At Paraphrase Online, we support over 500 online stores, so it’s not the time to flirt with modesty. We just know what works in a given industry and at a given scale of activity. Google Analytics does not lie. That is why in this post we will focus on what to focus on in online store marketing.

Online store marketing – what budget?

What budget will be ideal to launch effective online store marketing? I probably won’t be surprised by giving a Solomon answer that … it depends.

We have clients who have invested several dozen or even several hundred thousand dollars in their own online stores, but have forgotten that they still need to inform customers and at the beginning they had $ 3,000 or $ 4,000 for advertising. An in-depth investment in the website itself makes sense if it takes into account, for example, the delivery of interesting content at the entrance or seo optimization. However, if the technology and graphics and programming games cost us a lot, and at the same time we have not secured funds for marketing, then we may have a problem with getting the right traffic to even the most beautiful store under the sun.

Many customers are wary of online advertising because awareness of how different advertising systems work is simply low. The most important points that reinforce the belief that this is a real investment, not just an expense, are:

– by advertising your online store, we can accurately measure the effectiveness of each campaign or advertising channel,
– you can choose any time you want to broadcast your ads in response to market changes or specific events,
– you can flexibly manage your budget and seeing that it “works”, spend more money on advertising,
– you can and even need to test new solutions that have sales potential,
– you can easily determine how much it costs you to acquire a customer and optimize the campaign in this respect. Anyway, this is the most interesting piece of the puzzle – many entrepreneurs who apply to Paraphrase Online do not know how much they can actually spend to acquire one customer. For some products it will be hundreds of dollars, and for others it will be cents.

Considering the above, one conclusion emerges immediately. Too small a budget at the beginning will make the test less reliable and you can alienate yourself with a given advertising tool. Let’s say you have an online store with a lot of competition that spends $ 10,000 on advertising only in Google Ads. However, you have $ 500 a month for this environment. This amount will result in insufficient traffic in a given category. Because what if basically acquiring a client in this category costs e.g. $ 250? Too small a sample will make you randomly burn $ 500 at random.

In order to draw the appropriate conclusions, it is necessary to determine at the beginning – preferably in consultation with a specialist in a given field – how much it must be spent for the “trial” to give us the actual size of the potential profit.

When advertising on the internet, the matter is simple – too small a budget for a given area will be a simple waste of money that we still don’t have. Is there such a thing as too big an advertising budget? Yes! At a certain level, with a given targeting of advertisements, it may turn out that we can not spend more on advertising indefinitely because the converting traffic will remain at the current level and the expenses will increase. This will make getting customers just more expensive.

That is why it is so important to balance the investment in advertising and its supervision over the timeline.

Well, what if you have $ 3,000 for advertising, but you know that there are companies in your industry that spend $ 20,000? Then the most reasonable solution is to focus on the advertising channel that best converts for the industry. Sometimes it will be Google Ads text ads, sometimes cooperation with micro influencers or affiliation, and sometimes relying on YT advertising video views. It all depends on the store, target group and your goals as well as several other factors.

So, if you have a limited budget, my advice would be to consult the topic with a specialist or even in a public forum (e.g. groups on Facebook) and find out where to invest in the first place to obtain resources to expand advertising activities.

The more you have an advertising budget, the more holistic advertising you can take and give you the comfort of looking at your business in the long term and, for example, investing in online store positioning (if it makes sense in your industry).

Below are the basic forms of advertising for online stores that work.

Online store positioning

I start from the end. Positioning an online store will bring benefits – depending on the industry in which you operate – after a long time, and therefore many entrepreneurs do not pay attention to the first thing, because they want to quickly monetize their fresh store. Positioning, however, is worth considering because you do not want to operate on the market for 3 or 6 months, but many years. That is why it is worth knowing that positioning an online store is the cheapest method of acquiring potential customers in the long run. So if you have an extra budget for this type of investment, it’s definitely worth it.

