The post Case Study: Achieving 5X Boost in Sales for Leading E-Commerce Retail Brand with Unique On-Device Mobile Ads appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Becca chatted to Niamh Butler-Walton about her role at Buzzfeed, as well as her history and the trends she is seeing within the industry.

What’s your role and what does it consist of?

I am the International Director of Commerce, which essentially means that I am responsible for the growth of our international affiliate and strategic partnership business here at BuzzFeed. Our international editions at BuzzFeed include the UK, Canada, Australia, Mexico, India, and Japan. 

What do you enjoy most about the performance marketing industry?

My favorite aspect of performance marketing is that the audience is at the heart of its success. I joined BuzzFeed almost six years ago because I thought they were the only publisher that had an authentic and genuine connection with the audience it was writing for. Shopping content and our performance business is a clear reflection of that as it only works for us (and the partners we work with) if it works for our audience. 

 Who is your performance marketing hero and why?

I am sure that people say their boss all the time, but Nilla Ali is my performance marketing hero without a doubt. She is a trailblazer in the space and a role model for women in the media industry. She is constantly thinking about new ways to innovate to make the online shopping experience frictionless for consumers. She’s also honest with retailers about what needs to be done to make that work and is fearlessly up to any challenge presented to us. 

Who in your team deserves more recognition that they get? (The unsung hero)

Performance and affiliate marketing is a real team effort, especially at a publisher. The data reporting team, the site team, the lead editors and writers all deserve more recognition for the work they do. But if I had to choose one team, it would be the optimisation and growth team. You can do as much due diligence with projections pre-campaign, but when you are stuck in a rut during the campaign, the optimisation and growth team can come in and save the day with creative and outside the box strategies. A big shout to Kendall Larkin and Dariya Kizieieva for being fantastic problem solvers. 

What trends are you seeing working with advertisers?

Generally, I am so excited to see so many international retailers roll up their sleeves with publisher content affiliates. We know it is a strong model for performance, but retailers are now rethinking the way their affiliate channels work to be more inclusive of the incremental, non-conversion based performance that content affiliates can bring. Of course big publishers with massive scale like BuzzFeed can bring strong traffic to retailer’s sites – but we’ve also heard that BuzzFeed brings more new customers and customers with longer lifetime value than average traffic.

Another trend we are seeing work well in 2021 is the focus on fewer more impactful sales. 2020 was a year with heavy promotions and sales. While sales are fantastic for generating demand, we are seeing that meaningful less frequent sales end up being much more lucrative in the long run. Online shoppers (especially BuzzFeed shoppers) are much more attuned to deals and promotions than they were a year ago. They will tell you when they don’t think a deal or discount is meaningful enough. Fewer bigger sales also allow us to put a concentrated editorial push behind the moment so we don’t run into sale messaging wearout. It is more meaningful for consumers and in turn for our partners. 

How has the role of affiliate networks changed over the last 12 months?

We see affiliate networks as valuable partners in expanding our affiliate business. By having the publisher managers eager to be experts on our business and account managers being advocates for us with their retailers and brands, we have been able to educate markets much faster on BuzzFeed’s International affiliate programme. 

What one thing would you change about the industry?

This isn’t as much something I would change, but rather something that I would love to see more of in the future. There is still so much we can do to make the online shopping experience more suited for current consumer habits. I get really excited about companies like Northfolk, AGORA, and Bonsai that are solving for how to give consumers an improved experience of frictionless shopping. These innovations make it easier for consumers to evaluate what products are right for them and take less steps to then act on it if it is. It feels like we are at the tip of the iceberg and I am really excited to see what is next. 

What’s your top tip for advertisers?

Communicate with your affiliate partners as frequently and as early as possible. As a publisher affiliate, our content plans can be scheduled as early as two months in advance. Being able to provide our editorial team the full picture of what is happening with your brand allows them to keep you top of mind in their execution and could potentially provide more avenues for us to drive demand for your brand. 

What other areas of the industry can you see yourself working in in the future, perhaps?

