Online entrepreneur Kate Morris founded cosmetics retailer Adore Beauty in 2000 after finding it impossible to locate high-end products in her home town of Launceston, Tasmania.
While beginning a new online brand took some time, (Morris worked from home for the first three years), the company now offers over 100 brands and exports to customers in New Zealand and the United States.
Morris says part of operating online means embracing online marketing – including working with affiliates. She says affiliate marketing has increased her company’s revenue and other online retailers should do the same.
How has Adore Beauty performed over the last year?
It’s a busy time. We just had our biggest month ever in August, sales-wise, and we’re also going through the process of completely rebuilding our website. So that will be Adore Beauty 3.0, but it’s not launching until next year. We’re busy working away on that. We have up to 102 brands, and this previous financial year we turned over between $2-3 million.
What drew you to affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing programs have been around since the dawn of online retailing. Basically, it’s a way for you to sort of harness the audiences of other websites in so much as getting them to refer customers to you for a commission. There are a number of different affiliate marketing programs companies use, in particular we use Commission Monster as our provider. The fact you don’t have to do much at all, both time and finance wise, to set it up was also an attraction.
When did you start?
We’ve been doing it for a few years now. And among all the other marketing methods we do, it’s a small piece of the puzzle for our business, and really, any business, but we’ve been doing it for quite awhile now and it works extremely well.
How much of your revenue comes from affiliates?
It’s relatively small beans, so about 2-3% of overall revenue. But the great thing is, in getting that 2-3% of revenue, we don’t have to do a lot at all, and the stuff we do is pretty insignificant and doesn’t take time or money. And we could increase that figure if we upped our involvement in it, and sought out affiliates with the right sort of traffic. You really do get as much out of it as you put in, but we’ve been able to reach that 2-3% of revenue without doing much at all.
What are the advantages of affiliate marketing, apart from easy revenue?
The best thing about affiliate marketing programs is that you only pay for performance, you generally only pay for the sales that are you referred to you. So you’re not really wasting your time or anything else because you’re working with qualified leads.
How much of the program is automated, and how much is manually done by you?
Everything is automated by the program we use, so you can set your own terms and conditions from there. We don’t accept anything questionable, but you are effectively managing your own brand online as well. The good thing about it all is that you’re supplying your own creative, and that’s what they use. But it’s the challenge of any kind of advertising, making sure that your creative is being used in the right way and you make sure you have people in charge that are doing the job well.
Have you had issues with affiliates taking your creative out of context, or damaging your brand?
We have had issues with that before. Generally it’s nothing that can’t be fixed without a phone call, and some think they’re doing a good thing. They may change the wording of something, or so on, but they’ll usually change it back without a problem and there isn’t any need to get involved apart from that. If there are bigger issues you can refer them to your provider, but really there’s no big problems. It just means you do have to keep an eye on it now and then.
Are you planning to increase your work with affiliates?
What we’re doing at the moment is setting up some partnerships with key sites that we’ve specifically targetted. We’re looking at getting some good qualified traffic and approaching some other sites with more of a one-on-one partnership. I think businesses need to figure out where their customers are going, and then let those sites know what can be done with affiliate marketing program.
Should other online retailers start using affiliates?
Absolutely. Any online retailer needs to have an affiliate program, because again, it’s one of those projects that you can start that doesn’t cost you anything and doesn’t rely on much time and effort at all. You have your Google program, and you should have an affiliate program. It’s easy to get involved and doesn’t matter what size business you are.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
