Yesterday at the Type A Parent conference someone asked me to write down my response to “what tips do you have to convert affiliate sales?”. Here is the basic principal behind the strategies I shared. It is something that is very easy to do, but is also rarely done.
How to convert affiliate traffic into sales:
- Audience Matching
- Experience Matching
Audience Matching
The first thing a blogger, or any site should do is to log into their analytics package. Google Analytics tends to be the most popular one at these shows. Start by looking at your demographics tab. From there, sort by landing page and you’ll be able to target down to the specific posts driving traffic to the merchant, site or store in question.
You want to look for things like where they live. City or Urban, age range, median household income levels (yes this is available and I shared how to find it at the show) and anything else you can get from the stats. Next take that data and look at what the typical merchant’s consumer base is. If you can get it for the category on the site, or the specific products you’re selling, even better.
Now ask yourself, are the skews the same for male/female, income level, age range, urban vs. country, etc… If they are very different (even for the same product), then look for a merchant who provides a better experience for the audience you are sending. For example, you can find some of the same brands at Target or Walmart that are available at higher end retailers. If the person is not a Target or Walmart fan or budget conscious, the other retailers may provide a better experience and get them to shop.
If your audience is more budget conscious or doesn’t have products readily available at niche local stores (i.e. curved fish tanks in the country or urban settings vs. a suburb with big box retailers), then sending them to retailers who cater to their needs may increase conversions. Matching your audience to a site that caters, speaks to and addresses their needs is the first tip and way to help turn affiliate traffic into sales.
Experience Matching
Next look at how they are viewing your site. The example I used at the show is by device. If your audience is predominately on mobile devices, don’t look at the merchant’s website or take screen captures from your computer. Instead do it from your mobile device.
When you get to the merchant’s website, ask yourself:
- How quickly does the first page load
- Did the next page and shopping cart load fast too
- Is there a good sales funnel for mobile traffic and visitors
- Has the merchant spent time to ensure there are trust and conversion attributes to drive the visitor from viewer to a closed sale
- Are the fields at checkout easy to use or does the customer have to work to enter in their data
- Does the merchant have cross device tracking set up
If the merchant you are promoting is built for desktop sales, but your traffic is mobile, there could be another retailer with the same products that has a better mobile experience and more tracking options. This will in theory help to convert your traffic better because they are providing a better experience for your traffic.
There is a bit more that goes into this, but the above information is more than enough to get you started. If you’re still wondering why your affiliates are driving traffic but not producing sales, contact me and we can set up some time to review it and see how we can help to make you and your partners more money.