What does it mean to position an online store? In the simplest terms, it will make sure that the user searching for a given phrase in the search engine first hits your site. In practice, this means that you must be on the first page of search results and as high as possible. Of course, the trick is to position yourself on phrases that convert, i.e. in the case of an online store they just sell. There is a higher probability that the user who specifies his query – e.g. product – is closer to purchase than the one who enters a search query with a high degree of generality. It is also worth knowing that often attractive phrases are occupied by strong brands and competitors, which means that it is often worth considering long tail positioning, i.e. key words and phrases that are less frequently searched, but at the same time – on an appropriate scale – will bring caloric movement .

Organic results – that is, those that “naturally” shows Google in the search engine, are characterized by a high degree of credibility with potential customers. A positioned phrase will work for you in the long term, and keeping it in a given position will require care, but not as much as just “pulling” it to the first page of search results.

Google Ads for online store

Google Ads – once Google AdWords – is the Google advertising system and currently the most widely used tool for internet marketing. Many channels, many targeting options, lots of advertising formats and amazing measurability. First of all, it is on Ads that you should direct your attention if you want to start earning quickly.

You can do a lot with Google Ads, so I will discuss areas that will be particularly valuable “at the entrance” and worth exploring.

Google product ads

Online store marketing is in many cases based on Google product ads, i.e. Google Shopping. Enter any product query in Google – e.g. men’s watch – and you will receive on the top or right side photos of product data that are advertised by given online stores and matched to your query and whether you are in a given interest group.

This type of advertising is very effective for three reasons. First of all, we buy often through the eyes. Secondly, we immediately get the price of the product. Thirdly, however, such advertising – if it is well optimized – is well suited to my intentions, i.e. it responds to my needs.

It is difficult to imagine a better product presentation, already at the stage of browsing the search engine by a given user.

Text Ads

Google text ads usually appear above organic results. Since they do not differ from “natural” results in anything but the small inscription “advertisement”, many Google users simply treat them as the result given by the search engine. Behind the text ad – there is also an advertiser. A properly optimized advertisement will download caloric traffic to your website, which will eventually turn into real buyers. Text advertising is usually the best associated tool in the Google Ads family (previously it was even synonymous with the Google AdWords brand). There are also various other names, such as sponsored links.

Youtube

You know YouTube, and this already means something, and even if you treat it purely entertaining, this platform has many more uses. Youtube is the world’s second internet search engine, which serves us not only as a music player, but also to help in many matters – from searching for recipes for cooking, and ending with reviews of cars or paints for painting. Of course, it is also a place where companies build their own content and decide to cooperate with creators. Video advertising works on many senses, but also has the chance to engage the recipient on a completely different emotional level. All this means that ads on Youtube are more and more often used by advertisers and of various scale of operation – starting from millions of budgets and ending with limited campaigns for several thousand dollars.

For reasonable money, you can build a really good reach and number of views of your videos, thus resonating in the perception of potential customers.

Remarketing

Remarketing is a way to reach people who have already been to your online store’s website. The system collects a list of such people, which you can later use in various ways. For example, you can reach people who have abandoned the cart with already added products or dropped off at the payment stage. Proposing a small discount or a reminder of a sad, abandoned basket can make them return to unfinished shopping. You can also apply remarketing extensively – to everyone who just visited your store and at a different time horizon. You can target remarketing banners to people who were 500 days ago, as well as to those who left it yesterday or a few minutes ago.

Remarketing is widely used not only in the Google Ads system but also in social media. In today’s world something is still chasing us and we have a lot of distractions around. We also add products or watch on smartphones, and then forget about them because just … our bus stop has fallen out and must go on. Hundreds of situations distract us from finalizing purchases. Remarketing cleverly and relatively cheaply reminds you of your store and therefore nicely supports online store marketing.

Social Media and online store marketing

Facebook, Instagram, and even LinkedIn, Snapchat or TikTok – all social media platforms are pretty good, and sometimes even the first choice for online store marketing. Each of these portals requires a different approach. However, due to the “proximity” of potential content recipients and the possibility of interacting with them, social media is a valued marketing channel.

