Is Email Marketing Effective For Affiliate Marketing?

Is Email marketing effective for affiliate marketing, you may wonder? Yes. It also works. Overall, it is determined by your marketing strategy, budget, and the channel through which your target audience is reached.

Affiliate marketing is a massive and rapidly expanding industry. Statista estimated that total affiliate marketing spending in the United States reached $5.37 billion in 2017. The projected figure for this year is $6.82 billion, and by 2022, it is expected to reach $8.2 billion, and you can get your fair share with these high-paying affiliate programs.

If you want to earn affiliate income through email marketing, follow these guides below.

Is Email Marketing Effective For Affiliate Marketing

When it comes to the most effective marketing channel for increasing affiliate earnings, email marketing is by far the most cost-effective option. Email marketing, more than any other marketing channel, targets the right audience by sending them a personalized and well-tailored pitch. According to a study by Statista, it is the fourth most crucial traffic source for affiliate marketers. While volume may lag behind other channels, the quality of a lead from your email list is far superior to a random visitor passing through your blog.

How to Increase Your Affiliate Income via Email Marketing

Prepare Your Email Target Lists

There are two possible outcomes. First, you must create an email list from scratch. Second, you'll need a sufficient number of email addresses to get started.

In the first case, you should set up lead generation forms on your website if you want to collect email addresses. Creating a generic pop-up or embedded form is insufficient. To make a sale, you must attract the right audience and provide value.

Understanding the product and intent of website visitors is critical for building high-quality email lists. You can include relevant pop-ups, scroll, embedded, or exit intent forms on various web pages. Create separate forms, for example, for your home page and resource section.

It would be best if you also were cautious about what information you request from website visitors. The information should be relevant to the product you intend to sell. A good lead generation form should only have two or three fields.

The next step is to provide value to your visitors. They're giving you their personal information; don't let them leave without getting something from you. Make sure you have enough freebies or resources to send. For example, consider an ebook guide, a case study, or high-quality blog resources.

One thing you should not do is purchase an email list and send bulk emails without first understanding the risks involved. You will lose the opportunity to earn affiliate income and be labeled as a legitimate spammer.

Now for the second part. If you have a sufficient number of email addresses, you can begin the segmentation process. Make a buyer persona and prepare your email lists accordingly.

Depending on the product, you can segment your email list by industries, verticals, geographical location, and other factors.

Many marketers use automation tools, such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, to avoid manual work. If you've been using it to collect leads, all you need to do now is export their emails using a third-party tool.

Don’t Try Too Hard

Most people dislike receiving direct sales pitches in emails. Flooding them with promotions and pressuring your prospects to buy the product will not work.

First and foremost, rather than selling the product, emphasize the benefits that your prospects will receive.

In emails, don't brag about the brand or the product. Instead, use a conversational tone to make a good pitch. Try using 'You' instead of 'We' in your emails.

Execute Full-Fledged Email Sequences

You're probably wondering what a full-fledged email sequence is. Simply put, it is a series of emails that cover the entire buyer's journey.

You must understand the three stages of a buyer's journey: awareness, consideration, and decision-making. As a result, if you want to increase your affiliate income, your affiliate marketing strategy must cover all phases. 

When you decide to support an affiliate offer, you must commit completely. One email will not suffice to increase your sales. Instead, send an email sequence to your mailing list. I recommend sending an email sequence of 3-5 emails spread out over a week.

Send at least three emails. The suggested timings are as follows:

• On the first day of the promotion, send the email. Explain the offer and why it is essential.
• The second email should be sent on the day before your promotion ends. Approach the first email differently. For example, you could respond to Frequently Asked Questions.
• The final email will be sent on the last day of the offer. Emphasize that some aspects of the offer are time sensitive, and they must act quickly to avoid missing out.

You're all set to launch an email campaign for your affiliate site if you follow the above steps. In the following section, we'll look at how to make your offer seem more urgent.

Keep track of and monitor the metrics.

Analyzing and tracking your prospects' behavior is critical to generating a good affiliate income. Emails frequently fail to perform as expected.

The reasons can range from a few to numerous, including low-quality leads, poor email deliverability, declining open rates or click-throughs, and more. As a result, you must check your clicks, open rates, and bounce rates to identify flaws in your email marketing strategy.

Furthermore, after conducting a thorough analysis of your campaign's performance, you must rearrange your email lists. If some prospects aren't consistently taking action, feel free to remove them from your current email list. This is because fake or unresponsive email addresses increase bounce rates, which you don't want.

With Countdown Timers, you can increase the urgency.

Ever wonder why Black Friday and Cyber Monday are such hugely successful shopping days every year? The secret is the low prices combined with the sense of urgency created by the fact that most of these sales last only a day, or at most a weekend.

When there is no sense of urgency, people take longer to make a purchasing decision. This is true regardless of the size of the discount. However, when a deal is only available for a limited time, there is a sudden rush to buy. The simple psychology of FOMO - Fear of Missing Out - causes this.

Using an email template builder, you can add a countdown timer to your email sequences. According to an Adestra study, an email with a countdown timer increased CTR by 400%.

Bonuses can be used to sweeten the deal.

Bonuses should be part of every affiliate marketer's toolkit. Offering a bonus with the product you're promoting encourages the customer to click "buy." Here's why bonuses are effective:

• They instill a sense of urgency: Bonuses, like countdown timers, rely on the customer's Fear of Missing Out to persuade them to purchase. Nobody wants to miss out on a good deal! Limited-time bonuses can help you increase your sales significantly.
• They add worth: Have you ever been in a situation where you were considering making a purchase but worried that you wouldn't get your money's worth? Adding a bonus to your prominent promotion will give your prospects the impression that they are getting more for their money.
• They eliminate objections: There will always be people who have reservations about your product, but a bonus can get them to try it.
• They assist you in becoming the preferred affiliate: Likely; you're not the only marketer promoting a particular product. Adding a bonus, on the other hand, enhances the original offering and distinguishes you from your competitors. When those individuals need to purchase a product in the future, they will visit your website because of the bonuses.

Final Thoughts

Affiliate marketing is similar to other types of online marketing in many ways. To be a successful affiliate marketer, you don't have to do anything drastically different. Demand will drive sales if you promote quality products to the right audience. However, to truly benefit from this, you must increase your traffic and ensure your audience purchases through your links.

I hope the tips above have inspired you to promote your affiliate site. You can increase your affiliate income and become your customers' preferred affiliate site by using all of these methods separately or in combination.

Now that you know what you're capable of, it's time to implement your plans. You shouldn't get a piece of that projected $6.8 billion in affiliate revenue if you follow all of the steps and persevere!