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Affiliate marketing to generate conversions: how does it work?

In the world of online sales, there's a way of generating conversions called "affiliation". It's a trendy, yet age-old e-marketing technique: a seller pays a person or another seller for every customer they bring in. In e-commerce, the affiliate is paid when the Internet user carries out a well-defined action (sale, registration, visit, etc.) on the merchant's site. The principle of affiliation is based on a win-win partnership. Let's take a closer look.

Understanding affiliation

Affiliation comes in two forms:

  • either the seller of a product contacts affiliates who have an online storefront with significant traffic, enabling them to sell the product to the seller
  • either a person or a company recommends the seller's product to their visitors with an affiliate link

In the first case, affiliates receive a commission on each sale. This is a percentage-based remuneration, calculated on the amount of the sale.

In the second case, the affiliate receives a fixed remuneration. A distinction is made between "cost per lead" and "cost per click". A fixed amount is paid as soon as the affiliate generates a lead (newsletter registration, form to fill in, etc.) or a click on a banner, for example, without any further guarantee.

There's also the "cost per action", action taken by the prospect following a click on a link, and the "cost per view", also known as "cost per thousand", each time the ad is viewed 1,000 times.

The aim of affiliation is not always pure sales. Sometimes it's a question of awareness, or a specific "call to action".

How to affiliate

The advertiser, i.e. the owner of the sales site, needs toacquire more traffic in order toincrease his visibility and thus his sales.

The affiliate site generates a very high volume of traffic (e.g. eBay, Amazon) or qualified traffic in a certain field (e.g. Airbnb), and looks for valuable products to add to its site.

So the two parties get together. This is known as the affiliate program. Remuneration conditions are stipulated in the affiliation contract. Affiliation programs exist for all subjects.

Promotion can take the form of banners, promo codes, coupons, online stores, influencers or comparison shopping. The aim is always to attract as many visitors as possible.

Most of the time, a so-called affiliate link is inserted on the affiliate site or blog, and when a web surfer clicks on it, he or she is redirected to the merchant site page to complete the transaction. If the sale goes through, tracking tools are able to identify which affiliate partner sent the customer.

Offer your site as an affiliate

There are three ways to offer your site or product as an affiliate:

  1. yourself: direct affiliation is quite rare, as you need to have the technical and financial means to check the traceability of operations, to know who sent which customer. This is a very onerous task for a small company.
  2. on sites that already have an affiliate program, such as Amazon, the forerunner in this field,
  3. on affiliation platforms

Affiliation platforms put affiliators in touch with a network of affiliates selected by them. They manage the affiliate program and charge a commission for each money transfer between affiliates and affiliators.

Benefits of affiliation

By offering the link to the merchant's site to his community, the affiliate naturally earns significant commissions. But he can also improve his brand image, provided he sends his visitors to quality sites related to his own field. For many bloggers, affiliation is an excellent opportunity to make money without doing anything.

For the affiliate, who is not always a web pro, teaming up with renowned sites can only bring benefits. However, choosing the right business partners can be a tricky business, as the rewards are not always as high as expected. It's also a good idea to set a certain budget in advance, as costs can quickly escalate.