[Guide] How do I create an affiliation programme for my e-commerce site?

Need a guide to affiliation for your e-commerce site ? Take a quick course by reading this article! Find out about the techniques and tools used by affiliates to attract web traffic from Google, how to create an effective affiliation programme to increase your product sales, and the affiliation platforms used by freelancers, VSEs, SMEs and major accounts. Ready to save some time? Here's a little digital marketing lesson just for you, dear e-merchant:

See all software Affiliate Marketing

Understanding how affiliate marketing works

Affiliate marketing is all about performance marketing. Let's start with a few definitions of affiliation to get to grips with the basics.

Definition of affiliation

The term affiliation programme is used to describe an activity capable of returning traffic to a website by using the tools of online advertising on other websites.

The customer acquisition mechanism is as follows: an advertiser (merchant), known as the affiliator, displays its advertising on the websites of affiliates (website publishers) and pays them according to the actions carried out by visitors.

The affiliate is paid according to an action carried out by the visitor and corresponding to a performance objective defined beforehand.

Examples of performance-paid objectives:

• sales objective: the visitor clicks on the advertising displayed on an affiliate's website to go to the advertiser's site and buy a product, thereby becoming a customer;
• qualified lead generation objective: the visitor clicks on the advertising displayed on an affiliate's website to go to the advertiser's site and fills in a contact form to request an online quote or download a white paper.

An affiliation programme differs from Google Adwords advertising in that the advertiser pays its affiliates solely in exchange for performance achieved and actions carried out by web users on its e-commerce site.

Affiliation platform: definition

An affiliation platform is a neutral online service that links the affiliator and the affiliates:

• it gathers requests from advertisers and brands,
• It offers a network of affiliates and publisher sites,
• It is an online marketplace,
• It measures the return on each affiliate's campaigns,
• It centralises management and commission methods,
• It pays affiliates on the basis of performance.

At first glance, an e-commerce affiliation platform looks like a simple website: in reality, it is equipped with advanced technology. The term software is therefore more appropriate when referring to platforms.

Commission method: affiliate remuneration

Each objective has its own method of affiliate remuneration :

• CPL or cost per lead: the affiliate site is remunerated when an Internet user fills in a form on the advertiser's site, if this is the objective;


• CPA (cost per action): this is currently the most popular method of payment, as it corresponds to a real action carried out by the Internet user, such as a purchase;


• CPC (cost per click): the commission is paid according to the number of clicks on the ad. This is how Google Adsense works. The more in-demand the sector, the higher the price;


• CPI or cost per integration: web users integrate a widget on their sites, and the affiliate is paid according to the number of integrations carried out;


• CPM or cost per thousand page views: this type of commission is becoming increasingly rare. It works by means of a cookie that prevents fraud, and can still be used to increase the authority of a website in its sector.

It is in the e-merchant advertiser's best interests to develop a network of partner sites by building long-term relationships with its affiliates: the choice of the type of affiliation commission paid to the affiliate must be both attractive to the affiliate and profitable for the advertiser.

Which affiliation platform should I choose?

There are many affiliation platforms in France. So how do you choose your affiliation platform? Answer:

For advertisers, the main criteria for choosing a platform are the quality of the affiliate network (88%), the expertise of the teams (74%) and the reliability of the tracking (66%).

Source: Collectif Performance Acquisition (CPA)

The 3 main selection criteria

Which affiliation platform should you choose ? There are 3 criteria for selection:

• Criterion no. 1: the quality of the affiliate network. The main benefit for a e-commerce site is to find a significant number of affiliates and sites that publish quality content to exploit;


• Criterion no. 2: performance measurement and tracking. The indicators must be precise and customisable, because they enable affiliates to be paid according to the sales they have generated;


• Criterion no. 3: simplified management at every level. A good affiliation platform needs to simplify the management of product flows, financial flows, payments, tracking, etc. in order to build loyalty among its affiliate customers and affiliates alike.

