Affiliate marketing is not a novelty. For more than two decades, the idea existed. It started to bloom back in 1996, when Amazon launched its first affiliate marketing program.
Nowadays, the global affiliate marketing industry statistics are staggering and are forecasted to continue rising at an impressive rate. If you are in an online business, it’s high time you joined the trend and increased your traffic and sales.
What is affiliate marketing?
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is when a third party promotes someone else’s business to generate traffic or lead to a particular product or service. The reward is a fixed fee or a sale percentage. These refunds are paid by click or impression and most frequently per successful sale.
Affiliate marketing system
There are four obligatory elements to form an affiliate marketing system:
- the seller – a business who wants to promote a service or a product
- the affiliate – a blogger, a digital marketing service, or a digital marketing company that promotes the seller’s product or service
- the consumer – an individual or a business that buys the product or the service
- the network – even though promotion is possible through an individual effort, using an affiliate network significantly increases traffic and sales opportunity
Affiliate marketing is available to and suitable for all types of businesses with an online presence anywhere in the world. Dubai, being the leader in so many business areas, is no exception. So, how can a business improve its online marketing and boost sales using affiliate marketing?
A hugely important thing to bear in mind when contemplating whether to invest time and effort in affiliate marketing should be the fact that online business is booming there. The stats that took off in 2019 and made Dubai the fastest growing e-commerce market in the area continued to progress this year. This has a lot to do with the COVID-19 pandemic and the overall trend of transferring from store to online business that has been present worldwide for decades now.
Depending on whether you are an influencer/ content creator or a business owner, there are two possible routes to take.
- Influencers/ content creators: the most profitable use of the rising number of the visitors coming to your blog is to use the opportunity and transfer their attention to a product or a service that you deem worth advertising on your blog. It is essential that you fully stand by the product/service you market. Since your readers’ trust is of the utmost importance for long-term success. To get the opportunity to find businesses that are looking for affiliates, you need to enter an affiliate marketing program.
- Business owner: to increase your product or service interest and improve sales through affiliate marketing, you will need to hire an affiliate to promote the affiliate network and various digital marketing services. Once again, affiliate networks are the best place to find the right affiliate for your needs.
How to join an affiliate network in Dubai?
Again, there are two roads to take for both business owners and affiliates.
The first would be to join a local affiliate network in Dubai. There are several successful digital marketing companies that are actively involved with affiliate marketing programs. Meaclick, Optimoz IT, Arabclicks, EDS FZE, and Entero are among the most prolific ones, all equally capable of providing the best that affiliate marketing strategies have to offer to increase traffic and sales. This local option would be a better choice for all businesses that are either just starting their affiliate marketing campaigns or have a product or a service that is more suitable for the local market. Building a local customer base would be more efficient and profitable.
The second would be to opt for one of the global affiliate networks. There are hundreds of available options, however, choosing one of the top-rated list, such as ShareASale, Awin, or Amazon Associates, is always advisable for those affiliate marketing novices who wish to expand their business globally and reach the most comprehensive scope of audience possible. This option is more suited for those who are beginners in affiliate marketing but already run an established business. They can afford the services of the best digital marketing companies and, in the majority of cases, lack time to get into the matter in closer detail, something that is usually required when venturing into the affiliate world for the first time with a less experienced online marketing service available.
What are the costs of affiliate marketing?
There are four primary payment methods for affiliates:
- Pay per Click – a fee (usually small) is paid to an affiliate for every successful click sent to a business owner’s site.
- Pay per Lead – a fee is paid for every lead or inquiry made on the business owner’s site.
- Pay per Sale (fixed commission) – a fee is paid to the affiliate for every successful sale.
- Pay per Sale ( percentage) – an affiliate receives an arranged percentage of the sale price for every successful purchase
Pay per Click and Pay per Lead is affiliate marketing methods that are used to increase traffic and attract new potential customers. When it comes to sales improvement, Pay per Sale options, just as their name says it, are preferred methods both for vendors and affiliates. Which to choose obviously depends on which goal a particular business wishes to achieve with this marketing campaign.
When to expect the first results?
Just as it is the case with any other marketing campaign, the time needed for the first noticeable results to come in this type of campaign primarily depends on the type of product advertised, how well the target audience is chosen, the content of the campaign, and the skills of the digital marketing company that is used to facilitate all these components.
One thing is sure; it will take time and effort to organize and run a successful affiliate marketing campaign in Dubai, just like anywhere else in the world. Careful planning, partners’ choice, and patience are needed to improve traffic and sales regardless of the business line in question. However, it will indeed prove to be worthwhile.
