The holiday season is a hectic but profitable time for small businesses. In fact, holiday spending is projected to hit $910 billion globally in 2022.
Believe it or not, it’s already time to start planning your holiday campaigns. Forty-six percent of shoppers say they plan to start shopping sooner in 2022 — and 29% plan to spend more than they did last year, too.
While paid ads and content marketing absolutely should have a place in your holiday marketing plan, you can’t overlook the power of affiliate marketing campaigns, either.
Let’s dig into why affiliate marketing is so powerful as well as three tips to help you get the most out of your holiday affiliate deals.
Why you need affiliate marketing for the holiday season
Affiliate marketing is a savvy advertising model that’s perfect for both large and small businesses. With affiliate marketing, you pay third-party affiliates to sell products on your behalf in exchange for a commission. Typically, commissions are calculated based on a small percentage of the total sale, but some brands offer flat-rate bounties, too.
So, why is affiliate marketing such an important part of holiday marketing? We love holiday affiliate marketing for these five reasons.
1. Pay for performance
Look, paid ads around the holidays are expensive. If you don’t want to pay out the wazoo for ads, go with affiliates instead.
You only pay an affiliate when they make a sale. This means you’re only paying for results instead of meaningless clicks, and that’s a huge boon to your bottom line, especially if you’re a small business.
2. Increase your reach
Brands overload their shoppers during the holiday season, and many shoppers are starting to tune out branded messages. Fortunately, affiliate marketing helps you increase your reach — and mindshare — with affiliates who organically promote your products. And since it looks like the promotions aren’t coming directly from your brand, shoppers are much more likely to pay attention.
3. Source future influencer partnerships
Did you know you can convert your highest-performing affiliates into influencers? You can create a long-term, ongoing relationship with affiliates to get even more airtime in front of their audience.
4. Scale campaigns quickly
If you need to quickly scale up your marketing before the holidays, affiliates are the best way to do it. Partner with an affiliate marketing platform to connect with more affiliates in less time. Their professional setup makes it easy to approve affiliates, generate links, share campaign creative, and even pay them all in one place.
5. Save time
Once you set them up, affiliate campaigns require very little hands-on management. You don’t have to create content in-house or spend time training internal employees. With affiliates, you get access to a readymade salesforce that’s eager to promote your products. It’s the best way to save time during the hectic gifting season.
Tips to make the most of affiliate holiday marketing
Affiliate marketing works because affiliates are motivated to sell for you. After all, they want to make a commission, too. Even so, there are a few tips you can try to get even more mileage out of your affiliate marketing.
1. Double down on tracking and metrics
Which sales are coming from your brand and which ones can you attribute to affiliates? Without tracking and proper metrics in place, it’s tough separating your own campaigns from those of your affiliates.
Make sure you generate unique links for every affiliate and that they’re completely separate from your own tracking links. This will help you easily separate the data to see how effective your holiday campaigns were after the fact.
2. Tell affiliates to create gift guides
If it isn’t done with finesse, affiliate marketing can come off a little … spammy. That’s why it’s a good idea to give your affiliates content ideas. One of the best ways to boost affiliate sales is with gift guides. Ask affiliates to publish holiday gift guides that include your products — readers love these and you’ll get tons of traction in time for the holidays!
Oh, and if you want multimedia content, ask affiliates to create “Things TikTok Made Me Buy” videos. These videos are short, fun, and an effective way to boost holiday sales.
3. Supply holiday-themed creative
You don’t want your affiliates going rogue and generating their own creative for your campaign. It’s always a good idea to supply approved creative to all of your affiliates.
Since this is for a holiday campaign, make sure you supply holiday-centric creative. If you’re using an affiliate portal, it’s a cinch to share limited-time creative as well as holiday-centric talking points. The more direction and help you provide, the better the quality of your affiliate campaigns will be.
The bottom line
Holiday marketing is hard enough already. Simplify your campaigns, save time, and boost ROI by investing in a network of affiliates right now. Be sure to arm your affiliates with the information they need to sell on your behalf. With an army of ready-made salespeople at your fingertips, you’ll earn a bigger slice of the holiday rush this year.