How an Affiliate Marketing Program Can Improve the Growth of Your Company

Did you know that an affiliate marketing program can boost your revenue by up to 30%?

When you apply this powerful marketing strategy to promote your brand, you can drive long-term traffic to your site and supplement the revenue that you're generating from other forms of marketing.

An affiliate marketing program is a win-win strategy for your SaaS company when you apply the right strategies.

In this article, we'll explain why a SaaS affiliate marketing program is important for your business and some of the best strategies to make your SaaS affiliate marketing program successful. We'll also share some Real-life examples of successful SaaS affiliate programs.

Let's begin by defining a SaaS affiliate marketing program.

Table of Contents

1. What is a SaaS affiliate marketing program?
2. Why is a SaaS affiliate marketing program important for your company
3. Actionable tips to make your SaaS affiliate marketing program a success
4. Real-life examples of successful SaaS affiliate marketing programs
5. Wrapping up

What is a SaaS affiliate marketing program?

A SaaS affiliate marketing program involves partnering with content creators such as bloggers and vloggers to recommend your software as a viable solution on their channels.

These content creators known as affiliates drive traffic to your website by placing a direct link to your SaaS on their websites, blog posts, social media posts or within other content.

Whenever a person or group of people click through the link to pay for your software, the affiliates earn a commission on each purchase.

You can think of SaaS affiliate marketing programs as a referral marketing strategy that rewards publishers for evangelizing your product solution.

Why is a SaaS affiliate marketing program important for your company?

You might wonder if an affiliate marketing program is worth it for your SaaS company. Besides, there are other forms of marketing such as paid ads, social media marketing, and more.

However, while these marketing strategies have their strengths, they also have their shortcomings.

Let's go through some ways an affiliate marketing program creates more advantages for your company.

• SaaS affiliate programs harness trusted experts: SaaS buyers trust the opinions of authorities and experts in their niche over any advertising you can use in your business. If an authoritative content creator says a SaaS solution is worth a try, their audience will take their word for it.
  
• Affiliate marketing is cost-effective compared to paid ads: running paid ads can be expensive plus you’d have to continuously spend time and resources refining your strategies till you get reasonable results. With SaaS affiliate marketing programs, you only pay the affiliate a commission when a person pays for your software.
  
• Low risk is involved: you only need to pay an affiliate commission when a sale is made. This way, you can calculate the costs and mitigate the risks of overspending.
  
• Affiliate programs are more focused: you can use affiliate marketing to reach an audience that's already primed and ready to buy. You don't need to go through the process of attracting, nurturing, and compelling a specific customer segment to buy your product.

You can use affiliate marketing programs as an additional marketing tool to boost the growth of your company.

Actionable tips to make your SaaS affiliate marketing program a success

To create a successful SaaS affiliate marketing program, you need to apply the best practices. Some of them include

1. Set affiliate marketing KPIs

You need to set key performance indicators so that you have clear goals and metrics to track as you move forward with affiliate marketing.

• Revenue goals/quarter or year—you need to set a realistic amount of money to expect to earn within a specific period
• Ideal conversion rate: what is the percentage of customers that buy after clicking the affiliate link?
• Number of qualified leads: you need to evaluate the number of potential customers who express an interest in paying for your software
• Number of unique sales from the affiliate links: how much sale has your SaaS affiliate marketing program generated during a specific period?

2. Assess partner compatibility

When it comes to choosing partners for your affiliate marketing program, you need to ensure that you choose the ones that are most compatible with your business. You can use the following metrics to assess partner compatibility.

• Partner status: ensure that you partner with an affiliate that has credibility and authority in your industry
• Ability to work together: affiliate partners need to collaborate with you in a transparent and mutually beneficial way
• Brand fit: the content, personality, and voice of your selected affiliates should align with your brand. An affiliate with a personality that doesn’t fit your brand can lower sales

3. Choose sustainable commission rates

One thing you need to avoid in affiliate marketing is choosing a commission that isn't favorable for your business. You need to do some research regarding other affiliate programs in the SaaS industry. This way you can be sure that you set a realistic commission for your affiliate partner while still generating long-term sustainable profits for your business.

4. Ensure affiliates sign an agreement

You need to ensure that affiliates sign an agreement with your brand to avoid any potential disagreements and issues.

The agreement should clearly state the terms of engagement with your brand and the affiliates. Even more, it should clearly lay out how the affiliates will earn a commission as well as what they are supposed to say or not say when promoting your brand.

5. Measure ROI and improve your program accordingly

The best way to know if your SaaS affiliate marketing program is successful or not is by measuring your key performance indicators.

Based on the results of your analysis, you can figure out whether your SaaS affiliate marketing program is driving business growth. You can also learn the changes that you need to make where necessary.

6. Leverage influencers

Influencers are individuals with a strong audience base. By using influencer marketing, you can promote your products and increase sales significantly. All you need to do is contact influencers and explain your proposition.

Ensure that you craft a personalized message in a compelling way. Do in-depth research to find out important information about the affiliate partner you plan to collaborate with.

Real-life examples of successful SaaS affiliate marketing programs

So far, we've explained some of the best ways you can apply affiliate marketing to your business.

Now, let's go through some of the best examples of SaaS affiliate marketing programs in some SaaS companies.

1. Active Campaign

Active Campaign offers affiliates a commission that starts from 20% as long as the customer continues to use the service.

The company's affiliate program provides a dashboard where partners can track performance, view product updates, and access other marketing assets.

What's more, is that Active Campaign makes its affiliate program less challenging for its affiliate partners by providing more resources for a customer that made a purchase via an affiliate link. This way, the partners don't have to invest so much to retain the customers.

2. ZeneFits

ZeneFits is another SaaS company that worked hard to generate positive results in its affiliate marketing program. The HR and payroll software company ensures a constant flow of revenue by building a strong relationship with content creators, consultants, and agencies. What's more, is that the team at ZeneFits grew their lead volume by 96% higher than what their paid ads generated.

3. Elementor

Elementor is a popular website page builder that makes building a WordPress site fast and less challenging. The company offers a 50% commission on affiliate sales for every purchase.

4. HubSpot

HubSpot provides a generous commission that is broken down into three packages:

• Basic:$250
• Professional: $500
• Enterprise: $1000

HubSpot also does its best to make its affiliate program less challenging for affiliates. HubSpot provides access to resources that includes demo videos, banners, and copies they can use to improve sales.

5. Coupler.io

Coupler is a SaaS company that automatically exports data from Shopify, Trello, and other platforms to Google sheets and excel.

Just like Elementor, Coupler offers a 50% commission for every sale. However, its subsequent commission changes to 20% for the customer’s second payment.

Wrapping up

A SaaS affiliate marketing program is a powerful marketing tool that you can use to improve the growth of your company as long as you apply the right strategies.

Use our best practices outlined above to determine if your SaaS business can benefit from an affiliate marketing program.

Remember to choose affiliate partners that have a good reputation and are capable of collaborating efficiently with your brand.

Also, ensure that you reach out to affiliates in a personalized way, highlighting the value that your program can provide to them.

At Engage, we have provided the right tools to help you get the best out of your SaaS affiliate marketing program. With our email automation tool, you can send timely emails to your influencers.

Engage also lets you track the results of your emails and run multivariate tests.