How To Use Affiliates' Videos For More Ecommerce Sales

“Affiliate marketing” is a commonly-preferred monetization model by online video creators (and content creators in general).

So, if you create an affiliate program for your business and promote it properly, it’s almost guaranteed that relevant video creators will join your program. Then, they’ll make videos mentioning and recommending your products to promote their affiliate links and get the sweet, sweet commission.

The direct benefits you’ll get from the affiliates' videos are increased brand awareness, brand credibility, and sales.

But there are more things you can do with those videos. What are they, and why should you bother? That’s what you’ll find in this article. To start, though, let’s expand upon the term “affiliate-generated videos” or “affiliates’ videos.”

What Are Affiliate - Generated Videos?

To understand “affiliate-generated videos,” you first must understand who an “affiliate” is. An affiliate is anyone who promotes your products to get a commission for driving sales to your store.

Affiliate-generated videos are videos created by affiliates. Typically, the affiliates, in this case, are video creators — YouTubers, Instagram influencers, Tik Tokers — who want to monetize their audience.

From their viewpoint, here’s how the monetization process works:

1. 1.  Given that you have an affiliate program, they join your affiliate program.
2. 2.  They get their trackable affiliate link/coupon code. An affiliate SaaS or an affiliate network generates and tracks all the links and codes to ensure each order is linked to the correct affiliate.
3. 3.  Then, they create videos relevant to your products and ask their viewers to buy from you using their affiliate links. For example, they create product review videos, listicle-style videos, informational videos where your product is the solution to the discussed problem, etc.
4. 4.  Some of the viewers click on their affiliate link and buy from you.
5. 5.  They earn a pre-decided commission once you get a successful sale. Generally, the commission is between 10% to 20% of the sale.

Here’s a real-life example of one of the Social Snowball-using brands, Physion:

Physion sells massage guns. And it has a two-sided affiliate marketing program (recommended): the affiliate gets a commission for bringing the sale, and the viewer gets a discount on using the affiliate’s link or coupon.

Richard William is one of the Physion affiliates. He has created a Physion product video review and published it on YouTube:

And obviously, he has included his affiliate coupon code in the description and asked viewers to use it.

Now, if a viewer buys the Physion product and uses the coupon code, Richard gets a commission from Physion for bringing the sale. And of course, the viewer gets the discount Richard promised:

The above example is typical of how most businesses look at affiliate marketing. For them, affiliate marketing is a “transactional channel” — the affiliate brings revenue, and they pay the commission. That’s the end.

Most businesses don’t do anything with the content affiliates create — the content (positive reviews and positive mentions) that can push potential customers to buy the business’s products. But you can…

…You can use affiliates’ videos for various brand-building, trust-building, and conversion rate optimization techniques. And below, we have discussed five ways to do so:

5 Unusual Ways To Use Affiliate-Generated Videos For eCommerce Sales

1. Embed videos on your product pages

On average, only 2.58% of people who land on an eCommerce site make a purchase. One of the primary reasons most don’t immediately click “Buy Now” is that they don’t have enough information to make the purchase decision.

Now, if the visitor likes the product and wants or needs it to a certain degree, they’ll watch/read reviews and comparison videos/articles and come back to buy (if they like what they see). 

However, many won’t bother researching and go back to scrolling (assuming they landed on the product page through a social media ad). But that doesn’t mean they are not potential customers. They just need an extra push to consider buying, and videos can give that extra push.

By embedding affiliates’ videos right on the product page:

• You keep visitors on the page for longer. Statistics show the average user spends 88% more time on websites with video content than any other type of content.
• And help them get the necessary information without them having to do the research.
  
  

For example, Headphone Zone — a leading audio products-selling brand in India — has a “YouTube Reviews” section on all its product pages. This means visitors can see what the experts say about the product to make an informed decision.

YouTube Reviews section on Headphone Zone

Plus, Headphone Zone uses Videowise for an on-brand, shoppable video interface to increase conversions. In other words, if the visitor decides to buy the product while watching the video, they can add it to the cart without even leaving the video:

Overall, this simple decision of embedding videos on the product page has helped Headphone Zone increase conversion rate by over 18%. Similarly, you can convert confused potential customers into customers by embedding affiliates’ videos on your pages.

2. Share videos on your social media

Your social media followers necessarily aren’t your customers. For example, if you share informational content or memes on your social profile, people would've followed you for that and probably never interacted with your store.

They are your potential customers, though. And the more positive things they hear about your products, the closer they are to buying from you. And guess who shares positive things about your brand the most? Your affiliates! 

You can share those affiliate-made videos (or any other content) as UGC to build social proof and trust.

3. Use videos in blog posts

Though most businesses don’t do this, you can use affiliates’ videos in your blog posts if they enhance the core message. This technique is especially beneficial if you are a small eCommerce store that doesn’t have the team, time, or budget to make videos.

For example, let’s say you sell baby rockers. In that case, an affiliate will likely create a “how to assemble [your brand] baby rocker” video because it attracts confused viewers. 

Lisa’sWorld (21k subscribers) got 240k+ views on the Fisher-Price Rocker assembly guide.

You can simply embed that video in your text-only guide to enhance the buyer experience. (For instance, Fisher-Price can link to or embed Lisa’sWorld video in their text and images-only guide)

Besides the content value, video content also has SEO value for blog posts. This means not only will your articles look and read better with video, but they’ll also rank better on search engines.

4. Use videos as an ad

Typically, only the video creators that believe in your brand and products join your affiliate program. Therefore, people watching their videos about your products is generally good for your brand.

You can run those (positive) affiliate-generated videos as ads to get more people to watch them. Those videos will act as the trust-building top of the funnel (ToFu) or middle of the funnel (MoFu) content pieces for your brand.

OnePlus did it well when OnePlus 6 launched. For instance, they ran YouTube ads of YouTubers’ review videos — here’s MKBHD’s video as an ad:

You can do the same, but remember the video creator must legally authorize you to advertise it. So just ask the affiliate for their permission before running their video as an ad. Hopefully, and likely, they won’t say no.

Quick Tip: Only promote information-packed videos — videos that will help viewers understand your product better. Do not promote affiliates’ videos that sound salesy.

5. Use videos in your lead nurturing campaigns

As mentioned earlier, only a tiny percentage of visitors immediately buy from you. But many enter your sales funnel and become “lead” by giving their email address, phone number, or consent for receiving push notifications.

You can convert those leads into sales by presenting affiliates’ videos as UGC or “expert take” in your lead nurturing campaigns — for example, in your email newsletter.

You can also use the same technique for retaining customers, especially when you launch new products and affiliates make review videos or comparison-with-previous-version videos.

Conclusion

Your well-executed affiliate marketing program, if promoted well, will inevitably attract relevant video content creators to join. These creators will then make videos around your products to promote their affiliate links. 

At the most obvious level, those videos will bring your business traffic and revenue. However, you can do a lot more with those videos as we discussed in this article — you can:

• Embed those videos into your product pages to increase conversions.
• Embed them in your blog posts to improve SEO and user experience.
• Share them on social media to build trust among non-customers who follow you.
• Use them as ToFu or MoFu content in your ad campaigns. 
• And employ them in your lead nurturing campaigns to, well, nurture.