How To Convince C-Levels That Affiliates Are A Good Investment And Why

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You may already know this, but it’s important nonetheless.?

The affiliate industry is growing and is now estimated at an annual spend of $9.6 billion.?

It has an incredible average return on ad spend (ROAS).?

ROAS is oftentimes upwards of 12 to 16, meaning that for every dollar that gets spent, you make $12 to $16 back.?

80% of brands are investing in this channel, into partnerships and B2B connections as the affiliate and partnership economy expands and transitions from the web to multi-channel and social platforms.

Why??

Because of the value that it brings to help them target customers in niches where their direct marketing doesn’t yet reach or engage the end customer.?

However, a problem that we face with the affiliate channel is that marketers need to present their budget across all of the touchpoints of the purchase journey that a consumer is making online.

Not only this, but they also have to understand where to spend that budget which can be quite difficult if the data sets you’re working with are not accurately tracking across all of the acquisition channels correctly.?

The main thing to understand about affiliate or partner marketing is that because of the way that it incentivises (paid on performance), it’s one of the most budget-friendly alternatives to direct advertising or lead generation channels that you could be working in when compared to search, social and paid advertising.

Unfortunately, navigating that strategy for your business can be quite complex and difficult to get stakeholder buy-in because it’s still so misunderstood.?

This is often where it becomes difficult to convince C-level management to try out this channel and invest in the long-term sustainability it brings when everything is benchmarked to short-term goals and KPIs.?

Here are 3 things I think you can do to ensure that your C-Level suite understands the value proposition that a partnership program can bring to your business and where and how your budget can be directed to gain better results in the channel.

1. Talk about the value of being Data Rich?

Now, considering all of the data that you have in your backend about your customer and the price points it’s taken to get them, affiliate marketing can provide minute details on the lifetime value of customer spend from the point of the first click to repeat purchases over a period of time. This kind of intelligence can help to manage your budget way more effectively than other channels and can also help your business decide where to spend to get maximum ROI and Reach,?

Investing in an Affiliate Program means you can build reliable, sustainable and profitable acquisitions more so than some of the other channels purely because we’re able to track everything down to the exact moment a customer converts and spends.?

From the first touchpoint through to the end sale, we can keep on top of it all and also monitor buyer/ customer trends helping you to effectively increase or decrease spending to accommodate seasonality and product type preferences.?

Due to the in-depth tracking technologies that exist for affiliate program management, we’re able to then work out the value of these customers.?

This leads to …?

Establishing what the KPIs and goals of your program are going to be. Having a clear understanding of where you need affiliates to promote your brand and where they will find customer niches you can’t is a key component of the upsell of this channel.?

What are the goals that you’re going to get your partners to deliver on??

How will you measure if they’re reaching them??

Ultimately, you need to be taking your budget and spending it in the most cost-efficient and effective way that you can to reach more customers and drive more sales.?

This way you’re showing the business where the lift is by working with so many referral partners.?

Whether that’s helping you expand your reach into a new market, increasing direct sales or whether it’s simply expanding your brand reach to new platforms like Tik Tok (where you haven’t got an extensive content team to curate videos for you) - your program can help you tackle all of this without paying upfront costs.?

When you can present the data and opportunity that an affiliate program can afford your business to C-levels clearly and concisely, it becomes easier to get their buy-in and helps them understand where the partnership channel is headed and how best to maximise the funds they invest in it to meet performance goals.?

2. Cultivate Channel Expertise to lead the investment

You need to have an official affiliate marketing specialist. This is not a channel to enter without a clear plan. It’s also a specialist field that requires strategy and commitment long term.??

You wouldn’t spend money buying a car if you didn’t know how to drive it.?

The same can be said for Affiliate Marketing programs. Don’t invest in building one if you don’t know how best to use it to deliver ROI.

Whether you’re hiring internally or finding an agency to help you deliver your goals getting an expert in place to advise you on how to do it right is KEY.?

Having someone that understands how affiliate marketing works, who can work alongside your other digital channel holders or champions and who can help to leverage what they’re doing in their channels to augment and support what you need to do in the partner channel as well will be the difference between trying to work with affiliates and succeeding to deliver on the KPI you have set and your C-Level expectations.?

