3 Keys to Building an Effective Affiliate Marketing Funnel

You have the perfect product. Everyone is going to want it. You are going to be an instant millionaire because your product is so perfect. All you need to do is list your product online and watch the people come running for your product, right?

While we wish it was that easy, there is a solution that offers high visibility, brand recognition, and increased sales. That is affiliate marketing.

Throughout the rest of this article, we’ll outline the 3 keys to building an effective affiliate marketing funnel and what you can do to find the success you are looking for.

What Is A Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is the process that every single consumer passes through when they are purchasing a product or service. Rarely does the consumer even know that they are in the marketing funnel for your business until after they have purchased what you are offering.

A marketing funnel passes consumers through four different stages. These are:

• Awareness – Making the customer aware of your product or service by showing the customer needs and product benefits.
• Interest – The customer finds out more about your business and shows interest in what you are presenting by doing more research, requesting demos, or asking for a quote.
• Consideration – To make the best decision, the customer is considering your product or service over the benefits of competitors or different services.
• Action – This is when the customer takes the final action you are wanting, whether that is buying your product or subscribing to your newsletter.

By addressing how you are going to help your customers pass through every level of this funnel will help you make decisions as to how your marketing needs to be set up. Using this marketing funnel you can recognize the challenges that need to be overcome and the solutions to these challenges.

One of the solutions that over 81% of brands today use to help move customers through the marketing funnel is affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process of using other businesses and influential people to introduce and promote your product. Often, it is set up in a way where the affiliate will receive a percentage or commission that comes from the sales they help to provide.

In the past 10-12 years affiliate marketing has become one of the most popular methods for people and businesses of all kinds to promote and sell their products and services. In fact, the amount that Americans will spend in affiliate marketing is projected to reach over $8.2 Billion by 2022.

To give you some examples, here are the top three most popular funnel types used by businesses.

1. Free Consultation – In this funnel type, you attract customers by offering free consultations, sneak peaks, and demos to bring them in. After they have had a taste or quote, then you can offer them the full product at full price.
2. Service or Product Upsell – This funnel is simple, it’s looking at the product or service that your customer purchased and then offering them something more to add onto whatever they originally purchased. This will bring in more revenue for you and offer them extra products.
3. Limited Time – This one works well when introducing new products or advancements. By offering limited time access to this product, software, service, etc., you can create urgency and drive people in.

To provide some specific use cases, here are two primary examples below.

1. Course Funnel – In a course funnel, you would create an entry level course with a huge value. This will attract more people to enroll in your main courses.
2. Webinar Funnel – A webinar funnel is all about bringing in the right audience, inviting them to attend your free webinar and then leading them towards the objective. The objective could be a valuable training, consultation or a product.

Lucky for you, affiliates fit in perfectly with any type of marketing funnel. They help to drive traffic, fill your webinars as well as bring in more leads and sales.

The following three keys will help you set up a successful affiliate marketing funnel.

Choose The Right Affiliate Partners

There are many different affiliate options out there for you to choose from. Some of the top options out there include:

• Bloggers
• Influencers
• Podcast show
• Another company in our industry
• Your current customers

Some of them may produce higher quality leads and opportunities, but may be more expensive. Others may provide lead options through specific channels and so it’s up to you to decide which channels are right for your company.

In order to find out which affiliates are the best option for you, your company, and your product, you’ll need to do your research.

Do Your Homework

Every affiliate brings something different to the table. In order to figure out which affiliate fits with your product and company the best, it’s important to do your homework before signing on with anyone.

A few tips for researching the right affiliate for your business include:

• Find and list different affiliates
• Choose the niche that fits your product
• Decide on the pros and cons
• Choose the affiliate that fits your budget

By being thorough in your research of different affiliates, partners, and influencers, you can be sure that you are making the best choice.

Provide High-Quality Content

If you are going to drive customers to your website and products, then the key to keeping them on your site until they are ready to make the purchasing decision is by providing high-quality content that can help them make the right decision.

For example, if you are going to sell a revolutionary new tool you created, you need to be able to show that off properly to visitors and give them the details and information they need so that they can better understand your new tool and feel comfortable in buying it.

Here are two helpful suggestions that you can use to create high-quality content:

Invest In High-Quality Images

Have you ever been on a website and found pictures that look like they were taken by someone on their phone? These pictures are often blurry and hard to make out.

Now look at the difference of a website where the owner took the time to use a professional. You’ll immediately be able to tell the difference. Statistically, people rely on product and service photos more than anything when making decisions.

Create Clear and Engaging Descriptions

This is especially important if you have a new product or service that people are not familiar with. Going back to the tool analogy, if your new tool can change how people work, but no one knows how to use it, shoppers are going to rely on the description before buying it.

Not every business owner is a great writer, and that’s why the smartest entrepreneurs and company owners turn to professional copywriters to have their descriptions written clearly and directly.

To put things in perspective, think of it this way. You are deciding between two options on amazon. One has professional images and a great description, while the other looks very amateur. Odds are you are going to choose the one that has the clearest images and the most defined descriptions.

Track Your Affiliate Successes

The last key to building an effective affiliate marketing funnel is to track your successes that come from your affiliates. The easiest way to do this is to track where your site and business traffic is coming from. This will show you if it is worth it for you to continue working with your current affiliates.

To track your customer traffic, use tools like iDevAffiliate to see exactly where your leads and customers are coming from. The plugin can be easily integrated into virtually any existing CMS (currently supported 175+ CMSes) including WooCommerce, Magento, or Wix. iDevAffiliate is a one-stop program that allows you to find the information you need without any hassle.

Other methods for tracking affiliate success include things like surveys and questionnaires that ask buyers how they found your service.

This article has outlined the 3 keys to building an effective affiliate marketing funnel, so the question you might be asking now is, where do I start?

One of the first things that can make your life easier is to use an affiliate management tool like iDevAffiliate. iDevAffiliate is an easy to use program that can help you to track, manage, and set up your in- house affiliate marketing program. Through iDevAffiliate, you can do things like oversee your affiliates’ work and manage commissions.

To find out more about iDevAffiliate and what we can do for your business, watch our demo to see exactly how easy it is to get started with building your affiliate marketing funnel.