Earning money as an affiliate member is about getting people to click on your link and make a purchase. But sometimes getting clicks on your link does not directly translate to sales. So you start asking yourself:
Why do my affiliate links get clicks but no sales?
This scenario can be quite disappointing for those who have invested heavily in affiliate marketing but are still not making money.
The truth is that when it comes to affiliate marketing, there is a lot to learn. As competition in the affiliate market intensifies, the factors leading to success have multiplied.
Affiliate marketers are only paid for conversions, so if someone clicks on the link but doesn’t immediately proceed with the purchase, then the affiliate member will not be rewarded for the sales.
If that someone continues to search for the thing he wants to buy on other websites and clicks on the link on one of these websites to buy, only that particular affiliate marketer will receive a commission.
Why is this happening?
Well, the answer is the browser cookies!
Click the link here to find out What Browser Cookies Are.
In this article, we will guide you through how to optimize your affiliate marketing strategy and prepare for success.
Check the merchant’s affiliate conversion rate
An obvious but often overlooked point: you can find a lot of merchants on your affiliate network and start to sign up as an affiliate member. But you have no idea about the sales conversion rate of that merchant you sign up for.
What is a sales conversion rate?
A sales conversion rate is the number of transactions (sales) made over a period of time (see cookie period) divided by the number of visitors (traffic).
Signups ÷ Visitor × 100
For example, a high conversion rate means that a merchant can convert traffic into sales, on the other hand, a low conversion rate means a low sales opportunity.
Take a look at the conversion rates of the two merchants below. It’s clear that the second merchant has a higher conversion rate.
For instance, two merchants (Merchant A and Merchant B) provide their affiliate partners with a commission of 30% for each successful sale.
Merchant A has 4.51% conversion rate and Merchant B 7.02%.
Assuming that you bring the same amount of clicks to both merchants. The conversion rate of the merchant can be the most important parameter when it comes to how much you earn.
Merchant A: 200 clicks = 9 sales x S$4.56 commission per sale = S$41 to you
If the conversion rate increases, you may get more commissions.
Merchant B: 200 clicks = 14 sales x S$4.25 commission per sale = S$59.5
Therefore, if 200 people click on your affiliate link, the chance of purchasing Merchant B is almost twice that of buying from Merchant A.
The overall conversion rate of a business is an important parameter that affiliates should measure if they want to perform better. In addition, it is a key factor that influences their decision whether to promote a merchant’s product.
Affiliate marketing requires a lot of time, energy, and money to attract visitors to the merchant’s website, and that’s why affiliate marketers deserve great returns.
Tips:
Link to the merchant with the highest power level, because your audience may be more willing to buy from them. However, let them be their preferred merchants with the highest conversion rate to increase the chance that your cookies will not overlap!
Optimize your conversion funnel
Every affiliate marketer needs traffic, otherwise, you will never be able to make any sales. The more ways you create to lead people to your affiliate link, the more conversions you get. Turning eager audiences into buyers is the real challenge.
The term “conversion funnel” is used to accurately describe the process in which audiences land on your website and then take the desired action (conversion). If you are an affiliate, then you already have a conversion channel.
Now, you just need to optimize the funnel to get the highest conversion rate.
One of the main questions you need to ask yourself is “Am I using the right channel to promote my affiliate link?” Or, if you are one step behind, “Am I using all available channels to promote my link?”.
Today, people rely on social media for reviews and info about products they are interested in. Thus, spreading your affiliate links on social networks can lead to more clicks and more sales.
Of course, building and optimizing your channel is not a one-off. Your audience and its needs are constantly changing. The funnel that provided value to your page a year ago may no longer be effective.
Therefore, from time to time, you need to change your affiliate marketing strategy and try other alternative channels.
What can you do?
Take the time to collect and understand data on the channels you placed your affiliate links. Check your website, blog, YouTube channel, newsletter emails, and social media to see which channel generates better results and resonates with your visitors better.
If you clearly understand which channel has a higher conversion rate for you, then you can focus more on that particular channel.
How to start:
A well-known tool to start tracking and analyzing visitor behavior is Google Analytics. Find out which channel your visitors come from and track how many of them are eventually converted into buyers.
Then, invest time and energy to be more active on these networks.
Maintain consistent traffic on your links
Tracking your statistics can not only apply the marketing strategy that best suits you but also give you a comprehensive understanding of your post content density.
By knowing how often you should post, what content you should write, you will maintain steady traffic on your affiliate links.
Dare to be different!
Even if you are in a saturated niche market or the competition in your field seems too fierce, you still have many opportunities for success. The key here is change! A highly competitive niche market indicates a strong demand in this area, so try to use it out of the box and provide something different for your audience.
Then check if this has an impact on your clicks/sales/conversions.
Do your homework!
Visit other affiliate sites, observe what they offer to the audience and how they do it, and find out how you can be different.
Suppose you are in a market segment of a paper manufacturer. Focus on similar but different topics, such as scrapbooks or art journals.
You can use almost the same products as before, recommend the same merchants, and provide your audience with another perspective on using these supplies.
By providing diversity to your projects, your audience will not feel saturated, and you will not only increase the number of link clicks but also increase your conversion rate aka sales.
Search for the merchant with the highest conversion rate in a particular niche. The high price of one product category may be lower than the standard of another product in the same merchant.
In addition, some merchants may convert better than others, but this does not mean that they convert all products the same. It may have high conversion rates for certain categories, but extremely low conversion rates for all other categories.
So if you are researching different products, do some research to understand the types of conversions these products are currently having. This will help you choose a specific niche for online conversions, which means you will see more conversions as affiliate marketing.
Once you find which store is better to convert to a particular category, use the link to that store to convert better and sell more.
For example, for a scrapbook item, merchant A’s conversion rate maybe 3%, while for a card item it may be lower.
In Short!
Your website is the backbone of your affiliate marketing strategy. Affiliates can create the perfect funnel and let audiences decide to buy.
However, if audiences click on your affiliate link and see a website with poor design, slow loading time, unclear direction, or an insecure checkout process, they may postpone the purchase of the product.
The funnel of the target merchant should also be considered part of the funnel. In the end, your goal is to convince the buyers that they need something now, and then tell them where to buy it without interference, so that sales can be made.
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Related: The Top High-Paying Affiliate Programs in Singapore
