With the growing trend of online shopping, affiliate marketing gives a needed competitive edge to online fashion retailers. It allows you to target specific audiences that your competitors haven’t tapped into yet and tailor commissions based on your selling goals to leverage the desired results.
A successful affiliate marketing strategy can be created through the use of affiliate channels. These channels help retailers in the fashion eCommerce industry reach their goals like new customer acquisition, increased average order values, and increased conversions, all while creating lasting partnerships.
We’ll take a look at 5 affiliate channels that are suitable for fashion retailers in the UK and why each might be a good fit for you.
Why affiliate marketing works for fashion eCommerce
The fashion industry is currently the largest in the eCommerce market and is forecasted to grow around 9.1% every year. By 2025, it’s expected to hit a total market size of $1.164,7 billion.
Affiliate marketing connects merchants and marketers and helps brands stand out from all the offers online shoppers are seeing.
There are 3 parties involved in the process:
- Consumers
- Advertisers/merchants (you)
- Publishers (those hosting your ads)
Affiliate channels enable retailers to create a solid and effective affiliate marketing strategy by targeting high-quality customers who fit their buyer’s persona. These channels bridge the gap between advertisers and publishers while giving both sides tools they can use to make the partnership even more successful.
Some possible partnerships include:
- Fashion influencers with large audiences
- Micro influencers with high follower engagement
- Fashion blogs where shoppers go to find inspiration
- Websites that generate a lot of traffic
- Sites that specialize in niche fashion sectors
- …and more
1. AWIN
AWIN’s vast network connects eCommerce businesses to active publishers and offers tools for:
- Promotions
- Cross device tracking
- Commission flexibility
- And more
Cross-device tracking lets advertisers give rewards to publishers that generate sales from shoppers across multiple devices. It also allows retailers to track the whole buyer’s journey instead of only gathering data on the last click.
Their network generated about 194 million sales in 2021 and includes:
- Over 21k advertisers
- Over 241k publishers
Each publisher is approved before being able to join the network, so you know you’re acquiring qualified affiliates for your program.
AWIN in action: Create an affiliate welcome pack
The more confident your affiliates feel with your program, the more profitable it will be. You can help set up clear rules and expectations for your affiliates by creating a digital welcome pack. This pack should include FAQs, information about your company, and points of contact in case they have any additional questions.
You can take it a step further and tailor the welcome pack to the affiliates’ fashion-oriented audiences. Some ideas are:
- Tips and tactics on how affiliates can maximize their sales in the fashion eCommerce industry. For example, you could include ideas of how affiliates can incorporate your products into their posts
- Ready-to-use promotional materials. These can be images and videos of your products, or anything else you can think of.
- Additionally, you can send periodic emails to keep your affiliates in the loop of new promotions or collections you’re releasing so they can also build anticipation with their audience.
In your AWIN account you’ll have a ‘document’ section where you can store all these things for affiliates to download.
2. Partnerize
Since 2010, the goal of Partnerize has been to connect brands and qualified affiliates to create beneficial matches for both sides. They have a dedicated onboarding team that helps advertisers through the whole process of creating an affiliate program in 15 days or less.
They offer 4 different service levels:
- Enhance
- Accelerate
- Empower
- Maximize
Each category is tailored to fit what resources you have as a brand and what your needs are.
Why choose Partnerize
In total, Partnerize has helped create more than $7 billion in transactions. Their network is made up of over 1,750 advertisers (both enterprise and mid-market) and over 750,000 partners. Over 250,000 of those partners are classified as influencers.
Integrates with:
- Shopify
- Magento
- Wordpress
Partnerize in action: Take advantage of seasons
Incorporate your holiday and seasonal promotions into your affiliate strategy. Online shoppers are always looking for a good deal around these events, whether it’s finding a new bathing suit for summer, or the perfect gift for their loved ones.
Some other examples include:
- Back to school clothes
- Winter and summer vacation clothes
- For him/ for her looks
- Music festival trends
One way you can leverage promotions is by creating gift buying guides with the deals included to advertise on affiliate websites. You can also create custom labels within your product feeds to segment these items into different categories like ‘Summer’, ‘Winter’, or ‘Back to school’. This will help you focus your ad spend on what is most profitable.