This is a tough one as there are so many exciting new spaces and technologies emerging as online shopping grows! I am particularly excited to see where the video commerce space goes over the next few months and years. I often find myself in a TikTok or YouTube hole when I am researching products myself, so I think companies that are making video more enabled for shopping will provide consumers the shopping environment they are seeking.

We hope you enjoyed this installment of our new column. If you would like to get involved please get in touch via our Typeform.

The post The Publisher Diaries: Rebecca Maier appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Glosinda Goes has been in the affiliate industry for over eight years and has worked for brands like Charlotte Tilbury and House of Fraser. She’s currently responsible for the implementation of affiliate and partnership activity at Crabtree and Evelyn, who relaunched as an online-only retailer in July 2019. Glosinda has worked closely with numerous publishers over the years and has good relations with various networks. Nominated as a PerformanceIN Top 50 Industry player in 2020, Glosinda continues to excel in her field.

Here’s the inside scoop on Glosinda’s personal influences, what drove her to the performance industry and some exciting behind the scenes information…

What’s your role and what does it consist of?

I work as the Global Partnerships and Affiliates Manager at Crabtree and Evelyn. I would like to think I am the go-to person for everything affiliates, and I manage the programme globally. My responsibilities entail strategising and growing the affiliate programme in all markets by continuously recruiting new publishers and optimising existing publisher relationships.

Partnerships do also fall under my umbrella and we get to partner with some amazing brands, publications, and podcasts to help drive brand awareness and revenue for Crabtree and Evelyn in all markets.

What do you enjoy most about the performance marketing industry?

Every day is a different day, and the performance marketing industry is always changing; there is always something new to learn in the industry. Our roles keep changing depending on what crops up in the industry. We never stop learning and I think that is the best part of this job.

Who is your performance marketing hero and why?

Without a doubt, Sophia Evgeniou is my performance marketing hero. She was my senior at House of Fraser, and I also had the opportunity to work with her during my time in Charlotte Tilbury. She has always been a great mentor and has vast experience in all the channels of performance marketing, from remarketing, paid social, CRM to affiliates.

She was shouting about attribution before it was even trending in the industry and is now handling all the offline and online marketing channels for Open for Vintage where she has grown the brand from its embryo stage to where it is now. Whatever brand she works for she helps grow and find its potential.

Who in your team deserves more recognition that they get? (The unsung hero)

I am unable to choose one unsung hero from the team as I think there are quite a few members in the team that are integral in helping the brand grow. Every member of the team brings something different and unique and this is what makes us stronger and the reason why we work well together.

What trends are you seeing working with publishers?

Every year the number of technology affiliates that enter the affiliate industry has grown. These amazing publishers help advertisers use the affiliate space to do everything from optimise the website by serving customers with AI bundles and cross selling to conversion overlays all via the affiliate program on a cost-effective basis. The affiliate industry has started to cater to every aspect of the business, and this helps make a marketer’s life easy.

How has the role of affiliate networks changed over the last 12 months?

Since the industry has seen more and more SaaS platforms enter the market, the more traditional networks have started to work on being innovative and proactive to compete with the SaaS platforms. Networks have started to build tools on their platforms to help cater to advertisers needs, who are not only searching for the traditional advertiser-publisher relationships but also brand to brand partnerships. It is very important for networks to adapt to the advertiser needs and offer them personalisation depending on their goals and be able to offer niche reporting.

What one thing would you change about the industry?

I think advertisers need to work and support each other to help advise the brands that are entering the market and need some council and guidance on how to build a successful affiliate programme.

What’s your top tip for publishers?

Be flexible and offer more hybrid models for new advertisers to test new placements.

What other areas of the industry can you see yourself working in in the future, perhaps?

In the future, I see myself working more with paid social channels as that is one channel that will never stop growing and there will always be something new to engage our customers with our brand.

We hope you enjoyed this installment of our new column. If you would like to get involved please get in touch via our Typeform.

The post The Advertiser Diaries: Glosinda Goes appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The Publisher Diaries will focus on the details of individuals’ roles within the publisher sphere, as well as some of the challenges they face, and the inspiration that drove the individuals to want to work in the performance marketing industry.

In this edition, we spoke to Maya Fitzherbert, partnerships and affiliates manager at OneVoice Digital, a software company collaborative between National Union of Students and Arrk Group.

