The Secret Way to Increase Your Affiliate Network’s ROI

Have you ever wondered how to improve affiliate marketing ROI? Look no further than gamification. Learn all the ins and outs of it and start rolling in it.

Suppose you’ve launched an affiliate network. It works quite okay, but you want it to scale and generate more income. What can you do to activate its full potential? 

There are many strategies to help your network evolve. But there is one that can 100% improve your performance, attract new quality publishers, and outperform your competitors. And it’s called gamification. 

But if you still don’t know what gamification is, in this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of it and explain what you need to embed it successfully into your network. Read till the end. Let’s go!

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In UCLIQ, we use the gamification feature. Add game mechanics, invite affiliates and watch your network grow.

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What is gamification in affiliate marketing?

Overall, gamification means adding game mechanics into a nongame environment, like learning or business,to engage with customers or partners and inspire them to do something for a particular reward.

In affiliate marketing, gamification means arranging motivational competitions among publishers for some bonuses or commissions. These competitions can be a one-time promo, or they can take place regularly.  

Indeed, the idea of gamification is not a new one. Long ago, affiliate marketers started using contests and giveaways to increase awareness and loyalty, convince people to focus their efforts on their programs, and maximize profit.

And you have 100% seen CTAs like “Subscribe to our social media pages”, “Refer a friend,” or “Generate sales and get a prize.”

Nonetheless, gamification isn’t widely used among affiliate networks, though it leads to excellent outcomes at a small cost. So, what should you as a network take into account to hold successful competitions?

Let’s move to some handy tips.

Tips for organizing an affiliate contest to boost affiliate marketing ROI

Organizing a contest may seem challenging, but you must try it if you want your network to grow. There are several things to consider when arranging affiliate competitions. Let’s go over each of them:

Determine a goal to achieve

Before you launch a contest, ask yourself what YOU need to get from it. Do you want to raise awareness? Grow the number of affiliates? Or activate inactive ones? 

Your goal for the affiliate contest will determine your affiliates’ strategy. But please don’t try to fulfill all plans in one fell swoop. Segmentation is your key to success. 

Think of a lucrative reward

When running a contest, you need an incentive for your affiliates to make them participate. Think of something teasing, like gadgets or monetary rewards you can give them.

Remember, the more lucrative the prizes are (which should always be substantial), the more likely they will work harder to get them.

Promote your contest online

An affiliate contest is a perfect way to reach more participants. One way you can find success is to create short videos your affiliates can spread amongst others. 

Another way is to use social media platforms to spread the word about the game. The good old Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram still work amazingly to reach out to a wide range of people interested in your offering. 

Decide on terms and conditions

No strict requirements and easy entry for affiliates increase their chances of participating in your contest. Nevertheless, you must develop your affiliate contest guidelines, determining the following:

• Entry time and deadline
• Ways to enter your contest
• Prizes and elimination conditions
• The way a winner will be selected and notified

Track your contest performance

To make sure your contest works to the max, you must decide how to calculate the outcomes and let publishers track their performance. Traditionally, when a network holds a contest, it involves a lot of staff and hours to summarize the competition. 

And with an average team of 10 people (if we talk about the mid-segment networks), such an approach appears ineffective.

Together with our partners at Trafee, we came up with the concept of holding contests within our system, which qualitatively affects profit growth.

Everything a network needs is to log into the UCLIQ Admin Panel, create the scoring rules, and that’s it. The system automatically selects the right formula, calculates the results, and even adds a big popup to announce upcoming competitions.

At the same time, every publisher participating in the contest can enter a separate panel, click “Competitions,” and track their performance to see the number of scores they lack to win the prize.

The best part of automatic scoring is that you no longer need to keep numerous Excel docs, leverage manual support, and select the correct formula. The system will do everything for you.

The gamification feature has already proved its efficiency at Trafee and some other networks due to its simplicity, convenience, and publisher-friendly approach. 

Leverage gamification to increase your network’s ROI!

Thus, running an affiliate contest is a great way to promote your network, motivate your affiliates, and maximize ROI of affiliate marketing. 

Besides, with automatic calculation, you can hold competitions as often as you want without too much effort. All you need is to become a UCLIQ client, log in to your account, and get started. Get a free trial to see how it works right now!