What are the various B2B affiliate programs?
For clarity, we break down funnels into three basic categories: low-intent brand builders, lead generators, and high-intent closers. These three typically have very different partners, KPIs, payouts, and assets, and they execute in completely different ways from each other. However, depending on your brand's strategy, it can blur across category lines.
Brand Builder targets a broad audience who are interested in industry-related content but have not yet considered a specific product.
- publication: While not all major media sites actively engage in performance models, many are part of affiliate networks and open to tracking, so your leads and sales are tracked well. We also have affiliate partners who buy leftover advertising space on large media sites and essentially resell that real estate.
- Content syndication partners: You may also be part of a lead generation team, typically driven by downloadable content or webinar attendance, which drives conversions directly on our partners' sites, greatly improving the user experience.
- Influencer: With the shift towards consumerization, nothing is more evident than the eagerness of B2B brands to collaborate with influencers. Influencers quickly stormed onto the consumer scene, but it's been a long process for B2B brands to figure out how to get positive ROI from influencers.
Lead generators target more focused users who are not always in the decision-making or purchasing stage, but are relevant to your product and its specific users.
- Blogger: Bloggers are influencers who primarily use blogs to build a following around a particular topic. Affiliate bloggers are great for niche or highly targeted topics, especially if the content matches the reader's current stage in the buyer lifecycle.
- Social community: Social groups like Linkedin, Facebook, or specific industry portals and communities can be powerful partners for B2B brands. Constrained and closed communities are effective when they provide value to the ongoing conversation.
- Comparison site: Comparison sites sit further down the funnel, somewhere between lead generators and closers. B2B demand generation or marketing teams prioritize these websites because they typically yield high-quality leads. However, these responsibilities often lie with affiliates who have the ability to effectively track, manage, and indemnify these vendors.
