your target audience – Every product is not for everyone. For becoming an effective affiliate marketer, choose your niche and refer to products and services as per their needs and choices.
• Figuring out the best among the products – You can take the help of Facebook Audience Insights and Google Analytics to find the demographic and interests of people who visit your website.
• Keeping an eye on other Affiliate programs – A prominent aspect of affiliate marketing is thorough research. Read reviews on various affiliate marketing providers and take notes on which products could do well with your target audience.
• Create relevant content – A successful affiliate aims that every user who visits their website gets converted into a customer and should never leave due to poor content that is not well-optimized.

Measuring The Effectiveness Of The Affiliate Marketing Programme

Designing and implementing any marketing program is not enough. It is equally important to measure the effectiveness of that program. Here are the three Key point indicators that can be used to measure the effectiveness of an Affiliate marketing program.

• Effective Earnings Per Click – The EPC reveals to you how each of your affiliates is performing per 100 clicks.
• Total Revenue by Affiliate- It is all about keeping the track of earnings by all the affiliates in a spreadsheet for measuring long-term effectiveness.
• Average Order Value -To calculate the Average Order Value or AOV, divide the total revenue generated by the total number of orders.

E-A-T SEO stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness Search Engine Optimization. E-A-T in SEO is another factor responsible for your website’s Google ranking. Google added E-A-T as a factor in its search algorithm in 2014 and in “Search Quality Guidelines” in the year 2018. When executed accordingly within the guidelines it can help in improving your website’s ranking.

Concept Of E-A-T

E-A-T denotes Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness”

» Expertise: in Search Quality Guidelines from Google instructs us to ensure that the professional knowledge and experience of the content creator must reflect on our website. Also, up to an extent, a website should cover the content topic of their area of expertise for Google to trust their knowledge and experience to show the information to a user in search results.

For example: If a professional nutritionist with a decent bio writes a dietary blog rather than a rookie, Google will trust it the most.

» Authoritativeness: again denotes the verifiable quality and knowledge of the creator, the content and the website itself. It’s a very simple logic of Google, the more you are knowledgeable in any type of content the more you will have authority over others. So it can be stated as the practice of demonstrating the expertise of the content creator and the website.

For example, A website displaying an author’s specifications including their relevant experience, job title, and bio.

» Trustworthiness: also includes the content creator, the content itself and the website. It clearly shows the trust Google and its users can show towards your site to rely on any type of information that you provide.

For example, A website showing technical and trusting signs like SSL, HTTPS, professional information and output, and easy-to-find contact details.

Then E-A-T In SEO Is A Google Ranking Factor?

E-A-T is not a direct Google ranking factor, it may help in improving your website’s content ranking so that Google can favour it in the search results. This is a little bit confusing, if it is not a ranking factor then how it will benefit your site. Well, Google uses E-A-T as per its guidelines to determine the quality of your content. This way it assesses which content to rank and show higher. So there are more chances with a good E-A-T practice that your search ranking can improve indirectly.

So, Why Is E-A-T Important In SEO?

‘Content is King’, this phrase is now known to all. See, there are multiple factors for Google to rank content in a high-quality category including, images, refined and long-formed content, Alt tags, meaningful Meta, etc. E-A-T guides us towards the factors according to which Google considers content as high quality.

As per the guidelines the high-quality content should:

• Help, assist or enlighten the reader or user.
• Be created by an expert having a professional knowledge.
• Be created for an authoritative website.
• Have verifiable trustworthiness
• Be modified or updated regularly.

Lastly, the content creator should be an everyday expert and have a real-life experience with respect to the topic for which the content is being created.

What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses customized emails to inform and educate customers about goods and services. It also aims to initiate actions like making a purchase, getting a trial, or signing up for an organizational event.

One might argue about the effectiveness of using email marketing for the promotion of products and services against the rapid increase in the user base of various social media platforms. But this is not the case. The effectiveness of email marketing can be traced from the Return on Investment it offers, it is $36 for every $1 spent.

Why Opt For Email Marketing?

After being aware of ROI, it seems reasonable to go with email marketing. Here are a few more reasons for the same.

• Email acts as the best medium of communication. Business or personal, any active user in the digital space checks their email once a day.
• The ROI is highest in the case of email marketing in comparison to other tactics.
• Similar goes for the conversion rate which is higher than the social media platforms.

What Are The Objectives Of Email Marketing?

Once you are aware of email marketing. Now let’s explore the objectives of the email marketing campaigns.

• Enhancing Brand Awareness -Whenever you approach clients using customized mails, it somehow makes them aware of your presence in the digital domain. It gradually contributes toward brand awareness. To make it more effective, educational content should also be included in the emails.
• Increasing Sales – It is the long-term objective of every campaign. The campaign aims to increase sales by tempting customers and initiating purchases.
• Adds To Credibility – Being honest toward your customers is very important to be in the game for the long run. An email marketing campaign can be used for enhancing credibility by adding content related to customers’ feedback and experiences.
• Boosts Site Traffic -The links to different websites are provided under email marketing campaigns. It can be used in enhancing site traffic by encouraging users to use catchy slogans and creative templates.
• Automated Daily Tasks– One of the goals of a successful email marketing campaign is to generate automated emails for the onboarding series, order confirmation, password reset email and reactivation campaign. This helps to avoid chaos and is more effective.

Steps In Email Marketing Campaigns

Moving on, let’s know about the steps that are there in designing and implementing an Email Marketing Campaign.

• Curating a targeted list -The first step is to get the emails of the clients whom you are willing to communicate with. This is done through signup boxes on the websites. To get customers with sign-up boxes, a lead magnet( offers, discounts, coupons, guides) is used. Targeting and segmentation are the next steps once you get the client information.
• Opting for the most suitable design– Personalized mails which are readable in the HTML format are effective. Visually appealing content and the right use of pictures are very important for creating an impact.
• Storytelling in the content – You know what an effective email does, it depicts a story keeping in mind the target audience and enhances brand awareness. A short, sweet, and relatable story will work best for your campaign.
• Be cautious about the subject line – The first thing that a customer sees is a subject line and it needs to be effective at any cost. Having a subject line is simple yet arouses curiosity.
• Creating a call to action – The call to action is all about where the customer is being taken, it can be a landing page or a product page. The language for the CTA should be simple. Positioning should also be taken into account.
• Reviewing and testing – The last step is reviewing and testing. Keeping an eye on the mail after being sent is very important. Check for the appearance in different email hosts, smartphones, and errors in links(if any).

Start your Email Marketing campaign that increases your sales and helps you in standing out!