Five Tips for Boosting Conversion Rates when Working with Affiliate Networks

Working with affiliate networks can be a wonderful way to monetize a blog. It involves very little expense and can eventually lead to a passive income. But getting to that stage can involve a fairly steep learning curve. And one of the trickiest things to master is conversion rates.

What is meant by ‘conversion rate’?

Defined as ‘the percentage of users who take a desired action’, your conversion rates basically boil down to the bang you get for your buck. Whether you’re working with a pay per sale affiliate program or a pay per signup dating site, your earnings are directly linked to the number of people you can persuade to click your links and engage with the sites you’re promoting. So, how can you increase those numbers?

Five Ways to Increase Conversion Rates when Working with Affiliate Networks

Keep it truthful

One of the quickest ways to lose sales – and audience trust, which will have a knock-on effect on your overall visitor numbers – is to lie. Either by omission or by extolling virtues that don’t exist. So, make sure that all of your content, from your social media posts to your landing pages and sales funnels (if you have them), genuinely reflect the goods and services provided by your affiliate partnership program. Remember that consistency is key, and you can’t go far wrong.

Test your content

We’ve mentioned on here a number of times before that spilt testing is one of the easiest ways to optimize your marketing, Sometimes, the smallest thing can have a big impact on audience interaction. Even down to your syntax and diction. But you can only find out what works best if you test your strategies and use a good analytics program to track the results.

User experience

When we talk of user experience (UE), you’re probably thinking of hardware or large software platforms. But UE applies to anything that you want the public to engage with. And that includes your website or blog. If your site takes a long time to open, your pages are difficult to navigate, your content hard to read or your format unappealing, people are unlikely to take the time to read/listen to what you have to say. The impact this will have on your affiliate network’s conversion rates is obvious.

Call to action

Working affiliate links into your content is a relatively easy thing to do. But the number of people who respond to unobtrusive links will be pretty small. To increase your chances of people actually following through, you need an obvious and strong call to action. Don’t be too salesy. But do make it clear what your desired action is, point your audience in the right direction and don’t confuse with the inclusion of any other links. There should be one place for your readers to go at the end of your blog – and that’s on to your affiliate network’s page!

Choose your affiliate networks carefully

People who struggle to build an income when working with affiliate programs usually make one of two mistakes. 1) They’ve not selected the best affiliate program for their established audience. 2) They’ve opted to work with affiliate networks with a low pay rate. In the first instance, choosing the wrong subject area for your niche could mean that you’re trying to promote something totally inappropriate to your audience, which will generate very little income for you and risks losing you followers. In the second, you may find yourself generating hundreds of clicks, but only earning a couple of dollars a week because each click is only worth a couple of cents. Your best option is to find a product or service that works within your niche and offers a range of payment structures.

‘How can I increase my conversion rates’ is a question that most affiliate marketers will ask at some point in their career. As you become more experienced, you will find more and more ways of building success. But these five points are a really good foundation to get your business started.