If you’re thinking about starting an affiliate marketing program, or if you’re looking to grow your current one, the first influencers that come to mind to partner with might be on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
It might feel a little “old school” to some, but bloggers still wield a lot of influence with broad audiences, and they offer conversion potential that the mainstream influencers might not. Here’s why they’re different, and why they could be some of your highest-performing affiliates.
When you partner with influencers who create short-form video and stories, you can expect that content to have a shorter lifespan. This makes it harder to convert engagement into actual revenue.
Blog content, on the other hand, is evergreen. It lives in the same spot indefinitely, and new readers often read the backlog of posts, making future conversions more likely. Instead of expecting a quick spike of traffic to your site through an affiliate, you can expect steadier visits over a longer time frame. Bloggers also often optimize their websites for SEO, meaning their links through your affiliate program see the benefit of branded traffic, referral traffic, and organic traffic.
More often than not, bloggers have a loyal, niche audience that stays engaged with specific topics. This allows your business to target your affiliate marketing efforts more effectively. If you know your ICP inside and out, you’ll have a better idea of which bloggers to work with to get you to the right people.
On the flip side, if you’re looking to broaden your audience, go with a blogger who has a demographic similar to your ICP, but not exactly. You can test how they react to your products or services and uncover new audience potential.
Bloggers have a special relationship with their audience and are often seen as a voice of trust within their communities. This means anything they promote can greatly influence traffic and conversion.
Even if not everyone clicks on a blog post endorsement, you’re still boosting your brand awareness and staying top-of-mind for that audience.
Yes, blog posts are often long-form articles on a given topic. In those cases, affiliate links are usually added organically as an aside in the piece.
But bloggers also create how-to guides, product reviews, and multi-media posts. This means you have the opportunity to make your brand more of a focal point in their piece, which then enhances engagement and brand visibility.
Google and Meta ads can be an effective means of getting your brand out there, but they can only take you so far. Your ad spend can also quickly get out of hand.
Partnering with bloggers is much more cost-effective. Aside from a little time to onboard them into your affiliate program, it costs nothing! Because the bloggers get a commission from every sale, they’re incentivized to make a meaningful post or plug for your brand. At the end of the day, revenue for you means a payday for them.
Bloggers really know how to sell themselves through their writing. They likely receive pay via subscriptions to the blog, but it’s not uncommon for affiliate links to also generate a significant amount of their pay. When you reach out to a blogger with an audience that aligns with yours, it likely won’t be their first time making an affiliate partnership.
Partnering with video creators, in comparison, means there’s a bit of a rift. They’re not as used to selling themselves, and often, their pitches come off as being inauthentic.
Are you ready to reach out to the bloggers for your affiliate program? The right tooling is going to make it a breeze.
At Simple Affiliate, we offer a comprehensive affiliate software program that has all the features you need in a dashboard that’s well, simple. You can enjoy automatic payouts, automated tax forms, affiliate performance tracking and KPIs, and unbeatable service.
Book a demo today, and we’ll show you just how easy your affiliate marketing program can be.
