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Affiliate marketing generates 5% to 25% of online sales for big brands.
US Marketing spending on affiliate marketing will reach $8.2 billion by 2022 and continue to grow in 2023.
And, the average affiliate marketer’s salary is $51,639 per year.*
The story behind those numbers is that there’s no stopping the growing popularity of Affiliate Marketing. There are many ways to monetize and scale an online business, and affiliate marketing is one of the fastest-growing modalities. Whether companies use well-known influencers or micro-influencers (less than 100,000 followers), prepare to see more relevant advertising tactics that feel less tacky and more human.
Welcome to the second post in our series of predictions and trends for digital entrepreneurs in 2023. I recruited several world-class industry experts to share what they think is unfolding in the next year.
Today, we’re talking about trends and predictions in affiliate marketing online. Affiliate marketing isn’t new, but it IS evolving fast, with new opportunities for more people to profit with different strategies.
I spoke with Aiden Booth, a veteran of over 17 years in affiliate marketing. His career started in 2005 when he made his first online commission selling affiliate products.
Aiden has sold over $100M of sales online and is the #1 affiliate on Clickbank – the platform responsible for over $5B worth of online sales. Aiden successfully sells products in over 20,000 physical locations across 56 countries. He talked about the exciting upcoming opportunities and changes in the affiliate marketing space we can expect in 2023 and beyond.
The beauty of Affiliate marketing is that anyone can make commissions without selling a single thing! Influencers and micro-influencers have already reaped huge rewards from pursuing affiliate marketing. And it will only get bigger in 2023 – with more networks, opportunities and better strategies.
Prediction #1: Make Commissions Without Selling a Single Product
One of the big things we’re seeing is trends toward people making commissions without needing to sell a single thing! How is this possible? Well, there’s now an onus on big brands to participate in affiliate marketing. These companies pay a pretty penny to affiliate marketers to provide lead information like email addresses and zip codes to improve their messaging and targeting.
Large companies like Microsoft, Airbnb, Uber, and Dropbox realized they could empower an army of affiliates to help them get lead information by providing value to the end customer. There’s a viable opportunity to make commissions without selling a single product – simply by generating LEADS for other companies.
Deep-pocketed companies are investing more and more into affiliate marketing over paid media. They can create an army of people around the world, paying between $5 and $100 per lead, and focus only on delivering a great product.
Imagine getting paid to send traffic to a page, without having to worry about making sales or delivering products!
Aiden cites an example of a home insurance company who pays their affiliates between $50 to $100 per lead. Do some simple math, and if you’re generating ten leads per day – multiply that by $100, you’ll earn $1000 PER DAY – it’s a win-win. It’s a win for the affiliates who could be making $1k a day, and it’s a win for the companies who are able to convert leads at a higher rate from affiliate traffic than from traditional advertising in the old formats. Conversion rates have skyrocketed up to 60 percent over those older methods, in large part because of this new strategy.
As more companies realize just how effective this can be, the affiliate opportunities will only multiply.
Prediction #2: Building A Sophisticated Value-Filled Backend Will Quadruple Revenue
With technological advancements, you can make an immediate backend commission. You can provide quick and long-term value by welcoming initial subscribers to an email list and building an audience on an email marketing platform where you can double down on your messaging and interact more closely with customers. Creating a sophisticated backend in your business will give you the highest ROI and pay off in the long run.
More and more people are successfully creating an immediate commission (selling a product) combined with a backend structure (building an email list). Affiliate marketers have enormous potential to make more money by building relationships with their customers.
Aiden shares,”In our business, we get an immediate payout when we capture a lead or subscriber’s information. And we can quadruple the amount of money we make by providing more value on the backend.”
Growing an email list through affiliate marketing builds a stronger relationship with your customers, gives them more value and increases their desire to spend more money with you. Aiden says, “The opportunity here, especially when ad costs are rising, is to make campaigns viable and more lucrative than they’ve ever been!”
You can also have your cake and eat it too by achieving an immediate sale and setting people up to generate additional commissions and revenue on the backend. Remember the classic industry saying, “Fortune is in the follow-up”? You will get some revenue upfront, but there’s always an opportunity to do more by giving more value and engaging with them regularly.
In 2023, affiliate marketing will focus more on building more profound, meaningful connections with customers and doubling down on providing value. Shifting the mindset to building a subscriber base is not only more lucrative, but it’s more sustainable. This isn’t an overnight success but a recurring revenue opportunity for many people.
Prediction #3: Effective Targeting in 2023 Doesn’t Include Interruption-Based Marketing
Another big takeaway for 2023 is that those annoying website pop-ups (also called interruption-based marketing) are no longer working like they used to. People are savvier and don’t want in-your-face ads anymore, which means that marketers have to find more creative ways to go viral, grab people’s attention and capture their information as quickly as possible.
With that being said, there are opportunities with some of the classic marketing platforms to provide good value and get enormous amounts of traffic in a financially viable way – specifically with Google ads.
There is a certain type of Google ad that’s the closest thing to “evergreen” that you can get. And what’s cool is that it works more effectively over time; you will see the best results when you give people what they want.
When I created the ASK Method Company in 2008, I remember the first ads I made on Google. Would you believe those same ads I wrote over a decade ago are still running today? Unchanged, unmoved, and with the same content? I haven’t touched it because it WORKS.
It’s not the most “cutting-edge,” but the platform has made changes on the backend to make targeting more effective. And you don’t have to find people; you have to make a connection between words and use a call to action that leads to a sale.
What’s Next?
Affiliate marketing will continue to grow exponentially over the next year. If you’re already in affiliate marketing or want to become an affiliate marketer, you should choose the right company to partner with, optimize your backend and build relationships with customers through list building, and keep your ad simple.