A growing market offers plenty of opportunities
The IAB and PwC’s Affiliate Marketing study for 2017 reported that affiliate marketing generated £8.9 billion in sales which is a 9% increase compared to the previous year. The study also showed that for retailers there is £16 of revenue generated for every £1 spent on affiliate marketing. In terms of how consumers are choosing to shop, then mobile spend increased from 17% to 23% last year which shows the growing trend of making purchase decisions using smartphones.
As a result, more ecommerce stores are now offering affiliate marketing campaigns as part of their marketing mix. The technology at affiliate networks is also improving and providing great reporting statistics down to product SKU level. More structured product feeds, enhanced tracking facilities and the ability to capture the data from multiple participating devices during the user’s journey is making the channel more attractive to online entrepreneurs. These factors demonstrate that the affiliate industry is in good health with the growth pattern set to continue offering a good ROI for new projects.
Just like a magnet, new types of publishers are being drawn into the affiliate marketing arena from different backgrounds including marketing, non-tech disciplines and even university graduates – all with the common goal looking for online success. Influencers and bloggers are also using affiliate marketing to earn passive income from their online followers. As a result, there are potentially millions of small and medium affiliates who wish to set-up their own affiliate websites that could be one paid widget populated from an affiliate network in a particular niche through to a fully dynamic website such as coupons, cashback or a mobile comparison project.
So the challenge is how to stand out in such a crowded marketplace?
The answer is to create a bespoke website that has a great look and feel, optimised and responsive for today’s smartphone orientated consumer. And this is where the RevGlue team can help as we provide bespoke design and development support to worldwide affiliates to set-up professional and dynamic affiliate websites in multiple languages and currencies.
Where to start?
The IAB study also showed the breakdown of website types with the highest proportions for coupons and rebate websites, with comparison shopping sites and email and newsletter list the next most popular. This means that shopping comparison, coupons and cashback sites now account for 64% of the affiliate spent.
A bespoke affiliate project can arise from any of the following scenarios:
- Affiliate agencies or ecommerce stores looking to setup affiliate campaign management that includes tracking, banner designs, data feeds setup, reporting and training.
- Affiliates who wish to set up bespoke affiliate websites, hybrid or native mobile applications, browser extensions or WordPress plugins/templates with a focus on either a cashback, discount vouchers, daily deals aggregation sites, product feeds, price comparison, mobile comparison, broadband comparison, fashion, beauty or in other niches.
- Worldwide publishers who wish to monetise their web properties, social media channels and users with a mix of bespoke solutions and/or revenue share basis that avoids the need for a direct relationship with the network providers.
- Publishers with mobile apps who wish to integrate with multiple affiliate networks that include data feed integration, designing plugins for WordPress projects, enhancing backend database structure or giving a facelift to existing sites
As these requirements are potentially so varied what this means is that you need to discuss your next affiliate project idea with a vendor who can provide you free advice on the cost, resourcing, data management and structures, website design and development process and affiliate network integration monetisation process. These are all skills that RevGlue provide.
How does a typical custom project design and development process work?
Whilst the requirement may be complex, the RevGlue process is actually fairly simple and can be completed in eight weeks. The RevGlue.com team acts as a design and development agency for the client on all bespoke projects. All the project requirements are confirmed with the client up front and agreed on the contract before it is scheduled with the bespoke development team.
The typical project takes two weeks in unique UI design, next three weeks on core development that includes HTML slicing and admin setup, two weeks on an affiliate network and payment processor API integrations and final week on detailed testing in real time. The project is then moved over to the client-server who becomes the sole owner of the project.
There are multiple team members involved with the project such as a UK cashback site integrating with 10 affiliate networks of your choice. The project manager fills in the communication gap between the client and the tech team on daily basis to make sure the project unique requirements are understood effectively. Daily feedback is provided to everyone via project management tools including a web panel, Skype, email and phone.
Experience is essential in your choice of custom project partner
Over the past ten years, the RevGlue team has completed over 120 affiliate projects including cashback, coupons, mobile comparison, broadband comparison, price comparison and others with worldwide affiliates in multiple languages and currencies. Most custom projects will involve a dynamic website with data integrations with multiple participating affiliate networks. The team understand the data feeds and API integrations structured with all the affiliate networks and then provide a great deal of training to website owners to make their life easy. This gives the client the comfort of using a vendor with over a decade of experience involved in working across the full range of affiliate network providers.
The project outcome is a responsive, intuitive and automated affiliate website that means that you are then free to concentrate on promoting the project, optimising the site and earning the commissions. When you spot your next opportunity to exploit the growth potential in Affiliate Marketing then send us your affiliate project ideas straight away. You can get in touch with the RevGlue bespoke project team at https://www.revglue.com/bespoke
