Affiliate marketing is a tool that allows brands to promote and sell products and services via CPA (cost per action) model when they place their links throughout relevant marketing partners. That way, an affiliate receives a reward for each sale made through their efforts. Advertisers only pay for actions and not for visits or displays. Traffic owners are interested in advertising relevant products or services to their audience because they get paid well enough for the sales. The advertiser, meanwhile, gets coverage throughout blogs and social media and many clicks.
Affiliate marketing is not a free way of increasing brand awareness, of course, but it's likely the most efficient one. The biggest advantage is that brands only have to pay for specific actions achieved, such as filling in a form, subscribing to a newsletter or purchasing a poduct. This eliminates any questionable payments that don't guarantee high response rates or sales. Even if the advertising campaign proves ineffective, your product or service is promoted continuously and for free, increasing your brand awareness every day. Large travel blogs and media, such as NerdWallet, Conde Nast Traveller or Business Insider, all use affiliate marketing to generate revenue.
Reach to a relevant audience
One way to gain a relevant audience for your brand is to engage in an affiliate program. Brands can start one themselves or get involved in affiliate marketing networks, such as Amazon Associates, Travelpayouts, Awin and others. The bonus here is that they have already brought together audience for their affiliates and continuously strive to add more partners. Each network has its own features, so you need to look for most suitable services for your company. For example, Travelpayouts is only focused on the travel niche and would work great for travel brands, while ShareASale would work for electronics and other products.
By creating your affiliate channel, you are going to engage with bloggers and other content creators for your niche who are interested in placing your links to their websites if products are worth it. You can create different tools such as banners, widgets, and search fields for them so that it's easier to place your brand on their website. Keep in mind that all the affiliates (bloggers and other content creators) are no less than you interested in the audience buying your product since content creators only receive a commission from that (if you use the typical CPA model).
However, they would most likely prefer to work with an established brand if the commission and other terms being equal since their readers are more likely to buy from a brand they know. If you don't possess such a strong brand yet, try to win affiliates by giving them higher revenue share and other perks such as interesting tools for their websites.
Collaboration with Influencers
Affiliate marketing is a great way to catch influencers' attention who are all busy with their partnerships and speaking engagements. The trick is to find those, who are continuously contributing content in your niche, and offer them to place your links without disturbing their content.
That way, creators would be able to earn on their content while doing the same things. Of course, it's not that easy to convince an influencer to work with your brand, especially if it's not a well-known one, so we recommend considering services focused on influencers or affiliate marketing networks that already have influencers among their partners and can expose your brand to them.
Exposure to a network of niche partners
As mentioned above, you can start your own affiliate program and work on your own. However, there are established solutions in the market. One example is Travelpayouts, which is specifically focused on the travel industry and has over 300,000 verified partners. Networks are experienced in both affiliates and brands needs and know what to offer. They provide a variety of tools, including the ones where brands can put their logos, such as widgets and banners, and so readers will be more aware about your brand through affiliate channels. All these tools being placed in relevant channels which have a solid readership will increase your brand awareness in a much more affordable way than traditional PR or commercial partnerships.
