Dedicated E-mail - CAP - Affiliate Marketing

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Hey ,

We all know how incredibly difficult digital marketing has become with increasing customer acquisition costs.  That being said, it still remains the most profitable and scalable sales channel with a direct line of communication to your customers.  Many brands still rely solely on Facebook/Google which are CPM (cost per million) networks, i.e. you're paying for impressions.

Instead of just paying for impressions you should try building out an affiliate strategy, where you can operate on CPA (cost per acquisition). Meaning you only pay if there is a sale. Many brands I’ve worked with have tried affiliate programs in the past, but they’ve been ineffective because of how they've been set up and general unawareness of how to create an effective program. If you're not already leveraging this profitable marketing channel, you're missing out on a significant opportunity to grow your business online for minimal risk.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy where people promote your products and earn a fee for every sale made through their unique affiliate link. It's a win-win situation where you get more exposure and sales, while affiliates get a fee for promoting your products to their audience. One of a huge number of reasons why this is so valuable is because we use a direct link and you're able to track the data and optimize over time, which is something that has gotten increasingly difficult with other channels like Facebook and Google.

Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that it takes much less capital to get a program off the ground and start testing offers. With a CPM model, it typically takes a minimum of $10,000 to start getting real data back in order to optimize, often times as much as $50,000. With affiliate marketing you can get started for as low as $2,000 to start seeing results. The reason being that CPA traffic has a lower risk. It’s so far down the marketing funnel that you’re able to test and optimize for much cheaper than CPM networks like Facebook and Google.

Components of a Successful Strategy

So, how can you find success with affiliate marketing and why can it be so challenging?

Most brands fail at affiliate marketing because they don’t create a compelling offer, qualify the right people as affiliates, or build an ongoing relationship with them.

Here’s how you build an effective affiliate strategy:

SET CLEAR GOALS

Before you begin your affiliate marketing journey, it's essential to define clear goals that align with your overall business objectives. These could be driving more sales, driving subscriptions, increasing brand awareness, or simply building your email list.

OFFER CREATION

I often times see brands running offers to their home page or regular product pages. However, the BEST offers and landers have a "hook".  For example, I have a fantastic energy drink client that runs a 4 for $4 offer for a CPA of only $15.  They do +100 orders/day in the affiliate channel working with our agency.  These types of offers are fantastic for increasing brand awareness for cheap, finding customers with high intent, and for increasing your customer base and overall sales if coupled correctly with a strong retention strategy i.e. email, SMS, and retargeting.

FIND THE RIGHT AFFILIATES

The success of your affiliate program depends on the quality of affiliates you partner with. You want to work with affiliates who have a relevant audience and a genuine interest in your products. Look for affiliates who are active in your niche, have a loyal following, and are willing to promote your products on an ongoing basis. Finding the right partner for your brand is as important as creating an attractive offer.

PROVIDE VALUE TO YOUR AFFILIATES

To attract and retain quality affiliates, you need to provide value to them beyond just an attractive payout. Offering them exclusive discounts, samples, and fresh content is key. We work with a body care company that has an exclusive lander for 20% off + FREE SHIPPING that does incredibly well with our active men's blog partners.

TRACK YOUR PERFORMANCE

To measure the success of your affiliate program, you need to track your performance metrics. Monitor your clicks, conversions, and earnings to identify areas of improvement. If you are running CPA traffic, like my agency does for my clients, then a key metric is the Earnings Per Click (EPC) to the affiliate or to the clients it'd be Cost Per Click (CPC).  Traditionally if you're running on Facebook, you want a low CPC but if you're running a CPA campaign you counter intuitively want a high CPC.  The reason for this is because the offer becomes more attractive to larger affiliates and groups the higher the EPC.  Use this data to optimize your program and make informed decisions about your affiliate partnerships.

Wrap Up

In summary, affiliate marketing can be a powerful tool for growing your food and beverage business. By setting clear goals, creating an attractive offer, partnering with quality affiliates, providing value, and tracking/optimizing your performance, you can find success with this channel.

If you're interested in learning more about affiliate marketing, feel free to reach out to me. I'm always happy to share my expertise and help you grow your business. If you want to build an affiliate program for your brand, I’ve built a process and network catered for emerging food, beverage, beauty, and supplement brands.

As a 2x CPG founder I want you to win and our interests to be aligned. With that in mind we have what we believe is the most brand friendly structure and value including:

• No Retainers - there are no monthly fees or management costs, if we don't perform then you don't pay (we do ask for a 1-time $1,000 set up fee because it takes ~2 weeks to launch a program)

• Only Pay on Sales - we only run CPA traffic, meaning you only pay if a sale occurs!

• No Locked-In Periods - we operate on a day-to-day agreement, cancel at anytime

• Live Dashboard - brands can see their campaigns performance in real-time and can match their Shopify orders with our dashboard making us a fully transparent solution

Krik Angacian is a two-time CPG snack food brand owner (Protes and CandyCan) with one exit under his belt, and most recent founder of CPG Affiliate Partners LLC where he helps brands traverse the convoluted affiliate marketing space.

Request an introduction to Krik.

Jordan Buckner

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