Maya has a background in various industries, having started her journey studying Fine Art at university, which led her to co-found an artist’s collaborative group. Maya then decided to undertake an internship in marketing and student activity in China.

Upon returning to the UK, Maya began working for a Students’ Union as Advertising Sales and Partnerships Coordinator.

She then began her role at OneVoice Digital in 2020, and works on the TOTUM product. The free and paid membership card now boasts 100’s of brands and offers from food, fashion, tech and homeware to everything in between, saving students on average £600 a year.

Maya told PerformanceIN about the details of her role, her main challenges and her inspirations:

What is your role and what does it consist of?

My role consists of managing brand affiliates and partners on the TOTUM student discount platform across web, app and socials. Formerly NUS Extra, the proposition has come a long way from the original paid card, and we are constantly adapting to grow in the student and professionals discount market.

On a day-to-day basis, I can be selling advertising media and creating media packages one minute, before moving onto facilitating the launch of new brands. I spend my time doing this as well as planning and creating marketing campaigns and renewing offers and brand pages.

I work with a wide variety of brands, from small businesses that are exclusive to our platform, to large established retailers. I also analyse the success of each through performance analytics and make decisions based on seasonal trends to present the best possible offers and incentives. The aim of this is to compel students to spend with TOTUM and deliver the best value to our customers and brands alike.

What do you enjoy most about the performance marketing industry?

Although I’m fairly new to the performance marketing world – coming from a media sales background at a Students’ Union – I love that there is such a wide variety of brands and products to advertise on our publishing site and the affiliate networks act as a large supermarket of brands to browse and potentially onboard.

I find it really exciting to notice a trend in the market and have the ability to search this category online, on social media or filter through the affiliate networks and find niche companies or startups that could have high potential and engagement on the platform.

Since the launch of TOTUM in 2018, our strategy is to showcase the most relevant everyday discounts to students and professionals as we can, so we have the freedom to follow seasonal trends to seek out unique products or offerings.

The best part is then launching and leveraging these brands without any expectations and monitoring the success of each through how it performs, the brand viewability and of course the sales driven. Having the space to react to micro and macro consumerism trends in such an evolving market keeps us current and reactive and allows me personally to inject my own ideas and creative opinions into the role.

Who is your performance marketing hero and why?

Even though I am only six months into my role it is already clear to me that the networks we work with strive to find the best ways of working between brand and publisher. More broadly, the heroes are the account managers that have taken an invested interest in what we do at TOTUM. All these fantastic individuals at the networks that work with us on various campaigns, onboarding and managing brand assets have pinned down precisely how to get the most value out of our student discount platform and I thank them for making my life easier and helping brands to bring exceptional offers to new audiences.

Who in your team deserves more recognition than they get? (The unsung hero)

I would not say there is necessarily an unsung hero in our brand team as we’re still quite a small team.

We support and constantly find ways to manage an increasing workload. Praise is handed out constantly and colleagues are recognised for their achievements. We have a stand-up meeting nearly every morning, which can act as a motivator for the rest of the day, especially as we’re all working remotely and often autonomously, we each bring our queries and wins to the daily meeting and people are praised for small and large wins – it is impossible for my team to achieve something and for it to go unnoticed.

We also have a Gong’s feature in the end of week company wide meeting where we nominate colleagues for positive achievements and there is never a week lacking these gongs.

What trends are you seeing working with advertisers?

There is a definite shift with advertisers to show their sustainability aims to the student audience, we are finding more and more brands are presenting themselves as environmentally and ethically conscious in an age where it is increasingly difficult to get away with things like unrecyclable packaging or an awareness of their environmental impact on our planet, and we’re here for it.

The latest UCAS Student Lifestyle Report for 2021 tells us students are more inclined to pay more for a product that they know is made from recycled materials or has been produced sustainably. The most common answer for students when asked what will be the ‘next big thing’ in brands from this UCAS report was ‘Any brand that is sustainable or environmentally friendly’ so brands have been listening.

I’ve also seen trends in unisex clothing as gender fluidity has become more visible and greater support of LGBTQ+ issues by collaborating with models and influencers within this community.

How has the role of affiliate networks changed over the last 12 months?

Going into a remote working landscape during the pandemic has meant that physical meetings have not been possible. The affiliate networks have had to adapt to this and continue to reach out to partners and publishers with regular video calls and introductions.

We have been invited to publisher days to present our platform and these can be key to finding new brands to onboard and letting the networks know what we do at TOTUM. Since I started in this role there has been pressure on the online shopping world to keep up with demand as more students buy things for their homes and ‘working from home’ spaces to make sure they are comfortable in a space where they spend so much time in. Something as simple as a plant to have on your desk becomes a necessity!

The networks have worked with brands to adapt to the new home environment; whether it’s fashion becoming loungewear, food delivery services like Hello Fresh and our exclusive cocktail delivery for those who are shielding or Disney+ and Audible becoming necessities to switch off after a long day. The affiliate networks have supported brands to get their products in sight and promoted with desirable images and content that often appears as though it has been pulled straight off Pinterest.

What one thing would you change about the industry?

There are lots of brilliant partners out there for the student market from tech providers to fashion

retailer and sports. What I often see are restrictions from other publishers to exclude brands from working with others; this can be a really limiting decision for the future and I don’t like to see brands tying themselves up to exclusivity agreements where they’re unable to advertise to a specific market or offer a discount that has parity with its competitors.

There are so many unique ways that a brand can be promoted by publishers and how they can work together, so hard clauses in initial agreements can be very restrictive.

What is your top tip for advertisers?

Know your customer; if you are looking to break into the student market, make your brand and assets current, high quality and attractive.

If you can, host various sales and incentives and get this information over to your publishers in advance of the sale dates, the earlier the better to ensure your publisher has enough time to upload before these amazing flash offers start.

Additionally, discount redemption codes set expiry can be a major downfall for a brand; if you send discount redemption codes with an expiry to your publisher, make sure you are responsible for resending a renewal before the end date, keep the onus brand side to make sure your brand is always onsite and represented appropriately and set regular catch ups with your publishers to see how you can push each other further to achieve great results.

And finally, another top tip; don’t set the expiry of your discount codes as ‘end of the year’ I had the unlucky task of coming back after the Christmas holidays and entering January sales and seeing that a large chunk of our brands had expired codes and as a result had disappeared off the platform! Set the codes as evergreen and get back in touch if you need to reassess or amend discounts.

What other areas of the industry can you see yourself working in in the future, perhaps?

Working within a small to medium company allows me to stick my nose into most things that we take care of at TOTUM. However, I am aware that advertisements are now interwoven into social media (especially Instagram), the way students and gen-z, gen-x and millennials consume media is via their smartphone and how they chill out is often through their chosen social channels; brands are in tune with this and are jumping on the platform to sell their brand.

I have begun working closely with our social team and much of what they do is follow trends and keep the channels fun and engaging. They have built our following by 150% since January 2019 through a mixture of memes, hilarious videos and interesting articles and they know exactly what our audience likes.

Keeping the channels content based but allowing the odd offer to feature in this space has been a strategy for me since day one and this is what I pulled upon in my interview, which ultimately got me the role as we seek to find innovative and engaging ways to showcase brands to the appealing student market.

We hope you enjoyed this installment of our new column. If you would like to get involved please get in touch via our Typeform.

The post The Publisher Diaries: Maya Fitzherbert appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The Advertiser Diaries will focus on the details of individuals’ roles within the advertiser sphere, as well as some of the challenges advertisers face, and the inspiration that drove the individuals to want to work in the performance marketing industry.

For our first edition, we chatted to affiliate marketing and partnerships specialist at Vodafone, Adam Clisby, who has a strong background in the industry and a passion for forming relationships.

Adam originally intended to study at university but had a change of heart, as he wasn’t sure of what he wanted to study.

After deciding to defer, only a few days before his course commenced, he opted for a year’s apprenticeship with a digital agency.

Following this, Adam went on to work for Hopper, a travel brand. During his time there he worked with Awin for around six months, before Awin asked Adam to work for them in London. This set off a domino effect, and he ended up working at Awin for two and a half years. During this period, Adam was the account manager for Vodafone – this ultimately led him to decide to work directly in-house.

Adam spoke to PerformanceIN about the details of his role, his main challenges and his inspirations:

What’s your role and what do you do at Vodafone?

I currently work in a team of three, and I’m responsible for the AYM and Talkmobile affiliate channels. At the moment, I’m working on the Pay Monthly and Talkmobile affiliate channels here at Vodafone.

What emerging publisher strategies are you seeing right now?

Looking aside from the traditional affiliates we have always worked with, we have noticed a lot of fintech partners joining the channel. I think this will be an interesting area to watch over the long term.

Companies such as Klarna, who have access to millions of potential customers, are showing interest in working in a publisher capacity. With a reach such as theirs, that’s definitely an opportunity we are looking to pursue.

Outside of this, we are seeing more tech partners work with us, and with Awin using the master tag functionality, this is helping us to not only increase revenue but also to better understand how customers interact with the channel.

What do you most respect or what impresses you about your key affiliates?

Transparency and in-depth analysis of promotion activity really impresses me, as well as being honest when things don’t work which means we can begin looking for ways to improve going forward.

We sometimes experience affiliates taking commissions and not giving any campaign overviews, and it is especially important for us to be aware of what’s working and the ways we can fix it if it isn’t working. So basically working collaboratively, involving us in every step and forming a positive relationship.

What shifts are you seeing in affiliate marketing with your company?

The ability we will have to test incrementality in the future is always the question. There’s a big shift in the way we’re looking at how affiliates are driving sales, or if it is other marketing channels. We’re asking ourselves if these people would purchase with us if not for other channels. It’s important to be focusing on how customers are valued. Something that is becoming apparent is that it’s not just bottom of the funnel anymore.

What’s impressed you so far this year?

At the moment, we’re working with RevLifter on a trial, and since it launched I’ve been really impressed with their way of working and what they’re about. 

What’s your top tip for publishers?

Something I would definitely stress is not to chase investment; work on being proactive and build strong relationships with your clients, and work on your relationships with your affiliates.

What I’d probably say is my ultimate top tip is to be responsive. There’s nothing worse than spending loads of money with somebody and then never hearing from them again.

Being friendly and engaging will mean more creativity is achieved, as you’re more comfortable with your partners.

Adam Clisby, Vodafone

What can affiliates do to stand out when working with your brand?

It’s easy for things to be mundane. We sometimes see the same thing day in, day out. Due to this, we’re looking for exciting new ideas, untraditional activity, and lots of thought about the bigger picture.

Standing out from competitors is important, so coming up with innovative ideas is a must.

Think about earlier in the funnel and how you can link campaigns.

Adam Clisby, Vodafone

What one thing would you change about the industry?

I would like to see more looking at the bigger picture in general. It would be nice to pay more attention to how we fit into wider digital channels to enable us to take this into consideration when building campaigns.

I think another huge thing is not to get stuck in the numbers; being open minded is really important. 

What other areas of the industry would you be interested in being involved in in the future?

I’ve spent six years working within affiliate. I like partnerships and relationships, that’s what I’m good at, but I am interested in perhaps going into a wider digital role specialising in affiliates. I want to keep learning about social too! But ultimately, affiliate is my bread and butter, so I’m happy here for now!

We hope you enjoyed this installment of our new column. If you would like to get involved please get in touch via our Typeform.

The post The Advertiser Diaries: Adam Clisby appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Visual search uses images as the input for searches, rather than text. A user takes a picture and clicks search, and AI and machine learning (ML) work to find similar images on the web. This means you wouldn’t have to search up: ‘green and blue vase 30cm tall’ and go trawling through the endless results. Instead, visual search will bring up items that are similar, or if you’re lucky, the item you’re looking for.

It is not a new technology whatsoever, but technology developments mean that bigger volumes of images can be processed, making it more easily accessible for marketers and consumers alike.

Here are five brands who are using visual search in a way other brands could harness:

eBay

In 2017, eBay launched their ‘Find it on eBay’ which allows users to use photos taken from social media to scour eBay for their desired product. They also debuted their visual search tool, which enables real-world photographs, taken by users, to be used in the same way.

