Affiliates - Does anyone have success here?
Hi - I am looking into different marketing channels and am wondering if anyone has ever had success marketing through affiliates? If yes, is there any type of standard commission % that is paid? Also, if the affiliate would be a SaaS/data storage type of company, how would you guess they 'refer' people? Would it be simple advertising to their customer base in a newsletter, within their application, etc? I know there likely isn't one good answer, but am curious if anyone has had success setting up a deal(s) like this and what it looks like?
Assuming SaaS, it's a mixed bag. In general, affiliate programs would not be my go-to approach for marketing a SaaS application unless you have relationships with influencers or BD folks at companies with related audiences.
COMMISSION %
Commissions range from 15-30%. Giving away 30% is rough but in certain spaces (internet marketing, how to start a business online, etc.) it can be that or higher. But typically with those setups it's an annual sale, up-front, and churn is ridiculously high because you are selling to aspiring business owners ("wannapreneurs" as some folks negatively describe them).
REFERRALS
If you're in mid-market or enterprise, referrals will likely be through personal hand-offs and business development (BD) relationships.
If you're catering to small businesses, likely via a referral link they send via email or promote on a webinar.
HONESTLY...
Using affiliate marketing in SaaS is not easy. If you have a network of influencers or people with audiences who will promote, then cranking up that affiliate commission and doing 20 webinars per month is a great idea.
If you have one company willing to do it, send them a link, let them promote and see how it goes. If it works, try to replicate it. But don't spend too much time on it until it proves itself.
Successful affiliate programs are a ton of work. Like any other marketing channel, they take focus, time, and energy. You only have so much of that in these early days so choose your marketing approaches wisely.
In your shoes, in the early days, I would probably focus on something else unless you've had signals that indicate this is going to be big for your app/market/niche.
Thank you for the reply.
For context, I am building a services marketplace (lawyers to review legal contracts) and am exploring a partnership/affiliates with SaaS companies (contract management/storage companies).
I think I got what I needed from your response, but let me know if you have any other thoughts. Much appreciated.
In that case, I would push heavily for a joint webinar where they invite their audience and you educate them on something you're an expert in that relates to your product. Include a pitch towards the end with an exclusive discount (annual plans are great for this, since you get a big chunk of cash up front).
If they aren't interested in doing that, an exclusive email to their list is second best (where the entire email is about your product).
A mention in their newsletter ranks after than in terms of effectiveness.
Great, thank you! In re to exclusive email and/or newsletter, any revenue would typically result in a commission through these channels from customers, correct? If I took a clip of a transaction, would I then structure it to be a certain % of my %?
That's the idea. They would take 15%-30% of whatever revenue you took in, which I'm guessing is 10% or 20% of the lawyers' take.
OK thank you!
I had some success with selling design resources but when I realised how much money the other party was making I decided to build my own marketplace and keep 100% of the profit rather than 5-10%
been denied 6 times for amazon's affiliates program but was instantly approved for ebay's. you have a good chance of being approved and making some good money with a simple review site (eg https://thewirecutter.com/). I made 13 bucks from 4 purchases on amazon prior to being denied.