Affiliate marketing in e-commerce – a strong strategy for achieving steady sales growth. Case study.
One of the most effective ways to advertise for e-commerce businesses is affiliate marketing. Let’s look at what matters most in affiliate programs and how to use affiliate marketing in online stores.
What is affiliate marketing?
In e-commerce, affiliate marketing is also called performance marketing because it gives the advertiser certainty that they will only pay for activities that deliver measurable results in the form of sales in the online store. It is an advertising model in which the advertiser (a company selling products or services) enters into a marketing collaboration with publishers who promote its offer in exchange for a pre-agreed commission.
The primary role of an affiliate publisher is to promote products from online stores to their own audience. The publisher uses unique affiliate links that make it possible to track the results of their activities. This way, the advertiser can measure campaign performance and the affiliate system can correctly attribute commissions.
The publisher drives traffic to the store, builds interest, encourages users to buy and earns commissions on the sales they generate. Importantly, publishers operate independently: they decide for themselves which programs they join, which products they promote and which tools they use.
The advertiser pays for specific sales results, which means they can be sure that their investment corresponds directly to the outcomes of the promotion. The key to a successful collaboration is active involvement from both sides. Advertisers often provide publishers with dedicated creatives or discount codes to help them more effectively encourage their audiences to shop in the chosen store.
Affiliate marketing – it’s all about performance
Performance marketing is designed to achieve goals and deliver clear, visible results. In theory, every form of online marketing should meet certain objectives, but not all of them are fully measurable and quantifiable. In performance marketing, the results must be measurable – and only those are paid for, such as:
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sales of products or services in the online store
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registrations on the website or newsletter sign-ups
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form submissions or leaving contact details
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app downloads
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and similar actions.
What sets affiliate marketing apart is the fact that it achieves these objectives in cooperation with affiliates, i.e. publishers of various online services who work on a “pay-for-performance” basis within the advertiser’s affiliate program.
Affiliate marketing – an effective publisher network
Affiliate marketing directly drives an increase in online sales. For the advertiser, this is a value in itself – but it’s not possible without publishers. Publishers generate results based on their own specialisations and business models. The strongest impact on sales is achieved by those publishers who skilfully present products and weave advertising into the substantive content they publish on their channels. You can therefore safely say that affiliate marketing is, in essence, product marketing.
The affiliate publisher network is made up of niche, topic-focused websites (e.g. fashion, lifestyle), price comparison sites, coupon and cashback services, bloggers, vloggers, YouTubers, email list owners, webmasters, retargeting systems and active social media users.
Affiliate marketing is about building your own network of publishers who enter into an independent collaboration with the advertiser. With each type of publisher, you can develop such a scope of activities which, with the use of appropriate tools, will be the most effective for the advertiser.
Affiliate marketing in an affiliate network
An affiliate network brings together hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of publishers (affiliates). Thanks to this, the advertiser can test cooperation with various publishers and analyse the results. With access to a large number of publishers in one place, the advertiser systematically increases the reach of their offer. This translates into higher sales and the ability to run non-standard sales and promotional activities via publishers.
The greatest strength of working with publishers is that the best of them create advertising messages independently and tailor them to their audience. This makes them credible and effective.
Advertisers who decide to work with an affiliate network not only gain access to a database of publishers, but also receive technological support. Providing comprehensive client service is one of the core assumptions of an affiliate platform. The network also provides:
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detailed statistics on sales and traffic generated by publishers
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ongoing campaign optimisation at every stage
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the option to add an unlimited number of publishers to the programme
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a single consolidated invoice for all transactions, without the need to settle accounts with each publisher individually
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sharing discount codes, promotional offers and any special campaigns run by the advertiser with publishers
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affiliate tools for publishers, enabling them to effectively promote the advertiser’s products
It should always be remembered that the most important factor in affiliate marketing is the publisher. Their ability to persuade their own audience to take a specific action determines whether the cooperation will be beneficial for all parties. It is the publisher who takes on the risk of their activities. If they do not deliver the agreed result, they do not receive any remuneration, and the advertiser does not increase sales.
The performance-based model is one of the most demanding cooperation models, but when publishers and advertisers are well matched, it becomes profitable for everyone involved.
Case Study. The effects of affiliate marketing
Competition in e-commerce is pushing companies to look for more optimized advertising methods. Affiliate marketing not only makes it possible to track campaign performance in real time, but also to reduce advertising costs. The Cost Per Sale commission model keeps costs at a stable level.
