Affiliate Marketing Strategy for SaaS

Skills and strategy are both different. A skill is something you have learned, and strategy is something you plan with your skills.

Do you have skills that others do not but have no strategy? That, my friend, could bring your SaaS company down.

Winning the war is not only through the best uniforms, gun power, or assets. It roots down to your strategies.

Have you watched the movie “Saving Private Ryan” directed by Steven Spielberg? They don’t have ammo left, but they have a strategy to bring Private Ryan back home to his mourning mother.

It is the same with your SaaS company’s affiliate marketing.

You have to learn about the terrain, which is the World Wide Web. You have to know the people you are working with, noting down where they are good at or not. Then come up with a strategy to outsmart other SaaS companies using the affiliate marketing strategy for SaaS that you have.

Affiliate Marketing is growing up to 10 percent every year based on SaaS statistics published by Forrester. And SaaS companies such as Shopify, Amazon, and Hubspot use affiliate marketing to boost their revenue.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a business venture SaaS companies use to market their services. This type of marketing is one of the effective methods to generate sales for companies and a way to earn passive income nowadays.

Affiliate marketing is gaining considerable revenue. The majority of the affiliate marketers have earned approximately 50 percent, less than 10 thousand, but about four percent earned more than 150 thousand dollars, according to Statista 2024 survey from 2000 respondents.

Instead of hiring people in advertisements to boost their sales, SaaS companies used the affiliate marketing method not to save but extend their marketing efforts with the help of affiliate marketers by paying them commissions.

These commissions are equal to the affiliates’ efforts or the way these affiliates market your products.

If they work hard, they earn more. If your affiliates don’t bring traffic to your company, they won’t get paid. You keep your money in your pocket.

What are the advantages of an affiliate marketing strategy?

More than eighty percent of companies can grow their revenue with an affiliate marketing strategy, which is helpful for startup companies.

The strategy deploys many people to market your product through social media, blogs, and reviews. You then give them commissions when people click on your website through their medium.

At the same time, you can save money with this method. You only pay commissions depending on the number of actual customers your affiliates generate for you.

You are giving more value to your money.

Affiliate Marketing Strategy for SaaS

1. Encourage people to become an affiliate

You ask yourself, “What is affiliate marketing?”

Affiliate marketing involves real people using your actual application. The method is by word of mouth or through the web so that your product will get noticed.

With that said, you are dealing with people. The first strategy for starting affiliate marketing is encouraging people to become your affiliate.

How are you going to encourage them? You can do this through

Market fit: encourage them to join and affiliate with you if they see that your niche is the same as theirs. Be honest and intentional that you want to partner with them as your affiliate.

Check what they want from you: Your affiliate may not get attracted by monetary gain. Some love your product and want to use it. Also, some would instead like to get coupons or freebies. Figure out a win-win situation for both you and your affiliates.

Sell your product first: Optimize your product and your landing pages, don’t rely on your affiliates to do that for you. Remember, their primary role is for redistribution. Find what market fits your product.

Set your payout: setting out your payout scheme is one of the things you may want to add to your list on how to start affiliate marketing. You can pay your affiliates when they add new customers, get leads, or get more traffic to your online store. You can pay them 30, 60, or 90 days after their sales.

Ease of use: one more thing, you would want your affiliate to be comfortable using your platform. Make your landing pages easy to use.

2. Join an affiliate network

You might be new to how your SaaS affiliate’s marketing works.

No problem.

You can definitely learn different strategies by joining popular affiliate networks for SaaS and eCommerce. Check them out and learn about their affiliate marketing methods.

ShareASale: Their landing page is not so WOw-ish, but it is one of the networks you want to learn about. They offer affiliate programs not only for prominent brands but also to smaller brands that earn. They pay their affiliates 30 days after the sale.

Awin: Let us say that you are a small fish in a big pond when you learn about the affiliate marketing that Awin offers. Learn from them instantly about how fast they pay their affiliates. If you think you can deliver fast, then Awin’s network may be a learning playground.

Amazon Associates: they started in 1996! They are one of the first that offers affiliate programs. They give one of the lowest commissions, though. You can learn how they give commission. They offer their affiliate program for free. Yet, their affiliates will get paid 60 days after the sale. You may want to plan how long you will pay your affiliates.

