The Bridge Funnel – Proven Affiliate Marketing Funnel For Higher Conversion in 2024

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn a fortune. However, when selling affiliate products, one of the common barriers you face is the information gap.

The traffic you generate using Ads or social media may not always have proper knowledge about the product you are promoting. In fact, the copy on the affiliate product page may not be persuasive enough to close the deal.

So, how can you increase your conversion rate as an affiliate marketer?

Well, the best solution is to use a well-planned bridge funnel.

A bridge funnel is a special funnel strategy that can turn less potential traffic into interested buyers before driving them to the affiliate product. The trick is to use a bridge page to hook the prospect before referring him/her to the product.

Today, you will learn how you can create a bridge funnel on your own easily.

After reading this article, you will be able to:

• Start using bridge funnels right away
• Convince more prospects into buyers
• Maximize your conversion rate

And eventually, become a successful affiliate marketer.

So let’s begin.

The Bridge Page Funnel

Usually, when you try to refer relevant traffic toward a product page, you either run paid Ads or write product listicles. Or you may share it on your social channels. And then, you expect prospects to click on the link you’ve provided to visit the product and purchase it.

Now, the problem here is you can only provide a limited amount of information on an Ad, social caption, or a portion of a listicle.

In fact, even if you write a dedicated blog on a single product, you will still need Ads to drive more traffic there because getting traffic organically on a blog page takes more time. Hence, a blog is not the best option for getting quick results.

The good news is there is a better solution – the bridge funnel strategy.

As mentioned above, in this strategy, you use a “bridge page” to convince your prospects to buy the affiliate product.

Why Do Bridge Funnels Work?

When using a bridge page funnel, you will get a lot of advantages that you probably won’t get with a blog, social posts, or direct paid Ads.

For starters, a bridge page works better than a blog because, here, the copy and design of the whole page are dedicated to promoting your affiliate product. It’s similar to using a landing page to promote your own services or products. Hence, more possibilities for conversion.

Second, your copy can be a long-form sales pitch or a to-the-point persuasive copy where you may highlight the major benefits of getting the product. It is quite limiting in this regard when you use Ads or social posts. Most people tend to avoid reading long captions, and paid Ads have very little space to include text. Hence, you have a better opportunity to try and convince your prospects using a bridge funnel.

On top of that, it will also save you from losing authority due to products being out of stock. Normally, when you write blogs, if the products are no longer available, your blog becomes obsolete, and people clicking on the links end up disappointed. In the case of a bridge funnel, you can simply turn off the ads and the bridge page, and that’s it. You can then create more bridge funnels for other new products.

One of the best uses of a bridge funnel is to sell high-ticket products.

If you want to earn more money in a short time, the only two ways to do so are to either sell a trending product that costs less but sells high in numbers or an expensive product that will give a huge commission.

The latter is more desirable if the product has real value. In this case, a bridge page will help you gain trust and allow you to use a proper sales letter to convince a prospect to invest in a high-value product.

And, if the commission rate is high, you will be able to earn a lot more than what you get from other approaches.

Now, to sell high-ticket products, however, a direct approach may not always work. A more efficient way is to go for a squeeze page bridge funnel. You will learn more about it a bit later in this article.

If you have a good persuasive copy on the bridge page, it will definitely get you more conversions.

Now, let us get a closer look at different types of bridge funnels.

Types of Bridge Page Funnels

Let’s be clear. It is somewhat mandatory to use Paid Ads when it comes to selling affiliate products if you want to earn a good commission in a short time.

But after a person clicks on the Ad, rather than taking them to the product page, it’s better to go for a strategy where you can convince the prospect and confirm the sale. That’s where the bridge funnel comes in.

However, you don’t always take the prospect to a bridge page first. There are other strategies as well.

Let us look at 3 of the best bridge funnel strategies that can surely get results:

1. Typical Bridge Funnel
2. Squeeze Page Bridge Funnels
3. The Affiliate Quiz For Multiple Bridge Funnels

1. Typical Bridge Funnel

A typical bridge funnel means you will use the following steps:

First, you create a couple of catchy images and use them for Paid Ads on social media, along with a persuasive caption.

Use the link to your bridge funnel as the link on the CTA of the Ad. Whoever clicks on the Ad, they will be directed to the bridge page.

If the buyer is convinced and clicks on the CTA button on this page, he will be directed to the Product sales page.

And that’s it. That’s the whole basic bridge funnel.

Now, I keep saying it again and again, but make sure you have a good persuasive copy on the bridge page. That is your main tool to convince a prospect to become a buyer.

A basic bridge page funnel works well on physical products, such as beauty products, essential home decor, etc., that cost an average amount but are more likely to sell to the right targetted audience.

2. Squeeze Page Bridge Funnel

Unlike the typical bridge funnel we discussed earlier, a squeeze page bridge funnel is simply a combination of a squeeze page and a bridge funnel.

