Double Your Affiliate Marketing Traffic with These Strats

How To Grow Affiliate Marketing Traffic from Free and Paid Sources

As a content promoter – blogger, publisher, influencer, or affiliate – you must be most interested in growing your affiliate marketing traffic. You know how it works: the more leads you generate, the more you sell, and the quicker you reach your or your company’s financial goals.

Now, the real question is: are you sure you’re using all available affiliate marketing traffic sources – free and paid – and doing it well? What if you’re missing out on one of the staples, such as earned media, paid advertising, or purchasing leads?

Read on to learn more about:

• Three major affiliate marketing traffic acquisition channels
• Free traffic sources for affiliate marketing
• Buying leads and traffic arbitrage

Source: GIPHY

 

How To Get Traffic for Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing isn’t hard in terms of the strategy choice, as you only have three alternatives:

• Generate free organic traffic using your earned media
• Generate paid traffic using paid advertising
• Buy traffic from lead generators, agencies, marketplaces, or affiliate networks

Before we dig into it, let’s just mention all three affiliate traffic sources perfectly synergise, allowing you to diversify the risks of relying on a single lead acquisition channel.

How To Get FREE Traffic for Affiliate Marketing

Of all the types of traffic in affiliate marketing, organic traffic – the one you don’t pay for – is the most beneficial in the long run. A well-written blog post can generate free targeted traffic for months and years, but here’s the catch:

• Organic traffic acquisition is the hardest because it requires both time and skills. Not only should you know how to create compelling content and deliver it to your target audience, but you should wait for at least a few months – and possibly even years if you start from scratch – until your content ranks well.

That said, if you know how to get organic traffic for affiliate marketing, you’ll have the least problems mastering paid advertising – many aspects repeat themselves in both methods – so we’re going to start from the hardest one, taking it one step at a time.

Step 1 – Create a USP to Supercharge All Your Traffic Sources

In every lead acquisition strategy, there’s one constant to capitalise on — unique selling proposition (USP). A well-crafted USP must hit your target audience with a superior offer that appeals to their needs, wants, and pain points.

Here’s what a USP might look like for different affiliate marketing niches:

• Insurance: “We analyse over 10,000 insurance policies monthly to bring you the top 3% with the best coverage-to-cost ratio, spotless background, and bundling opportunities.”
• Finance: “With over 5,000 success stories, our data-driven investment strategies outperform the market by 20% on average, minimising risks and eliminating guesswork.”
• Home services: “With a 99% customer satisfaction rate and over 1,500 vetted home service providers in the United States alone, you are guaranteed to cut at least 30% of your home maintenance costs.”

A USP should double down on what you’re strong at, what your competitors lack, and what your customers crave. These insights require in-depth market research, segmentation, and affiliate lead tracking, which you can all achieve with affiliate management software.

Step 2 – Leverage Good Old Email Marketing

With over 360 billion emails sent and received daily, email marketing is a surefire way to grow your affiliate marketing traffic in finance, technology, health, online education, and many other niches. Even companies selling low-commission, oversaturated, and seasonal products leverage email marketing campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing Traffic Generation Email Example for Auto Insurance

Subject line: Save up to $1,000 on auto insurance! Dear Michael, Did you know that a driver can save up to $1,000 annually by switching their auto insurance provider, while 50% of the switchers save at least $500? Here are some more reasons to consider switching:    Custom coverage tailored to your needs and wants 99% claim satisfaction rate Round-the-clock support to help you with accidents Ready to know how much you can save? Click for a free quote. Best Regards, Brittany Amos, CEO at AutoDrive

A well-thought-out email should flaunt your USP while hitting the right audience at the right time. Speaking of the time, the best time for emailing is around 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., barring the first quarter of an hour when inboxes are usually clogged.

Step 3 – Do Proper SEO to Increase Traffic from Search Engines

When it comes to free affiliate marketing traffic, SEO is the most sustainable strategy, boiling down to researching high-volume, low-competition keywords that reflect the audience’s requests.

