B2B Affiliate Marketing – What Is It & Does It Work?
The affiliate channel is traditionally associated with e-commerce, discount codes, and purchase-based initiatives. While these activities are undoubtedly a great way to drive sales in the B2C world, B2B affiliate marketing can be just as impactful when the right strategy and partnerships are in place.
From generating pre-qualified leads to increasing the visibility of your brand amongst niche audiences, a B2B affiliate marketing strategy holds significant potential. With this in mind, we’ve broken down how it works, where it thrives (and where it doesn’t) and what you might need to keep in mind if you’re considering trialling it for your business.
What Is B2B Affiliate Marketing?
Much like B2C affiliate marketing, B2B affiliate marketing is the process of forming partnerships to promote your product or service in exchange for commission. Where this approach differs from that targeted at consumers is that promotional efforts are focused on encouraging actions like form fills, subscriptions or demo requests, rather than a purchase or sale.
This form of affiliate marketing subsequently focuses on longer, more considered buyer journeys. The aim is to connect with decision makers within other businesses and guide them towards engaging with and interacting with your business, often via specialist channels that you cannot access without the help of your affiliates.
Examples Of B2B Affiliate Marketing
Picturing exactly how these kinds of partnerships might work for your business can be tricky, but it is key to understanding the unique opportunities that B2B affiliate marketing can offer you. Below, we have outlined just a few examples and the types of initiatives we have helped our clients execute in the past:
- Partnerships with LinkedIn influencers or specialist content creators who specialise in a particular industry and promote your tool or service through blogs, newsletters and videos.
- Selling your service to a business, and incentivising them to become advocates of your brand and tracking referrals they make to earn a commission.
- Putting your offering on traditional affiliate websites to showcase your business and open it up to a wider audience. This process can catch potential customers who are not necessarily looking for you but would need you at a later date.
- Getting a service or solution included in a review article that looks at the ‘top 10 providers’ or something similar.
Does B2B Affiliate Marketing Work?
The above list should demonstrate that there is a wide range of different B2B affiliate marketing activities and networks you can try and work with, and certainly something suitable for pretty much all industries and service types.
The next challenge, then, is determining whether these activities actually work and are worth any time and financial commitment you may give to them. The answer is that yes, B2B affiliate marketing does work, but it depends on how you approach it.
When It Might Not Be Worth It…
Before forming any kind of B2B affiliate partnership, you need to know that it won’t be a quick win. It is, in its very nature, a slow burn and can require lots of groundwork before any substantial ROI is achieved. This is because B2B purchasing decisions are typically more complex, involve input and sign-off from multiple people, and take longer to process through the sales funnel compared to straightforward consumer purchases.
When working in the B2B space, it’s also absolutely crucial that your affiliates are aligned with your expertise and understand exactly what you are offering. This means that B2B affiliate marketing demands careful vetting of possible partners, and if you’re not able to commit to this in one way or another, you probably shouldn’t take the risk. The last thing you want is your affiliate creating content that misrepresents your capabilities and damages your brand image.
When It’s Definitely Worth Exploring…
That said, when the right strategy is in place and the right partners are involved, B2B affiliate marketing can be a great growth channel. If your product or service has a considered buying journey made by specific decision makers, affiliates can scale your lead generation without a huge increase in marketing spend.
B2B affiliate partnerships are especially worth considering if your business benefits from validation from third-party content like reviews and recommendations. These types of endorsements can build trust amongst niche and specialist audiences in a way that traditional advertising methods simply cannot. You just need to be mindful of the need to be patient, build the right relationships and allow some time for results to come in.
Get Your Affiliate Strategy Right With Fuel
At Fuel, our affiliate marketing experts understand the opportunities and limitations of partnerships within the B2B space and have years of experience forming meaningful relationships that deliver real results.
If you think B2B affiliate marketing could be a good fit for your business, we’re more than happy to talk you through your options and work with you to deploy the tactics that will actually work in your industry or sector. We’re also not afraid to tell you if we think your efforts are better spent elsewhere, and won’t waste your time with tricky affiliates or poor quality partnerships.
To find out more about B2B affiliate marketing and how we can help you make it work for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us or email me directly at seve@fuel-growth.com.
