One of program affiliation is a marketing technique that aims to create a partnership between a commercial site and a content editor or influencer. The publisher or affiliate site will promote in its content the goods or services sold by the commercial site, also called the affiliate or advertiser. In exchange, the affiliate receives a commission based on purchases made on the commercial site from a click on his personal site. So, how does an affiliate program work, and what are the benefits for your e-commerce?
HOW DOES AN AFFILIATION PROGRAM WORK?
The affiliation works from commissions or bonuses that the affiliate receives. It is thanks to a system of tracing of links and banners made available that we can know if a product has been sold thanks to an affiliate.
To set up an affiliate program, the company can do it directly from its site, or on one or more affiliate platforms which aim to connect content publishers (affiliates) and affiliates. The affiliation program is then organized around a contract drawn up by the company, defining the terms and conditions of the affiliation, and the conditions of payment. When an affiliate accepts these conditions, he can then use the links, banner ads, and other widgets and tools to supplement the content of his website.
THE BENEFITS OF AN AFFILIATION PROGRAM
The interest of a commercial site in offering affiliate program are found in different forms:
In the first place, it will bring more traffic to your website, from the pages of all your affiliates. The more affiliates you have, the more exposure your products are, and the more exposure they get, the more likely they are to convince and be sold.
Plus, affiliates don't just link to one of your products. They will often have had previous experience of the product and can give their opinion on it, explain its qualities and its functioning ... This will more easily lead the prospect to the purchase - in other words, to the third stage of the conversion funnel - because it will thus have more confidence and greater knowledge of the product.
An affiliate program also increases the notoriety of your website: the influence on your SEO will therefore be indirectly positive, gradually helping to make it more legitimate in its sector.
On the other hand, the idea that affiliate links improve your SEO is a false belief. For robots, the more your website is cited by other quality websites through backlinks, the more you are recognized in your domain: your website is then perceived by Google as being legitimate. However, affiliate links have the rel = ”no follow” attribute and point to tracked URLs (parameters, redirects). As a result, the natural referencing impact of these links is zero for the URLs targeted by affiliation, even if the business interest remains.
AFFILIATION PROGRAM: WHAT TO REMEMBER
An affiliate program is therefore a kind of alliance between two parties: the affiliate and the affiliated. For a business, this represents an ideal opportunity to increase traffic to its website, and thus increase its sales. As for the affiliate, the best affiliate programs will be the one to which its audience is the most sensitive.