Optimize Your Partner Program Ahead of the Shopping Season

Leveraging Affiliates to Maximize Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM) Revenue

Waiting for hours outside in the cold, with the heat of excitement and anticipation keeping you warm. Lines of people that seem to go on forever.

This is the annual event that many people look forward to all year; to tackle not only their holiday shopping and get some great deals, but also for the thrill of the hunt.

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) used to be a solely brick-and-mortar event, the rise of the ecommerce age has brought this popular shopping experience into the digital world, quickly making it the biggest shopping season, especially for DTC brands.

This means that now you can start to use strategic partnerships with affiliates to bolster the impact of your BFCM marketing campaigns. How can affiliates help you meet and exceed your BFCM sales goals? Squaredance is here to show you how.

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Over the next few weeks, we’ll show you how to build an affiliate program on Squaredance in just 40 days that will 10x your sales volume. 

To kick things off with a bang, we're giving you a taste of what's to come with two very valuable resources: 

1) A highlights document to get you familiar with the concepts we’ll be covering in the next few weeks. Learn best practices and start thinking about how you can implement them. 

2) A checklist with a mini workback schedule for you to reference so you can get organized and avoid any BFCM surprises or setbacks.

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In the next part of our series, we’ll provide you with a playbook on how to build an irresistible offer. Here’s what you have to look forward to: 

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Bookmark this page to easily follow along the rest of our series.

• Creating your offer strategy
• Asset Development: Ads, Presells, LPs, and More
• Go To Market: Promo Packages for Affiliates
• How to Launch on Squaredance
• Build your Affiliate Roster

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Why is BFCM so Important for Businesses?

Not only is the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend the biggest shopping weekend of the year in North America for DTC brands, but this event represents a substantial portion of the holiday shopping for consumers prior to the end of the calendar year.

This means that if you aren’t actively promoting BFCM campaigns, and your competitors are, you’re missing out on a huge market opportunity. Even more so, now BFCM has turned into a weeklong sales event, rather than the traditional four days.

However, you need to be aware that discount fatigue is a very real thing. Your BFCM ads need to stand out, and you’ll want to get them in front of your customers ahead of your competitors.

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The Benefits of Using Affiliate Partners to Promote BFCM Campaigns

What’s one of the biggest things that can impact the success (or failure) of any marketing campaign? Exposure.

When you use affiliate partners to promote your BFCM campaigns, you get access to the networks they’ve already established across all their marketing channels. Start partnering with different affiliates in different channels, and you can increase the awareness of your BFCM campaign exponentially in a short time.

Time is of the essence for such a busy event, such as BFCM, so getting started early is crucial.

You can outsource your paid media buying, which means you can reduce the strain on your internal resources; as well as guarantee your Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), in a time of the year with fluctuating and higher than average media-buying costs.

Plus, depending on the type of affiliate partner you’re using, they may be able to create their own assets to assist with promoting your campaigns and taking your ideas further. 

We’d suggest creating custom affiliate offers, as well as provide keyword do’s and don’ts for partners, so that you don’t cannibalize your own marketing efforts. You should also consider bundling products together, or offering bonuses with purchases, so you can increase consumers’ perceived value.

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Getting the Attention of Your Ideal Affiliates

Now that you understand the benefits, you need affiliates to get started. An easy way to get the attention of the best affiliates is to offer higher payouts, or even potentially provide bonuses for top-performing partners.

Giving affiliates offer-specific landing pages that they can use to direct traffic is another great way to build interest in your offer. Experienced affiliates understand how useful a well-designed, intentional landing page can be when it comes to drawing conversions.

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Finally, it’s always a good idea to have the highest creative asset quality possible. It’s easier to get ad or partner link clicks, when the assets attached to them are engaging and visually appealing.

TIP: You can help reduce ad fatigue for your campaigns by providing affiliates with a variety of BFCM ads, or raw assets that they can use to build their own unique ads, without compromising your branding.

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Accessing the Tools You Need to Get Started

Now that you know why and how to reach the right partners for your BFCM campaigns, Squaredance has all the tools you need to get started.

If you haven’t started building your campaign yet, our workback checklist will give you actionable tasks you can do to prepare in the weeks leading up to BFCM.

We also have a template for quickly and painlessly building your ideal BFCM campaign, so you can start prepping immediately. After all, your competitors probably already are.

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