Grow Your Sales with Affiliates

Sean R.
ShopKetti
Published in
3 min readSep 12, 2017

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Apart from developing a product, getting the word out is one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to building a business. After we sell a product, we tend to hope that every customer is so ecstatic that they share it with their friends and family on social media. However, that takes the right customer. So how do you increase the chance of people writing about your products? That’s where an affiliate comes in. The question is, what percentage of profit would you be willing to forfeit to gain a new customer?

So what is an affiliate?

An affiliate is essentially a sales person paid purely on commission of successful sales; meaning they are incentivized to bring on as many people as possible. In this case they operate 100% online through social media and blogs and their sales are tracked by a link specific to them created by you (explained below). If a visitor buys through their link they are paid, and if they don’t purchase, they don’t get paid. This payment structure is called Cost Per Conversion(or Sale).

How do you find them?

Scour social media outlets and independent blogs for individuals that represent the same customer type you’re targeting. Ask yourself if this person has the right personality and following behind them to represent you.

When you’re ready, reach out for a conversation. They usually display their email but if not, many social media outlets have direct messaging. Reach out to many since not all will respond.

Hiring & Negotiation

The average commission rate is anywhere between 5–30%. However instead pitching a simple 20%+, you can strategically implement milestone upgrades. Start with 5% for the first 30 successful sales, then bump them up to 10% and so on…

Before hiring, it is important that they actually try your product first; giving them the choice to promote it or not. In your message simply talk about your product, state that you’d like for them to try it, and their commission per sale if they’d like to promote it. Also ask them about their business to see if you can promote them in some form.

How do I pay them?

Surprisingly, this is the easy part. There are a few different services you can use depending on your website provider. When you sign up you are given a link that affiliates can sign up with your company. After joining, the affiliate has an account where they can grab their customized link that will track a visitor’s purchase. When that purchase is successful on your website you can log into your affiliate service and approve or pay the affiliate.

Below are a few services:

Shopify

Refersion
$29/mo — 14 day free trial

Referral Candy
$49/mo(+fee) — 30 day free trial

Squarespace

Tapfiliate
$69/mo — 14 day free trial
*Refersion & Referral Candy don’t work with Squarespace

Custom Website

Depending on which one you like, each one above has a simple step by step that your web developer should be able to follow.

Affiliates can be a great way to tap into new customer communities. If a trusted affiliate recommends you, it is often received in the same way as a personal reference. Explore a few of these services and see if this method of spreading the word works for your business.

ShopKetti is a wholesale platform connecting independent creators and retailers in the pet industry. Explore the community and join for free at shopketti.com

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