Originally posted on Jike. Recently invited by an overseas community to share about Affiliate Marketing, so I've reorganized and added more details.
Introduction
Affiliate marketing is a powerful strategy for AI and SaaS companies looking to expand their reach and increase sales. By leveraging the efforts of affiliates, businesses can promote their products to a wider audience without incurring significant marketing costs. This article explores the fundamentals of affiliate marketing for AI and SaaS products, providing insights on how to build effective affiliate programs and maximize their potential.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is helping merchants promote products or services by sharing links with friends or followers. If they purchase through your link, you earn a commission as a reward. Common models include:
- Pay-per-sale
- Pay-per-lead
- Pay-per-click
Is Affiliate Marketing Necessary?
Absolutely! This is standard for software services. Affiliate programs are part of building website architecture and product ecosystem SOPs. Affiliate Programs are a necessity rather than an alternative in overseas markets. Check out how many AI/SaaS websites offer affiliate programs: AI/SaaS Affiliate Program
What are the Components of an Affiliate Program?
Advertiser (merchant), Affiliate (promoter), Affiliate Network, and Customer are the four most important roles. For other terms like Affiliate Link, Commission Rate, Performance Bonus, check out the Affiliate Marketing Glossary
What are the Advantages of Affiliate Marketing?
- CPS (Cost Per Sale): Pay only for sales, unlike traditional advertising where you pay for impressions/clicks/registrations. You only pay when conversion succeeds!
- Easy to operate: A Landing Page/form and unique URL can get you started, and these can be solved through SaaS tools (like Rewardful). You just need to optimize the process.
- Attract high-quality Affiliates to promote your products; Besides bringing sales, they can also bring some backlinks to your website (though most are nofollow).
- Helps overall promotion: Affiliates generate a lot of content during promotion, which can help SEO, influencer marketing, and overall brand exposure.
- If affiliates forget to withdraw commissions or don't reach the minimum threshold, you save that expense too.
What Promotion Channels do Affiliates Use?
All promotion channels can feature affiliates: When I post in communities, it's community operations; when affiliates post in communities, it's affiliate marketing. When I post videos on social media, it's social media operations; when affiliates post videos on social media, it's affiliate marketing. The difference is I get a salary, affiliates get commissions. Specific channels include:
- Content Creators: Bloggers (Guest Post, Link Insertion), YouTubers, Podcasters, Social Media Influencers
- Publishers: Large Media Outlets, Niche Websites, Email Newsletters
- Coupon & Cashback Sites
- Professional Affiliates
- Others: Communities (Facebook, LinkedIn, Discord), Forums (Reddit, Niche)
Google doesn't mind you buying links, but recommends using rel=sponsored tags
Some less mainstream channels:
- Built into products (Mobile App Creators)
- Co-marketing/Cross-border operations
- Brand fans/Existing customers
- Charity and NPOs
- Webinars and Workshops
Candy AI Case Study
Candy AI gained 13.71M traffic from referral channels (backlinks + affiliate programs) in six months, accounting for about one-third of total site traffic. Their competitors CrushOn, Yodayo, and Talkie barely got any share from this channel.
How to Set Up an Affiliate Program?
1. Quick In-House Affiliate Signup Form and Landing Page
You can use Typeform's Template (on the right is Typeform's own affiliate program) or Google Forms
If you have no prior experience, you can refer to competitor/similar service website pages + use SaaS software to quickly launch an affiliate program.
2. Third-Party SaaS Tools
- Affiliate Program Software: Rewardful (most used by AI/SaaS), Tolt, Tapfiliate, Lasso, Post Affiliate Pro, FirstPrompter, Trackdesk, etc.
- In addition, there are Affiliate Network Software, Affiliate tracking systems, Link management tools, All-in-one affiliate marketing software
- Google also has an official UTM generator: ga-dev-tools.google. Although designed for GA, it can also be used for in-house affiliate programs. Add basic parameters: traffic source (utm_source), partnership type (utm_medium), campaign name (utm_campaign), creative (utm_content) to track data directly in the backend.
- Overseas companies wanting to solve tax issues can also consider using PartnetShare and Impact
3. How to Operate
- Create a landing page, write terms, publish, observe results
- Actively submit Affiliate Program to sites like https://affiliate.watch/ to let interested affiliates promote for you
- Contact third-party platforms you're integrated with to see if they're willing to publish articles or add backlinks
- Actively include distribution models when negotiating partnerships
4. Finding Websites with Affiliate Programs
Channels: Google, YouTube
Content: AI affiliate program, site:getrewardful.com
Find influencers who accept affiliate programs, then reverse-find more products offering affiliate programs, then find more influencers.
This video accepted an affiliate program.
Affiliate Program Success Cases
Attention: Things to Avoid
- Affiliate Fraud: Using malicious methods to earn commissions from affiliate marketing programs
- Bidding on brand terms: Affiliates purchasing Google ads for brand terms or trademark terms
- Set up Program Terms properly: Cookie Length, Performance Bonus, Sub-Affiliate
Before officially launching your Affiliate Program, read through the Checklist again.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing provides AI and SaaS companies with a favorable opportunity to increase market presence and drive revenue growth. By implementing well-structured affiliate programs and leveraging the right tools, businesses can effectively promote their products through a vast affiliate network. With the right strategies, affiliate marketing can become a key component of a successful marketing plan, bringing sustained growth and profitability.