When a platform meets these 3 criteria, it offers an innovative technology that delivers high-performance advertising solutions for both advertisers and affiliates.

Understanding the 3 types of affiliation solution

There are many different solutions available on the affiliation platform market. To help you make the best choice, the table below explains the differences between the 3 main types of solution.

When you're an advertiser, you need to ask yourself the following question: is managing my affiliation programme strategic for the development of my business?

👉 The answer is no: in this case, it is advisable to opt for a SaaS solution to benefit from a pool of quality affiliates using 1TPE or Selldorado.

👉 The answer is yes: in this case, we recommend choosing a solution like Effiliation, for example. You will then benefit from personalised support to put in place a tailor-made strategy tailored to your objectives.

👉 The technical solutions available on a white label basis, such as Effinity MarTech or Hasoffers, are aimed at specialised agencies and marketing departments with experience of affiliate marketing for advertisers.

2 traditional affiliation platforms

Effiliation: a platform with dedicated support

Effiliation is the platform dedicated to advertisers looking for guidance and a personalised approach to implementing a winning strategy to achieve their objectives.

Also positioned as a B2C and B2B affiliation consultancy, Effiliation - the Effinity Group's historic affiliation service - offers the opportunity to combine several acquisition levers to arrive at the most effective combination.

Site publishers are not left out:

• they also benefit from support in accessing advertisers by affinity,
• They benefit from the Effinity Group's innovative technology (API for data access, browser player for deeplink, etc.),
• They can track their performance using precise reporting tools.

Effiliation makes it possible to hyper-personalise the programme for affiliate partners in order to maximise the return on investment and performance of each affiliation campaign for both parties.

Affilinet, display marketing performance

This platform has already won over companies such as Grosbill, Thomas Cook and matelsom.

Focus on affilinet's Performance Ads tool: the display marketing offered by affilinet generates sales through personalised, automated advertising on affiliated publisher sites.

Please note: Awin and Affilinet have merged under the name Awin. Discover Awin on video:

This is a great strength for both the advertiser and the affiliate: the visitor's behaviour is analysed. Their areas of interest stand out.

The tool uses the site's traffic to display the advert to the right person and improve conversion.

Once again, the idea is to provide contextualised offers within high-quality content.

Note: affilinet offers its platform to advertisers, agencies (white label platform) and publishers. Each will find its own advantages, including tracking functions, management of advertising tools, retargeting and product catalogue feeds, etc.

2 white-label technical solutions

Effinity Martech, the relevance of personalisation for e-tailers

The SaaS partner tracking and management solution is appealing to larger e-merchants and affiliates such as SMEs, ETIs and major groups like PriceMinister, boulanger and M6 web.

A host of advanced functions enable you to manage costs per click (CPC), CPL, CPA, conversions, affiliation programmes and banner rotation.

Effinity Martech enables e-tailers to deliver the right offer to the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

A suite for everyone:

• the advertiser controls multipoint and multidevice tracking, measures performance and remuneration in real time, controls its couponing affiliates, simplifies the management of its product flows and saves time with tag management that encapsulates publishers' tags;


• affiliates have considerable autonomy in balancing their relationship with the advertiser, a simplified invoicing tool and dynamic, varied advertising space;


• agencies use the platform as a white label, customise the interface, manage several advertisers within the same interface and create all their multi-media campaigns.

Hasoffers: an alternative American technical solution

A solution widely used in the United States, Hasoffers also offers instant visibility of the performance of each affiliation campaign so that decisions can be taken in real time.

Main features of the solution :

• affiliate management and tracking,
• banner management, tracking of clicks and conversions,
• commission management
• coupon management,
• automation of certain tasks,
• etc.

Hasoffers is also capable of communicating with third-party applications such as invoicing solutions.

The platform can generate reports focusing on mobile usage. This enables certain users of the solution to understand user behaviour.

