Tips for getting internationally viral with your affiliate activities
If you’re considering bringing your business to the global level, these basic recommendations will cover how to make it work on a global scale with an affiliate marketing strategy.
Why build your affiliate marketing campaign overseas?
Most firms hope to see greater expansion. The international market opens up the opportunity for so many new consumers who are prepared to spend with a company.
Affiliate networks such as ShareASale can connect marketers with active and successful publishers worldwide who already know the buying behaviors of their audience and can demonstrate future development in certain countries. On the flip side, if by looking through your data you have already analyzed the potential market size in a given location, a network like ours may show you which advertisers are successful in these places and can facilitate mutually beneficial relationships.
It’s also been mentioned that international customers could be deemed price-sensitive, shopping for the best deal outside of their own region. This gives a terrific chance for competitive pricing or for the affiliates that conduct their ads on voucher sites.
In 2017, Pitney Bowes conducted a study that demonstrated that not only did international purchasers have a 17% higher average order value (AOV), but they also had a much lower return rate. This is apparently due to the complexity of making an international return. Whatever the cause, this is useful data for both marketers and their publishers, who can use this to adjust their campaigns for overseas markets.
How to build your global affiliate activity
1. Evaluate what you already have
Taking a deeper look at where your web visitors are already coming from will assist in forming your overseas growth plans. When you look into your digital data, you may notice potential customers arriving from a given country but not completing a purchase, as you haven’t put the processes in place to help them follow through with their order. This kind of assessment and identifying the country-specific drop-offs might reveal to you where you have great potential for sales with a few easy tweaks.
2. Do your customer's research
If you have a certain country in mind for growth, perform previous research on your audience there. It sounds basic, yet this is something marketers often miss. Though there has been a progression in the digital scene and the world is swiftly evolving towards a globalized buying audience, there are still so many regional concepts that can cause barriers to purchasing for international buyers. Not only do they have regional purchasing practices, but cultural behaviors can also affect purchase trends.
For example, if you’re hoping to expand into China, it’s important to consider the vitally important cultural values around luck: fish, the color red, and the number eight are all considered incredibly lucky – but the number four, giving someone a book as a gift, and even putting a black border around photos are all thought to be bad luck omens.
Doing a complete and refreshed target consumer assessment is vital when wanting to go global with your affiliate activities. You’ll need to do this independently for each specific country or region, as everyone can’t be put into one area.
3. Localized trends and business development:
Research what products and services are doing well in different countries or regions. Keeping an eye on current trends in your own industry and in the wider market will help with your overall business development and your goals for future growth. Your business may already have something that can suit the demands of these locations, or you could consider building something that would in the future.
4. Produce locally relevant content
If your publishers are pushing their audience to your website, having content that quite literally speaks their language when they get there might remove some of the final hurdles to purchase. Google’s language translator often handles this automatically, but there are other provisions you may make online that also affect this.
For example, having the cost of products converted to local currencies (or being explicitly clear about what the dollar sign stands for) can help the consumer comprehend their ultimate purchase cost. The spellings or phrases used vary from nation to nation also, so utilizing language that an overseas customer is more comfortable with helps develop trust and the idea of a genuinely global brand. There are other events that occur that vary from country to country that you might target new audiences with.
Localized events, whether these be national holidays or "shopping events," are significantly easier to take advantage of in the present buying landscape. Some of these are well recognized now, such as the Black Friday deals, which historically began as the day following Thanksgiving in America, or "Singles Day," the new Chinese bachelor shopping holiday.
It is exceedingly tough to have a website fulfill all customers’ wants globally, but by understanding where a majority of purchasers are coming from, you can make modifications to suit their buying habits.
Speaking to your web developer about adding code to your website that presents different content depending on the IP address of the visitor could be a significant advantage in establishing and extending your brand abroad.
5. Cut down on moving parts.
Having one specialized platform that can handle all parts of your affiliate network, such as ShareASale, minimizes stress and confusion. Breaking into global markets alone can be complex, with several local considerations in place. But by choosing established publishers in these locations, the localization concerns have frequently already been addressed.
6. Think about international logistics and compliance.
Reaching out to an overseas market is all well and good, but if you’re manufacturing a physical product, in particular, you need to consider offshore logistics. Ask yourself if it’s viable for you to deliver your goods to a given region and how that system will work across international borders.
There are various laws and expenses that may not make these purchases conceivable, but if a large enough audience is looking for your goods, delving into these logistics and legalities could end up being highly beneficial for your business. Create a clear ordering, shipping, and returns policy for each additional territory.
Compliance also applies to foreign privacy laws, notably those surrounding data. Therefore, your digital presence should consider this also. There is a plethora of knowledge available online that explains the GDPR, CCPA, and other foreign data rules that are crucial to understanding if you wish to not have your digital activities impacted or be shut down online.
7. Form face-to-face collaborations
This can be hard when dealing with overseas publishers. However, it’s certainly something to bear in mind. If you are considering overseas travel and the chance to be in nations your publishers dwell in, a face-to-face meet-up could massively boost their brand loyalty and their existing audience by association.
If you happen to have numerous publishers in a country you’ll be visiting, consider hosting an event to get everyone in the same room. This doesn’t have to be grandiose or overcomplicated; even just inviting your affiliates for a coffee can indicate you value their work with you.
Obviously, this isn’t always doable, but it’s something to keep in mind. Although not as intimate as face-to-face encounters, arranging a video meeting with these publishers to get to know them and their business better can also illustrate the value of collaboration and help you both work toward a similar objective.
How to operate a global affiliate program
8. Find your focus.
Once you have examined your facts and your potential for growth in certain areas, create a feeling of focus. Attempting to stretch yourself too far and too wide too early could mean spreading yourself thin and failing to exploit the potential of these new markets. Select one or two new countries where you see the most promise for growth, and spend your work there.
9. The best international affiliate networks
The easiest way to do this is with a professional international affiliate network like the Awin US Group. There are several benefits to a network that understands all sorts of outside data, as opposed to merely localized markets. One important advantage is having access to a wide choice of local currencies. This helps you, as the advertiser, and your publishers too. We can pay your affiliates in their local currency, as well as convert and track sales and click-throughs in their local currency. It removes a level of difficulty for both parties, who are attempting to grasp their own data.
As previously indicated, allowing network compliance for traffic and transactions is crucial. Getting caught out for not following criteria in this arena can be a costly exercise, and regrettably, even citing ignorance of the rules and regulations won’t get you out of jail.
10. Communicate with your affiliates
Once you’ve used an excellent network to connect with new overseas affiliates, communicate with them and ask for feedback. What do they think their audience could need? This could be specialized site content, distinctive seasonal sales, visual branding that interacts with the audience, and much more. They know their audiences and their countries; don’t miss out on this great source of knowledge by not opening the lines of communication.
Spread your wings
Going worldwide with your affiliate activity might be scary, but with a plan in place and a committed affiliate network behind you, the process can be streamlined to suit your business’s needs.
Don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions, either from other business owners who have spread their business globally or from the publishers you’ve linked with. The world is your oyster.
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