A-Z of Affiliate Marketing in India
– by Rachael
About Rachael:
Rachael recently moved to India from London, after working as an SEO for 3 of the top agencies in London. She led the SEO strategy on a range of big brand clients in the UK, spanning a number of verticals, from banking, government, supermarkets, food brands and purely brand awareness campaigns. Almost four years ago, she set up a UK affiliate website, which she now runs from Goa.
About OME Community Bangalore
OME Community is one of the largest and most active community of Online Marketers in India.
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The OME monthly Meet-ups
OME Community conducts monthly meet ups, a platform for YOU to network, interact, exchange information, and find potential employers, employees or new business?
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Thanks Swati for the Minutes of Meeting of OME January.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or site.
Source Problogger: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/07/07/what-is-affiliate-marketing/
Example: A blogger writes about travel, he/she can promote hotels, flight tickets, car rentals from 3rd party website such as makemytrip, Yatra etc. The blogger gets a HTML code from these sites and embed within their blog. When a user buys flight tickets via his/her blog, Makemytrip, Yatra will pay the blogger. The blogger can either get the code directly from these 3rd party websites or they can sign up with a Affiliate network (shoogloo.com/Tyrooo.com/cj.com)
Click here to view a larger version.
[Image provided courtesy of the Sugarrae affiliate marketing blog.]
Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
-
- No stock (You don’t need to have products. You just market othe
- Little or no investment in finance
- Can do from anywhere
- Simple understanding of affiliate marketing will help
Who’s who in Affiliate Marketing?
There are four core functions:
- The merchant also known as ‘retailer’ or ‘brand’. Example: makemytrip.com
- The network (takes care of the payments, tracking, reporting) simplifies for both merchant and publisher. Example: cj.com
- The publisher (also known as ‘the affiliate’) Example: A blogger (You)
- The customer who buys a product
Indian Affiliate market scenario:
- Indian online market is still immature- it is at an information seeker stage
- Indian market has less competition, easier to get more visibility
- Growth in India (18% past year)
Indian Affiliate Networks:
- Merchants (shoogloo),
- Independents (shaadi.com/ Flipkart)
- Ad networks (tyrooo.com)
- Affiliate (any blogger or online publisher)
- Some examples are Shoogloo, DGM, OMG, Affiliate via & Clix galore
- If your website has good amount of traffic, you can opt for several merchants, independents as well as Ad networks
- Some issues with Indian Affiliate Marketing networks are:
- Most merchants do not provide data feeds
- Most merchants don’t keep their prices up to date
- Tracking doesn’t work well in India and there are issues
- Some issues with Indian Affiliate Marketing networks are:
Step by Step Affiliate Marketing Process (Link)
Case study- Rachael Ede:
Background
Rachael Ede set up her website www.samsunggalaxynote.in in India with three primary keywords and five pages with each of the pages having a strong call to action. The homepage was content rich and contained features like Expert Reviews, videos, images with alt text and adequate call to actions in each section.
Link building activities launched by her thrived, because of very little competition in the Indian market. She carried out basic link building, using link baits. She used off-page syndication technique for the three primary keywords. She posted articles with relevant links. She referred to WickedFire, an Affiliate Marketing or Internet Marketing Webmaster SEO Forum. It is a great place to learn SEO, web design and development, and internet marketing along with affiliate.
Success Story
The results for the above efforts started showing within ten days (approximately) of launch. The website ranked in Google at:
- #4 for the keyword “Samsung galaxy note”
- #1 for the keyword “Samsung galaxy note price”
- #1 for the keyword “Samsung galaxy note price in India”
In terms of traffic, the website had 100 daily unique visits. It had an approximate 17 sales in a month. The rate of conversion was 0.05 with earnings at approx Rs. 5000 in a month.
Questions & Answers
(Q-1) Is it only for B2B business or is it only for B2C business?
(A)Yes. You can have AM for your business. You can qualify as a lead generation partner. To be competitive, have a product that is a game changer. Options are limited in India, though. It takes a lot of effort to market a product. Brand yourself well & get gimmicky! Or you need to be a big company or big brand & market.
(Q-2) What is a network & if I sign up with them, do I have access to all merchants?
(A) Networks are website that act as platform for AM. Yes, but you need to have a website to join any network.
(Q-3) AM: which is better- to join as a publisher or merchant?
(A) Depends on what you are selling.
(Q-4) Could your brand website be a mix of categories?
(A) Yes. One brand website can sell several categories of products
(Q-5) Using someone’s brand name in your domain/ URL could get you a lawsuit. What should you do, then?
(A) It is a risk you take
(Q-6) Long tail keywords have low search volume, should you still choose them?
(A) Yes. You have to be intuitive, choose accordingly & find balance between those as well as high search volume keywords for good conversion
(Q-7) Can Affiliate Marketing be done through FaceBook?
(A) FaceBook can be used in Affiliate Marketing for certain industries like matrimonial businesses in India