Enterprise affiliate marketing team leaders must work closely with other leadership teams and product marketing departments to educate and build awareness about the medium’s value. But how do you effectively showcase the affiliate channel’s worth and implement tactics that secure buy-in while consistently delivering measurable results?
These questions formed the core of a recent episode in Phonexa’s Amplify webinar series. Talar Malakian joined Jessica Robinson, Founder of Affiliate Marketing Partners, to discuss how to build an affiliate marketing programme from the ground up. The informative session explored strategies for evaluating opportunities and managing performance-based budgets with diverse partners aligned with specific business models and customer journeys.
When establishing an affiliate marketing programme from scratch, marketing leaders often face the initial challenge of securing investment and buy-in from leadership or new clients.
Convincing decision-makers to allocate resources requires compelling arguments that clearly articulate the channel’s value and potential ROI.
Robinson emphasised that affiliate marketing’s pay-per-performance model is a persuasive opening argument when pitching to marketing leaders.
| “You’re not paying on impression or a click … you’re paying when the action you want happens, so I look at what competitors are paying out in the space to show [marketing leaders] how they’re building their affiliate programmes around these payouts,” said Robinson. “I like to Google their top keywords … about 80% of the organic and paid listings on a SERP page are affiliate sites … if they’re not talking about your [products], they’re talking about your competitors.“ |
Robinson also highlighted the importance of cultivating diverse affiliate partnerships, from content influencers and technology partners to email and native ad specialists.
| “In terms of partner types, the most undervalued partners that aren’t talked about enough are brand-to-brand partnerships,” said Robinson. “It’s definitely one of the more challenging ones to stand out in the affiliate space, but they can be extremely valuable.” |
Check out the latest episode of Amplify: How to Achieve Affiliate Success & Durable Partnerships.
Marketing leaders running affiliate programmes must determine which partner types are most appropriate to sponsor. Robinson explains that this decision ultimately depends on the programme’s objectives and preferred partnership structure.
| “For instance, if you’re a finance brand and you want to show up where your competitors are showing up, oftentimes you need to have a sponsored placement there,” said Robinson. “I wouldn’t go out and do a $50,000 ad buy for a coupon deal or loyalty site. There’s value in that for certain promotions, but if you’re trying to gain share of voice on sites that are comparing your competitors, that’s a good example where [an upfront fee] is worth it – especially when it results in an evergreen placement.“ |
Robinson notes that some brands manage affiliate channels separately from other paid marketing efforts.
| “[The affiliate channel] is a relationship-based channel and relationships take time to cultivate,” said Robinson. “[My colleague] phrased it really well, ‘Proof of life at three months; proof of growth at six months.’ Just because you launch an affiliate programme doesn’t mean you’re going to start seeing as many convergents as you see through your paid search campaigns right off the bat – having time for launch is a [critical] piece of it.“ |
Looking to acquire high-intent leads? Our comprehensive guide – “How to Scale ROI Across Publishers & Partners: An Affiliate Network’s Guide” – reveals key secrets to enhancing ROI.
Controlling outcomes and making them scalable represents a mission-critical aspect of affiliate marketing success. Malakian highlighted cost stabilisation as a crucial part of this conversation, especially as cookie deprecation and other factors make it harder for marketers to do the type of targeting they might prefer.
Drawing from her experience at PayPal, Robinson provided a practical example:
| “One of the slides in my pitch internally at PayPal was comparing our costs to other paid channels to showcase the difference in our CPLs depending on the programme we were talking about,” said Robinson. “Normally, our return on ad spend was second only to branded paid search.” |
Mistakes can quickly erode leadership confidence and damage trust in channel management. Robinson shared an example of a client who made the fundamental error of setting their programme to auto-approve partners before transitioning to her platform.
| “There are many publishers operating in this space, so when we’re talking about building out a programme, we’re still evaluating these partners and not everyone can get your affiliate link,” said Robinson. “[Auto-approve] can open you up to all sorts of issues like FCC disclosure violations, fraud, and being on sites you don’t want to be associated with.” |
Robinson also identified another common mistake: brands showing reluctance to test their way into B2B partnerships.
| “There needs to be an upfront investment either to get on these platforms or get sponsored content to stand out and jumpstart a relationship,” said Robinson. “As soon as you pitch someone on a pay-per-performance channel and you bring up [additional expenses], trying to go back on that can be challenging.“ |
During this phase, striking the right balance between optimal technology stack implementation and testing becomes crucial.
| “There are definitely times that it makes sense to have the right tech stack for affiliate marketing, but certainly having four affiliate networks that all had different agency management built into it, they were just paying four times the cost,” said Robinson. “Make sure that you’re consolidating your tech stack and that it makes sense for your business.“ |
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