Acting not only to understand its value but actually acting as a champion within the organisation and working alongside peers in other channels to make sure that everything is working concisely together and educating on best practices is one step you don’t want to miss out on when joining the partnerships space.

Do your due diligence on performance agencies, make sure they understand your KPI and requirements and are not delivering cookie cutter strategies on repeat. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about affiliate marketing in two decades it’s that no two programs should ever be the same!?

You are unique and your business requirement and partnership program should be too!?

3.? Present Your Affiliates as Partners - not just Traffic Suppliers

Make it a priority to integrate affiliates into your reporting source of truth. Give them access and clarity on what’s working and what’s not. Make sure your C-Level understands this too. An affiliate program is so much more than a traffic supply chain. You are working with smart entrepreneurs who are experts in what they do to drive sales and customers to your site.?

But what if…?

You treated them as business partners vs traffic suppliers?

• How would your mental shift in the business follow suit?
• How would you manage these partners to drive mutual success?
• How would partners promote loyalty to your business in reciprocation?

Often affiliate programs and teams work in silos to other channels because they are misunderstood or segmented to operate and perform alone. Affiliates are treated like suppliers and kept at arm's length some programs don’t even provide insightful tracking or ad analysis which makes it harder for them to deliver and drive the value they could.?

This can be a problem because it can make it almost impossible to understand where affiliate partners are adding value and how to maximise multiple different partnerships and touch points in the buyer’s awareness and purchase journey.??

So, if you’re not measuring it and using the same source of truth as other channels you could be missing out on valuable information that helps the C-Level suite make better-informed decisions relating to spending.?

This is a crucial part of the strategy when you’re building an affiliate program because you want to be able to show where partners can add value, whether it’s at the top of the funnel or the bottom when the customer converts.?

Affiliates also have many data points that they’re tracking across several programs that can give you feedback in terms of what you can improve or change in comparison to some of your competitors.?

Let Data Be Your ONLY Guide?

Use your data to show the impact of the incremental value that affiliates are bringing to your business.

Make sure that your program is running with several sources of traffic that you’re not currently touching (Wider reach) and explain this strategy to your decision makers as a key component for the additional channel investment.?

For example, if you’re heavily invested in SEO, try to leverage SEO affiliates to push your competition further out of the search space and look for alternative traffic sources like email marketers, Content Curators, mobile in-app advertising partners or loyalty and lead gen marketers to complement this.

Many brands recently have had huge success with integrating ambassadors or are looking at investing in content curators to augment some of the direct content that they’re creating and pushing out into the marketplace too. Some turn their customers into referral partners too. The compounded return of using your customers to promote to their community of friends and family is not something you can ignore!?

So, by really looking at things such as testimonials and review sites, you can work out where your partners will plug the gap in comparison to other channels that you’re using and send that message up the line to the C-Level decision makers too.?

And… Be Responsible For ROI

You need to get responsible with the channel that you’re pushing forward to your C-levels to invest in. Get an MVP in place to start to show the ROI leveraged if you have to. Explain the thought process behind working in this channel alongside the budget requirements that will be a part of the investment to get going.?

After all, affiliate programs simply don’t happen overnight. There will be an investment period and budget to get the technology in place, then resources to push the program marketing and sales recruitment of new partners too.?

Cultivating an internal education and awareness process around what’s happening with the affiliate program after it’s launched is important to making the channel stick. Especially before it’s working and monetising in a way that augments some of the other things that you’re doing within your program and your marketing.?

Essentially, you need to be authentic and understanding of what your strategy is going to be and clarify the goals that your partners will deliver on. You need to understand what KPIs your business wants to embrace and communicate clearly what happens internally to other stakeholders. Leveraging and including them in the strategies that you’re building with your partners and understanding your data (that must be integrated with your source of truth) is vital.?

This is one of the most effective ways to get champions at a C-level to back the thought process and the marketing campaigns that you’re looking to run with third-party partners.?

This will also help them to understand how the channel works and set expectations for delivery over a longer period so that results CAN be delivered according to the plans that you present.?

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