Affiliate Marketing is Full Funnel & Multi-Channel 🤯

Let's Meet the Players in the Game

Howdy partners! 🤠

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Affiliate Marketing is the most misunderstood and underrated performance marketing channel.

Myth: Affiliate marketing is only coupon deal and loyalty. It's lower funnel and conversion focused only.

TLDR: Affiliate marketing includes hundreds of thousands of options across multiple business models touching the entire marketing funnel from

1) awareness 📢

2) consideration 🤔

3) conversion 💰

Let's dive into just a few of the key players by partner type / business model.

This is how some people falsely view various affiliate partner business models...

THE USUAL SUSPECTS.

But...this is how e-commerce brands should look at affiliate partners & influencers...

Affiliate Marketing Partner Ecosystem 👇

Yes these are just a few and many of these unlock hundreds or thousands of partners within one of the above brands!

As you can see, the quality, quantity, diversity, and reach of affiliate marketing partners deserve the respect and attention of e-commerce, growth, and performance marketing decision-makers. They are also proven revenue drivers.

Brands can partner with affiliates to tap into the entire funnel from awareness (impressions, clicks), to consideration (clicks, leads, downloads), to conversion (purchase).

MYTH DEBUNKED! 💥

Ok, so what do you do with this information?

Here are 3 ways to diversify your affiliate marketing program utilizing full-funnel, multi-channel partners 🔥

Alignment: Align strategy and tactics with other full-funnel performance marketing channels. If you are running prospecting and retargeting within Meta ads, consider a similar mindset for affiliate partners tapping into a partner like UpSellIt or Intently. If you are investing in Connected TV, consider investing in YouTube influencers. My team at Round Barn Labs has deployed them for many brands and seen great results. If you are managing email and CRM, consider testing outbound targeted affiliate email partners.

Attribution: While this post is not about attribution specifically (rest assured we will discuss in future posts), we recommend utilizing a first-party Shopify attribution software like TripleWhale or Northbeam. Northbeam can work with BigCommerce, Cart, Magento and others where TripleWhale is great for Shopify only. If you are not able to utilize a paid service like them for budget reasons, you might want to model out the potential found revenue / long term savings and peace of mind in working with them. Google Data Driven Attribution is another option to use initially if you are not ready for TripleWhale or Northbeam, but note that it will typically err more on rewarding last click and Paid Search in my experience. This can help debunk the related myth that affiliate is only coupon deals + loyalty and that those affiliate business models simply take credit for sales you already would have recorded.

Balance Your Portfolio: You can start small by recruiting and activating one high traffic potential partner in each respective business model. For example, Meredith Dot Dash for content, Rakuten Rewards for loyalty cash back, RetailMeNot for coupon/deal, Skimlinks for sub affiliate content networks, UpSellit for retargeting, Beneplace for workplace benefits. (it's a lot, I know, but we will fix that as we continue on this journey together) Depending on how they perform you can adjust plan, commission, and bonuses and use that to inform your next batch of recruitment targets. As you recruit, activate, and grow, I recommend maintaining a balanced portfolio and erring on the side of having most of your partner's content focused.

Conclusion ✌️

Affiliate Marketing is NOT A CHANNEL. It's multi channel!

Affiliate Marketing is not just bottom of funnel or poaching your sales (you can but we will measure that effectively and prevent it) it is FULL FUNNEL and can be incremental if managed effectively.

Unleash the Super Friends, Avengers, X-Men, or A-Team for your e-commerce brand!

If you want to chat about it more - email me back, I want to help you!

Tye