Being in the business of affiliate marketing for many years, Share Results has experienced firsthand the effectiveness of different strategies, particularly for banking products such as credit cards. So, if ever you’re not sure where to start, here are three ideas that have worked wonders for many of our affiliates.
Read on to find out how these tactics can drive traffic to your website, retain visitors and ultimately convert.
Target and acquire organic traffic
Having a blog allows you to rank for long tail keywords, which are not only less competitive, but also better for acquiring targeted traffic.
Build Interest That Resonates and Adds Value
Once you have traffic coming to your website through your blog, you can start converting that traffic into leads. If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, they will see you as a trusted authority, making them more likely to start the sales process. So, it’s important to understand the key segments of your audience to deliver content that will be relevant and useful.
Increase Shares and Readership Through Social Media
Every blog post you create is an opportunity for people to share that content on social media networks, which exposes your business to a new audience.
Blog content can also be repurposed and distributed through different channels. Just this month, one of our affiliates repurposed their content about personal finance and banking products through their social media channels and e-newsletter. The result: acquisitions tripled from the previous month and traffic increased by 1267%.
Read more about creating shareable, value-added content.
Email isn’t going anywhere. Even in 2018, when it comes to digital marketing, after a website, email is the second most effective channel not to be missed according to a recent survey. This year, one of our affiliates had 72.5% of their total monthly acquisitions come from a series of e-newsletters. One of their e-newsletter campaigns boosted their traffic by 46.3% from the previous month.
Email marketing is still 40x more effective than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to generating a sale, according to a McKinsey & Company study. This means if you don’t have an e-newsletter, you could be leaving money on the table.
That said, an e-newsletter adds significant value in several ways:
It allows you to take the conversation to your visitor’s inbox which is their most personal online space.
- Build Engagement and Retention
Most of your website visitors are new visitors who will never come back, so getting them to sign up to your e-newsletter allows you to engage them, which can keep them coming back and help you retain the traffic you worked so hard to earn.
- Offer Perks and Information of Value
E-newsletters also let you directly communicate offers to your audience and provide them with incentives to return such as discounts, valuable content or new products.
Display banners are often used and are a popular marketing tool. They are easy to launch and quickly test and when logging into any affiliate program, there is almost always a section where there are a selection of banners to choose from. Sometimes they are generic banners and other times they are promoting a specific campaign.
We’ve seen a new affiliate start driving traffic as soon as their banner went live on their homepage. Recently one of our affiliates who published content about a reward credit card saw their conversion increased to 25% as soon as they added a banner with a good CTA (call-to-action).
So, if you are thinking of using display banners, here are some pros and cons:
Pros:
Draw visitor’s attention and improve conversion rate
Banners are a great way to draw your visitors’ attention and can help you convert.
Brand Awareness
More visibility means a better recall rate for your brand and top-of-mind awareness. This is important because sixty-six percent of online consumers prefer to buy new products from brands that they are familiar with, according to a Nielsen study.
Cons:
Banner Blindness
As people are getting used to seeing display banners, they start developing banner blindness and often simply ignore them.
Ad Blockers
The use of online ad blockers is growing, and this results in a loss of banner impressions, conversions and sales.
If you decide to use display banners there are two things to consider.
First, do you have the right audience for banners? Some people don’t like to visit a website with advertising banners, which makes them more likely to use ad blockers.
Second, where do you place your banner? Since its location on your website will impact your conversion rate, you must try to ensure your banners are in an area that will draw attention. Don’t forget about banner blindness. Fortunately, it’s easy to change the location of the banner if it’s not getting the results you want.
Pro-tip:
We’ve noticed at Share Results that most affiliates get better results by using text links as they allow them to generate focused CTAs. They seem to convert better than plain banners.
Over the years we’ve seen blog content, e-newsletters and display banners are highly effective for our affiliates. So, trying these ideas can be a great way to boost your website traffic, customer engagement, and conversions.
If you’ve enjoyed this read, visit our website for other articles and our affiliate network.
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