Facebook offers the widest group of users and also the best-designed for targeting. As an agency, we have defended ourselves for a long time against the introduction of this type of service, but ultimately customers forced us to do so. And very well. We see that the combined campaigns in the Google and Facebook environment intertwine wonderfully and we have also gained a broad picture of where and how to invest funds for given industries. For example, it may turn out that Facebook remarketing works better for a given store, and Gmail ads work well again for another one. We have on board a team of specialists who have recently been certified in the Facebook Blueprint program, which guarantees our clients top-class care.

Facebook offers various advertising goals as well as formats tailored to your specific needs. Thanks to the installation of Facebook Pixel, there is also an option to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns to the penny and to approach the marketing of the online store on Facebook flexibly in time and budget.

Summary

Consider the examples above and choose which method will be best for you.

Affiliate Programs – What is it?

Affiliate programs are nothing more than affiliate marketing. It is an efficiency channel based on the relationship: seller (advertiser) – partner (publisher / affiliate). The specificity of this channel means that it is not a direct marketing technique. Closer to the model of employing independent marketers, who – motivated by a commission system – take the most effective actions to attract the largest number of customers performing the desired actions.

Participants of partner programs

Before you implement affiliate marketing, you should know the essence of its functioning. In this case, four “links” play an important role.

Seller (advertiser)
The salesperson is the main element in affiliate marketing – it is he who “launches” the affiliate program, wanting to promote his products and acquire customers in order to achieve his business goals.

Partner (publisher)
The partner has an advertising space that can be used to promote specific products / services. Any publisher or social media users who, as part of the affiliate program, intend to present the seller’s offer can become a publisher.

User
The user is simply a potential customer who clicks on a special affiliate link. As a result, he is redirected to the advertiser’s website and makes a purchase or performs any other desired action there.

Affiliate Network
An affiliate network is a platform that provides technology that allows collaboration between the seller and the partner. Its role is also to control the correctness of cooperation and optimization of activities carried out by advertisers and publishers.

Affiliate programs – types

All affiliate programs operate on similar principles. However, their types may be different, taking into account, for example, how advertisers are billed with publishers and the affiliate network. So let’s explore the available options to choose the most favorable and best suited to your needs

Pay per sale
Pay per sale (PPS) is a method of accounting for participants of affiliate programs, which consists in granting a specific amount on sales. It can also be a percentage of the amount of the final purchase made by the user. Accounting in the PPS model is the most popular in partner programs. Due to the fact that they are characterized by a relatively low conversion, the paid commissions are quite high – often up to 50% (in the case of services, software).

Pay per lead
Pay per lead (PPL) means the specific amount paid for each specific action taken by the user. In this case, it does not have to be only a customer’s purchase. Acquiring leads may include, among others to sign up for the mailing list, fill out the contact form. This type of affiliate program allows advertisers to measure the performance of specific ads. By calculating the average income in relation to the leads obtained, it can estimate the amount of profits made.

Pay per click
Pay per click (PPC) is a method of accounting for affiliate programs, the essence of which is to pay a specific amount for each click on an ad – similar to Google Ads. The number of products sold does not matter. Of the available types of affiliate programs, settlement in the PPC model enjoys the least popularity.

Affiliate programs are mutual benefits?

Affiliate programs are gaining popularity year by year. According to the latest Paraphrase-Online.com report, total investment in affiliate marketing in Europe has exceeded EUR 12 trillion. Although it is primarily popular among top advertisers, it really benefits every seller. This is due to the simple fact – affiliate programs are a model based on high performance and profitability. The biggest advantage of affiliate marketing are mutual benefits – especially when settling in the PPS model.

The advertiser is sure that the partner will take the most effective actions translating into increased sales of products. The publisher is highly motivated because his dedication depends on how much he can earn. It can also use any marketing methods that are most effective in acquiring customers.

Low cost to the advertiser
Participation in the affiliate program requires advertisers to bear the costs. However, they are relatively low, taking into account the payment of commission only when, for example, there is a sale.

Attractive earnings for the publisher
In the case of affiliate programs settled on the basis of PPL or PPS, the publisher has a chance to earn well. Much, however, depends on his activities. The more thought-out the campaigns, the greater the chance for profit.

