Affiliate Marketing for B2B: How to make it work

Affiliate marketing for B2B may not have the adoption or recognition of affiliate for B2C, CPG, and eCommerce, but we know first-hand the growth impact it can have for B2B campaigns.

Because affiliate is relatively underutilized by B2B companies, I’ve found that the learning curve is a little steeper. In this post, I’ll lay out some key insights from our B2B client campaigns to give you a head start on tapping into the channel’s growth potential.

But first, let’s level-set

When I say “B2B,” I’m not just talking about SaaS (although that does make up a significant piece of the pie). B2B also includes businesses targeting SMBs and even solopreneurs with their products and services—think 99designs, Canva, and even the Adobes of the world.

As with a traditional D2C brand, understanding your customer is a huge part of affiliate success (and marketing in general). For instance…

Your end customer should inform your partnership portfolio

Even more than traditional ecommerce, B2B brands need to reverse-engineer their partner mix based on their end customer. What is their shopping behavior? What sites do they frequent and why? Whose opinions do they care about?

A small business owner looking for a logo for their accounting firm is going to have very different shopping behaviors than a CMO at an enterprise company looking to purchase a $10K/mo piece of software. For that reason, we always recommend a custom outreach strategy that targets the partners a potential buyer may encounter as they make their way through the buying process. 

In general, I recommend focusing on niche content sites, referral partners, and creators, which often include brand ambassadors. And speaking of creators…

Plan to invest in influencer / creator as part of your B2B affiliate strategy

The places where creators thrive in B2B are different than they are in B2C—think more LinkedIn than TikTok, for instance. As an agency, especially given that many of our B2B clients don’t sign on with a ton of affiliate knowledge in tow, a lot of our charter is developing knowledge for our team and our clients’ teams on their specific niche—the big names, the influential voices, and where they share their content, whether that’s YouTube reviewers, Substack or Beehiiv authors, industry-specific forums, industry-specific Slack groups, or a combination of those.

Although the levers and platforms are a little different for B2B influencers, the idea is the same as it is for creator-based marketing in all industries: partnering with top voices improves your social proof and credibility and introduces you to new audiences, all at the same time.

Aim a little higher in the funnel when building a partner mix

Affiliate marketing in general covers the full purchase journey (awareness to consideration to intent to convert), but successful B2B affiliate programs tend to skew more toward the upper-funnel than B2C affiliate, where loyalty, deal, and toolbar-based partners sit close to the point of purchase.

Like anyone else, people working in B2B enjoy a good deal, but B2B tends to include many more decision-makers and decision-influencers than B2C, which makes purchase cycles relatively long. Because of this, we recommend focusing efforts on finding partners that can build awareness, drive interest, and lead to intent rather than spending on mid-to-bottom-funnel engagement that may not go anywhere in the long run.

Weigh your options for B2B cost and fee structures

We incorporate three primary cost structures into our B2B affiliate campaigns:

• CPA: Cost paid for one-time purchases.
• CPA + recurring payments: This is ideal for subscription-based companies, but the model requires S2S (server-to-server) tracking of repurchases or recurring payments. If your tracking set-up is reliant on browser-based tracking (e.g. cookies) and you don’t foresee that changing anytime soon, this might not be the best option.
• CPL (cost per lead): This is often the best option for B2B companies whose purchases have hefty price tags and long consideration and purchase cycles—and/or conduct transactions off of their websites.

To optimize lead quality, extend your analysis well beyond the lead

No matter the marketing channel, improving lead quality is always one of the primary challenges of B2B marketing. This is as true of affiliate as it is with, say, paid search. 

To improve B2B affiliate lead quality, we always push brands to track and analyze well beyond the initial lead—ideally tracking LTV, repurchase rates, and MRR both by the channel (affiliate) and by the partner. Once you have a significant enough data set, you can optimize your campaigns by adjusting your commission rates, securing larger (perhaps even exclusive) partnerships, and finding other ways to double down on the partners providing the highest-quality leads.

Find the right partners

Given that affiliate is underutilized in B2B—most companies lack the in-house networks and resources needed to get the most out of the channel. When you’re doing your research on potential agency partners to get you in the game, make sure the agency has a good track record of B2B wins—particularly in segments at least adjacent to yours. That’s a good indicator that their network of existing partners is one that can pay dividends right away.

You don’t need to sign anything to get your head around the idea of using affiliate for your company, though—just reach out to start a conversation. We’re always excited to talk strategy.