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Macroeconomic factors are forcing SaaS companies to get creative about increasing site traffic and revenue — but what are the best options?
There’s a self-defeating trend plaguing the digital marketing landscape: ad spend continues to surge, while website traffic, engagement, and conversions head in the opposite direction.
According to a digital benchmark report, 55% of sites saw decreased traffic in 2023, 58% saw a dip in consumption, and conversion rates decreased by 5.5% across the board. Conversely, the same report indicates that ad spend is projected to clear $740 billion in 2024. (A good chunk of the issue, aside from the economy, involves friction in the user experience. 40% of site visits are marred by technical errors, slow page loads, and rage clicks.)
Whether site metrics are down or stagnant, it’s clear businesses need to be nimble and explore ways to expand beyond their core market — not just in response to current downtrends, but to set themselves up for future success.
So what are the options for recovering lost website traffic, increasing customer acquisition, and reigniting revenue growth? And more importantly, how attainable are they for your SaaS business?
Affiliate Marketing
Expansion comes in many forms. Regardless of your goals, whether you’re venturing into new global markets or targeting different demographics, you’re going to need a proven strategy to make it possible.
Affiliate marketing is one of those proven strategies, with the ability to scale your reach and brand awareness, and, in turn, site traffic and revenue. Commonly associated with B2C, affiliate marketing is now gaining popularity in B2B, particularly with SaaS businesses that realize the value in partnering with affiliates. On the opposite end, affiliates view B2B SaaS as a lucrative opportunity since the price points are generally much higher than those for B2C products, which incentivizes affiliates to work harder to earn commissions.
In addition to having affiliates do the work for you, there are other clear benefits. For starters, most affiliates work on contingency through revenue-sharing models (meaning zero or limited upfront costs). And since affiliates create their own content, it reduces the burden on your company’s marketing team. For these reasons and more, brands that use affiliate marketing have an average ROI of $15 for every dollar spent (a 1,400% return).
Affiliates also save you time. Getting a program up and running is easy when the right platform is in place, while affiliates also excel in time to market, with the ability to produce engaging content rapidly (particularly helpful in the slow-moving landscape of B2B sales cycles). Speed is always of the essence in marketing, and allows a successful affiliate to catch on like wildfire when engaged with the right target audience.
It’s important to know going in that affiliate marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach. This is meant in a positive way, in that no matter what your goals are — whether you’re trying to reach a new regional market, target a certain demographic, or introduce a new product — there are literally thousands and thousands of affiliates to choose from, so you can tailor your strategy to a tee.
International Markets
With several once thriving economies stuck in a rut, it’s incumbent upon any business, especially a SaaS company, to explore its options globally. This is a prime example of being nimble; if the markets you typically serve aren’t responsive, seek out the corners of the world that are ready to engage.
For US-based SaaS companies in particular, the world is essentially your oyster. Despite having the largest economy by GDP, more than 70% of the world’s purchasing power resides outside the states, accounting for 95% of global consumers. Clearly, not all global opportunities are created equal, but the key word is “opportunity” in a vast commerce landscape.
Take Latin America, for example. Even amid a global economy struggling through inflation and supply chain issues, the region has witnessed an unprecedented surge in ecommerce and mobile payments — currently sporting a 78% digital commerce penetration rate.
Given data like this, and other examples in areas like India and Africa, the question is no longer why should a SaaS company explore international growth markets, but how.
Since affiliate marketing is a revenue-sharing model, it preserves a company’s bottom line in more ways than one. For starters, there are typically zero upfront costs for signing affiliates, which is crucial when starting your program and scaling it to multiple partners. There is also the “self-funding” aspect of affiliate marketing, where revenue generated by partners can be reinvested back into the program. Affiliates also reduce (or won’t add to) your marketing spend, since many create and produce their own content.
Merchant of Record
The motivation to expand and sell overseas is one thing, but the know-how and resources needed to do so is quite another. It goes beyond having your website translated into a different language; most countries/regions have their own currency, preferred payment methods, tax laws, compliance regulations, and other nuances to consider. (For example: Brazil has a high rate of credit card usage, but consumers prefer paying in installments through local card options like Aura, Elo, and HiperCard.)
To accomplish all of the above, growth-minded companies are increasingly exploring merchant of record (MoR) options to effectively scale their businesses abroad.
While there is some overlap between the functions of an MoR and a payment service provider (PSP, i.e., Paypal), a merchant of record acts as a reseller, handling every aspect of digital commerce in a foreign market. This includes localization, payment processing, tax/VAT handling, fraud prevention, and more. MoRs also keep track of the ever-changing regulatory landscape to ensure a business maintains compliance with laws that can carry hefty fines if ignored or violated, such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU.
Many businesses use a PSP and further assemble a patchwork solution of vendors to support expansion into international markets. However, this approach can drain an organization's resources, contribute to tech bloat, and be prohibitively expensive for smaller companies.
Depending on the number of countries you want to expand to — and all of the different currencies, payment processors, regulations, and nuances that come with it — the complexity of navigating international markets increases, which only makes the need for a trusted merchant of record more imperative.
By partnering with a full-service merchant of record, SaaS businesses can offload the legwork and complexity that comes with selling overseas, allowing them to focus on their core business as it relates to expansion efforts.
Bottom Line
Ideally, expansion into new markets isn’t a lifeline for businesses, but rather an obvious and worthwhile opportunity in times of economic prosperity or stagnation. Regardless of the reason, the rise of digital commerce in growth markets across the world has beckoned the call for SaaS companies to respond.
Having a partner fully capable of reselling your digital products and services globally is worth its weight in gold. With an all-in-one solution like Cleverbridge, you can automate every aspect of selling internationally and scale effortlessly across 240+ countries and territories.
Whether you're trying to offset a dip in website traffic, improve customer acquisition costs (CAC), or reach new buyers, Cleverbridge can provide a solution that maximizes growth with minimal effort.
Learn more and request a demo here.