Affiliate marketing – where to start?

Are you a salesman and want to run affiliate marketing? You need to start by creating an affiliate program and then invite publishers, e.g. through an affiliate network. Are you the owner of an advertising space and want to start earning? Join selected partner programs to receive sales and lead generation commissions through properly conducted marketing activities.

Affiliate program – what is it?

The affiliate program is the alternative name for affiliate programs run as affiliate marketing. It can be described as internet marketing technique, which involves conducting activities not directly by the seller, but by independent marketers and publishers.

How does the affiliate program work?

The affiliate program is based on cooperation between the seller and partners. Its essence is the advertiser (seller) delegating marketing activities to partners. In return for the effects of their activities, they receive commissions.
It is worth emphasizing that the partners have virtually unlimited possibilities of action. They use available techniques and methods in any way – so that the developed strategy brings the expected results.

Participants of the affiliate program

Although the core of the affiliate program is the advertiser and publisher, there are more participants.

– Advertiser (seller) – informs about the promoted product and provides a specific creation.
– Affiliate network – provides the received creative to publishers.
– Publisher (partner) – places product information in the form of an affiliate link.
– User – clicks on the affiliate link and goes to the advertiser’s website and then purchases.

It is worth emphasizing that partner programs are also possible without the affiliate network. However, many advertisers choose to use it because:

– allows advertisers to establish relationships with publishers,
– manages tracking,
– manages payments.

Types of affiliate programs

Although the essence of how affiliate programs work is actually the same, there are different ways of billing between the advertiser and the publisher. That is why three main types of affiliate programs are distinguished.

Pay Per Lead (PPL)
Pay Per Lead should be understood as payment for a specific action that the user will perform after clicking on the affiliate link. It can be e.g. filling out a form, leaving contact details, subscribing to the newsletter, etc.

Pay Per Sale (PPS)
Pay Per Sale is a type of affiliate program that focuses on sales and purchases. This means that the publisher receives a commission from the advertiser when the user clicks on the affiliate link and makes a purchase. The remuneration is a percentage of the value of the subject of the transaction.

Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click is a type of affiliate program in which the settlement is based on clicks made by users. Payments are made regardless of the number of products sold. Due to this fact, there are few affiliate programs settling on such principles, because they often do not translate into sales effectiveness.

It is also worth emphasizing that there are two types of affiliate programs:

– one-level – the publisher receives remuneration only for its own activities,
– two levels – the publisher receives remuneration for its own activities and the activities of the team it created.

The important role of affiliate links

When talking about affiliate programs, mention should be made of affiliate links. It is thanks to them that the user gets to the advertiser’s website, and the publisher receives remuneration.

An affiliate link is a unique URL that redirects potential customers to the advertiser’s website. Thanks to this, we know what part of the sale comes from the affiliate program. The advantage of affiliate links are unlimited possibilities of use. It is a comprehensive tool that can be used regardless of the type of marketing activities. These types of links can be placed in multiple channels at once, e.g.

– blogs,
– YouTube channels
– mailings,
– social networks,
– discount websites,
– thematic websites,
– internet forums,
– search engines and product comparison websites.

Affiliate program – where to start?

If you are a salesman and want to achieve your goals, you must first create an affiliate program. The next step is to invite publishers to participate. Although you can create a publisher network yourself, it’s better to get started with affiliate network support. It provides all the technological facilities, tools for publishers, as well as tools that allow you to track statistics useful during campaign optimization.

If you’re a publisher, you can search for advertisers on your own or, as with sellers, join an affiliate network. Thanks to this, you will not only gain access to active partner programs, but also the certainty of proper settlement of sellers.

Affiliate programs – is it worth it?

Affiliate programs are a marketing technique that has mutual benefits – both from the advertiser’s and the publisher’s point of view.

Low advertising cost
The advertiser bears much lower advertising costs because the publisher is responsible for conducting marketing activities. Depending on the type of program selected, for example, the seller may only be billed for sales, thanks to which he ultimately bears a lower cost compared to independently conducted advertising activities – even if the sales commission is quite high.

