Integrating an Affiliate Program in BigCommerce

Ecommerce stores need to be smart about how they advertise in order to compete in such a saturated market and challenging industry. One such way to stand out and make your presence known is through an affiliate marketing program. Affiliate programs incentivize visitors to incorporate links in their blogs or social profiles to drive sales to your site in return for a portion of the sale. On average, affiliate marketing programs have a 0.5 to 1 percent conversion rate, which can be substantial if you encourage enough people to take advantage of your program. 

Overall, affiliate programs look like a solid opportunity. But where do you begin? If you have BigCommerce, this guide will walk you through how you can establish a BigCommerce affiliate program for your business so that you can tap into this strategy for yourself. 

Before You Start: What Are the Challenges?

Getting started with BigCommerce affiliate marketing is not without its challenges. Successful affiliate marketing integration means understanding and navigating these obstacles. But what are they? Some of the problems you might face while setting up your own affiliate program include: 

• Modern Consumers Adjusting to Traditional Marketing: One of the biggest problems facing those looking into starting their own BigCommerce affiliate program is how modern internet users and consumers interact with traditional marketing strategies. No one buys much into extravagant claims, and the average web user either has an ad blocker installed or doesn’t really want to see advertisements as they navigate their online experience. However, many affiliate marketers will combat this by creating engaging, honest content and trying to develop a loyal following who will take advantage of discounts offered by affiliate programs. 
• Changing Algorithms and Platform Popularity: Another problem facing those who want to start their own BigCommerce affiliate program is the rapidly changing popularity of various social media platforms and the algorithms they employ. As an affiliate marketer, developing a following that will persist on certain platforms that may only lose popularity over the years or those that have complex algorithms that are difficult to understand and navigate can make promoting your company difficult, to say the least. 
• Advertising Costs: Thinking about BigCommerce affiliate marketing as a way to increase traffic and online visibility as you work on other digital marketing strategies like ecommerce search engine optimization (SEO)? The rising costs of paid ads can be another barrier to entry. Make sure that you know which platforms are going to offer the most results for your BigCommerce affiliate program before you begin advertising so that you’re getting the best possible results from your marketing campaign.  
• Reliance on Third-Party Cookies: If you’re someone who stays up-to-date on developments taking place within Google, you may have heard that Google will be phasing out third-party cookies by 2024. For some, this could pose a major issue. Approximately 4 in 10 marketers rely on third-party cookies for affiliate marketing. Knowing how to circumvent this challenge is essential to the future of your BigCommerce affiliate program, and it’s important to stay on top of other industry developments that could affect your marketing strategies as well. 
• Affiliate Users’ Approach: Not everyone who signs up for your affiliate program is going to take the same approach when it comes to marketing your products or services. Why does this matter? Their success is your success. If their approach comes across as overly salesy, spammy, or otherwise drives away potential customers rather than driving them to your platform, it’s your BigCommerce affiliate marketing strategy that’s impacted as a result. It’s very hard not to sound “fake” as an affiliate marketer, and it takes talent to ensure that you are able to encourage users to buy into products or services. 

Is a BigCommerce affiliate program a poor marketing strategy to pursue? Absolutely not! However, it comes with its fair share of challenges, and knowing what these are and how to work around them is critical to your overall success as an ecommerce business. With all this in mind, you might still wish to pursue affiliate marketing as a means to promote your business. But where do you get started? 

Using Apps Like CJ to Integrate Affiliate Programs Into BigCommerce

While you could certainly create a BigCommerce affiliate program from scratch, this would be both time-consuming and resource-intensive. As a small or mid-sized ecommerce business, the last thing that you want to do is put yourself out of business attempting to create your own affiliate program. Thankfully, there is a solution: using applications to integrate affiliate programs into your ecommerce platform. In this case, BigCommerce. 

One of the best resources to use if you’re looking to leverage BigCommerce affiliate marketing is Commission Junction (CJ). CJ is best known as one of the most popular affiliate networks out there, helping both advertisers and publishers partner to benefit each other’s businesses. Of course, CJ has grown substantially since its inception. Now, it makes it easy for you to start your own BigCommerce affiliate program. In fact, there are currently around 4,893 ecommerce stores that have installed CJ Affiliate. 

