20 Benefits of Affiliate Marketing (For Businesses)

Thinking about dipping your toes into affiliate marketing for your company, but feeling a little uncertain? Getting familiar with the benefits of affiliate marketing could make the decision a whole lot easier.

In this article, we’ll guide you through a list of 20 benefits that affiliate marketing can bring to your business.

By the time you reach the end, you’ll have all the information you need to decide if this marketing strategy is the right fit for your company.

And that’s not all. We’re also going to fill you in on the affiliate management program that can ease your entry into the world of affiliate marketing and help you take full advantage of the perks we’ll be exploring.

Ready to jump in? Let’s dive into the details in the next section.

20 affiliate marketing benefits for businesses

As you’re growing your business, pulling in more customers is key. That’s why you’re pouring your heart and soul into sales, marketing, building relationships, and the like.

But here’s something you may not have considered yet – letting others do some of the customer-drawing work for you. Enter affiliate marketing. This strategy lets others direct traffic to your online store, and it’s one of the easiest and most potent ways to skyrocket your sales.

An affiliate marketing report by Rakuten revealed that 88% of consumers have been inspired to buy a product by an affiliate. 

Affiliate marketing has numerous benefits for businesses – which we’ll look at in this section. We’ll also talk about how SliceWP, an affiliate marketing WordPress plugin, can help you to achieve some of them.

Benefit #1: Cost-Effectiveness 

Cost-effectiveness is one of the best benefits of affiliate marketing. This is because, as a business, you’ll only pay after an affiliate has made a sale or captured a lead.

Affiliate marketing is cost-effective because it allows you to implement a pay-per-performance model. With this model, you can maximize your marketing budget and earn a higher return on investment (ROI).

Affiliate marketing saves your business the cost of employing a marketing team. Instead, you will allocate your marketing budget efficiently towards results such as sales, leads, and website visits. 

Benefit #2: Global Reach 

Affiliate marketers typically have followers from all over the world. Hence, they can promote your products and services to a global audience.

Instagram, for example, is the preferred social media channel for affiliate marketing and has over 1.3 billion active users (Statista).

Having affiliates who have followers from all over the world can help your business to expand to new markets. The best part is that you’ll do this without incurring a significant cost in investing in international marketing campaigns. 

Benefit #3: 24/7 Marketing 

Affiliates rely on online marketing as the primary channel for promoting a business. Since the internet operates round the clock, affiliate marketers can constantly promote your business offerings at any time of the day or night. 

This makes affiliate marketing so much better than traditional/offline advertising, which has specific timeframes or deadlines to reach out to as many people as possible. With affiliate marketing, you can make a sale or capture a lead at any time, hands-free. 

Benefit #4: Brand Exposure 

By having your business’s ads or other promotions appear on certain trusted affiliate websites, you can increase your brand’s visibility. Continuous exposure will improve brand awareness, and customers will trust your brand over time.

Trust is important in getting customers to work with you, and studies show that 81% of customers need to trust a business before they consider buying from it. 

When customers trust you, you can easily sell to them and build relationships with them. 

NOTE: For better brand exposure results, your business should be endorsed by experts or other well-respected influencers. This will get customers to trust your brand a lot faster. 

Benefit #5: Customer Acquisition 

40% of merchants in the US use affiliate marketing as their main customer acquisition channel.

This is because it is highly effective. Because of its expanded reach, it helps acquire new customers who might not have discovered a business otherwise. 

More customers mean more revenue and growth for your business. If you can retain the customers you’ve acquired, this leads to repeat sales and increased customer lifetime value(CLV).

Benefit #6: Boost Traffic 

Affiliate marketing drives increased traffic to your business. The average clickthrough rate for affiliate links is 1.9% across all industries.

Suppose your affiliate has 1 million subscribers, this will translate to 19,000 site visits per campaign. 

Having this influx of site visitors increases the potential for conversions. Using cookies, you can capture the users that don’t convert and send them targeted ads.

More traffic can enhance your business’s credibility through social proof. When people see that a business has numerous visitors, it instills trust and confidence in the brand. They will likely perceive them as trustworthy. 

