As social media channels and digital platforms become more ubiquitous in our everyday lives, affiliate marketing is an increasingly attractive option for brands and businesses.
However, while affiliate marketing can offer brands a range of fantastic benefits, the approach has yet to achieve full mainstream acceptance and see large-scale integration across the business landscape. Let’s take a look at affiliate marketing in the retail sector and discuss whether it is getting the respect it deserves.
What Industries Use Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is used across a wide range of industries. It’s perfect for digital businesses looking to reach new customers through social media channels and digital platforms.
Some of the industries that generate the most leads, conversions and revenue from affiliate marketing strategies include: finance, insurance, iGaming and beauty.
Affiliate marketing offers these industries a cost-effective way of targeting new customer groups. By using influencers and content creators, brands can build more positive customer relationships. They can track campaign performance using new analytic tools.
Affiliate Marketing in the Retail Sector
In the past, affiliate marketing was reserved largely for niche and specialist industries, including the ones listed above. It sometimes had something of a negative reputation, a result of unfounded fears about legitimacy and efficacy.
However, recently we’ve seen affiliate marketing enjoy wider mainstream acceptance. A number of major retail brands now run their own affiliate programs. According to research conducted by Awin, the retail sector saw revenue growth of around 8% through the use of affiliate networks and partnerships.
For retail companies that are still unsure about the approach, it can be helpful to identify exactly how affiliate marketing can help retail brands. So, let’s do just that.
How Can Affiliate Marketing Help Retail Brands?
First and foremost, affiliate marketing can help retail brands boost revenue. It is a low-risk, high-ROI strategy that can connect with consumers at each funnel touchpoint, maximising the reach and impact of marketing campaigns to see improved performance.
Through the use of digital analytic tools, the performance of these campaigns can be tracked and evaluated in detail. This allows retail brands to identify areas of success and focus on these while making adjustments to improve less effective channels.
Affiliate marketing isn’t just about sales. Retail brands who forge successful affiliate partnerships can also boost brand image and reputation. Influencers and content creators can connect with consumers on a deeper, more meaningful level. This allows them to foster brand affinity between consumers and the businesses they promote.
Finally, affiliate marketing can be used by retail brands to gather data about customers. Email addresses can be collected to build mailing lists and generate leads. Demographic data can be analysed to draw up accurate customer profiles for more effective targeting.
In Conclusion…
We’re seeing more and more retail brands start to realise the incredible benefits offered by affiliate marketing. As the approach develops and improves through integration with new technology, we can expect to see it adopted by an even wider range of industries and sectors in the future.
