January Sales 2017: The Perfect Time to Start Using Affiliate Platforms

Boxing Day and January Sales are fast approaching – so it’s time to get prepared. One way to make sure your customers are aware of your promotional offers is to advertise on affiliation platforms, which is becoming a key tool in online acquisition.

Simply selling your products on your own online store just isn’t enough anymore. To really boost your visibility, and therefore your sales, a large choice of marketing channels are now available for you to increase your points of contact with customers. The possibilities are infinite, but have you ever considered affiliation marketing?

Affiliation – a win-win partnership

An affiliation platform is a space where advertisers (ecommerce sites) offer an affiliate programme and publishers (also known as affiliates) can choose to publish their ads to monetise their traffic. The idea is to gain visibility for your product catalogue through an important network of affiliation channels, for example, content sites (news, blogs), price comparison sites, retargeting campaigns, email campaigns, social networks, display and search, flash sale/cashback sites, etc. On their part, the editors of these sites receive a major commision on a CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPA (Cost Per Action) or CPL (Cost Per Lead) basis. A win-win relationship that benefits both parties.

Note: You need to create a profile to present your brand to influencers who decide whether or not they’re interested. However, you can also contact influencers directly to invite them to take part in your campaign. 

What are the advantages for ecommerce?

1.) Reach a new audience

By using an affiliation platform, you will be boosting your visibility amongst a new audience on partner sites of affiliation networks. Once someone clicks on your ad, you have the opportunity to attract traffic and potential customers to your online store as well as benefit from a new source of revenue. As advertisers and affiliates have chosen to work together, posting your ad will be even more relevant to customers, which will in turn increase your click through rate.

2.) There’s less risk

With affiliation, the risks are limited since the commission for most affiliates is performance-based. This means that a commission will only be paid to the influencer when the action has been carried out according to previously defined objectives: a click, a sale, a registration to a form, a download, etc. Take advantage of the Boxing Day/January Sales to highlight a selection of discounted products to persuade customers to buy.

3.) Benefit from an international network

You can also branch out of the UK with your affiliation campaign with platforms like Zanox, Tradedoubler, and Affilinet, that allow you to advertise your products on foreign partner sites. For example, Canon recently launched 5 affiliate programmes in the UK, Holland, France, Germany, and Italy.

Prepare for the winter sales with Lengow

If you’re already a Lengow client and you want to make the most of the January sales by gaining visibility for your promotions on affiliate platforms, don’t hesitate to check out the list of affiliate platforms available on Lengow. Then you can make a request for feeds via our platform and create an account on the platform on which you want to show your programme.

Finally, regarding the preparation of sales on price comparison sites and market places, visit our Help Center to prepare your balances for winter 2017.

Download our guide to acquisition tools!