You have developed a highly interacting e-commerce store on Shopify, and started getting some orders, but now what to do next? How you can grow further?
When you have a very tight budget and you are pinching pennies to market your online store, it will be a huge risk to dive in and justify a hefty investment in marketing. Thus, many online merchants are now opting for a cost-effective, low-risk strategy to drive more customers to their stores with affiliate marketing.
In a proper strategic affiliate marketing program, your advocates do the marketing for you. The best thing about this is that you will pay only to the affiliates who are motivating customers to come to your store. In this article, we will be knowing about affiliate marketing in the Shopify store and the best Shopify Affiliate Marketing Apps to install in your Shopify store.
Shopify comes amongst the most popular e-commerce platforms in the market today. Whether it is an SMB or an enterprise-level company everyone is leveraging Shopify for their e-commerce presence. Shopify is highly versatile, thanks to its robust app store. Currently, more than 2500 apps are available on the Shopify app store for more features and functionalities.
What Is Shopify Affiliate Marketing?
In a Shopify affiliate program, there is a rewards-based online strategy in which the affiliates promote the products and send the leads or potential customers to your e-commerce store.
It is a win-win strategy. You can get huge traffic on your Shopify by spending a very minimal amount on marketing. The affiliates will get a monetary reward for motivating the customers to make a purchase from your online store, with their referral link.
Note: Most of the Shopify Affiliate Apps come with paid plans but some with free trials as well.
Who Are Affiliates?
Affiliates are like advocates who promote your brand or your store in different ways. They can promote through referral links on social media platforms, websites, or through guest blogging. In return, they will get either a flat monetary amount or a portion of each sale converted.
Affiliates mostly promote products as per their personal interest. For e.g., if you sell eco-friendly biodegradable products then the ideal affiliate will have a special interest in preserving the environment.
It would be your duty to initiate & promote an affiliate program for attracting affiliates of the same niche. The affiliate’s duty is to promote the products to the audience and attract customers.
Benefits Of Running An Affiliate Program On Your Shopify Store
Affiliate marketing is beneficial for the Shopify store owners due to many reasons such as lower risk, only paying to the affiliates if they bring customers, and many others. Neither you need to invest a lot of money nor you will be paying for something unnecessary. Let’s know every benefit in more detail.
1. Increase Sales Effectively
Affiliate marketing is not just a lower risk but it is also highly rewarding for the affiliates. Thus lower risk + high reward makes it a win-win for both parties. As per the business insider report, affiliate marketing increases sales by 16% in the US alone. It was amongst the 4-top sources of e-commerce sales.
It works because nearly three-fourths of the buyers first check out a non-retail website before making a final purchase decision. They want to hear from the people about the products they are going to purchase. Affiliates create this trust and write details and reviews of the products from their own perspective.
2. It Is performance-based
You will not pay anything to an affiliate if they are not bringing customers to your Shopify e-commerce store. It means affiliate marketing is entirely performance-based. The affiliates will get a commission once the customer will get a convert. Thus, the affiliates put effort to drive the conversion you want. This eliminates any effort that drives traffic with little to no value to your company while making sure that you get what you pay for.
3. Build More In Your Brand
The affiliate marketers that you will choose will already have a good relationship with the audience. When they promote a product to your audience, the audience will trust them and your brand. They trust the affiliate not to steer them wrong and to lead them towards a worthwhile purchase.
Suppose a cereal company claims that they will provide the best cereal you ever had and taste? But will you believe them? No! Right. However, if a food blogger that you follow will tell the same thing then you will even click the blogger’s link and order the cereal. The blogger has established a reputation and trust on behalf of which you can trust the referred brand as well.
4. Increases The Reach
A Shopify affiliate program comes with an army of affiliate partners promoting your online store on the web. Rather than investing thousands of dollars and your precious time in a complete marketing team, affiliate marketing will take your brand to a huge range of audiences of your affiliate partner.
Your store has been exposed to thousands of people that your brand would have otherwise been unable to reach.
5. High ROI
Innovating the products and effective management skills is not necessarily guarantee a high ROI. For this, you will require a proper marketing strategy. Affiliate marketing gives you a very high ROI in comparison to other marketing methods. One major reason for this because your target audience will hear of your product or service from affiliates that are within their spheres of influence.