Here’s an example of a competitive keyword with high volume:

Even though 252,000 monthly requests are amazing for generating affiliate marketing traffic – and the keyword is trending, for that matter – it’s highly unlikely, if not impossible, to win a decent spot in SERPs for the insane competition. Even if you create superior content, there’s little chance you can outrank the well-known brands.

But you don’t necessarily have to compete with the market behemoths. An alternative approach would be to place your bet on less competitive keywords with relatively low volume and a much higher chance of hitting the top positions.

Here’s an example of a medium-competition keyword:

“Best auto insurance companies in Texas” perfectly aligns with publishers who sell affiliate marketing traffic to auto insurance advertisers from Texas. As a smaller affiliate marketer from Texas, you might want to create content like a comparison blog post to capitalise on these 600 potential leads.

Step 4 – Start a Referral Program

Not only is a referral program a great tool for generating affiliate marketing traffic, but it also perfectly coordinates with social media, with the percentage of referrals from social media increasing over time. People are eager to share their success; some might only need a nudge.

Now, the main trick to generating affiliate marketing traffic with a referral program is ensuring the incentives match your audience. In other words, you must develop a structured referral program while incentivising both the referrer and the referral.

Here are the cornerstone aspects of a referral program to draw affiliate marketing traffic:

• Tiered rewards: Commitment bonuses will motivate referrers to be more active. For example, you can set a basic 20% reward on every purchase and increase it to 23%, 25%, and 30% for bringing 5, 10, and 20 referrals.
• Two-way incentives: Make sure not only the referrer but also the referral receives value from your referral program. The incentive for the referral may be smaller, but it should also be enough to evoke interest.
• Understandable structure: As much as you want to make your referral program flexible, make sure referrers understand the process. Complex language and lack of clarity may scare off a fair share of potential referrers.

Finally, make sure your referral program complies with the local and nationwide laws and regulations and clearly explains the participation conditions and limitations. The easier and more profitable it is for the referrer, the more traffic you can generate.

Here’s an example of a referral program to generate traffic for affiliate marketing:

Homeowners Referral Program: up to 25% Commission on Every Referral

Earn 10% on each sale for your first referral, 5% for all subsequent referrals, and a bonus of 10%, 15%, and 20% as you hit 10, 15, and 20 successful referrals

How to Join

1. Sign up and receive a unique referral link and code 2. Invite referrals using this link and code 3. Track your progress in your cabinet, earning rewards on each sale to your referrals For more information, navigate to the terms & conditions.

How To Get Paid Traffic for Affiliate Marketing

With paid advertising, everything gets much faster than with organic traffic: you choose your advertising platform, type of ads, and budget and can generate leads and sell them to advertisers while factoring in the expected profit margin. The downside of paid ads is on the surface as well: paid traffic runs dry after the end of the campaign.

Like with organic lead gen, you have to proceed from who your customers are, what they want, and what you can offer them that your competitors don’t have. The scope of paid advertising is vast, spanning around a dozen ads, from display to video to text ads.

• The best medium for paid advertising is arguably social media, as you can connect to any demographics and psychographics using different social media channels.

For example, if you’re in the fashion or beauty industries, you may choose Instagram and TikTok as your primary affiliate marketing traffic acquisition channels; if you’re catering to the B2B market, LinkedIn should fit.

Facebook	With around 2.1 billion daily users, Facebook is the biggest B2C platform. You can generate affiliate marketing traffic using text, image, and video ads while connecting to customers in real time.
LinkedIn	LinkedIn is the best platform to target knowledgeable professionals and businesses with data-driven advertisements while capitalising on your expertise. On LinkedIn, hard data and statistics usually beat emotional appeal.
Instagram	Instagram ads work best for publishers who can create quality photos and videos that tell a story that potential leads can relate to. Format-wise, you can choose from a wide range of ads, including carousel ads, Reel ads, and advertising in Stories.
TikTok	Having doubled in size since 2020, TikTok is where you can target Millennial and Gen Z users to create viral content. That said, TikTok is quite niche-dependent, so some affiliate marketers may find it more successful than others.