The idea is first to use a lead magnet to collect leads. And then you may reach them with a link to your bridge funnel to purchase certain products or services.

So here, you will combine the concept of a squeeze funnel and bridge funnel into one.

The steps involved in a squeeze page bridge funnel are as follows:

So here, you first run Paid Ads to promote the free resource for giving away. On the CTA, use the link to the squeeze page.

Clicking on the Ad will take the prospect to the squeeze page. Here, use a persuasive copy to explain the benefits the prospects will get if they use the free resource. Include an opt-in form so that the visitors have to provide a name and an email before gaining access to the free resource.

Once the form is submitted, give a quick message to check the email and set automation to send an email with a link to the free resource. After a few seconds, redirect him to a bridge page that contains a persuasive copy to highlight the affiliate product.

However, at this point, most people will probably not take the offer and rather be focused on using the free resource they received via email.

Set up another automation so that anyone who has submitted the form on your squeeze page will get an email after 3 days asking them to check out a product they might find valuable. Here, include the link to the affiliate bridge page on the email CTA button.

Clicking on this email CTA will take the prospects to the same bridge page you used earlier. In most cases, the prospects will remember and read it because now they trust you thanks to your valuable free resource.

If the buyers find the product to be beneficial, they may click on the button and will be redirected to the product page to complete the purchase.

The reason why this approach works is that you already gave value to the prospect beforehand. The squeeze funnel allowed you to collect leads that are more likely to purchase the affiliate product and helped you gain authority by providing value for free.

This bridge funnel strategy works really well with high-ticket services such as business coaching, leadership training service, high-value courses, etc.

3. The Affiliate Quiz For Multiple Bridge Funnels

If you are affiliated with multiple products of the same niche or selling different packages of the affiliate product that may vary from person to person, then this would be the best approach.

The idea is to use a quiz to determine which package suits the prospect and then direct him to the right Bridge Funnel specifically for that package.

So, instead of a simple Bridge Funnel, you first create a Quiz and build bridge funnels for each product or package you want to promote. Then, depending on the answer in the Quiz, you may direct the prospect to the right bridge page.

So the steps involved will be:

The advantage here is that after the quiz if you manage to offer the right product, it increases the chances of closing the deal right away since the prospect feels the offer is personalized for him.

Let’s look at an example of how this is super effective.

1. Suppose a startup owner wants to learn Digital Marketing. He saw your Ad on LinkedIn about courses that can take a business to the next level using digital marketing.

2. He clicks on the Ad and is taken to a quiz to find out the situation of his business and the level of expertise he has in SEO & digital marketing. He is more hooked because the quiz has specific questions, such as what he understands by internal linking, how often he uses UTMs to track performance, etc.

3. After the Quiz, he is directed to a page where he is offered an intermediate course on Digital Marketing, mainly aiming at SEO (as his answer made it clear that this was his weakest side). The user probably already knows his lack of skills in that field, and your persuasive copy makes him realize that he has to learn this before going all out for digital marketing. So he clicks on the CTA.

4. He is redirected to the SEO course by DigitalMarketers, which covers all the required tactics to master SEO. It may cost a bit more, but, he may end up taking it as he needs it for business growth.

As you saw, the idea is to ensure the prospect feels important and is offered the right product as per his needs. To succeed with this method, you must research to find out what questions could be the right triggers to understand the user needs of your affiliate product.

Now that you know how you may use bridge funnels let us look at how you can create one yourself.

How To Create A Bridge Funnel In WordPress

Generally, if you think of funnels, you probably imagine using a complicated, expensive tool. But that’s totally wrong. If you use WordPress, creating funnels is actually quite affordable and easy.

Since WordPress is an open-source CMS, you will find countless useful plugins that are not at all expensive and super easy to use.

To create bridge funnels for affiliate marketing, the best option you will find in WordPress is to use WPFunnels (along with a reliable automation tool).

WPFunnels has all the features you need to successfully create any of the bridge funnel flows you learned about in this article. And you may set up email automation that is required to increase your conversions.

Just to show you how it works, let us create a Squeeze Page Bridge Funnel using WPFunnels real quick.

You will be surprised how easy this is.

In this case, you need to prepare two funnel pages which include the following:

• A Squeeze Page

• Bridge Page
  
  **And you will need to set up email automation to reach the leads again if they do not purchase on the first attempt.

To create this, we will use the following:

1. WPFunnels Pro to create and design the funnel flows.
2. FluentCRM for email automation.

Now let’s create this funnel step-by-step.

Step-by-step Guide To Creating A Squeeze Page Bridge Funnel

First, we will create a funnel with WPFunnels to prepare the required pages, and then we will set up the automation required in FluentCRM, which can be easily integrated with WPFunnels.

Step 1 – Create A Funnel From Scratch

First, go to WPFunnels > Overview, and click on Add New Funnel.

Then click on “Start from Scratch” and then enter the Funnel name as Coaching Funnel for Business Leadership which will take you to a blank canvas.

Step 2 – Create A Squeeze Page

On the blank canvas, click on the “+ Steps” button.

It will give you the option to import a template or create it from scratch.

Let’s import the Online Course Pro template for the landing page & customize it into a squeeze page.

Simply hover on the template and click on Import. Then the step will be added on the canvas. There click on the step to select it.

Now click on the edit option (i.e., the pencil icon) to open the page in edit mode.

**I have Elementor selected as my preferred page builder, so, in my case, it will open in Elementor edit mode. If you want to use some other page builder, you may change your preference at WPFunnels > Settings.

Re-write the copy and update the design to match your free product, “The Business Leadership Skillset Handbook.”

Then update the page, and your squeeze page is ready! You can go back to the canvas, select the step and click on the View icon (eye icon) to view the page.

Step 3 – Create A Bridge Page

Now, let’s create the bridge page. Again click on the “+ Step” button on the canvas & then will choose the Custom step.

Next, we will create the custom step from scratch by naming it the “Bridge Page“.

Step 4 – Set up Redirection To Affiliate Product Page

Now, again, select the step and click on the pencil icon button to start editing this step on Elemnentor.

If you have any page templates for it, you may use that or design the whole page with copy and elements aimed at the affiliate product.

On the page, make sure to use our widget as the CTA button. The widget is called the “Next Step Button.”

After adding the button, change the button type to “Go To URL Path” from the widget settings. Here, insert your affiliate link for the product you are promoting.

Once you are done with the copy and page design, update it, and it is ready.

Step 5 – Define User Events To Send Data To FluentCRM

As said in the example, people may not take the product offer now. So you would want to send out an email to promote the affiliate product to them, maybe 3-days later.

In this case, you need to send the prospect’s data to an automation tool. We will use FluentCRM here, but you may use any one of the other automation tools that are supported by WPFunnels.

Now, go to FluentCRM and create a list named ‘Lead Gen‘ & two tags named ‘Opt-in Yes’ and “CTA Yes.”

• Here’s a quick guide on creating a list & tag on FluentCRM.

Next, go back to the canvas of your funnel on WPFunnels, and click on “+ Integrations” on top.

Here, choose FluentCRM as your CRM. Then define the following user events:

1. After Form Submission (Landing Page)
   For this, assign the list “Lead Gen” and the tag “Opt-in Yes”

2. CTA Triggered (Bridge Page)
   For this, assign the list “Lead Gen” and the tag “CTA Yes”

What this means is that if someone submits a form on the Landing page, he will be added to the list “Lead Gen,” and assigned the tag “Opt-in Yes.” And If someone clicks on the Button on the bridge page to go to the affiliate product, the same person will also be assigned the tag “CTA Yes.”

We will use these to run an email automation campaign.

Step 6 – Create Email Automation Flows In FluentCRM

To carry out this step, you will need FluentCRM Pro.

Go to FluentCRM > Automation and create a new automation.

Here, you need to set the following:

• Automation Trigger: Tag Applied – Opt-in Yes
• Send a custom email with a link to the free handbook.
• Delay: 3 Days
• Condition: If “Tag” is CTA Yes
• If the condition is Yes, then “End This Funnel Here”
• If the condition is No, then send a custom email with a link to the affiliate product.

So, as per this automation, the moment someone signs up on the squeeze page, he will receive an email with a link to the handbook.

Then, if he clicks on the CTA button from the bridge page, he will get the tag CTA Yes. Else, he will not have that tag.

Now, after 3 days, whoever will not have this tag will get an email with a pitch for the affiliate product.

That’s it. Your funnel is ready.

Step 7 – Start Promoting Your Funnel

Once you are done with creating the funnel & setting up email automation, it’s time to run Paid Ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, or on your preferred channels to bring traffic to the Squeeze page.

So, your Ads will be about the free handbook.

And you may share the squeeze page on your existing social media, mailing list, and groups.

Meanwhile, set up re-targeting Ads for the squeeze page as well so that anyone who visits it but ends up not signing up will get further Ads. Adroll is a great tool to manage re-targeting Ads.

You may also set up re-targeting Ads for people who go to the Bridge Page.

Final Thoughts

As you saw above, it’s super easy to build a bridge funnel in WordPress. And you now have knowledge of 3 ways to use the bridge funnel to get more conversions.

Now, each of the strategies mentioned here has its own perks, and you have to decide which one suits your affiliate products.

But do keep in mind; you need to put some effort into copywriting to ensure the traffic you drive into your funnel gets the right persuasive message. Here’s a great place to develop your copywriting skills.

So go ahead and build your next funnel and make your affiliate marketing business more profitable.

• Get WPFunnels to build the best bridge funnels today.