Benefit #7: Improved SEO 

Affiliate marketing can improve a business’s SEO ranking in two ways: 

• Link building – Link building results from having reputable and relevant affiliate websites to link back to yours. When this happens, it signals to search engines that your website contains relevant content. This enhances your site’s authority and SEO rankings. 
• User engagement – Affiliate marketers drive traffic to your business’s website. More traffic can boost your site’s SEO rankings as search engines, like Google, consider user engagement when determining a website’s relevance. 

A higher search engine ranking will improve your website’s visibility and increase its tendency to get more organic traffic.

Benefit #8 Risk Mitigation 

The performance-based wage model of affiliate marketing reduces the financial risk for businesses.

You’ll only pay for conversions, compared to ads, where you pay for each visit, regardless of the quality of the visit.

This makes affiliate marketing a low-risk option compared to other advertising models that require an upfront payment. 

For example, with a Google ads campaign, you will have to pay upfront without any guarantee that it will be successful. Suppose it fails, your risk won’t pay off, and you will have wasted your investment. This is something you don’t have to worry about with affiliate marketing. 

Benefit #9: Performance Tracking 

Most affiliate management solutions offer real-time tracking abilities. You can use these to monitor the performance of your affiliate partners and the affiliate marketing campaign. From real-time statistics, you can determine if the campaign is achieving the desired goals. 

You can also identify top-performing affiliates and offer them more incentives to reward them accordingly. At the same time, you’ll identify the affiliates who are struggling and offer them more support and resources. Real-time tracking is also useful for optimizing your campaigns for a high ROI.

You’ll need an affiliate management WordPress plugin that offers real-time tracking to run a successful affiliate campaign. That’s exactly what you’ll get with SliceWP. 

Track affiliate performance with real-time data using SliceWP 

SliceWP is an affiliate management software that you can use to set up and manage affiliate marketing campaigns directly from your WordPress website. It has tons of features to help you to do this, and one of them is real-time reporting. 

SliceWP uses real-time data to generate reports on your affiliates’ performance by the minute. It gathers performance data in one place on different metrics such as:

• Commissions (paid, unpaid, average, etc.).
• Referred Visits (clicks and conversion rates).
• Affiliate information.
• Payouts.

Then it displays this information in structured dashboards accompanied by customizable graphs. 

This provides you with a comprehensive and visually appealing overview of how your affiliates are performing in real-time.

You can also use this data to identify issues such as affiliate click fraud – where affiliates generate fake clicks to boost their earnings, or campaigns that are not getting the desired results. Then you can take steps to rectify this. 

Benefit #10: Targeted Marketing 

Affiliate marketing can also allow your business to reach specific audiences that align with your target demographic via targeted marketing. This is because affiliates often have specific audiences. 

Recruiting one who has your target audience ensures that your marketing efforts are focused and relevant to the audience you’re marketing to.

This can lead to better conversion rates since 40% of consumers prefer exposure to relevant content. 

Benefit #11: Diverse Marketing Channels 

Affiliates tend to use multiple marketing channels to promote a business’s offerings. HubSpot reports that more than 90% use more than one channel to market a brand. 

For instance, a blogger usually has social media accounts and sometimes a YouTube channel. They will utilize all these channels to promote your products or brand, giving your business multiple touchpoints with potential customers. 

This expands your reach and can give your brand more exposure and visibility. It also helps to avoid a disruption in marketing efforts suppose one channel fails. The risk of relying on one channel will be mitigated as your marketing efforts spread across multiple platforms. 

Benefit #12: Scalability  

Affiliate marketing is an extremely profitable marketing strategy allowing your business to grow. This allows you to scale your marketing efforts and hire more and better affiliates.

With a larger affiliate network, you’ll increase your reach and tap into new markets. This increased exposure will increase the chances of getting more traffic and conversions on your site. 

To enjoy this benefit, you’ll need an affiliate marketing solution that allows you to have scalable affiliate campaigns. You can do all this with SliceWP. 

Recruit and register as many affiliates as you want with SliceWP

SliceWP allows you to add unlimited affiliates to your affiliate programs. You can recruit as many affiliates as you want anytime, allowing you to scale your affiliate program up and reap more benefits. 

After recruiting new affiliates, SliceWP enables you to seamlessly onboard them into your affiliate marketing program in the following ways. 

