Even if you have a super successful business, you hardly ever can independently exist on the market. Almost every company needs collaboration with others.
Interaction with partners, which can be efficiently built thanks to affiliate programs, can perfectly help in this. Today we’re figuring out what affiliate programs are and the advantages of participating in them.
What is an affiliate program?
Affiliate program is a form of partnership, when one business promotes another and gets paid for it. It’s not only about money but also about image profit. There is no doubt that if you promote high-quality goods or services, customers’ trust and loyalty to you will increase.
Note that such programs for natural persons do exist, but B2B affiliate programs are more common today. So in this article, we’ll mostly speak about them.
How do affiliate programs work?
Affiliate programs are often automatized. So, all you have to do is to create an account.
After this, you get your personal partner link, by which a system can identify clients driven by you as your referrals.
Now you can get started with promoting. You can recommend goods or services of the company you’ve chosen through different channels: website, social media, blogs, and so on. The larger your audience is, the more customers you attract and the more money you get.
The most important thing when posting a link is not to forget to post the unique one from your account, but note a common link, which leads to the website or a special page on it. In this case, the system can’t recognize that people who have clicked on it after seeing your recommendation are your referrals.
After you have attracted several new clients to your partner, you can apply for a partner’s reward. It is calculated based on the amount of payments made by your referrals. The affiliate program specifies what percentage of each payment you will receive, so read this information carefully.
Most affiliate programs offer user-friendly personal accounts where you can track real-time statistics on:
- the amount of referrals attracted;
- referrals’ payments:
- money that is your partner’s reward.
If you’re yourself a client of the company you choose to promote, the commissions you get for recommending them can be counted as payment for their services.
This way you will save money and be able to optimize the use of the saved money for the benefit of your own business. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Why do you need to join the affiliate program?
Affiliate marketing is a great way to develop a business without much investment. So, participating in B2B affiliate programs has lots of advantages.
- Extra revenue is the most obvious profit you get. You can use the money you receive at your discretion and optimize your expenses.
- No big efforts are expected from you because advertisers often provide affiliates with all the necessary: promo banners, unique links, etc. All you have to do is to distribute them. They often provide affiliates with technical support, which can answer all of your questions concerning the partnership.
- Reputation and brand awareness will improve if you perform your affiliate’s duties conscientiously. Through affiliate marketing, you also gain the ability to build strategic relationships for the future.
Considering all these pros, you become more competitive in the market.
Some of the most popular affiliate programs
Now let’s have a quick look at the most popular programs, Here is a small selection of B2B affiliate programs that consistently occupy the first places in the top every year.
Hubspot
Hubspot is a software provider, which offers 3 types of partnerships for their affiliates depending on the number of referrals attracted.
They’ll provide you with all the necessary promo- and educational materials and give you the ability to complete different challenges to earn more regardless of your status.
Shopify
Shopify is a platform, which allows you to start a business on the Internet with an e-shop. They allow you to work from all over the world and withdraw your affiliate’s reward starting from 10$.
You can also choose how to be paid: when your balance reaches a certain amount or on a bi-weekly basis
Cloudways
Cloudways is a huge cloud solutions provider, that offers you an opportunity to earn up to a 50% commission. They also have a long cookie duration – 6 months.
Amazon
Amazon is a huge marketplace, where you can recommend products and earn money for this. Note that the amount of the commission you get as an affiliate varies depending on the product category. The highest is 10%.
Rakuten
Rakuten has an affiliate network, which is 25 years old. They focus on helping their affiliates build strategic relationships with their partners. Their network works worldwide and it provides you with all the necessary support and promotion solutions.
Freshbooks
Freshbooks is a billing automation system, which allows you to earn up to 10% for a free trial that your referral got and up to 200$ for a paid one. Their program also works all over the world and perfectly fits small businesses.
Bluehost
Bluehost is a hosting provider and its affiliate program guarantees that you’ll earn 65$ for every qualified referral you drive to them. They also offer wide statistics for monitoring activity periods and segmenting your audience for better earnings.
A little bit of statistics
Statistics show that 80% of brands have an affiliate program. So whatever your business is, you will find something suitable to promote it and earn extra money.
Also, 80% of affiliates earn up to $80,000 annually through their partnership activities.
Last but not least: the affiliate marketing industry worldwide is worth over $17 billion.
Now you have a concept of affiliate programs and can choose any of the already launched ones depending on your financial and reputational goals.
