In this episode, Josh interviews Lauren Lee, ClickBank’s e-commerce and affiliate marketing expert. Lauren shares practical strategies for finding and recruiting affiliates, managing relationships, and setting commission rates. She highlights the benefits of affiliate networks like ClickBank and Shopify’s Dovetail, and offers tips for pitching offers, optimizing landing pages, and starting with best-selling products. Lauren distinguishes between influencer and performance affiliates, explains how to set sustainable payouts, and provides actionable steps for launching or improving affiliate programs. Listeners learn how to connect with Lauren and access additional affiliate marketing resources.

Chapters:

Introduction to Lauren Lee and Her Background (00:00:00)
Lauren’s experience with top brands and her approach to scaling e-commerce through affiliate marketing.

How to Find and Connect with Affiliates (00:01:11)
Strategies for finding affiliates, benefits of affiliate networks, and leveraging marketplaces like ClickBank.

Networking and Recruiting Affiliates Outside Networks (00:03:20)
Tips for recruiting affiliates via Facebook groups, LinkedIn, and sharing campaign data to attract partners.

Using Data to Attract Affiliates (00:03:42)
Importance of sharing conversion rates and average order value to entice affiliates.

Affiliate Offer Visibility on ClickBank (00:04:58)
How ClickBank displays offer metrics and ranks offers for affiliates.

Alternative Networks and Cold Outreach (00:05:24)
Advice on finding affiliates for Amazon brands, using cold DMs, and other affiliate networks.

Shopify’s Dovetail Platform for Influencer Affiliates (00:05:53)
Overview of Dovetail for finding and messaging influencers at scale on Shopify.

Other Affiliate Networks and Amazon Integration (00:07:35)
Recommendations for entry-level networks like ShareASale and Amazon traffic facilitation.

Determining Affiliate Payout Ratios (00:08:28)
Guidelines for setting commission rates for different affiliate types and the importance of knowing your margins.

Commission Structures for Different Affiliate Types (00:10:18)
Typical commission ranges for influencers, publishers, and performance affiliates, and strategic considerations.

Three Actionable Takeaways for Affiliate Programs (00:12:09)
Summary of key steps: define affiliate type, start with best-selling products, and optimize landing pages for customer problems.

How to Connect with Lauren Lee and ClickBank Resources (00:15:03)
Ways to contact Lauren via LinkedIn and access ClickBank’s e-commerce resource hub.

Links and Mentions:

Affiliate Networks and Marketplaces 
“ClickBank“: “00:01:33”
“ShareASale“: “00:08:20”

Influencer and Affiliate Search Tools 
“Dovetail“: “00:06:15”

Educational and Support Resources 
“E-commerce Resource Hub at ClickBank“: “00:15:14”

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today. I am super excited to introduce you all to Lauren Lee. Lauren is Clickbank s ecom expert who works with eCommerce brands to unlock new sales channels with affiliates. She believes that there is always a solution to scale brands, and you can always find a way to exceed your goals. Lauren has partnered with top fortune 100 companies like Walmart, Amazon and Apple, leading their affiliate marketing strategies and offer campaigns, and is helping brands like yours craft scaled affiliate channels. You can find her hanging with her husband and daughter when she isn’t supporting clients traveling the PNW, aka the Pacific Northwest, and assisting in Buddhist meditation teacher training. So with that, welcome to the show, Lauren.

Lauren 00:00:50  Thank you so much, Josh. It’s nice to be here.

Josh 00:00:52  Lauren. I kind of want to point our attention to how do I find these affiliates? It all sounds great, but how do I find these affiliates, how do I manage the relationship with them? How do I make sure that the offer I’m going to give them is enough percentage of the deal or of the revenue share? Right.

Josh 00:01:11  So there’s a lot that I think we need to dive into there. So let’s start first with like so how in the world do I go find the right affiliates? If I’ve decided that with organic I, I’ve, I’m targeting more, let’s say people that are trying to lose weight. Right. how do I go find the right affiliates that are focused on talking to an audience that’s wanting to lose weight?

Lauren 00:01:33  Yes. Great question. And basically, we’re taking somebody through the whole journey, right? Of what? Of starting of starting from the ideation stages and just of interest. And now you’re you’re ready to connect with affiliates. And so you by joining in the network, you get access to the affiliates. And that’s one of the benefits of joining a network. And outside of a network you can absolutely connect with people on like Facebook groups and maybe on LinkedIn. and it’s kind of ad hoc, right? And it does take some manual effort. So that does exist that just natural facilitation of relationships. But once you’re inside a network in a company like Clickbank or another network, what they allow you to do is to join a marketplace.

Lauren 00:02:15  And the marketplace is not consumer facing. It’s for affiliates. And affiliates are coming every single day to be able to see what offers are there and what they can begin to promote. And so you want to be in that marketplace. You want to be just like you’re on Amazon, right? And you are in that marketplace. It’s kind of very similar in the sense of what products can I promote as an affiliate. And so that’s how you’re really going to start to connect with affiliates. So pick up your offer. And so there’s some strategies around there. You know you can get your offer and require that affiliates, you know, provide information so that you can start to create these this network of affiliates that you’re connecting with by email by contact. And you also can learn what is their traffic source. Maybe one affiliate is really good at YouTube and one’s really good at Facebook. And you can start to be strategic around that. that is the main facilitation, the main way that you are going to connect with affiliates.

Lauren 00:03:07  There are other things like events and networking and like I mentioned, kind of this ad hoc relationship that does happen, but you want to ensure your, your, you’re connected on the marketplace.

Josh 00:03:20  Okay. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So the first thing would, you know, a network that you join in the marketplace would kind of do a lot. Help expedite things. Do you have any tips or strategies? If somebody is just, you know, they’re networking with people or they’re in Facebook groups, have you seen any good strategies that way to maybe recruit some affiliates that you’re meeting personally?

Lauren 00:03:42  Yes, absolutely. Okay, so I think one thing that often gets overlooked when you create your funnel and create your campaign, you’re super excited, but you want to be able to have some data around your campaign, your offer. Is it converting? What is the conversion rate? You know, what is the average order value that you see people transacting with on your on your funnel, on your campaign? Those are going to be really attractive metrics to share with affiliates.

Lauren 00:04:09  And so if you did go on a Facebook group or you go to a networking or a conference, right, you’re prepared to be able to speak to the benefits of running traffic to your offer. Right. It’s high converting. It’s got X amount of payout. And we could talk about, you know, determining payouts for for affiliates because I think that’s a big part of the equation. Right. Like you want to be, competitive and you want to share and you want to ensure that it’s beneficial to you and your business and the margins that you have. So we can talk about that too. But, those are the strategies that are really important. You want to test your offer like, you know, with your within your own network, maybe even driving traffic to it. get some benchmark metrics to be able to share so that you feel really confident going into the marketplace and also talking to any affiliate.

Josh 00:04:58  Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I if you’re on the Clickbank network, does it display what your average order value and conversion rate is? Then two people it does.

Lauren 00:05:08  Yeah. Yeah. They can see that. And there’s an algorithm that lives on on the marketplace that will rank offers and you know but also people are searching by category, by vertical by payouts in the dollar amounts and, and so on. Yeah.

Josh 00:05:24  Awesome. Very good. are there any other strategies if people are trying to, you know, go at this alone? Right. Like if they’re trying to find an affiliate for their Amazon brand. I know there are some networks. I think recursion is one of them. are there any other networks that are Amazon specific or if they have to go at it alone, how do you recommend that you go approach people with maybe some cold Instagram DMs or things like that?

Lauren 00:05:53  You know, Shopify has an amazing platform called dovetail. It was originally another company. I don’t remember the original company name, but dovetail and it allows you to search by really you can filter by so many different things. So like reach of an influencer and it’s influencer specific so that an individual with an audience on social media.

Lauren 00:06:15  So you can look by vertical, by category, by audience size, by content that they produce, by conversion rates of that content. It really goes in the weeds for you. But I think that that’s an amazing tool. And if you’re already on Shopify, like absolutely leverage that because it’s you can then just reach out to them. It’s not a cold DM they’re expecting and anticipating because they’re on that platform to receive messages from brands like you and they want to promote you versus kind of that, I don’t know, there’s some resistance to sending a cold DM to people and anticipating that that might work. This is a real platform network version of being able to do that for influencers, and you can do it at scale. So it’s not one by one. You can just select the ones you want a message and send them all a message, which is really great.

Josh 00:07:02  Yeah. That’s awesome. I think that that is super important that, you know, finding people that are already comfortable with affiliate offers is probably your biggest battle.

Josh 00:07:13  Like, you don’t want to have to DM somebody and then try to convince them that they need to start trying to monetize their channel. Right. Like you’re fighting an uphill battle. It’s not worth your time and energy. Are there any other platforms or networks that you would recommend people reach out again? Like anything specific to Amazon or Shopify? Dovetail is great. Any other ones that come to your mind?

Lauren 00:07:35  You know, I think if somebody is looking for like an entry level version of a network share, a sale is a really good one to look into. It’s on the smaller side in terms of size, but provides a lot of the same benefits as some of the larger networks, and has a lower cost and barrier to entry of entry. So I think Carousell is a really good place to start. And most networks and this is kind of a general statement, but most networks have the ability to facilitate Amazon driving traffic to Amazon. I think most have been able to, mold themselves to where so much of the shopping experience is happening.

Lauren 00:08:20  So I don’t have one in particular outside of what you’ve named, but I think you’ll be in good company joining any of them.

Josh 00:08:28  Awesome. That’s great insight. All right. So we now know how to kind of identify some of these affiliates. I think the other thing you alluded to that will be important to discuss is how do I determine what my payout ratio is. Right. Like what percentage of the sale am I going to give to these affiliates so that it’s enticing enough? Right? I don’t know, it’s 1% good enough or does it need to be 50%? So what are some guidelines and rules of thumb as it comes to payout ratios for affiliate marketing?