Case Study – affiliate marketing for the cosmetics sector – see more HERE
The challenge of an online drugstore
The rapid growth in the number of online drugstores meant that the advertiser from the cosmetics industry had to compete not only with big, established brands, but also with small stores offering a very diverse range of cosmetics for women. The key challenges faced by this e-commerce business included:
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Increasing online sales
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Improving brand awareness
Goal of the Cost Per Sale affiliate marketing model for the first 12 months
To define realistic goals for affiliate marketing and the partner program strategy, the organic traffic sources of the store, the main target audience for the offered products, and the average order value were analyzed. Based on this analysis, the most valuable groups of publishers collaborating within the affiliate network were identified, as well as the best ways to motivate their promotional efforts on behalf of the advertiser. The following primary goals were set for the first 12 months of the partner program:
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Increase monthly store traffic by 10,000 visits
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Increase total sales value by 20%
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Use exclusively the commission-based Cost Per Sale model for advertising
Affiliate marketing results after two years
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300 monthly transactions – on average, publishers generated around 300 successfully completed transactions per month
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Total sales value: 450,000 PLN – a significant increase in online sales in 2024
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ROI of 1,500% – an exceptionally high return on investment, demonstrating the effectiveness of the affiliate model
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50 active publishers – a broad partner network was established, covering diverse promotion channels, enabling the brand to reach many new customers
Key success factors
Several crucial factors contributed to the success of this collaboration:
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Attractive commissions for publishers – competitive payouts that effectively motivated partners to take action
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Professional support from the affiliate network – expert assistance from the webePartners team in optimizing the affiliate program and ongoing strategic guidance
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Diverse promotional channels – working with bloggers, influencers, and niche content websites allowed the brand to reach a wide audience
Conclusions on affiliate marketing activities
This case study clearly demonstrates that a well-designed affiliate marketing strategy can deliver measurable benefits for e-commerce brands—both in terms of increased sales and higher brand awareness. The key element of success is professional cooperation with an experienced affiliate network that can effectively manage publisher relationships and optimize promotional activities.
How to become an advertiser in an affiliate network
Partner programs are a long-term element of a marketing strategy.
By launching an affiliate program on an affiliate platform, the advertiser is immediately matched with publishers that are right for their business. In addition, networks are constantly acquiring new publishers and websites, which allows the affiliate program to grow continuously.
As part of the cooperation with the network, the advertiser is assigned a dedicated account manager who handles any issues and questions raised by publishers and advises which tools to use in order to increase sales generated through affiliates. When it comes to billing, the advertiser receives a single consolidated invoice once a month and does not have to worry about paying each publisher individually.
How to choose the right affiliate network?
There are several performance-based billing models in online marketing, but in the context of sales the two main ones are Cost Per Sale and Cost Per Lead. For an advertiser, it’s crucial to work with a network whose operating model is clearly defined and aligned with the goal they want to achieve.
If an advertiser runs an online store and wants to increase sales in exchange for a commission on each transaction (Cost Per Sale model), they should choose a network that specializes exactly in this model. In that case, the affiliate network focuses on acquiring publishers who already have experience with CPS or have the potential to deliver results in this model. webePartners specializes in this type of settlement for affiliate campaigns. With us, you’ll find over 20,000 publishers who want to earn commission on sales.
To sum up, before you start working with a given network, make sure it runs partner programs in the industry you operate in.
Affiliate program as the core tool in affiliate marketing
Cooperation with publishers takes place within an affiliate (partner) program. Running an affiliate program only makes sense in the long term – ideally for as long as you run your online business. The partner program grows together with the company, as the network of publishers joining the program and promoting the advertiser’s offer expands systematically.
Users are not bombarded with ads. On the contrary — they receive exactly what they are looking for at that particular moment: the most stylish outfit for a special occasion, the most comfortable shoes for a mountain trip, or the newest smartphone model. Website visitors are often unaware that what they see is, in fact, advertising. The same applies to influencers who recommend products within niches where they have established themselves as experts. In affiliate marketing, the focus is not on promoting the brand itself but on promoting its offer.
However, one should be aware that the mere fact of launching an affiliate program will not result in an automatic flood of applications to the program. The process of acquiring publishers on your own is laborious, time-consuming and therefore costly. Then, once you have managed to engage publishers to promote the offer within the program, you need to provide support at every stage of the cooperation and settle accounts with each publisher individually. A reasonable solution is to turn to an affiliate network that professionally handles running affiliate programs.
Affiliate marketing in practice
The user is not attacked with ads. Quite the opposite. They receive what they are looking for at that very moment: the most beautiful outfit for a chosen occasion, the most comfortable shoes for a trip to the mountains, the latest smartphone model. The users of the website are not aware that this is, in fact, advertising. Influencers work in a similar way when they recommend products from the industry in which they have earned a reputation as specialists. In affiliate marketing they do not focus on promoting the brand itself, but its offer.
The same applies to coupon sites, where internet users look for promotions and discount codes. They go there consciously in search of the best offers. And this is the main goal of affiliate marketing: to reach users with an offer of products they are currently looking for. To serve advertising in such a way that the user does not realize that they have just acted under its influence, and to direct traffic to the advertiser’s website.
Although affiliate marketing is, by design, meant to be a quick way to increase sales rather than to build an image, it still has a very strong impact on building that image. In order for affiliate activities to be effective and profitable for publishers, advertising must reach users in a precise way. That is why affiliate campaigns involve industry-specific thematic websites and specialists in their categories. They have a smaller reach than large multi-topic portals, but a loyal group of recipients for whom their opinion on a given topic matters when making their own decisions. This dimension of affiliate marketing, in particular cooperation with influencers, has a strong impact on building a brand’s image.
Why it is worth choosing affiliate marketing
The ideal solution from the perspective of an online store owner is to use tools and promotion methods that are paid for at the moment the result is achieved, in this case a completed sale.
Affiliate marketing offers exactly such possibilities, and that is why it is winning advertisers’ hearts. The internet is the most measurable medium. Thanks to tracking and analytics systems we can assess the effectiveness of every, even the smallest, action online. We can precisely reach defined target groups, analyse and evaluate the potential and engagement of each group. For this reason, not only the methods of running marketing campaigns are dynamically changing, but also the ways of settling them.