Top Shopify Affiliate Marketing Apps To Install
There are many Shopify affiliate apps that you can use for boosting sales on your Shopify store. Deciding on these apps can be difficult thus, we have chosen the best apps which you can use for your affiliate marketing program. Here’s the list:
- Goaffpro
- Secomapp
- LeadDyno
- Refersion
We will know about each of these in more detail.
1. Goaffpro
Whether you need to turn your customers into partners, want customers to share your products on blogs, or social media, or affiliates bring in other affiliates, all of this is possible with Goaffpro. It is a complete affiliate and influencer marketing solution for your Shopify store.
The customers will get an affiliate portal for getting registered and then they will become partners. After the registration, they will get a referral link which they can use for referring links on the blog, Instagram, etc.
Highlight Features
- Setup default commission for the whole site or different commissions for different products
- Track affiliate conversion on both mobile and desktop
- Track affiliate orders through referral links
- Instant updates and notifications
- Pay your affiliates via PayPal payouts
- Multi-level marketing
- Multi-lingual
Pricing
You can use a free plan with limited features and a premium plan with extra features that cost $24 per month.
2. Secomapp
You can chat directly with the influencers using the Secomapp affiliate marketing app. There are multiple tracking methods such as affiliate links, coupons, SKU, or e-mail. The powerful tracking system will keep the track of clicks and sales.
The company is providing solutions for Shopify for 7 years and has served more than 350,000 merchants. There is no upfront cost for all-size businesses. It will help you to boost traffic, increase revenue and improve customer retention.
Highlight Features
- Automatically convert customers to affiliates
- Automated e-mails with customizable templates
- Provide media assets to help brand ambassadors
- Pay your affiliates automatically through PayPal integration
- Allow exporting invoices for paid referrals
Pricing
There is a free plan with limited features and 3 paid plans i.e. Grow affiliate, professional, and enterprise. Each of these is priced at $19.99/month, $49.99/month, and $99.99/month.
3. LeadDyno
LeadDyno comes with exciting tools which you can use to engage, reward, and pay affiliates. You will be able to quickly create affiliate groups, commission tiers, incentives, and much more. In 2020, LeadDyno processed affiliate sales worth $200 million. LeadDyno simplifies affiliate recruitment with easy onboarding. Each affiliate of yours will get access to their own Affiliate Dashboard with everything they need to promote your store and products.
Highlight Features
- Send affiliate newsletters
- Create trackable coupon codes
- Time-based incentives
- Send automated emails to engage customers or leads
- Create e-mail marketing drip campaigns.
Pricing
There is a free plan with limited features and 3 paid plans i.e. Biz builder, Accelerator, and Rainmaker. Each is priced at $49 per month, $79 per month, and $149 per month respectively.
Refersion is one of the most popular affiliate marketing apps which you can use to create unlimited offers with different commission types. Whether these are bloggers, influencers, ambassadors, or customers. The company will help you to recruit, track, and pay affiliates and influencers through an advanced affiliate marketing platform.
4. Refersion
You will get a start guide by which you can understand everything in a few minutes. There will be personalized dashboards where you can check performance, create custom links, and update details, for promoting your store.
Highlight Features
- Auto Coupon Code Creation
- Coupon Code Conversion Triggers
- Product level commissions
- End-to-end affiliate marketing tracking
- Affiliate dashboards for tracking performance
Pricing
There is a professional plan which costs $89 per month. You can also choose an enterprise plan with custom features. You have to contact the sales team for this plan.
Custom Affiliate Marketing App Vs Shopify App
The pre-built Shopify apps come with astonishing features but there are some limitations to them. You have too heavy fees per month, you may need a simple app with fewer features, or vice versa. You may need an app that must be inclined as per your business niche and needs. In this scenario, the best choice is to consult a Shopify development company that can develop a custom app for you. They will understand your requirement and will develop a custom solution for you.
Conclusion
Take your eCommerce business to the next level by utilizing Shopify development services. Hire an eCommerce development company which have highly experienced Shopify developers who can turn your ideas into web reality. Choose a company that has more than 10 years of experience in developing custom e-commerce stores on different platforms such as Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Prestashop.