2 SaaS solutions for small accounts

1TPE for selling digital products

Self-employed entrepreneurs and small businesses have access to an affiliation platform dedicated to promoting their virtual products and intangible products such as training courses, ebooks, software, tutorials and videos, supported by a network of 165,299 affiliates.

Affiliates can earn up to 70% commission on sales:this is a pay-for-performance system.

The advantages of the 1TPE platform:

• payment system management (bank cheque, Paypal transfer, bank transfer),
• sales tracking,
• payment of affiliates,
• VAT management, mandatory declarations,
• customer support and refund management.

Selldorado for small e-commerce sites

Small e-commerce sites, such as very small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs, are particularly keen to use the affiliation platform, as it offers them a better return on investment than Google Adwords advertising.

The quality of the sites makes it possible to display offers or advertisements in a contextualised way.

An offer has a much better chance of performing when it has a strong affinity with relevant content!

By using the Selldorado platform, e-merchants benefit from the advantages of the Affiliation network (parent company):

• a unique pool of 15 million buyers,
• full responsibility for setting up the discount coupon lever,
• automated operation for cashback offers (% refund to the buyer),
• conversion management, recurring commissions,
• programme management, tracking, payment, etc.

See all software Affiliate Marketing

What traffic acquisition tools should be put in place?

Affiliates are generally well-versed in webmarketing techniques: some advertisers leave them free to choose the advertising material or affiliation techniques they wish to use, while others prefer to control their brand image by providing advertising creatives and precise guidelines themselves.

It is essential to define the conditions contractually so that everything is clear.

Overview of existing levers.

Affiliation with a site or blog that Google likes

In plain English, this means advertising on sites that appear on the 1st page of Google search engine results.

These websites have worked on their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): they have optimised their text content for Google's natural referencing. Mathematically, these sites attract a large audience, which is generally of high quality for e-tailers.

You have a choice of 3 options:

• choice no. 1: use text links, image banners or videos on content sites. The site offers a wealth of quality information for web users. The audience is qualified in relation to a specific theme: the visibility for the advertiser is therefore very good;


• choice no. 2: use discount voucher, promotional code or cashback sites. The Internet user's intention to buy is unequivocal, as they are looking to obtain a discount, rebate or financial advantage by visiting this type of site. Affiliates can attract visitors with discount vouchers, by email, a banner or a simple text link;


• choice no. 3: online price comparison sites. The conversion rate works well for advertising e-commerce sites. Internet users want to buy at the lowest price. They find it in online product catalogues.

Buying keywords, or sponsored links

This involves responding to a request from an Internet user who performs a search by typing in a key expression on a search engine such as Google or Bing with a text ad containing a link, such as Adwords.

This can boost your site's ranking or lead the user to take a specific action.

This practice requires a mastery of the world of SEO and is generally entrusted to agencies or consultants specialising in natural and paid referencing : a study of keywords is necessary beforehand.

Email acquisition

Some affiliates have a qualified email base: this audience can be subjected to special offers that are limited in time, for example, or to an emailing scenario that encourages them to make a purchase over time.

Some sites may also place a banner or sponsored link in their newsletter.

Advertising on social networks

Affiliates who have Facebook pages, and therefore an audience for a particular theme, use a range of levers to make their affiliation campaigns profitable: Facebook Ads, clickable links in text statuses associated with the publication of a video, sponsored content, and so on.

Other affiliates master YouTube, Twitter Ads, Instagram, etc. It all depends on the sector and the target audience!

Retargeting advertising

When an Internet user visits the advertiser's site without making a purchase or taking any action, it is possible to push messages via adverts on the affiliate sites they visit.

Pure product promotion, webinar, price comparison... everything is possible depending on the context.

While some recipes work for one sector, they don't necessarily work for others. To complete our guide to e-commerce affiliation, here is some advice from the Collectif Performance Acquisition on how to create a successful affiliation programme: