From Clicks to Conversions: Best Practices in Online and Affiliate Marketing

Feb 6, 2024

4 min read

Since the inception of the Internet, businesses have seen a rise in the ability to reach their ideal customers through advertising on non-traditional channels. According to a Statista report, “ in January 2024, there were 5.35 billion internet users worldwide.” (Statista, 2024). That means there is an enormously engaged audience and a lot of opportunities for businesses to target their ideal customers through online marketing. This post will provide some best practices for online marketing, as well as affiliate marketing, to achieve one’s business goals.

Number of internet and social media users worldwide as of January 2024 (in billions). (Statista, 2024). Image Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

Online Advertising Channels

There are a variety of channels that a business can use to spread the word online. Some of the most popular include pay-per-click (PPC), social media advertising, email marketing, and content marketing. Each of these promotion avenues has a different purpose and ways they can be utilized.

First PPC is an online advertising option where one pays when someone clicks an ad. The top sites for this are Google and Bing. One bids on relevant keywords and ads show up on search engines and other sites.

Next are social media ads, in which an advertiser pays to display ads on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or TikTok. This is one of the most powerful tools that a marketer has and is optimal for building brand awareness, reaching large audiences, and targeting ideal customers based on interests, demographics, and behaviors that match the industry.

Email marketing is a great way for businesses to communicate with their audience. It offers the ability to send customized offers, share valuable content, and follow up with prospects and customers.

Finally, content creation and marketing content online is a way to draw in and retain customers by creating and distributing relevant, helpful, and engaging content. Content can help a business establish credibility, trust, and authority within the niche. Content is great for educating one’s audience and bringing organic traffic and leads when it’s optimized for SEO.

Best Practices for Online Advertising

Here are a few best practices and recommendations to get started with online advertising.

Set clear goals for what the business wants to accomplish. Some common goals are increasing website traffic, boosting brand awareness, generating quality leads, increasing email signups, etc.
Have a clearly defined audience before ads are set up, this will allow the business to ensure the messaging and content align with the target audience.
Determine the budget to ensure a business isn’t spending too much on its online marketing efforts. The budget could include not only what is spent on the platform itself but also agency and content creation costs.
Select the online marketing channels based on where the audience spends their time and ensure that the channels align with what is being sold and who it’s being sold to.
The great thing about online advertising is the ability to capture data and analyze results. Do this throughout any campaign. This will allow a business to measure how well the initiatives are doing against its goals.

Another critical channel for businesses to consider is affiliate marketing, which will be covered next.

Overview of Affiliate Marketing

An affiliate marketing program is when an affiliate earns a commission for selling another company’s products or services. The benefit to the brand is increased brand exposure, more leads, and revenue growth. There are two sides to any affiliate program, that of the brand itself, to locate, track, and pay an affiliate, and that of the individual affiliate selling those products or services.

Over the past several years, affiliate programs have grown in popularity as show by this Google Trends image.

Image source Google Trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0344pd&hl=en-US

Best Practices for Affiliate Marketing

According to the Affiliate Marketing PDF, one of the most important elements of any successful affiliate marketing program is the ability to track results. (Affiliate Marketing, 2013). As with any program, start with the overall business goal. Understand the business's ideal customer and set up enticing and favorable terms and conditions for affiliates. Then, create great content, share it with affiliates so they feel supported, and consider cross-promotion.

Affiliate Marketing in Action

One example of a vertical where an affiliate program could work is in health and wellness. As a trusted advisor in space, the affiliate could write a blog on recommended products such as vitamins and supplements, workout equipment, and other things that facilitate a healthy lifestyle. Within the piece, the affiliate could recommend certain products, in which they are in partnership, with tracked links to a merchant site. If a sale happens, the affiliate may get credit and receive a commission from that sale.

Whether a business is looking to execute online marketing or encourage its affiliate partners to advertise online, online advertising is a powerful tool for businesses to generate awareness and sales. A business doesn’t need a big budget to get started which makes it an even greater tool for businesses of all sizes.