Many SaaS companies try their hands on marketing but are not able to get the desired results. Some of its reasons can be attributed to the increasingly competitive market. However, now with the help of SaaS affiliate marketing, you can grow your business by manifolds. SaaS affiliate marketing has many benefits. It can boost revenue by 30% and is a great way to mobilize revenue from marketing channels.
In SaaS affiliate marketing, content creators earn an affiliate commission. It helps increase sales in the SaaS business at low or no cost. Your affiliates get a commission for every sale.
Let us try and understand the concept of SaaS affiliate marketing in detail.
What is SaaS affiliate marketing?
A SaaS business that recruits content creators to promote the product on their own platform or channel is one that uses SaaS affiliate marketing. These content creators or bloggers link your product or in their content- blogs, videos, pictures, etc. and are known as affiliates.
The working mechanism of SaaS affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing has become popular worldwide and is a primary source of revenue for many companies. The key criteria are that the content creator needs to have a good following of people who trust them. Affiliate marketing is cost-effective and helps make a sale. Also, there is no risk involved in this process. This also helps you reduce your customer acquisition costs and reasonably promote products.
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Reasons to get into SaaS affiliate marketing
Word-of-mouth marketing is the biggest factor that generates sales and creates brand awareness
Affiliate marketing builds trust among target customers, enhances brand awareness, improves sales, and increases word-of-mouth marketing. If a trusted source links something, it appears like a recommendation and not an advertisement. This helps boost brand credibility. You can also impact SEO with this as there is more organic traffic and better search performance.
Cuts down CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) and boosts ROI
SaaS affiliate marketing campaigns economically help you as you pay only if the sale happens through. There are no hidden charges, upfront costs, and commissions that will reduce your CAC. You can easily increase your customer base without disbursing a lot of amounts. There is an increased return on investment. This is because product awareness is also increasing even if the sale is not happening. Affiliate marketing programs help the yearly growth rate rise rapidly.
To get your affiliates’ audience
,You can acquire new customers that match your buyer personas in affiliate marketing. The influencers or content creators have a built-in audience they can capture with product offerings.
More than 90% of customers trust personal recommendations and influencers as per this survey. However, the important thing is to partner with the right influencers. Partnering with the wrong set will get you no results or engagement.
For example- If you are a SaaS education start-up, you can partner with a YouTuber who talks about education, higher learning, alumni, career opportunities, and the like. Choosing the right segment of influencers is important to lead to potential repeat purchases.
Secrets to running an effective SaaS Affiliate Marketing Program
Select competitive yet sustainable commission rates
You need to design a payment system that works, whether you want one-time payment or recurring payment. In line with SaaS products, many marketers choose a recurring payment model as it offers a steady income source.
Brief out commission rules and commission beforehand
You need to set the rules of the commission before itself. Some top models to consider include-
- Cost per action where every activity like signing up or making a purchase is paid for.
- Cost per Mille or CPM where you pay as per the number of consumers reached
- Cost per click or CPC where you pay for clicks leading back to the SaaS company site
Search and opt for affiliates meticulously
Many brands use affiliate marketing, and the key is to look for people promoting similar products. This will help attract the audience to the product as they know what it offers. You can use a bunch of tools to find out affiliates who rank in that segment. Find a unique angle and explore options with your affiliate marketer.
Never make the mistake of overlooking current customers as prospective affiliates
Your current customers may also be prospective affiliates. They may come across many influencers who promote the product. This way, the same consumer is met at two touchpoints.
Make the affiliates sign the agreement
You need to ensure marketing campaigns run smoothly and you get the worth. This will happen if you sign an agreement to get the process started. The agreement needs to have all basic information, promotions, content creator’s details, payment information, and more. Once that starts, you need to track affiliate marketing performance. Many have automated reporting and performance tracking. These tools can help understand where the traffic is coming from and when.
Select the right SaaS affiliate marketing software
You can even make your customers promote your product by offering a commission on every product sold. You can offer a commission on every product sold. You can choose a SaaS affiliate marketing software to enhance and drive more revenue and customers for the product. The ideal affiliate marketing software needs to help share branded content on social media, be available in multiple languages, have interesting pay-out options, have integrations with third-party apps and automated workflows.
Final Thoughts
It is the perfect time to invest in the SaaS affiliate marketing program. Irrespective of whether you are looking to increase sales, subscriptions, or click-throughs, the affiliate marketing program is the best way to connect with a fresh audience and generate sales from new customers.
Always have an objective in mind while running a SaaS affiliate marketing program. To gain the upper hand over the marketing, operate the affiliate program in-house. By setting up the right affiliate marketing campaign, you can generate maximum clicks, enhance sales numbers, and take your business to the pinnacle of success.
Dattatraya Shetty is an IT Professional with 2 Decades of experience in areas of Product Development, Implementation & Service Delivery Management. As the Head of Implementations and SOC Compliance in Smartkarrot he is on a mission to provide relishing customer experience.
Published January 13, 2022, Updated March 02, 2023