By this point, we've all used an affiliate link 鈥 whether it got us a discounted pair of shoes, a ticket to a special museum exhibit or a free trial of a personal finance app.
But affiliate marketing doesn鈥檛 just entice everyday consumers. It鈥檚 equally as effective in B2B. As any partner leader knows, publishers, industry leaders, agencies and other software companies have exposure to audiences that you may not have. And those audiences may be looking for a product or service just like yours.
like Webflow, Zapier and Unbounce have already capitalized on the power of affiliate marketing. Yet starting your own program can be daunting. Who should be running the show? How do you cultivate internal and external trust? What do you need to prep before launch?
In this guide, we鈥檙e sharing the who, the what and the how of B2B affiliate marketing with tips from two partner veterans, , Director of Marketplaces and Affiliates at and , formerly Senior Director at and now VP聽Client Services at Partner Commerce.
The players
Starting up an affiliate marketing program at a B2B company is no small feat 鈥 particularly with so much skepticism around it.
That鈥檚 why, according to Lilien, 鈥淭he people spearheading your affiliate efforts need to be the most well-rounded people in the organization. They need to be able to get executive buy-in. They need to be analytical yet business development-driven; creative yet technical.鈥
鈥
Naicker is a great example of this. He started his career in sales, then switched to product management, worked in strategic partnerships, and then landed on affiliate marketing, developing all kinds of skills along the way (it鈥檚 no wonder Vendasta is the winner of in the 2023 SaaS Partnerhips Awards). Putting the most capable people in charge not only boosts your chances of success, it reassures executives, too.
These unique skilled 聽professionals may sit on the marketing team, the partner team or the sales team, depending on your company鈥檚 structure. Regardless of where they are in the org chart, they鈥檒l be highly cross-functional. Overall, affiliate managers work with:
- Sales: to close partner-sourced leads
- Marketing: to produce partner-related content
- Finance: to get budget for new incentives and ensure partners are paid properly
- IT: to stand up any necessary integrations for affiliate management software
- Product: to get the inside scoop on new features partners can promote
The partners
The quality of your partners will make or break the integrity of your affiliate program. The easiest and safest group to recruit first? Your customers 鈥 they already know and rave about your product or service.
Naicker shares, 鈥淲e heard through the grapevine that some of our customers were already promoting us, so our affiliate program was a natural fit and a great way to compensate them.鈥
After you鈥檝e invited customers to join your program, expand your recruitment to existing partners and other advocates. At Vendasta, sales teams share in this responsibility. 鈥淚t took some training to get the sales team to understand what would qualify as a good affiliate. But it was worth it 鈥 developing relationships with affiliates helps reps influence the kinds of leads they鈥檇 like to get and work [with].鈥漈he third rung of ideal partners are the ones already participating in affiliate programs, such as competitors鈥 partners or your partners鈥 partners. Lilien explains, 鈥淭hey should either know about you or know about affiliate marketing. If they don鈥檛 know either, it鈥檚 a lot harder to activate them.鈥
- Know what they鈥檙e doing
- Have a trusting, captive audience
- Can get active fairly quickly
The training
Affiliate partners can鈥檛 hit your targets if they don鈥檛 know what they are. Setting expectations and getting your partners up to speed on your products and services is the first step in any affiliate marketing program.
But there鈥檚 simply no way to do that at scale in spreadsheets and one-off webinars. To get and keep your program up and running, you need a partner relationship management system (PRM) that can centralize partner information and provide a portal for all things affiliate marketing.
As a baseline, PRMs designed for affiliate management should be able to support:
Once you鈥檝e got a PRM in mind, it鈥檚 time to think through the partner experience to create a credible affiliate program.
Map out and automate your partner鈥檚 journey
A strong onboarding process gives partners a good first impression of your program and gets them proficient faster. The secret to creating one? Putting yourself in a new affiliate partner鈥檚 shoes.
When starting out, you鈥檇 want to know what鈥檚 expected of you, how the commission structure works, and the best way to understand the product or service you鈥檙e selling. As you get acquainted with the program and product or service, you鈥檇 want to know how to get certified, where you can find marketing resources and if there are any examples of successful campaigns you can review and use as inspiration.
For most partners, all of this information will be the same 鈥 and that means disseminating it can be automated. Lilien recommends, 鈥淎utomated email sequences are your friend. Creating a welcome series drip campaign to expose new partners to the tools and assets they need is a good start.鈥
To activate and engage your partners, you may also want to consider building and automating to:
- Re-engage partners who鈥檝e been inactive for a while
- Share updates on where leads are in the sales cycle
- Congratulate and thank partners for their performance
- Get partners excited about new features or offerings
Email isn鈥檛 the only thing you can automate. Naicker leverages automation to move partners who鈥檝e completed a certification into a new partner group, automatically granting them a higher commission rate.
The quality control
Mitigating fraud is a major piece of the affiliate marketing puzzle and a key to building trust with partners and end-users. Without a robust partner approval process, you鈥檒l waste time cleaning up your partner portal and your sales team will lose time chasing down bad leads.
It all starts with the structure of your partner signup form. What were the must-haves on your ideal affiliate partner profile? These characteristics need to be featured prominently in your questionnaire and they need to be easy to verify.
