The affiliate marketing customer journey is the journey for a customer from their first “touch point” of marketing to the end product; from an affiliate’s perspective. Before making a purchase, a customer will often look for a particular piece of information. A review, for example, is something someone might look for if they intend to make a purchase. The “customer journey” leads the prospective buyer from the review directly to the sales page of the product they want. This, as an example would be a pretty short customer journey: A Google search (for a product review), they find the review article, this leads them to the product, they make the purchase.

However, it often will take multiple points of interaction before someone actually buys something (from an affiliate). See also how many touch points before a sale. Research shows that it will often take between 6 and 8 touch points before a purchase is made. These points of interaction are what affiliate marketers use to help customers make a buying decision. If a customer journey isn’t smooth and congruent, there’s much more chance of a potential customer going elsewhere. But if your marketing structure leads customers on a congruent path, they are more likely to remain on that path. This is particularly true if your marketing messages are aligned with the customer’s needs, and leads them to a product/service which is useful to them.

Affiliate Marketing Customer Journey: The Customer’s Needs

To help affiliates align their marketing messages with the needs of their potential customers, they need to understand their customers! In particular, they need to understand that sub-section of the online marketplace who will value and invest in their products. The “perfect customer” is one who will buy from you again and again and become a life-long supporter of your products. Getting clear on who your products serve is a good way to define your perfect customer avatar, and ultimately define your target audience for affiliate marketing.

These are just a few things you should get to know about your customer avatar:

• How old they are
• Where they live
• Where they hand out online
• What kind of information they look for

The more you know about your customer avatar, the better you can find them online and communicate your message to them in a language they can relate to and understand. See customer avatar worksheet pdf for more on learning about your perfect customer. Once you have carefully defined your customer avatar, you can create content or run ads which will speak directly to them, based on their needs, pains and/or desires. This will ultimately be the first contact point where your marketing efforts find prospective customers.

Affiliate Marketing Customer Journey: Flow

The “flow” from one piece of marketing to another is pretty important on the customer journey. For example, if you saw a YouTube advert and decided to click through to learn more about the offer, you would expect similar messaging on the landing page you were sent to. Even a small deviation from the theme of the original advert might put a customer off taking further action. Here’s an example on one of my YouTube videos which leads visitors to a similar looking landing page.

The landing page below confirms the message of the video the visitor has just been watching. If the landing page wasn’t congruent with the earlier video/marketing message there’s a large chance that someone might think there was an error and click away. Or they might click away because the next step involves them handing over some information – their email and name!

To create flow in your marketing messages from one platform to another, it’s important to understand the needs of the customer and the most important details in the previous message. If the next webpage, or landing page, or video doesn’t connect the customer with the previous message, they are likely to click away, and be gone forever! A good customer journey is congruent all the way through.

Affiliate Marketing Customer Journey: Email Marketing

Keeping in mind that many customers will require between 6 and 8 touch points before they make a purchase, each interaction in your marketing strategy should carry on the theme from the last, to keep engaging with your audience and meet their needs. Many affiliates will use email marketing and retargeting to maintain this connection through their marketing strategies.

An email marketing follow up series is particularly useful to build trust and deliver value to your potential customers. It gives the affiliate the potential of connecting with their audience multiple times over a longer period of time. You simply could not you could achieve this just from a website.

Likewise with retargeting. With retargeting you are putting advertising messages in front of people who have already interacted with your marketing somewhere before. You can also choose to show advertising according to the actions they have taken previously on a website, for example. So for example, if someone nearly bought something from your website, and left the cart before paying, you can choose a congruent advert to relay that message to them and remind them of their purchase!

Retargeting is very effective for affiliates because you are placing advertising messages in front of people who are warm or hot buyers. They have already taken some action on your website or your marketing materials. So they are more likely than most general website traffic to want your products/service.

Summary

The affiliate marketing customer journey is an important thing for affiliates to understand. If you attract the wrong audience, you will struggle to sell anything as an affiliate. You can also break rapport with potential customers by sending out disconnected messages, which disrupts the smooth journey you ideally want to create for them.

Ultimately the affiliate marketing customer journey should be one which leads people to products they actually want and value, and that you actually want and value too! So if you don’t believe in the products yourself, there’s already a disconnect in your authenticity. This will likely show up in your marketing messages too!

With the right products and once you have learned about your perfect customer avatar, you are definitely a lot further along than many other affiliates. To access a free video series and learn more about affiliate marketing click here.