Creating custom affiliate registration form

You can create a custom affiliate registration form to streamline the registration process for affiliates and allow them to transition smoothly into your program.

SliceWP allows you to add text fields, dropdowns, radio buttons, and other elements to create a registration form that suit your campaigns. 

This helps gather useful information on affiliates before they join your program, such as promotional methods, marketing experience, etc. Using a custom affiliate registration form will make it easier to approve affiliates after registration. 

Suppose you don’t want your affiliates to go through an approval period. You can allow new affiliates to receive an active status once they finish registering automatically. 

A dedicated affiliate area for easy onboarding

After approving your affiliates, they will access a dedicated affiliate area. You can include their affiliate links and other resources they might need to get started here. For instance, creatives like images, banners, text, etc. 

SliceWP also provides your affiliates with statistics on how they are performing and the commissions that they’re owed. A dedicated affiliate area will help your affiliates to onboard your affiliate program easily and make them self-sufficient from the start.

With the features mentioned here, SliceWP will allow you to create a scalable affiliate program capable of seamlessly accepting new affiliate partners.

Benefit# 13: Builds Strong Relationships 

Affiliate marketing involves partnering with affiliates to promote your business. During this partnership, you get to work with them closely on various things, such as the affiliate marketing strategy, campaign optimization, and so on. 

Working together while constantly communicating encourages the development of strong working relationships based on shared goals and mutual support.

Because of this, you will have a network of affiliates who are invested in your brand’s success. Hence, they will promote it favorably. These relationships can become long-term partnerships leading to continued business growth. 

Benefit #14: Promotion Variety 

Different affiliates will promote your products in different ways. This may include: 

• Creating diverse content on it – for example, YouTube videos, podcasts, interviews, and more. 
• Social media influencer collaborations – affiliate marketers can partner with influencers with an engaged audience. 
• Product giveaways and contests – affiliate marketers can organize these events to get their audiences excited about your products. 
• Online webinars to educate the audience on the product or the brand. 

This promotional variety can lead to diverse representations of your products, which will, in turn, appeal to a wider range of potential customers. 

Benefit #15: Boosts Reputation 

Affiliating with trusted marketers can enhance your business’s reputation. Trusted affiliate marketers have built a reputation for providing valuable and honest recommendations to their audience.

When they promote your business, their followers perceive it as a trustworthy endorsement. This is useful for attracting new customers to work with you.

Apart from portraying trustworthiness, a good business reputation also accounts for 63% of a company’s market value.

This can help you to attract high-profile investors and get more capital to grow your business.

Benefit #16: Data Collection 

Affiliate marketing allows businesses to collect valuable customer data during an affiliate marketing campaign.

This may include: 

• The number of conversions over a given period. 
• The number of clicks that don’t convert.

This data is useful because it reveals how customers respond to the affiliate campaign. It will help you adjust your affiliate program or online store to get better results.

For example, if you’re getting tons of clicks but very few conversions, you might need to review your customer’s ecommerce journey and optimize it. However, if the clicks are relatively low, you might need to refine your affiliate marketing strategy.

Data collection is a very useful feature of an affiliate marketing program, and you’ll get it when you use SliceWP. 

Collect and utilize affiliate marketing data with SliceWP

By default, SliceWP collects data on your customers’ total clicks and conversions and makes it easily available to you.

By simply going to SliceWP > Visits on your WordPress admin area, you can view all referral visits to your landing page. 

This includes those that converted and those that didn’t. For this section, SliceWP has data filters that you can use to filter customer visits over a given period instead of moving page by page and picking out the data that you need. With these filters, you can analyze collected data and use it to optimize your marketing campaign. 

Export your data to use elsewhere

Once you’ve identified the relevant data, SliceWP allows you to export it into CSV files. You can use it either for bookkeeping or forecasting for future campaigns.

This way, you can make this data work for your business outside your affiliate marketing program.

Benefit #17: Credibility 

In a recent Harvard Business Review survey, 80% of the respondents considered trust a key factor influencing their buying decision.

For this reason, having a credible business can improve your conversions as customers can easily make purchase decisions. 