With more than one billion product listings, it is of utmost importance, if eBay is to work, for buyers to be successfully connected with their desired products. Using text search could pose a problem here, and visual search helps solve that.

Brands with a large amount of inventory could definitely take advantage of visual search in this way. A clothing company may have hundreds of red t-shirts, meaning a consumer searching for the perfect tee could become overwhelmed by choice and decide not to purchase. Visual search could help them find the perfect item.

Argos

2019 saw the release of Argos’ visual search tool, which allows users to snap pictures of homeware pieces and search for similar items on the Argos catalogue. With a range of items across the price spectrum, this feature allows users to find smaller budget products as well as more highly-priced items.

If a business with an inventory of competitively priced items from various brands adopted visual search as a technique, they could really increase the visibility of brands with price points both low and high, depending on what a customer is looking for.

Google Lens

Google Lens doesn’t only bring up products when a user searches with an image; it also brings up any relevant information that can be found. For example, you’re walking in a park and you see a flower you really like the look of. Snapping a quick picture with Google Lens can bring up the name of the flower, information about it, and where you can buy them online.

Having the ability to search for more information, as well as just shopping, meant Google Lens had 50 million installs in just 16 months. Brands could use this idea to their advantage, by enabling users to search for helpful information as well as for products to purchase. This could help improve customer relationships as well as boost up sales.

Instagram

Being an entirely visual and picture-based platform, Instagram technically fits into this list. 

It is the platform of the influencer. When sourcing the right influencer to partner with to sell products, visual search could aid marketers. Influencers are usually chosen based on their follower count or area of work, and although this can be effective, they aren’t always the right choice for a brand.

Using Instagram to search for images similar to what you would like to promote – for instance kitchenware, or beauty products, would most likely bring up posts from influencers. This way, marketers will be able to find affiliates who post content about similar products and are reaching audiences suited to the brand.

Salesforce: Einstein Vision

Einstein Vision is a B2B product which helps brands navigate their social media better by searching for logos on social images. This means that if customers are not tagging or mentioning a brand on their social media posts, Einstein Vision can be used to search for a company or brand logo, so it can be determined how many people are using a product.

This can aid in determining engagement and strategising according to this, as well as by sourcing influencers to advertise products.

By harnessing or developing technology such as this, brands will be able to establish relationships with their customers which are sometimes difficult to make through social media.

These are just a few examples of brands who are harnessing the power of visual search. It can be a simple process that can be put in place in order to unlock a whole new realm of discovery for your brand. With developments in AI and ML, it will be interesting to see further developments in this area in the future, and the benefits that these developments will bring to brands.

The post Top Five Brands That Are Using Visual Search appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The past few years, a big shift in performance marketing has been focused around content publishers. There are many sub-categories and verticals when you dive into the content category, but today we’ll focus on influencers. Have you been in a meeting this past month, this week, even today where the term Influencer hasn’t come up in some way? Brands & advertisers are on an ongoing quest to figure out how best to capitalise on an influencer strategy while the Influencers themselves are figuring out how to maintain authenticity, build a following, and strike a balance with monetization.

Influencer marketing is a “thing” and has reached a state of maturity, and hence, the commercialisation has not only begun, but it’s evolving. For advertisers and consumers alike it can be challenging to tell the good from the bad, the real from the fake, the small from the big, and a very fragmented market has evolved.  Yet, the real challenge that has surfaced for all parties involved – the advertisers, consumers, and the influencers themselves is authenticity. 

According to eMarketer, inauthentic engagement and the rising costs associated with influencers is one of the key challenges the industry faces. Striking the right balance is a concern for advertisers and the amounts they should pay out can start to weigh heavy when thinking about budget allocation and the returns from it.

A balanced approach

This is important as having this as part of an affiliate program, we need to maintain and build authenticity while harnessing the power of the distribution and also making sure the budget doesn’t go out the window. Influencers are doing good work and they deserve to be compensated for it, but advertisers will need to walk a delicate line and start to create the right mix to ensure broad reach but also get that authenticity they are looking for.