Chance for an attractive salary
A publisher participating in partner programs has a chance to get a high salary. It is adequate to the efficiency of marketing activities, which motivates to intensively promote the product. It can use any tools – so as to ensure the highest possible conversion.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the efficiency channel, which is based on the cooperation of the advertiser (seller) with a partner (affiliate) who assumes the role of an intermediary in the transaction. Such a division brings mutual benefits:

– the seller enjoys a greater range of his products and more sales,
– the partner receives remuneration – it is calculated adequately to the actions.

This specificity means that affiliate marketing is not a direct marketing technique. It looks more like the employment model of independent marketers, who – motivated by a commission remuneration system – take actions to attract potential customers and get them to perform a specific action.

From marketer to user

The affiliate marketing model consists of four key elements:

– a partner who also acts as a marketer,
– advertiser (seller),
– user,
– affiliate network settling transactions.

The operating principle of this type of business model boils down to the following steps:

– the seller delivers a specific creation,
– the affiliate network provides such creation, e.g. in the form of a banner,
– the partner places a banner on his website,
– the user clicks on the banner,
– thus visiting the seller’s website.

How does it look in practice?

Suppose an entrepreneur wants to sell a guide book. To increase sales reach, he cooperates with, for example, the owner of a website whose subject matter corresponds to the subject of the book. There he puts a banner advertising the book. Each click on the banner is noted by the affiliate network. If the user decides to buy, the entrepreneur transfers the commission of the affiliate network, which takes its part, and transfers the rest to the partner.

The invaluable role of the partner network

The affiliate network plays an important role in affiliate marketing. Its task is to collect on its website partner programs that publishers (partners) can join. In short, it allows you to establish a relationship between the seller and the partner.

Although each side of the transaction is important, affiliate networks are trying to maintain very good relationships with publishers. They are responsible for acquiring users, thanks to which the network receives its part of the commission for sales.

When a partner joins the partner network, they get access to active affiliate programs. After acceptance by the seller, he will be able to start activities aimed at acquiring users.

Forms of remuneration in affiliate marketing

Depending on the assumed goal, cooperation under the partner program can be accounted for in different ways.

– Pay Per Sale (PPS) – is a commission on sales, which includes a specific part of the revenue from the purchase.
– Pay Per Lead (PPL) – is a set amount paid for each specific user action, e.g. filling out a form, leaving an email address.
– Pay Per Click (PPC) – is a specific amount paid for each click on the ad.

They are also types of affiliate programs, among which PPS and PPL are the most popular. Due to the high probability of fraud, PPC is rarely carried out.

Affiliate marketing – how to reach the user?

When talking about affiliate marketing, it’s worth considering how to reach the user. There is no one specific technique to “entice” customers – it all depends on the individual actions taken by the partner. He must work out the right strategy himself – so that he brings the best results.

Advertising banners

Although advertising banners already have their splendor behind them, they are still considered a good way to attract users. A visually attractive advertisement with an encouraging slogan can lead to a click, as a result of which the user will go to the seller’s website and decide to buy or take any other desired action.

Offer rankings

Users are happy to seek advice on the best products. Partners use this to create ranking websites, e.g. personal accounts, cosmetics, insurance, etc. Based on specific parameters, they create product combinations, which can then be purchased by clicking the appropriate link.

Mailings

Mailings are also one of the forms used in affiliate marketing, which works similarly to banners. Due to the fact that the message comes to the person’s mailbox, there is a greater likelihood of clicking and moving to the seller’s website.

Why is it worth betting on affiliate marketing?

The essence of affiliate marketing meant that this form of cooperation between the seller and the partner brings mutual benefits.

– The publisher receives a commission for reaching the user and encouraging him to perform a specific action.
– The seller sees increasing sales.

In addition, the advantage of partner programs is the opportunity to promote the offer or increase brand awareness at low costs and low risk.

From the publisher’s point of view, the advantage is actually full freedom in terms of actions taken. The effect counts, so acquiring users can be done not only through banners, but also other methods considered by the publisher as the most effective.