From there, set up a process to validate the authenticity of each partner. Do they have a profile on LinkedIn? Does their company have a functioning website? Can you find their profile in another company鈥檚 partner database?
Naicker鈥檚 program has another layer of protection 鈥 the sales team. 鈥淪ince we鈥檝e opened up partner referrals to the sales team, we know that the ones that come in have already been vetted by our AEs, making them much more likely to be good affiliate candidates.鈥
Lilien tells his clients to keep a close eye on their data. 鈥淭here are a lot of things that could indicate fraud, from increased portal traffic to strange email domain names to spikes in referrals 鈥 which are often too good to be true. Monitoring your data every day can help you quickly identify abnormal performance.鈥
Partner relationship management tools like 91大神 have features that flag partners with suspicious activity for you. With a quick review, you can determine whether a spike in leads is normal or cause for concern.
Lastly, be sure you鈥檙e protected from a legal standpoint. Lilien advises companies to add a clause in their program terms and conditions that outlines the right to reverse commissions for any partners suspected of fraud.
The content
Affiliate partners already have an audience they know and trust, they just need to focus that audience鈥檚 attention on your product and services. That requires some marketing and messaging. And since you鈥檙e the expert, why not pre-create content for them?
As Lilien says, 鈥淭he best affiliate partners want to get started quickly, so make it as easy on them as possible. Give them ideas and value-add content that makes sense for their audience.鈥
Some examples of content you can create for partners are:
This may be a joint lift with your marketing team 鈥 and you鈥檒l want to get aligned sooner rather than later. Building this relationship internally will also boost trust for you and your affiliate program. Naicker says, 鈥淚 wish I would鈥檝e known how much we needed to lean on the marketing team and put in my requests earlier. I鈥檇 also recommend establishing a process for adding newly published content to your partner portal so your library stays fresh.鈥
Smaller teams may not have this luxury. Before Naicker was able to work with a dedicated marketing team, he had to use what he already had. Over time, he continued adding to that foundation 鈥 with partners鈥 input.
鈥淲e uploaded any relevant pieces to the portal, recorded a couple of quick videos, created some new email templates and then released. Post-launch, we made iterative changes based on partner feedback.鈥
Choose the right channels
Different partners have different preferred styles of communication. Using a mix of channels can help you get the word out about program changes, product updates, and service offerings effectively and efficiently.
In a PRM, you can notify partners in a variety of ways, from portal announcements to email sequences. In 91大神, Naicker sends a monthly affiliate newsletter that contains:
- Company updates
- Links to new portal assets
- Signups for new contests
- Previous contest winners
鈥淪ending these newsletters keeps Vendasta top of mind, motivates partners to get more involved in the program, and gives them jumping off points.鈥
Don鈥檛 make CTAs an afterthought
You don鈥檛 want to lose momentum with prospects after affiliates have piqued their attention. You need calls to action that will drive them to, well, act.
The best CTAs provide value and drive prospects to your product or service in some way. Some examples might be:
- Booking: a live demo
- Inviting: potential customers to an interactive demo
- Getting: a longer free trial or freemium plan
- Receiving: a free course, audit, or toolkit
The metrics
Executive leadership is going to want proof that you鈥檙e hitting your goals. And if you have , it鈥檚 easy enough to pull the final number of affiliate-sourced deals. But relying on overall revenue numbers only tells you so much about how well your program is actually working.
To determine what other metrics you should be tracking on a regular basis, Naicker suggests working backward. 鈥淭he real insights come from looking at each stage of the funnel. How many qualified leads are you getting? More importantly, what鈥檚 your close percentage of those at each stage?鈥
In addition, you鈥檒l want to track partner engagement KPIs like logins to the portal, certifications completed, and meetings attended. Top partners will inevitably start to surface, helping you understand partner motivations. You may even find some 鈥 signs that a new partner is going to be valuable right away 鈥 enabling you to prioritize your time and effort.
Pivot where necessary
The key to maintaining a sound affiliate program with integrity is to act on your analysis. Invest in the partners that are bringing you quality leads. Reach out to partners who could be great but just aren鈥檛 there yet to see how you can assist. And perhaps most importantly, share feedback with your partners.
Lilien shares, 鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing for your partners to drive a bunch of leads. But if they don鈥檛 know that half their leads aren鈥檛 converting, they can鈥檛 possibly fix it. Keeping track of where your program is at in real time helps you proactively close the feedback loop and preserve your relationships.鈥
Your affiliate program today won鈥檛 be your affiliate program tomorrow 鈥 and that鈥檚 a good thing.
As Lilien says, 鈥淭he differentiator between a strong affiliate program and an average one is that the strong ones tend to be much more flexible in the way they think about affiliate marketing. They don鈥檛 have tunnel vision. They embrace a diversity of models and agreements.鈥
For now, you may just be committed to content syndication, but over time, you may want to incorporate comparison sites, influencers, CPA marketing and more. And as your program grows and changes, your PRM must evolve with it.
That鈥檚 why whether you鈥檙e from scratch or hoping to take it to the next level, 91大神鈥檚 got you covered with quick and easy payouts, built-in email marketing templates, certifications, automated workflows, fraud detection and more. Book a demo to see our platform in action.
.webp)