3. ShopStyle
ShopStyle is a fashion apparel and accessories focused website where shoppers can find products for:
- Women
- Men
- Kids
- Home
But they also have an affiliate program that connects brands to influencers and supports both parties. On average, for every $1 brands spend on influencer marketing, they can expect to gain a profit of $5.20.
They offer a full suite of tools to help brands create and maintain their affiliate program, including:
- Post-content creation
- Optimization tools
- Tracking and measuring data
- End-to-end campaign execution
Why choose Shopstyle
Their network is made up of over 30,000 influencers who have all gone through a vetting and authentication process. This ensures you’re getting qualified matches for your program.
ShopStyle in action: The importance of influencers in eCommerce fashion
The eCommerce fashion industry is uniquely positioned to benefit from influencer marketing. A big reason people follow influencers on social media is to find new products and inspiration for their own wardrobe.
For example, TikTok influencer marketing is on the rise. You can take advantage of this trend by working with influencers and making sure it’s a high value cooperation for both their audience and your future customers.
Once the partnership is established, TikTok users will come from the influencer’s page to yours. Add your store link to your brand’s TikTok page, and even sell items in the app. You can then advertise relevant deals on the landing page you’ve linked, and/or prominently display a spot for them to sign up for updates via email.
This call to action can include users receiving a special discount or access to exclusive deals. You’ll get their email for your mailing list, and they’ll feel like they’ve gotten value from the exchange as well.
4. TradeTracker
TradeTracker is an affiliate marketing platform that works with both advertisers and publishers. They have a “no-win-to-pay” model, meaning that if you as the advertiser don’t get paid, then they don’t get paid either. Brands will find all the tools they need to set up their affiliate marketing program successfully.
These tools include:
- Real attribution
- Customer journey analysis
- Mobile metrics and multi-layered tracking
Why choose TradeTracker
With TradeTracker you’ll be able to gain international exposure in over 25 countries, have transparency with the platform, and take advantage of easy-to-use features. Currently they have over 5,000 active programs with merchants and more than 250,000 publishers.
One of their clients, Helm, reported a 75% increase in involvement and a 30% increase in revenue after using TradeTracker to implement their affiliate program.
TradeTracker in action: Tailor content to the publisher’s audience
Because online users are inundated with advertisements, you need a way for yours to stand out. Personalizing your content and ads to your publishers will help their audience instantly connect with it instead of scrolling past.
Use a combination of the analytics tools provided by TradeTracker and research into your publishers to pinpoint what type of ads work best and what content drives the most clicks and conversions. TradeTracker also offers a wide range of creatives for you to choose from to implement with your content once you’ve made sense of the data.
Here are some questions to ask:
- What kind of customers are you hoping to attract?
- What are their preferences? For example: what kind of fashion trends do they lean towards?
- What kind of purchase patterns do you see from your publishers?
This extra effort will also help your publishers perform better and become more confident in partnering with you. In turn, this will help you reach your sales goals like increased ROAS and conversions.
5. Webgains
Webgains is an affiliate marketing network that is powered by AI technology. Their platform is built for both advertisers and publishers and their aim is to match brands with top editorial and publishing partners.
Why choose Webgains
Their network currently consists of over 1,800 advertisers and over 250,000 publishers. They are also generating sales in over 150 countries making them a good choice for fashion retailers looking to take their products global.
Some high-profile apparel & accessory publishers in their network are:
- StylePilot
- rewardStyle
- Sole
Webgains in action: Embrace the use of AI in your advertising
Adapt to the changes in the way shoppers search for products by embracing the use of AI technology to increase audience interaction and sales. As voice activated devices become more popular, like Alexa or Siri, people have started to conduct voice searches for products online more often.
Some ways you can adapt your content for voice searches are:
- Targeting long-tail keywords with high purchase intent
- Analyze which devices are most popular with your target audience
- Using conversational language
- Analyze the difference between how shoppers type out questions verses how they speak them
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Joining feed management with affiliate channels
Using an affiliate channel is an integral part of running a successful program. Additionally, implementing a feed management solution will further the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing, and your PPC campaigns as a whole.
With a feed management platform like DataFeedWatch, you can:
- Easily integrate with shopping cart software like Shopify
- Easily integrate with the affiliate channel you’ve chosen
- Optimize all products feeds in one place
- Check for critical errors before sending your feeds to online channels
- Analyze product-level data to further improve your campaigns and reach your goals like increased click rates, ROAS, conversions, and more