The more “mass market” influencers have created a foothold for themselves with brands and followers, and even micro-influencers have a place in an advertisers strategy, what we need to be on the lookout for next to fully balance out the portfolio, from an Advertiser perspective, is the very long tail, what I would say are just individual consumers and brand advocates like you and I.

Another eMarketer report shows how this segment of smaller influencers, is not only more cost-effective but speaks directly to the right audience and starts to address the challenge of authenticity. When you start to look at your customers as publishers in your affiliate program, you are able to start looking at small, trusted audiences and creating advocacy amongst them.  And what better way to do that than in the affiliate channel? This can simply be an extension of your current program and starts to create further diversification of distribution.

A different type of partner

There are actually a bunch of differences when you think about the more mature Influencers currently working in the space vs working with an individual or customer. You could say there are a lot of individuals who are influencers today, and you’d be right. But this distribution strategy is based on niche content, the size and reach of the audience, and the intent of the publisher. When thinking about how to create a long tail with your loyal customers and brand advocates – you need to remember, they’re not businesses, they often times don’t know affiliate, and this isn’t their primary form of income. Yet, the authentic voice they bring can provide a big opportunity and halo effect for a brand. 

These trusted friends provide useful information – and the opportunity exists to treat this as an affiliate engagement. We typically think of Influencer as Instagram – but if I were to text my friend for a recommendation on a TV to buy and they sent me back a link – this could be a great long-tail partner for an affiliate program. 

Now in terms of measuring the success of these individuals, if you lump them within your affiliate program and make them compete for last click they’re not always going to get the chance to grow and show off their true value. Yet it can still be an affiliate but should be carved out and measured separately or by a lot of the new multi-touch attribution commissioning logic the various networks and platforms have started to offer.

Keys for success

Social media has empowered Individuals to become huge producers of content and these are people who have immediate trust with their followers. They have smaller cohesive networks (friends and family), and they don’t even need to work within the normal economics of your program.  Some might value a per cent of sale, but others could just be looking for an exclusive offer, a product sample, or if it was me – just send me a t-shirt with your company name on it.

To be successful, this segment will require different tools, features, and functionality. It’s still hard today to explain the construct of an affiliate program to someone who isn’t in this space. Although there are tools out there that have started us down the path of simplification – we’re not there yet.  But the idea is – with the right tools, everyone can potentially have an affiliate relationship with a brand or retailer.  Things like white label platforms, simple linking tools, and most important – educational tools will be necessary for success.

Conclusion

An influencer is a key category of distribution that everyone needs a strategy around. But individuals can be your best advocates and there’s no reason the infrastructure by which we track can’t happen via an affiliate. These individuals can be trusted salespeople finding a unique audience or being found by a unique audience that perhaps as an advertiser you wouldn’t have been able to access yourself.  Now is the time to take advantage, make sure you have the right tools, and leverage this as a key part of your affiliate program.

The post The Next Phase of Influencer Strategy Through Affiliate appeared first on PerformanceIN.

With half of September done, it’s amazing to think of how fast this year has gone. Before we know it, Christmas will be upon us and we will be wondering how it’s already time to celebrate 2020.

If you’re a marketer, you know that this is crunch time. Q4 is one of the busiest times of the year for any business, and marketing is the driving force to Q4 success. That means traditional marketing, performance marketing, and any other type of marketing you might be involved with.

While a lot of what I’m about to go over has a good foundation that covers all types of business, this focus will be on performance marketing and the affiliate space. This area tends to be something that some brands leave to their agency to cover or they let the program ride along with no extra involvement. However, getting more involved with the program during this time and adding your program to the company’s overall strategy can prove to be essential to a more successful end of the year.  

By now, I’m sure as a company you’ve started your Q4 strategy and if you haven’t, I suggest getting on that as soon as possible, especially when it comes to your affiliate program. Things move fast and if you’re looking for end of year success, now’s the time to get going.

Now, where do you start? With the below five tips being your strategy focus, you can have a very effective plan implemented with very little stress added to the Q4 frenzy. 

1. Start planning yesterday

As I mentioned, if you haven’t already, you should start getting your mindset into Q4 mode and get your strategy underway. