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30 Best Live Chat Software of 2020(Reviewed)

By 2 Comments

If you want to provide excellent service to your visitors, you have to answer their queries quickly.

To do so, you have to give your visitors a facility of live chat.

In most of the surveys, it was found that people prefer websites having live chat facility.

In fact, Live chat accounts for a massive customer satisfaction rate at 92%.

If you are a beginner at blogging and don’t have a passive income, you can start with free versions. Almost all live chat software offers a free version but with some limitations.

If you have made your mind for implementing live chat service on your website, here is a list of 7 software that provides you the best features at the best price.

Now let’s get started.

1. HubSpot Live Chat

Best-Live-Chat-Software-HubSpot

Hubspot provides a live chat tool fully integrated with a chatbot builder that you can start using for free without any coding experience.

Quickly customize your chatbox according to your site’s look. If you are not comfortable designing the chatbox on your own, choose any one design from their library.

Not only this create targeted welcome messages for your website.

It becomes difficult for bloggers to reply to every visitor. To solve this problem, segment your audience so that you connect with those who matter.

All your conversations get saved in a universal inbox server. Their chatbot reply repeated questions on its own from the conversations inbox.

Build mobile optimized forms, banners, pop-ups to convert visitors into leads.

Run Facebook and Instagram ads to capture contact information and sync it with your HubSpot account.

Key Features.

  • A chatBot is available, chats with your customers when you are unavailable.
  • No coding required
  • All your chats get stored in the conversation inbox.
  • Use HubSpot’s free Slack integration to get chat notifications and respond directly via Slack, or carry out conversations using the HubSpot mobile app.

Pricing.

It’s free of cost.

try hubspot

2. LiveAgent

Best-Live-Chat-Software-LiveAgent

LiveAgent is a live chat software that connects you with your customers using real-time chat, voice calls, emails, social media platforms, etc.

Now, you can learn about their software’s new features and help desk from specialists. They conduct webinars in which you can learn to use the multi-channel help desk efficiently.

Also, you can form and customize your own contact group according to your need.

Their software saves your time by using some features like automated ticket distribution, hybrid ticket stream, time-tracking, and even service level agreement. Not only this, but you can also make the department responsible for ticket distribution and service representative.

The software provides business solutions using a multi-channel communicating platform. It has integration with apps like Facebook, Twitter, Google Analytics, Go Daddy, and much more.

It uses canned and predefined templates to help reply faster and drive full customer satisfaction.

Key features 

  • Ticketing: Contains data about the customer. The status of ticket is highlighted as new, closed, answered, open and postpone depending on the status of query.
  • Unlimited calls: Make and record as much calls as possible. No additional call recorder software is required. Recording is done for future records and safety.
  • Video chat: Allows you to communicate with colleagues as well as customers.
  • Real time chat: Connect and chat with customers in real time to increase conversion rates.
  • Facebook: Track the posts and respond to all of them via private messages and comments.
  • Twitter: Keep a check on tweets and mentions of your brand. Respond accordingly.
  • Interactive voice response: Directs customers towards expected department or agent to resolve the issue.

Pros 

  • Eases the process of communication and barres multiple agents to work on a single ticket.
  • Increased profits and 100% customer satisfaction.
  • The contact groups are easily customized according to customer requirements.
  • It can merge multiple tickets that display the same issues.
  • Pre-defined solutions to queries can be created and tickets can be exported in HTML and PDF formats.

Pricing

  • Free account with limited features: $0/agent/mo
  • Full-sized ticketing solution: $15/agent/mo
  • Ticket + Chat: $29/agent/mo
  • All-inclusive: $39/agent/mo
try liveagent

3. Intercom

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Intercom

Intercom is a live chat platform that helps you acquire, engage, and support customers. Use live chats and bots to qualify and convert leads quickly.

The software provides personalized customer care and prioritizes urgent queries automatically. Also, with Intercom, you can conduct professional webinars for your visitors.

Plus, the resolution bot reduces the frequency of repetitive queries by 33%. The tools like Outbound messages, inform customers about scheduled outages.

You can build whatever you need using flexible APIs and webhooks. The software intends to convert maximum website landers into customers by re-engaging them through product tours and email campaigns. The sales and marketing are enhanced through real-time conversation, and website conversion is increased using chatbots. 

Key features:

  • Business messenger: It lets you chat in real time and converse across platforms with customers. The outbound messages get delivered on your website.
  • Product tours: The interactive guides help users to know more about the product. The products are introduced in a manner that it helps customers to take an action.
  • Live chat: Engaging with customers through personalized chats enhances sales and boosts productivity. Modern live chats and customization according to devices aid in driving more revenue.
  • Help center articles: It helps to create multilingual engaging articles to resolve queries raised by customers. Interactive guides can be created using images and videos.

Pros:

  • Customizable bots present pre-planned questions and take the conversation further. Thus, saves time and energy of team
  • Multi-platform tracking of customers to target them.
  • Grouping of customers into live segments based on their attributes.
  • Automated carousel messages to initiate the conversation.
  • Account based approach to enhance trial conversations and customer onboarding.

Pricing

The following packages are available:

  • Essential – $87/mo
  • Pro – $153/mo
  • Premium – Custom pricing
try intercom

4. Uselike

Best-Live-Chat-Software-UserLike

Userlike is a live chat platform that helps in business growth using chatbots, website chat, WhatsApp, and more.

Their website messenger makes the transfer of media files smooth. Also, their application supports voice messaging features and long-term conversations.

The Message Centre is the hub of all customer queries. The messaged will automatically land here. All the customer service chats are carried out here only. Canned messages and auto-translations make the process of communicating easier. It offers full data security and privacy to the customers.

Userlike provides multi-channel support to its customers and can even organize a counseling session with an experienced service team. Apart from this, assistance through phone calls is always possible.

Key features

  • Operator groups: It allows customers to select the department that can solve their query quickly and prevents users from waiting.
  • All-inclusive button integration: This feature acts as a subtle support reminder and prevents users from finding contact options.
  • Proactive chat: The team tries to connect with website visitors proactively. The customers can clear their doubts using this feature.
  • CRM Integration: The chats can be transferred to a CRM tool to get a follow up on valuable leads.
  • Registration form: Getting customers to fill up a registration form prior to a chat session helps in getting the primary details about the customer.

Pros

  • On-page guidance helps customers to reach their specific targets.
  • The success rate of chat service can be tracked when customers start reaching specified URLs.
  • Set up the number of chat slots to communicate with multiple customers at a time.
  • Chat analytics displays quality improvement.
  • Widget routers can be used to optimize the chat system.

Pricing

Following plans are available:

  • Free – $0/month with 1 operator and 1 widget
  • Team – $29/month with 3 operators, 3 widgets and 1 channel
  • Corporate – $99/month with 5 operators, 5 widgets and 3 channels
  • Business – $299/month with 10 operators, 10 widgets and 5 channels
  • Flex – It provides unlimited operators, widgets and channels
try userlike

5. PureChat

Best-Live-Chat-Software-PureChat

Purechat is a live chat software that allows you to add live chats to your website. It has a powerful dashboard and a customizable widget. It provides you unlimited chats and increase engagement with your customers. You will be required to use the snippet of code after signing up on Purechat to install it on your website. Once this is done, you can continue your chatting by customizing the chat widget.

There are also Purechat iOS and Android apps for interacting with users on mobile. The software offers transparency and adds value to your website by turning visitors into customers. It provides 30-day money back guarantee if you does not feel like using it.

You can connect Purechat with the applications of your choice like Google Analytics, HubSpot, Zapier and Infusionsoft. 

Key features

  • Integrations – This feature lets you boost your sales and marketing skills by connecting the software with your favorite apps.
  • Visitor analytics – This feature helps in keeping a track of traffic trends and marketing campaigns. It can be used for further improvements.
  • Contact history – It prevents the customer from repeating himself. You can easily check what issues were reported before and whether they have been resolved or not.
  • Canned messages – These messages save the time of agents. These are a set of pre-planned answers to some general queries of customers.
  • Easy file transfer – It helps in smooth transfer of files in the chat box.

Pros 

  • Realtime analytics help in growth of business.
  • Trigger based chats and visitor alerts result in enhanced sales.
  • SMS and chat notifications make you stay alert every time and respond to customer queries.
  • It can save unlimited chat history transcripts to keep a record.

Pricing

The plans are as follows:

  • Growth – The price to be paid is $39/mo. Operators need to pay additional $13/mo. In this plan, 4 operators, 1 max website and 100 SMS notifications are included.
  • Pro – The price to be paid is $79/mo. Additional users need to pay $8/mo. In this plan, unlimited max websites, 10 operators and 1000 SMS notifications are included.
try purechat

6. Drift

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Drift3

Drift claims that sites using their service have increased website chat engagement by 300%, Cut their response time by 4500%, and increased live chat leads volume by 625%.

Key features.

  • Customize bots according to your needs so that you can provide the best services to your visitors.
  • You can route chat leads to the right person.
  • Send InMail via Linkedin Sales Navigator
  • You can easily switch to a call from a live chat with just a click of a button.
  • Block IP of any user of your choice
  • 24/7 technical support

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Essential: $400/month billed annually & $40/mo
  • Premium: $1,500/month billed annually & $80/mo
  • Custom
try drift

7. LiveHelpNow

LiveHelpNow

This software provides you some features that others lack, such as it automatically translates any language in your preferred language in real-time.

LiveHelpNow focuses more on your and your visitor’s privacy. Due to this, it is trusted by the US navy, US Army, US costal guard, barracuda networks, and many other trusted sources for whom privacy matters the most if these can trust LiveHelpNow than you can blindfold trust them on your privacy.

Key features.

  • See every footstep of your visitors in real-time.
  • You can gather information about your customers, which will help you with additional marketing.
  • Shows promotional messages or banners to your visitors while they are chatting with any sales representative.
  • Now you can chat with your customers through SMS
  • You can easily transfer the chat to any other department or another agent.
  • Not only chatting, but you can also contact your visitors through voice calls or video calls.

Pricing.

The pricing starts from $9/mo/agent up to $21/mo/agent.

try livehelpnow

8. Olark

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Olark

Olark helps you to design your sales and support team with the help of a powerful context prepared after collecting information from your visitors. It receives feedback; not only this it asks for everything such as name, email, problem, etc., before the chat starts to save your time. It directs the users to the most favorable sales representative.

Key features.

  • Design your chat box according to your site
  • They save your time by the auto replying for some repeated questions
  • They provide you with all the stats such as customer satisfaction, support representative’s activity and many more
  • You can design the chatbox form according to your needs and choice
  • If you have a larger team than Olark helps you to distribute the work between them and monitor their performance

Pricing.

Their prices vary with the time period for which you take their service.

  • Monthly: $19/mo/agent
  • Yearly: $15/mo/agent
  • 2 Year: $12/mo/agent
try olark

9. Chatra

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Chatra

Now you can manage all your messages from one place with the help of Chatra. Connect with all your social media handles and reply to your inbox for any social media platform from one place.

Key features.

  • Chatra helps you boost your sales
  • Use ChatBots to reply to some of the repeated questions
  • From Chatra’s mobile app you can reply to your customers from any place and any time
  • They have uploaded 10s of books and guides to help your make your customer happy and boost your sales
  • SSL Encryption is also provided
  • Integrate with Slack
  • You can share your screen with your visitors or customers

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Pro: $15/mo/agent
try chtra

10. SnapEngage

Best-Live-Chat-Software-SnapEngage

SnapEngage gives you an exceptional experience with many integrations and bots. Using their conversation platform, your sales team will efficiently interact with your customers and can sell more and more products.

Key features.

  • SnapEngage virtually trains your sales team
  • Design the chatbox of your choice
  • 24/7 Customer Support
  • End to End Encryption
  • Connect with Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, SMS from one place
  • Info capture bot is also available

Pricing.

  • Essentials: $16/mo
  • Professional: $26/mo
try sanpengage

11. Chaport

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Chaport

Chaport makes your chatting experience very easy, and you will feel as if you are chatting with your friends. They send automatic chat invitations to get more and more customers.

Key features.

  • Chaport lets you contact with your customers through live chat, Telegram, Facebook and Viber at one place
  • Auto invite your customers through chat invitation
  • Transfer chat with colleagues
  • From their mobile apps talk to your customers from anywhere at anytime
  • Connect Chatport with 2000+ apps
  • Read visitors message even before they are sent so that you can reply to them as fast as possible

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Pro: $9.80/mo/operator
try chaport

12. Zohodesk

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Zoho-Desk

Zoho gives you and your agents some of the best tools that will help you to help your customers. they automate some of the frequent tasks that save a lot of time.

Key features.

  • You can connect with your customers on any channel, and they give you multichannel support
  • Design the help desk by your choice
  • You can communicate through a live phone call as well
  • Using artificial intelligence, they have created a character Zia that gives your customers relevant solutions to their problem
  • You can train Zia according to your needs

Pricing.

Plans starts from $18/mo/agent.

try zoho

13. Acquire

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Aquire

With 50+ integrations, you will be able to communicate with your visitors on any platform out there except few. Manage all your chats from one timeline, whether it be on any platform.

Key features.

  • Contact with your customers through live video call, SMS, voice call
  • Screen share feature is also available
  • Communicate through email as well
  • Chat-bots answers repeated question on its own, which helps you save your time
  • Improve your service with different stats

Pricing.

Pricing starts from $40/mo/agent.

try acquire

14. Smartsupp

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Smartsupp

Smartsupp claims that they convert every 4th visitor on your site into a customer. Not only this, but they also claim that they increase visitor engagement by three times.

Key features.

  • Communicate with all your visitors in one place
  • Customize your chatbox according to your choice
  • Get an overview of your customers using their well-designed dashboard
  • Chat with customers on the go using their mobile app available o both android and ios
  • Out of the box integration also available

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Standard: $10/mo for 3 agents
  • Pro: $19/mo/operator
try smartsupp

15. Jivochat

Best-Live-Chat-Software-JivoChat

Jivochat allows you to chat with your visitors from one place. Your visitors can contact you from any platform such as Facebook, Twitter, and many more.

Key features.

  • There are 100s of chatbox templates, and you can choose any one of them for your website.
  • Live chat feature works on every device, whether it be ios, android, macOS, or Windows.
  • The translation feature is also available if your customer doesn’t know your language, then he can write in his language, and Jivochat will automatically translate it to your language.
  • When your visitors are about to leave your website, Jivochat will send them a proactive invitation.
  • These days more and more customers come from the mobile phone, to give them the best experience your chat should be optimized for mobile phones. Jivochat optimizes your live chat for mobile phones so that all the mobile phone users don’t face any problem

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Professional Version: $13/mo/agent
try jivochat

16. Bold360

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Bold360

By Bold360’s AI Chatbot give your customers the best support possible. In most of the surveys, it was found that people prefer sites that provide faster live chats, by the help of Bold360 you can sell more and more products.

Key features.

  • Zendesk Integration is available.
  • Google analytic is also connected with Bold 360 so that you see all the stats.
  • Chat with your customers with any platform, whether it be Email, SMS, Text Messaging, WeChat, and many more.
  • Get their app for mobile phones do that you can reply to your customers anytime, anywhere.
  • AI chatbots reply to your customers when you are not available any reply to some repeated questions.
  • They suggest your articles to your customers.
  • Chrome browser extension also available

Pricing.

Pricing is not provided.

try bold360

17. Velaro

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Velaro

Velaro helps you improve your service every time you chat with your customers better than the last time. They provide you with different stats with the help you grow.

Key features.

  • Integration with almost all social media networks
  • You can give different roles to different agents
  • Agents survey is also taken from the customers to provide them with better support
  • Track your visitors in real-time
  • Google translate is also available so that you can contact with any person around the world without facing any language barrier

Pricing.

  • Small Business: $64.95/mo
  • Professional: $179.95/mo
try velaro

18. Kayako

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Kayako

Kayako is a cloud-based platform that helps you live chat with your customers with various social media handles and your website.

Kayako’s help desk is different from any other software; it gives you a complete picture of the customer’s journeys so that you can easily guide him.

Key features.

  • Multichannel support is given, connect on up to 20 multi-channels
  • Make of team of up to 15 members
  • You will get to know your customer’s journey which will help you to sell your product
  • Kayako offers over 30 languages so that you will never face any language barrier
  • Google analytics support is also available

Pricing.

  • Inbox: $15/mo
  • Growth: $30/mo
  • Scale: $60/mo
try kayako

19. Tidio

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Tidio

Tidio provides many features even in their free plan, which other software lack. They provide an element of up to 3 chat operators, which is not given even in paid plans by other software.

Even we are using Tidio for a very long time, and in all these years, we have never faced any problem. Their mobile application and dashboard are straightforward to use and make our work easier.

Key features.

  • They provide some of the best chatbox design templates so that your chatbox looks very attractive.
  • You can see live typing of your customer so that you can reply to them faster.
  • Apps for both mobile and desktop are available
  • Zapier Integration

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Chatbots: $18/mo
  • Communicator: $18/mo
  • Email Marketing: $10/mo
try tidio

20. Nextiva

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Nextiva

Nextiva helps you monitor all the chats with reports. They prepare reports after analyzing your website’s visitors, agent’s performance, and review transcripts.

Key features.

  • Their algorithm never make your customer repeat their queries
  • All the chats are saved
  • Your team can internally chat with each other which increases the quality of support and efficiency
  • You can set the time for live chat option
  • Screen sharing option also available
  • 24X7 technical support available

Pricing.

  • Essential: $19.95/mo/user
  • Professional: $20.95/mo/user
  • Enterprise: $27.95/mo/user
try nextiva

21. ClickDesk

Best-Live-Chat-Software-ClickDesk

ClickDesk provides one of the best helpdesk software out there; you can manage all the things from one place. Integrate with all Social Media platforms to attract more and more customers.

Key features.

  • Transfer the chats between your team
  • 99.5% uptime guarantee
  • SSL Security
  • Reports and history are provided by them
  • Queuing

Pricing.

  • Free(Many Limitations)
  • Lite: $14.99/mo
  • Pro: $24.99/mo
  • Enterprise: $39.99/mo
try clickdesk

22. Podium

Best-Live-Chat-Software-Podium

One of the main problems people face with live chat software is that it becomes difficult for them to analyze the visitor’s stats, but the Podium has solved it. Integrate Podium with Google Analytics to get all the stats in one place.

Key Features:

  • Transfer conversations from one agent to another
  • Auto Responder helps you save your time
  • Integrate with google analytics to get detailed stats
  • With the help of leaderboard compare the performance of your agents
  • Customize your chatbox

Pricing:

The pricing starts from $399/mo.

try podium

23. LiveChat

Balance AI robots and humans to give your customers the best performance, with the help of chatbot answer some of the repeated questions; this saves your agents a lot of time.

Key Features:

  • Integrate with 170+ tools
  • 24/7 Technical support
  • 14 days of a free trial
  • Connect with your customers through emails and phone as well
  • Multiple websites support also available

Pricing:

  • Starter: $16/mo
  • Team: $33/mo
  • Business: $50/mo
try livechat

23. Zendesk

They store all your chat history safe and secure in their servers. From their easy to use dashboard get all the stats to analyze your live chat performance, not only this monitor the performance of your agents as well.

Key Features:

  • Get email report
  • Add up to unlimited agents
  • Get chat rating from your customers
  • Android and ios apps available
  • Send files as well
  • SSL Encryption

Pricing:

  • Lite: $0/mo
  • Team: $14/mo
  • Professional: $29/mo
  • Enterprise: $59/mo
try zendesk chat

24. LivePerson

LivePerson helps your customers order products directly from the chatbox; not only this, they can get all the information about the products, and they can also track their order from the chatbox.

Key Features:

  • Connect with customers through 3rd party apps such as Whatsapp, Messenger and many more
  • Monitor your chat stats
  • Chat with your customers through mobile appplications

Pricing:

  • Standard – $40/agent/mo
  • Premier – $90/agent/mo
  • Enterprise – Quote-based
try liveperson

25. ChatBot

These days customers want their questions to be answered as fast as possible. ChatBot’s advanced AI robot helps you save yours and yours’s agent’s time by answering repeated questions on its own. Not only this, sometimes it searches your website for the best answer.

Key Features:

  • Free and ready to use templates for chatbox available
  • They provide you and your agent’s training so that you can provide the best support to your customers
  • They keep all your’s and your’s agents data secured with SSL encryption
  • Get free trial without any credit card details
  • 24/7 Technical Support

Pricing:

  • Starter: $50/mo
  • Team: $149/mo
  • Business: $499/mo
  • Enterprise: Quote-based
try chatbot

26. SendinBlue

Best-Live-Chat-Software-SendinBlue

SendinBlue helps you with overall marketing with email marketing, SMS marketing, and live chats on your website. Some surveys show that email marketing helps you make your visitors loyal toward your website.

Key Features:

  • Up to 1 million emails/months
  • Phone support
  • Email support
  • No daily support limit
  • Dedicated IP included

Pricing:

  • Free: $0/mo
  • Lite: $25/mo
  • Premium: $66/mo
try sendinblue

27. FreshChat

FreshChat helps you communicate with your customers in any language. Their Multilingual support translates chat in real-time so that language doesn’t become a barrier between you and your customers.

Key Features:

  • Get 21 days trial without any credit card details
  • Integrate with Facebook Messengers
  • Live translation
  • Chatbots available
  • 2 Factor authentication for safe and secure chat

Pricing:

  • Sprout: $0/mo
  • Blossom: $15/mo
  • Garden: $29/mo
  • Estate: $45/mo
  • Forest: $69/mo
try freshchat

28. iAdvize

Most people face problems with the complicated layouts of chatboxes and their experiences, but iAdvize’s chat box gives you an experience similar to WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. This easy to use the chatbox layout helps in increasing the retention time of your customers.

Key Features:

  • 24/7 Technical support
  • Mobile apps available
  • Screen Sharing
  • Third-Party Integration
  • Website Visitor Tracking

Pricing:

Quote-based

try iadvize

29. HelpCrunch

People face many problems in migrating from your existing live chat software to the new live chat software. HelpCrunch solves this problem by transferring all your data in less than a minute.

Key Features:

  • Add 20+ team members
  • 5+ chat widgets
  • Customize chat box according to your choice
  • 14 days trials without any credit card details

Pricing:

  • Standard: $12/mo/agent
  • Premium: $20/mo/agent
  • Enterprise: Quote-Based
try helpcrunch

30. Tawk

Monitor your chat performance in real-time with the help of various data and many graphs, which helps you analyze your visitor’s activity.

Key Features:

  • Screen Sharing
  • 24/7 Technical Support
  • Third-Party Integration
  • Chatbot available

Pricing:

It’s free of cost.

try tawk

Benefits of Live Chat [Infographic]

That’s a Wrap!

Quickly answering your visitor’s questions will increase their loyalty towards your website and will help you to build some loyal visitors.

From the above list, you can find the perfect live chat software according to your needs.

We have created this list after analyzing many different aspects, such as customer reviews, pricing, credibility, features, and many more.

Go through the key features of every software and pick one which is most suitable for you.

So, which one of these best live chat softwares are you planning to apply on your website? Let us know in the comment section below!

You might also want to read: What Is Affiliate Marketing And Does It Work For My Business

Filed Under: Uncategorized

What Is Affiliate Marketing And Does It Work For My Business

By 32 Comments

What Is Affiliate Marketing And Does It Work For My Business

If you are looking to earn a substantial amount of passive income, then affiliate marketing has you covered.

And it is an excellent deal for the other side as well — the business organizations, aka merchants. 

It allows them to use talented sales-force and influencers that are popular in their niche and pay only when they make a sale. They also decide how much commission will be allotted for each purchase.  

However, despite all the hype, most businesses are focused on one question — would affiliate marketing work for my business? 

The skepticism behind this question is legit. After all, there’s no point foraying into something that doesn’t particularly work for your business or niche in the first place. 

We will discuss this in a minute, but before that, let’s understand a bit more about affiliate marketing. 

So, what exactly is affiliate marketing? 

Affiliate marketing is a business model where bloggers and influencers recommend services or products they like or find useful, something that will be genuinely helpful for their followers, and earn a percentage of profit for each sale that follows. 

In other words…

Affiliate marketing is basically like a common agreement between two people: a merchant that is looking to sell their product or services and a marketer who can help sell those products in exchange for a commission. 

However, most definitions online talk about three different parties involved in affiliate marketing, including:

  • The Advertiser  
  • The publisher  
  • The consumer 

The Advertiser: Naturally, the advertiser or merchant is the one who has a product or service to sell. From large organizations to solopreneurs, anyone can become an advertiser behind their own marketing program. They just need to have something to sell. 

The publisher: The affiliate or the publisher is the person who creates content to add referral links. Affiliates can also include solo entrepreneurs or even big companies. They can earn thousands or even millions of dollars commission each month, depending upon how high they are able to scale their referral chain. 

The consumer: The consumers or customers make the final sales and make the whole system go ‘round. 

The publisher usually markets the products using the channels that are viewed mostly by their target audience, be it social media platforms, affiliate links in blog posts, or through YouTube videos.

You will find a lot of affiliates in the blogging domain. 

A lot of marketers also use YouTube for affiliate marketing. 

Take these affiliate links, for instance: 

Affiliate-links Affiliate marketing

Such affiliate links always come with a tracking ID to keep track of the referrers that send the customers. 

Affiliate marketing seems pretty simple and is a win-win scenario as it can be lucrative for the merchants as well as the publisher. 

This gives rise to another important question, i.e., is affiliate marketing good for my business? Would it even for it in the first place? 

Let’s identify whether affiliate marketing works for your business or not. 

Does Affiliate Marketing Work For My Business

As a small or medium-sized business owner, both sides of the deal are lucrative, whether you set up your own affiliate program to build an online sales-force in order to generate more sales for your business, or you can generate sales for other companies to generate a passive, side-income for your own business. 

However, there’s no point getting started with affiliate marketing if you don’t think it is suitable for your business. One of the quickest ways to check whether it works for your business or not is by checking is your competitors are running an affiliate program. If they do have an affiliate program, you’d most likely see a link redirecting to it in their website footer. 

Again, to figure out what commissions affiliates expect in your domain, check what incentives your competitors are offering. 

If you are looking to generate passive income from affiliate links, then make sure that you don’t treat as a means to an end.  

Don’t consider adding affiliate links unless you feel a strong connection to the product or service you are endorsing. 

If you are vouching for something, you will be held accountable by your followers. If you end up endorsing something you yourself don’t believe in, you will end up losing your followers. 

So, don’t turn into a smarmy salesman just to make some quick cash.  

It goes both ways, though. 

If you genuinely believe in your product and give your readers a legitimate reason why you are promoting that product, they are most likely to respond. 

For example, in this blog post, the publisher gives a rundown on Wix Vs. Squarespace. 

affiliate links within the blog

You can see the affiliate link mentioned in the first paragraph. 

It’s easy to tell it’s an affiliate link because of the way the URL appears: 

affiliate marketing links

When you scroll down the article, you can tell that the writer isn’t just promoting something with dollars signs in mind. 

The blog post is written to point out all the features of the product, and you can tell that the product is indeed a worthy choice.  

Also, affiliate marketing only works when you have a good reputation with your audience. 

If you have a respectable and influencing voice in your niche or among your target audience, then you are definitely going to do better as an affiliate marketer. 

It’s a no brainer — if they trust you, they are going to trust what you are endorsing. 

However, affiliate marketing is a lot of work. 

You will have to manage your accounts, keep your articles updated, monitor your links, and so forth. 

After all, nothing good ever comes easily.

And it can be even more cumbersome if you are running your own affiliate program. 

How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing? 5 Steps To Consider Before Your Start 

Let’s face it; not everyone gets successful with affiliate marketing. 

There are so many things that can go wrong. 

For one, you might be choosing the wrong products to promote or could be joining all the unsuitable social investment networks, among other things.  

And it’s easy to get stuck with low-commission trenches for months or even years on end.  

The competition is stiff, and cashing in on affiliate marketing takes proper strategy. 

However, it’s all about choosing the right path and trying out the right social investment networks. 

After that, profits can be astronomical. 

Here’s a step-by-step process that will help you achieve that and make the most out of your affiliate marketing endeavor. 

1. Identify your target audience (and what they are already purchasing)

The first step to becoming a successful affiliate marketer is by identifying your target audience and discerning what products they are already buying. 

For instance, brands that regularly write about topics like how to start a new blog know that their readers are likely to be interested in purchasing WordPress hosting, themes, plugins, and something else along the same lines. 

What if your brand mostly caters to new or to-be moms? 

Then you know they all need products like toys, child care, and other supplies. 

Although this is pretty spot on but to make sure that you are promoting the right kind of product to your audience, you need to conduct extensive research in those areas to make appropriate recommendations.

You can even conduct a quick survey. 

Either choose some tool to conduct your survey or rely on emails. 

If you have an email list, just shoot out an email along the following lines: 

Hey [prospect name]

Just need you to answer two quick questions that will help us offer better services. It’ll only take a few minutes: 

  1. What brings you to [brand or blog name]? Do you have a particular goal in mind?
  2. People/readers ask me for recommendations all the time, so just wanted to know what products and services have you bought related to that goal? 