CJ Affiliate: they were Commission Junction before. They started early in 2002. They like to handle big brands. They pay their affiliates 30 days after the sale, but the affiliate program is best for marketers with at least six months of experience.

Rakuten Marketing: they are winning awards for their affiliate programs. Also, they may take too long to approve their affiliates’ applications and are eager to be the best. The affiliates that they prefer are those that are generating lots of traffic. You may want to learn how they give out their commissions as well.

Avangate Affiliate Network: This network promotes digital products just like ClickBank. Don’t get confused because Avangate is two companies. You might be surprised that you can find a logo of 2Checkout.

ClickBank: They have been around the block for many moons, just like Amazon. They started in 90-ish but are not so old regarding commission grants. Their program can teach you well if your niche is in digital products.

FlexOffers: They are not like the others since they are a humble affiliate network, but FlexOffers have almost 12,000 advertisers and offer different payment methods. The payment method is also something that you want to learn for your company.

eBay Partner Network: eBay has proven its name as not just selling used goods but also new. Affiliates work directly with them. Though the program is not yet perfect, this can be an avenue for newer affiliates to learn more about the program, and so are you in your SaaS company.

Impact: they didn’t start in the 90-ish, but they certainly know what they are doing. Their creators are the ones behind CJ affiliate anyways. They look fancy, and yes, they have 2 thousand brands in their network. They have a section for “brands that approve instantly” that attracts their affiliates faster. The Impact method is best for marketers who want to be approved right off the bat.

3. Actively seek partnerships

Partner with other SaaS companies that use affiliate marketing in their marketing efforts.

Finding a partner in your business can bring your ROI shoot up. A partner who best works with you can help you scale your business.

4. Meet directly with affiliates

Meeting affiliates can help you understand what they want and plan what you will give them. It is either monetary commissions or special access to your app.

5. Hire an Affiliate Manager

The last thing you want to do with affiliate marketing is micromanage people. To grow and help you leverage your business ( leverage is where your money is, by the way), you pay a good manager.

They will help you grow your revenues without giving you a headache. Find someone who knows the ins and outs of affiliate marketing and let your manager do the work in managing your affiliates.

When things get wrong, you will need the help of a good affiliate manager, not just the guy from marketing.

Affiliate networks could provide you support and the help of the manager as well.

6. Track affiliate programs with software

You own your business. That is why it is a best practice to track how your affiliate programs work for you. What would be the best program that can click on your company?

There is no such thing as one fits all program for all companies.

The best way to monetize your affiliate program is to ensure that your market fits with the product you sell.

Here are some of the software that you can use to track down your affiliate activity:

FirstPromoter: is one of the best in SaaS statistics tracking an affiliate program. The payout is automated, which is one click away.

Voluum: One of the best features is the optimization of your campaigns and listicle tracking. You may want to check it out.

Everflow: This tracker setup is in the google cloud platform. That is why it has a fantastic UI.

Tune: This tracker is flexible as a SaaS platform that manages partnerships on the web or mobile. You may want to check this out as well.

Afftrack: When it comes to unlimited clicks, Afftrack is the one. It is API integration that helps your reporting instantly.

LinkTrust: They started in 2002 as one of the best trackers. It got LinkTrust traffic for its remote affiliate feature.

Hit Path:  This tracker could help affiliates with the touchpoint of their work.

Affiliate WP: This tracker is a WordPress plugin that helps you start your tracker immediately.

OSI Affiliate: One of the features that this tracker may have is social sharing. This tracker can help you encourage affiliates to market your brand.

Post Affiliate Pro: let’s say the number speaks. This tracker is used by more than two thousand companies globally because it has one of the best features.

7. Remember that your affiliates are people.

People have emotions and different characteristics. Due to this, you also have to consider your affiliate’s factors when they subscribe to your program.

What do you think they want from you? Is it money or your app?

Also, show that you are intentional about your product and you to them. Give your affiliates what you think they deserve. You can track them anyway.

Conclusion

Now you know how to start your SaaS affiliate marketing strategy. Do not worry. The advantages of affiliate marketing strategy outweigh your doubt about creating your own SaaS affiliate marketing.

Get the most of affiliate marketing and start to gain higher ROI.

There is hope that this article has helped you decide which methods you think are best for you and your niche. If you fail, always remember the reason you have why you started.