Mobile Affiliate Marketing Guide: Everything You Need To Know (2024)

Introduction

In this2019 mobile affiliate marketing guide, we will tell you everything you need toknow about affiliate marketing from your phone.

We’lltake a brief look at what mobile affiliate marketing is and how it works, thendive straight into how you can use it to increase revenue.

In thiscomplete guide to mobile affiliate marketing, we will look at the benefits andsome of the challenges of affiliate marketing from your phone.

You’llalso find a ton of useful resources and tips relating to all aspects of affiliatemarketing from the convenience of your smartphone.

Ifyou’re an influencer or a business owner, and you want to know how importantmobile affiliate marketing is, and why and how you should be doing it 2019 andbeyond, then read on.

The Growing Importance Of Mobile Affiliate Marketing

Did you know that some peoplerun their entire businesses using just a smartphone?

It’s now been just over 4 years since the smartphone surpassed the desktop as the number one way to access the internet:

The number of smartphone users is set to hit4.8 billionin 2019. That’s over 62% of the global population.

Each year, more and more people are choosing to shop with their smartphones over desktop computers, laptops and other devices.

This means that mobile is where the majority of e-commerce customers can be found.

The following graph shows the share of e-commerce sales in the US that is attributed to mobile:

As you can see, by 2021, it is expected that overhalf of all e-commerce sales in the U.S will be gained via mobile.

Thismeans it’s now more important than ever for affiliate marketers to have apresence on mobile.

What Exactly Is Mobile Affiliate Marketing?

In anage of fully responsive websites that work equally well across multipledevices, the lines between regular affiliate marketing and mobile affiliatemarketing have become extremely blurred.

The basic premise of any type of affiliate marketing (whether it’s on mobile or not) is that someone (a business or influencer) promotes someone else’s products or services in exchange for a cut:

At its core then, affiliate marketing is an agreement between someone who wants to sell something and someone who is willing to promote that something.

Given that the same website (and therefore the same affiliate ads) can be viewed from either a smartphone or a desktop, mobile affiliate marketing is simply affiliatemarketing that targets mobile users specifically. Often mobile affiliate marketing will involve the use of strategies and techniques that are geared towards smartphone users. Affiliate marketing is a rapidly growing industry. 8 out of 10 merchants now run at least one affiliate program:

With figures like these, is hardly surprising that so many businesses and influencers alike are now scrambling to get a piece of the affiliate marketing pie. Almost anyone can be an affiliate, as it costs little to nothing to get started. However, the most successful affiliates tend to be bloggers, vloggers and other social media influencers. The best affiliates are able to demonstrate a genuine passion for a product or a brand, so both sides should always look for a good fit.

Mobile affiliate marketing has become increasingly popular in the age of social media, with many large corporations now relying heavily on the top influencers in their industry to promote their products or services. Unfortunately, this means that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find affiliates. But don’t worry, there are lots of options open to affiliate marketers on both sides of the fence who are looking to maximise their chances of recruitment.

As Neil Patel explains, for both parties, using affiliate networks can help you ensure that your affiliate marketing strategies are competitive and on point:

What is Affiliate Marketing And How Can You Leverage It | Neil Patel04:18

Neil PatelJuly 6, 2017

See Also

How to Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money (5 Steps)7 Affiliate & E-comm Masters You Should Be Following – OutbrainAffiliate Marketing Without a Website - Is It Possible?Commission Hero Pro Review: Best Affiliate Marketing System by Robby Blanchard?

The Pros Of Affiliate MarketingFrom Your Phone.

Whatare the benefits of affiliate marketing from your phone? Here are the top 3pros of getting into mobile affiliate marketing:

There’s plenty of room to manoeuvre

Yes,affiliate marketing from your phone is highly competitive.

However,due to the sheer size of the market and the fact that there are so manydifferent niches to be targeted (and so many different ways to target them)there’s still quite a bit of wiggle room in the market.

The market is continuously growing

Aswe’ve already established, the growth in mobile traffic is far superior to thatof desktop.

The smartphonemarket is currently worth 355 billion, and all of the statistics from both thedeveloped and developing world indicate that the market is likely to continueto grow for many more years.

There is an immense opportunity for targeting

Any marketer worth their salt knows thattargeted offersperform better.

Mobile affiliate marketers can take advantage ofadvanced targeting opportunities based on location.

Geofencing, for example, is a highly effective way to target customers with offers based on their location and in real time.

USSupermarket chain Whole Foods, for example, has geofences around all of theirstores to target known customers with personalised offers whenever they enterthe vicinity.

Cleverley,Whole Foods have also set up geofences around their competitors’ stores (atechnique known as geo-conquesting) to incentivise their competitors’ customersto choose to shop at a nearby Whole Foods store instead.

The Challenges Of Affiliate Marketing From Your Phone.

Thebenefits to affiliate marketing from your phone are pretty darn great. Butthere have to be a few downsides, right?

Hereare some of the challenges to mobile affiliate marketing:

Design challenges

Sadly,there are still a lot of websites out there that are not properly designed formobile.

Nothingkills conversions quicker than bad user experience, so make sure that your siteis fully responsive before attempting any type of mobile affiliate marketing.

Lack of tools

A lotof the best marketing tools have been designed on desktops with desktopaudiences in mind.

Thismeans that in some cases, marketing tools won’t easily translate to smallscreen use.