That’s about it! 

Thanks,

[Your Name]

You would be surprised to know how many people are actually willing to give you not only the answers but also some more interesting, not to say useful insights. 

These answers will definitely help you understand what kind of products your audience is interested in. 

2. Choose a product to promote (after extensive research)

In an ideal world, your belief in a product would be enough to create an affiliate link. 

But there are two constraints in your way: 

  • First, you are either inexperienced and not sure whether the product that you liked would be useful in the long run. 
  • Or you are unable to find an affiliate network for the product you have used and whose credibility you can vouch for 

No matter what hindrances you face, you have to invest time and resources into recommending the best products to your audience. 

Don’t forget to run the following Affiliate Product checklist before proceeding with a particular product: 

  • Research that the product has a top-notch quality 
  • They have a viable return policy (that you are confident about)
  • You have tested their customer support 
  • You can back up your recommendation with facts and figures 
  • The product aligns with your audience’s needs and requirements 

If the product ticks all the boxes mentioned above, then you are good to go.  

However, this option becomes moot if you don’t have any prior experience with the products that can help your audience, you can rely on various credible affiliate marketing networks. 

Here are some of the best Affiliate Marketing Websites & Programs you can register with: 

  • ShareASale Affiliates  
  • Amazon Affiliates 
  • eBay Partners
  • Shopify Affiliate Program
  • Clickbank

These are some of the most popular and reliable affiliate networks. 

But be careful — since you are entirely new to the product and have to prior knowledge regarding it, make sure to invest time in research and, if possible, try it out on your own by purchasing it. 

3. Choose different & high-end affiliate programs.

Don’t fall prey to promoting terrible products that pay even more terrible commissions. 

Even worse, don’t get stuck with a single affiliate network where the commissions are too low.

You wouldn’t want to waste your time promoting something that will only give you a one-off commission or something as low as $20. 

There are tons of affiliate programs available on the internet (some of them mentioned above)

types of affiliate programs in the market

Don’t shy away from trying out different networks. Each of them offers a variety of products, customer service, and payment structure. 

Check out a couple of them before settling for one that fits your goals and requirements perfectly. 

4. Be transparent and mention your affiliations. 

There are different approaches to promoting affiliate links. 

However, it’s ethical to let your audience know what approach you are using. 

Here’s an example: 

affiliate link transparency

The writer has cited how he has chosen to add affiliate links. Readers like this transparent approach better — contrary to getting bombarded with a sneaky pop-up link or a shortened link, which hides the real motive. 

In fact, some merchants and affiliate networks are strictly against such practices. 

For instance, Amazon affiliates have laid down guidelines, and do not allow affiliates to use the links in PDFs, e-books, emails, or pop-ups. 

Just make sure that you don’t deceive your audience or violate the terms and conditions of the affiliate network you are connected with. 

If you are promoting something of real value, you would have no reason to hide either way. 

5. Above all, remain consistent and be patient.

Don’t expect to generate steady income overnight with affiliate marketing. It might take months, even years, to find success. 

Focus on building a loyal follower-base that will be willing to trust your words. 

The better content you create, the more traffic you will generate. 

Above all, make sure to keep your current audience engaged. If you disappear for days on end without engaging your audience, they are going to disappear eventually and possibly turn to one of your competitors. 

And most importantly, don’t forget to keep on updating your older posts. 

Say, for instance, you created a blog post in 2016 and recommended some products. Turns out, four years later, in 2020, some of those products are not relevant anymore, and you have better products that you would like to recommend. 

In such scenarios, you would have to update the article and make it more appropriate to suit the current situation. 

Wrap Up 

Affiliate is a great way to promote or generate passive income for your small business. 

But it will only bear desirable results if you partner with reputable merchants with an excellent track record in the market. 

Follow through the 5-step process to make the most out of your affiliate marketing strategy. 

  • Identify what your target audience is purchasing 
  • Do your research on the products 
  • Choose varied, high-end affiliate programs
  • Be transparent 
  • Above all, remain consistent and be patient 

And most importantly, don’t get stuck with a penny-pinching merchant. Try out new products and networks before settling for one. 

Also Read: 5 Content Marketing Strategies To Increase Blog Traffic

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