Affiliate marketing automation tools are becoming increasingly popular, but has it always been that way? In the old days of business, you had only one way to communicate with your customers: You could reach out to them when they happened to be in your store. Today, in the modern era, there are few restrictions on how, when, and where you communicate with prospects, leads, and loyal customers. You meet them in their inbox, on social media, at any time of day or night, and around the globe.

The secret to this kind of dedication is, of course, automated affiliate marketing tools. These tools will work around the clock while you’re sleeping, but your customer is awake and wants attention or a solution.

In addition to being very useful, these automation tools can also scale up your business. 

As a regular person, you could be overwhelmed by talking to thousands of customers. Automated tools, however, easily monitor each interaction. Therefore the real advantage of automated consumer interaction is how it works without any oversight from you as you set things in motion. It’s a lovely thing to get credit for customer loyalty without having to raise a finger.

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Bearing that in mind, here are 6 automated tools that you can use to keep in contact with every lead, customer, and follower:

1. Affiliate Marketing Software

Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy in which a business pays a commission to individuals or other companies to promote and sell its products or services. Most affiliate marketing programs pay commission based on the number of sales. However, some programs are similar to advertising campaigns in which third-party affiliate marketers are commissioned to generate leads.

Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools

Read our full post – Why you need an automated referral marketing software?

Manually running an affiliate marketing program is a costly task. Businesses need to handle several processes, such as tracking sales conversions, tracking leads, and managing commissions. Affiliate software helps organizations run such programs by automatically tracking each third-party affiliate marketer’s referrals, endorsements, and affiliate commissions.

There is a wide range of affiliate marketing software options available on the market, and it is important to choose the one that best meets your needs and budget. This guide will help you understand the different factors you need to consider when selecting affiliate software.

Affiliate tracking software is designed to track the referral, endorsement, or recommendation made by one individual or company to purchase goods or services from another person or company. Tracking is important to monitor and reward or pay participants in an affiliate marketing group of participants or affiliate networks. The original idea is based on Affiliate Marketing. Participants who consent to be promoted or promoted are referred to as “affiliates.” 

Those who sell and recommend are called “marketers,” and those who have the advertised goods or services are called “advertisers.”

The affiliate monitoring program may be self-hosted or run in a cloud. However, trackers monitor page views and clicks of promotional content (banners, clicks, etc.) while also documenting conversions, i.e., events that are considered important by marketers.

switch to affiliate software that allows you to automate tasks and make data-driven decisions

Several online companies set up affiliate networks to operate affiliates that market their goods and services. Affiliate networks are mid-cap firms that handle both marketers and advertisers, acting as brokers.

The center of the affiliate marketing software is the control of the various aspects of the action, which are generally classified into eight types:

  1. CPC (Cost per click)
  2. CPA (Cost per acquisition)
  3. CPM (Cost per impression)
  4. CPS (Cost per sale)
  5. CPI (Cost per install)
  6. CPL (Cost Per Lead)
  7. CPV (Cost Per Visitor)
  8. CPO (Cost Per Order)

Source Wikipedia.

2. Customer Support through Chatbots

If a customer comes to your website and has a question about your product or service, how do you direct them? What’s about the complaints and concerns? Many sites have a FAQ section, while others allow customers to send them a message that they will get an answer to—at some point.

Read our full guide on chatbots.

Instead, several businesses are turning to answer customer requests for chatbots. These AI-and machine learning-powered bots can do one of two things, if not both:

affiliate marketing automation - chatbots

Answer queries to customers without ever involving a human being. (According to Intercom, the Business Messaging Network Service, their Response Bot answers almost a third of all questions before they forward it to human.)

Give customers a peace of mind that the system has logged their message and that someone will be coming back to them shortly.

These chatbots are waiting in the wings for customers to visit the platform, and they can be proactive in obtaining leads as well as the lead background (i.e., Who are you? What are you searching for? How can we help?).

They can also offer an on-brand customer service experience without needing you to have a customer service agent on-call at all times.

3. Customer-based schedules for scheduling appointments

Businesses can also participate and catch future customers’ business with online appointment solutions at any time. If you only allow customers to book an appointment with you during business hours and/or by phone, you risk losing their business if they fail to follow up with you.

Customer-based schedules for scheduling appointments - Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools

Then why are you waiting? Get the appointment schedule app. It allows customers to book, schedule, and even cancel/delay appointments through your site or social media outlets. This tool can revolutionize and automate your business at the same time, almost completely taking away human work from the equation.

Not only does a system like this prevent you from booking twice or unintentionally scheduling during a holiday, but it gives clients peace of mind that their favorite lounge or restaurant, or whatever kind of business you run, can meet their needs anytime they feel the urge to book.

4. Automated e-mail or SMS marketing campaigns

Okay, you’ve got someone to sign up for your e-mail newsletter or send you their contact details in return for access to a white paper or other marketing materials. What now?

Read our post on M-commerce: Optimize Your Online Business For Mobile

Perfect affiliate marketing automation tools can be hard to find, but email automation is all over the place. You could e-mail each person individually, thank them for signing up, and from then on writing a newsletter or other messaging campaign, tweaking it to what you feel is the reason for each person to get in contact with you. 

It sounds sort of exhausting, though.

Most customer relationship management software systems and/or e-mail marketing platforms enable you to create and scale e-mail and text marketing campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools

Your marketing strategies seek to pass every lead you catch through your funnel before they make a purchase—and then follow up with them to make sure they return to your company and make more transactions. Automated marketing software sends automatic messages that move your customers from stage to stage.

You can give consumers the impression that you are engaging them directly by setting up welcome e-mails, quotes or forecasts, and/or openings to visit your site to “drip” through their phones—even if your automated campaign is really only pushing them through a series that was programmed months in advance.

5. Social listening tools & brand tracking platforms

Engaging with consumers on social media is at the heart of the business, getting a presence on social media in the first place. However, too many company owners use social media as they do for their personal profiles, browse through references and answers, and throw away their reactions when they have the time.

Social listening tools & brand tracking platforms - Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools
Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools – social media

Nowadays, a wide range of social listening and brand tracking tools exist to help you recognize, gather, and craft responses to social media references. You can also set up reminders to let you know when a user talks about your brand without marking it. This allows you to leap into a conversation and answer a concern or highlight a compliment that you would have overlooked otherwise.

6. Helpful billing and payment reminders

Few manual activities are more cumbersome than reaching the customers over and over for payment. Fortunately, Scaleo‘s affiliate invoice automation will come into play when the time comes to get paid.

how to make money from a blog  -Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools

Cash flow control is a critical concern for small companies, as a significant part of what holds income is not being charged on time. Many company owners have access to invoice funding. Others sell those invoices to a third party in order to get away from the enforcement of unpaid payments.

You can use the invoicing program to build and automate invoices, send automated payment updates and reminders as soon as you finish the job. These solutions keep you connected with customers while eliminating the tension that could arise from e-mailing them directly. Invoicing and payment correspondence should be professional, not burdensome.

Affiliate Marketing Automation Tools – Conclusion

As the business expands and flourishes, it becomes more difficult to connect with consumers on a one-to-one basis. But consumers do not mind – and should not care. They deserve to be treated with the same dignity and care they would if they came into your store today. That’s why automated tools that address their concerns, allow them to book your services, engage with them through multiple channels, and keep things friendly (even when money is involved) are the answer to this conundrum.

Last Updated on January 17, 2024

Author

Elizabeth is a Senior Content Manager at Scaleo. Currently enjoying the life in Prague and sharing professional affiliate marketing tips. She's been in the online marketing business since 2006 and gladly shares all her insights and ideas on this blog.