Thiscan be quite frustrating, particularly if you have grown used to using aspecific tool.

However,this is likely to change in the near future as the growth of the mobile marketcontinues.

The small screen can negatively affect click-through rates

The huge difference in size between a laptop or desktop screen and a mobile screen means that users simply can’t see as many search results or ads on their smartphones.

This iswhy it’s important to always fully optimise both your website and your offersfor mobile and tablets.

Adsthat are lower down on the search list simply won’t get as many clicks (orshould I say taps?) on mobile for this reason.

What’s The Deal With Mobile Affiliate Networks?

Mobileaffiliate networks are a great way for mobile advertisers, app owners andbusinesses to take advantage of the mobile marketing boom.

Thesenetworks typically operate on a CPI (cost per install) or CPA (cost per action)revenue-sharing model, where the mobile affiliate network serves as themiddleman between the seller and the marketer.

Appaffiliate networks, in particular, are really taking off. This is because thecurrent marketplace is so saturated that app businesses need to findalternative revenue streams.

Affiliate marketing for mobile apps looks a little something like this:

For, businesses that want to generate more revenue with their apps, or with any products they sell on mobile, partnering with a leading mobile affiliate network is a great strategy to adopt in order to achieve this.

8 Tips To Help You Take Advantage Of Mobile Affiliate Marketing:

Want tobe successful in the mobile affiliate marketing game? Here are 8 of our toptips on how you can nail it:

1. Find a largetraffic source

If you want to take advantage of mobile affiliate marketing, you’ll need to direct a large amount of traffic or leads to an offer.

It’slikely that only a small percentage of your audience will take up the offer, sothe more people you can access the better.

You can learn more about traffic sources by watching this video:

Best Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing - Best 5 Traffic Sources 2017 | make me happy05:30

make me happyMay 19, 2017

2. Experiment withdifferent offers

There’s more than one way toskin a cat, so don’t be afraid to try out multiple offer tactics when you’rejust getting started.

The goal is to find the rightoffer that works equally well for both you and your audience.

There are lots of offer types to choose from. Here are a few of the main ones:

• Subscription– People are encouraged to subscribe to any type of service. This could be anything from food and drink deliveries to SaaS.
• App installs– The affiliate is paid when a new user installs a promoted app.
• Pay per call– The affiliate is paid when someone calls an advertised number. In some cases this will pay more depending on the length of the call.
• Pay per sale– The affiliate gets paid when someone makes a purchase using a specific reference (usually a discount code).
• Lead-based– This is usually paid out upon completion of an online form.

3. Take advantage of in-app traffic

In-app trafficis the biggest source of traffic on mobile, so you’re definitely going to want to tap into that if you are in a position to.

Since there’s more informationabout smartphone users compared to desktop users (location being the main one)you can really hone in and target a specific audience. This tactic worksespecially well when combined with geolocation.

4. Be competitive

Whatever your niche, in the mobile affiliate marketing world, you’re likely to be up against some very stiff competition. It’s therefore imperative thatyour offers are creative, attractive and unique.

5. Leverage social media

This one almost goes without saying, but it’s worth a mention because of just how crucial it is toaffiliate marketing success.You’ll need to do a bit of research, choose your platforms carefully, and tweak your offers to suit each one.

6. Join an affiliate network

Whicheverside of affiliate marketingyou’re on, you can always benefit from working with an affiliate network provider.

As discussed, these are the middlemen that connect businesses up with willing affiliates. A couple of taps on your smartphone is all it takes to get your affiliate marketing journey underway.

Affiliate networks that have large corporate clients and a good sized pool of direct advertisers can be worth their weight in gold. Influencers should consider taking advantage of these networks if they want to save time and get better payouts.

Other benefits to influencers of using an affiliate network might include:

• Fast payouts.
• Less risk (of not being paid).
• Access to Analytics.
• Access to a large pool of offers.
• Access to offers in a variety of countries.
• Access to optimisation tools.
• More likely to get to hard-to-reach advertisers.

7. Create amazing visuals

The ability to produce professional quality images is key to affiliate marketing success:

Luckily, nowadays it’s easy to use your smartphone tocreate and edit amazing imagesthat will grab the attention of your prospects.

8. Analyse data

For thepurposes of mobile affiliate marketing, the data you’ll want to analyse willrelate to costs, conversions, clicks and visits.

Use relevant tracking tools and hone your methods based on the information you have coming in. Tracking tools are great for getting an overall view of how well any given strategy is working at any particular time.

Theyalso allow you to quickly and easily figure out where you should be focusingyour attention and efforts.

Let’s Wrap This Up

Sothere you have it. You now know everything you need to know to get started withmobile affiliate marketing in 2019.

So whatare you waiting for? Why not get working on your first mobile affiliatecampaign right now!

Guest Post Author

Izaak Crook

Izaak Crook is the Content Marketing Manager at AppInstitute, a SaaS App Builder platform that allows anyone to create their own iOS and Android app without writing a single line of code.

Andrej Csizmadia

Andy is a translation manager at Post Affiliate Pro. He is responsible for a team of 20 translators, reviewing content suggestions and setting up processes. In his free time he likes to go to gym, and is also passionate about gaming and cooking. Recently he started his own YouTube channel, Cooking with A.

More articles by Andrej Csizmadia