But how exactly can CJ support you? Let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights of this platform and how it supports ecommerce businesses like yours. 

• Partnerships That Drive Greater Results and Breed Innovation: CJ prides itself on its tech partnerships, all of which serve to enhance your experience using CJ and continue to breed innovation that supports your BigCommerce affiliate program. Beyond integrations with BigCommerce, CJ partners with brands like Button, MikMak, and even Adobe to give you the comprehensive coverage your business needs for optimal analytics, mobile shopping, display advertising, and more. 
• Seamless Tech Experience for Modern Businesses: BigCommerce affiliate marketing is only successful if you have all the tools you need to make the most of your experience. Fortunately, you get all that and more by leveraging CJ. CJ is designed to help you easily onboard, discover new partnerships that are critical to your BigCommerce affiliate program, leverage omnichannel program strategies and create commission structures that help you make the most of your partnerships, and understand and optimize your campaigns with ease. Each of these points are further broken down on the CJ website. 
• A Platform Tailored to Your Needs: If you’re looking into affiliate marketing, you know that you need a platform that’s designed to help you succeed, regardless of your current technical capabilities or understanding of affiliate marketing. CJ is designed for experts and beginners alike, providing you with tools like easy-to-understand, on-demand analytics, seamless partnership discovery, and on-demand expertise and support, just to name a few. Put simply, it’s hard to find a better platform for your BigCommerce affiliate program than CJ. 
• Easy to Sell and Offers Stellar Results: CJ is one of the biggest affiliate marketing networks around. This means that you’re going to see much better results here than you might with other affiliate marketing platforms. CJ makes helps you generate revenue faster and generate more leads with its massive network of publishers, track your transactions in real-time so that you’re always on top of your progress, and easily showcase products through the paid placement marketplace as well as through their single ad code (which allows you to display multiple products at once). 

CJ helps you maximize affiliate revenue and create a native shopping experience for customers, resulting in a desirable experience for everyone all around when you decide to implement BigCommerce affiliate marketing into your marketing strategy. However, much like there are broad challenges that marketers face with affiliate marketing as a whole, there are going to be some challenges that you may face while using CJ as well. 

CJ and BigCommerce: Why You Need the Help of a Marketing Agency

Many of the benefits we’ve listed above point to CJ as an excellent and user-friendly platform for a BigCommerce affiliate program. So, why might you need to enlist the help of a seasoned marketing agency to support you in integrating BigCommerce with CJ? 

While CJ does offer plenty of support for those who are new to affiliate marketing, there are a host of hidden elements of the platform that can impede your progress if you don’t adhere to all the rules and guidelines. For example, new affiliate marketers might not be tagging their products correctly, might not be following all of CJ’s terms (which can affect your status on the platform), failing to provide the necessary disclosures for affiliate marketing, not combining affiliate marketing efforts with social media campaigns, and so on. 

While a BigCommerce affiliate program can be beneficial for your ecommerce business, the reality is that there are plenty of mistakes new users can make, even if the CJ platform itself is designed to streamline the affiliate marketing process. If you’re interested in BigCommerce affiliate marketing, it’s in your best interest to enlist the help of an agency that knows what it’s doing. But where do you find this kind of support? 

Get the Most Out of Your BigCommerce Affiliate Program With Coalition Technologies

Coalition Technologies is the best BigCommerce design, development, and SEO and SEM agency around. Not only are we able to support your ecommerce business beyond affiliate marketing, but we understand all the nuances of integrating CJ and BigCommerce. We provide you with the comprehensive support and guidance you need to make sure that you’re seeing the desired results and achieving your business goals. Our extensive case study portfolio and client testimonials speak for themselves. 

Ready to take the next steps and create your BigCommerce affiliate program with apps like CJ? Get in touch with us today to discover how we can support your ecommerce business with affiliate marketing integrations, SEO, and beyond!