Just as working with trusted affiliates improves how much customers trust your business, working with these affiliates will also boost your credibility among consumers. This is because endorsements from respected affiliates can significantly impact customers’ buying decisions. 

Benefit #18: Extended Product Line Visibility 

All products have a lifecycle and tend to decline at some point. Some may decline earlier than others, often becoming less popular or overlooked when customers visit your ecommerce store.

A good example is technological gadgets or fashion apparel going out of style. 

Affiliate partners can give these types of products a spotlight and revive interest in them. This gives them extended visibility beyond their initial lifecycle. As a result, your revenue streams will be diversified, and you won’t rely on popular products alone.

Benefit #19: Complements Other Marketing Efforts 

Affiliate marketing can seamlessly integrate with and enhance other marketing strategies, such as social media, content, and email marketing.

This can bring up opportunities for you to collaborate with your affiliates in doing things like:

• Publishing guest posts on affiliate websites.
• Conducting joint social media campaigns.
• Co-branding email newsletters.
• Promoting a new product launch, sale, or event.

Such collaboration will create a cooperative marketing approach that will benefit both parties. This is a more cohesive and effective overall marketing strategy where you and your affiliates can achieve your goals easier. 

Benefit #20: Low Entry Barrier 

Affiliate marketing as a marketing strategy is relatively accessible. Unlike other strategies like TV ads, Print ads, trade shows, exhibitions, etc., it doesn’t require a large upfront investment to get started. 

All you need is affiliate management software to help you set up and manage your affiliate marketing program. You will only pay the affiliates a portion of your profits after receiving them.

This low entry barrier allows businesses of all sizes to leverage it for growth. It is a great option for small businesses that want to get more sales, revenue, and reach. 

There you have it – 20 benefits that businesses enjoy when they utilize affiliate marketing as a marketing strategy. As mentioned earlier, getting started with affiliate marketing is very easy, and if you already have a WordPress site, all you’ll need is SliceWP to get everything else done.

The affiliate marketing WordPress plugin to help get it done

If you’re looking to get into affiliate marketing, then SliceWP is the affiliate marketing program to help you get started.

It brings together all that you need to create and manage affiliate marketing campaigns directly on your WordPress website.

SliceWP has multiple features to help you to do this, including the ones we’ve mentioned here, like:

• Real-time performance reports – to track the performance of your affiliates and your campaigns. 
• Scalability – to add new affiliates at will. 
• Data collection –  to collect useful customer data on your affiliate campaigns. 

Apart from these, SliceWP provides everything you need to run an affiliate program on WordPress. This includes the following features and benefits.

Custom commission rates

Commissions act as investments in your affiliate program. SliceWP allows you to customize them to suit your business and your affiliate partners.

You can set up the following:

• Affiliate custom commission rates – this option allows you to set up unique commission rates for specific affiliates, let’s say top-tier affiliates. 
• Product custom commission rates – if you want to offer different commission rates for different products. 
• Recurring commission rates – offer top-tier affiliates a commission each time a subscription renews to attract them. 
• Lifetime commissions – connect customers with affiliates and reward affiliates for any future purchase made by these customers. 

With these options, you’ll create a compensation structure that works for you and your affiliate partners. 

Automated payouts

Avoid frustrating your affiliates by paying them on time. With SliceWP Pro, you can connect your business PayPal account and pay your affiliates in bulk with a single click from your WordPress dashboard. 

Affiliate coupons

You can make it easier for affiliates to promote your products by providing them with coupons. These coupon codes contain incentives such as discounts. When used during checkout, customers will be eligible for these incentives. 

Affiliate coupon codes can also help you to compensate affiliates accordingly as they’re tied to specific affiliates. You’ll know the affiliate that should be rewarded when they’re used. 

Utilize the benefits of affiliate marketing in your business

Judging from the perks we’ve outlined in this article, it’s clear that affiliate marketing offers businesses a versatile and approachable path to draw in customers, boost sales, and, ultimately, expand.

It’s pretty straightforward to get started, especially if you’re already running a WordPress website. All you need to launch and manage successful affiliate campaigns is a handy tool like SliceWP. It’s considered one of the best affiliate marketing programs out there, and by using it, you’ll be able to reach your affiliate marketing objectives effortlessly and smoothly.