Lauren 00:09:02  Yes. Okay, so this is a big question. And not only is it a big question, but don’t go in blind. You know, don’t be like, oh I think this is the right percent for my business. Like, you really want to look at this because let’s say you have an affiliate and it really scales really fast.

Lauren 00:09:17  And it could be a publisher who maybe published your coupon code, and now you all of a sudden have like an influx of traffic coming in and conversions. If you didn’t set a rate that you know is beneficial for you and your business. Like it can quickly be something that could, you might not want to, you know, experience. good problem to have that many, many sales. But you want to be clear on your margins. So again start there. What are your margins? What can you afford to send out to, affiliates. And so you also remember that in the beginning of this conversation, I mentioned kind of the lay of the land in terms of the types of affiliates that exist. Right. and so you want to be clear on am I going the influencer route? Am I working with. Am I creating this ambassador program? Am I really just targeting publishers like bloggers and publications that are online like that? My route. That’s where I want to be focused in terms of my strategies for affiliate marketing.

Lauren 00:10:18  Where do I want to take this route of performance affiliates we’ve been talking about? And so that will help shape what is the percent I pay? I think a general rule of thumb for like influencers and publishers is anywhere between 5 and 15%, and that’s per transaction. You’re paying this influence or this affiliate, that type of, commission for driving sales to your business. Okay. And you can go up or down and you can also be strategic with that percentage. Let’s say you are working with a business or an individual, an influencer. And it’s really performative. So reward them, give them a higher rate than you would anybody else. Right now on the performance affiliate side, it’s completely different and it is more about acquisition than it is rewarding them for driving the sale. And I think that’s important to remember. I’m going to repeat it. It’s more about customer acquisition than rewarding them for this sale. And the reason I’m saying that is because remember what they’re doing, they are buying traffic that you don’t have to pay for and driving customers to convert on your funnel.

Lauren 00:11:26  So they are acting as if you were turning on that switch we were talking about and sending out money to be able to get to acquire a customer. So the payout for performance affiliates is much higher. It’s around 50%. And and so you want to think about what is my AOV for that offer. Right. What is the margin I have available. Can I bundle products together. Can I increase my margin in any capacity? Can I offer free digital content along with my offer. You know, you’re really thinking strategically in terms of how do I get to be able to offer something like that at 50%? And remember the mindset, this is an acquisition funnel, not a reward for driving one sale. Right.

Josh 00:12:09  I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. Here are the three takeaways that I noted. Lauren. But let me know if you think there’s something I’m missing. All right. So number one is you have to determine first, what type of affiliate you’re trying to target, right? This is where this all begins.

Josh 00:12:32  Like, you need to identify how affiliate marketing works in your business and your comprehensive strategy, because how you set this up is going to make a big difference. Are you trying to target a performance affiliate where you’re going to maximize the customer lifetime value on repeat purchases, or are you looking more towards gearing something towards a publisher, an influencer, things like that. You’ve got to first set that strategy and walk into your affiliate program with a concrete strategy. Okay. Action item number two would be then determining which product. And this kind of correlates with your strategy. But you start first with your hero product right. So in my brand we have over 1200 products. So creating an affiliate program for 1200 products would seem overwhelming and daunting. But if I take that advice and I say I’m going to pick our best seller, that’s the only one I’m going to focus on and let’s just do this one. Maybe I focus on that for six months, and if I have success there, maybe I emulate a similar strategy for my second bestseller and third and fourth and so on.

Josh 00:13:46  Right. So I think that’s an important takeaway is like, please don’t see that if you have 100 SKUs, you need to do all 100. Start with your best seller. Test it out and go from there. And then my last action item number three, would be to actually optimize a landing page that talks about the customer problem and then how your product serves that customer and resolves that provides the solution to that problem. And whether you sell on Amazon or you sell, you know, on Shopify or any other sales channels for e-commerce, I think that principle of creating sales pages that are focused on a specific problem and how your product serves and provides the solution, is a strategy that will always win. And so focusing on that, and I think there’s some creative strategies that you could do to create a funnel like page on Amazon to do something like that is unique. But Lauren, those are my three takeaways. Is there anything else that you think I’m missing as a takeaway for the audience.

Lauren 00:14:54  I think you did a great job at summing this all up and putting it into a nice little package for people to be able to digest easily.

Lauren 00:15:01  So yeah. Thank you.

Josh 00:15:03  Well, Lauren, this has been awesome. If people want to connect with you, Lauren, learn more about this affiliate marketing strategies and learn more about Clickbank. Where should people go to and visit?

Lauren 00:15:14  Okay, the best place is LinkedIn. You can find me there Lauren Lee. Ping me, message me there. Connect. And then also we’ll provide in the show notes for you to be able to connect with me. we have an e-commerce resource hub at Clickbank, which is really great in terms of just bite size information to understand, like who we are. What do we do? What kind of affiliates again and how do I work with them. And there you can be able to book a call with me if you if you’d like. So those are the two really good places to connect.

Josh 00:15:44  Awesome. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for your time and sharing your valuable knowledge with us all and we appreciate it.

Lauren 00:15:51  Thank you so much, Josh. It’s been a pleasure.