Example of advertising of Facebook to generate traffic for affiliate marketing:

Source: Wordstream

How To Buy Traffic for Affiliate Marketing

The path of least resistance is to buy traffic for affiliate marketing, which guarantees you customers whom you can instantly sell to advertisers. This process is often called traffic arbitrage when you capitalise on the price difference.

For example, if you buy traffic for $50 per lead, sell at $90 per lead, and your internal expenses are $10 per lead, then the net profit would be $30 per lead. In reality, though, it might not be easy to find profitable arbitrage opportunities, as the market is quite saturated.

Here’s how to buy traffic for affiliate marketing in three steps:

1.  Research the market to find the lead generators or marketplaces that fit your buyer’s persona.
2. Choose the type of affiliate traffic you want to buy (for marketplaces, set your order).
3. Track the coming traffic to estimate the conversion rate, ROI, CTR, and other parameters

In buying traffic for affiliate marketing, the hardest step is choosing your target type of leads, as it’s usually impossible to guess which leads will generate the highest ROI. For example, buying less expensive shared leads may be a better acquisition strategy than purchasing exclusive leads, provided the former have a decent conversion rate.

Here are the types of leads you may need:

Exclusive Leads	Exclusive leads are among the high-quality traffic you can get because you face no competition, and the leads are fresh and have high purchase intent. However, such quality traffic costs times more than non-exclusive leads.
Shared Leads	Shared leads are sold to around 3 to 5 companies simultaneously, enabling competition for the lead. Shared leads usually cost a few dozen dollars and are quite profitable if you’re sharp with conversions.
Live Transfer Leads	Live transfer leads are callers connected to your inbound call centre immediately after being generated. These leads are the most expensive, deeper in the sales funnel, and easy to convert.
Aged Leads	Aged leads are potential buyers who were generated a few weeks or months ago and disengaged for some reason. These leads are the cheapest, with the purchase intent varying dramatically depending on the niche and demographics.

Overall, it doesn’t matter much what and how many leads you buy – exclusive, shared, live transfer, or aged – but rather the cost-effectiveness of these leads and whether the demand is there to match your supply at your tager price.

Last but not least, it’s worth saying that combining all three affiliate marketing traffic acquisition methods – organic traffic, paid advertising, and purchasing leads – is usually the best way to get traffic for affiliate marketing if you are willing to diversify risks and tap into diverse customer demographics while balancing the traffic supply.

 

Source: GIPHY

Buy or Sell Affiliate Marketing Traffic at T Dot UK

Whether you want to buy or sell affiliate marketing traffic, you can surpass your financial goals with a huge lead market at T Dot UK. We connect hundreds of affiliates and advertisers so you can buy or sell leads at the best price near-instantly.

Join us as an affiliate or advertiser. For more information, call 01202 122 280 or email us at info@t.uk.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free traffic sources for affiliate marketing?

The best free traffic sources for affiliate marketing include your USP-powered website & blog, email marketing, social media, SEO, and referral programs. Depending on your niche, target audience, expertise, and other unique factors, you can tap into all the mentioned free traffic sources or focus only on the most profitable ones.

What are the best paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing?

The best paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing are arguably social media ads, as social media continue to grow in popularity and reach. However, every social media is unique in its customer base and ads. For example, LinkedIn is best for B2B companies, whereas Instagram and TikTok work well for B2C younger visuals.

Where can I buy traffic for affiliate marketing?

There are three places where you can get traffic for affiliate marketing:

• Paid advertising
• Lead generators
• Lead marketplaces

With paid advertising, you generate traffic rather than get it instantly, whereas lead generators and lead marketplaces allow you to acquire leads of various types, quality, and prices almost instantly. Likewise, you can buy lead generation plans to get a constant monthly supply of leads.

How much traffic do you need for affiliate marketing?

To understand how much traffic you need for affiliate marketing, you need to estimate the quality of this traffic (the conversion rate), the total cost of generating or buying specific affiliate leads, how much of these leads you can sell to advertisers, and the expected profit.

For example, if your expected profit is $5,000 a month, your cost of generating a lead is $50, you sell leads for $100, and you know you get paid in 75% of the cases, then you need to generate or buy 125 leads per month to reach your financial goals.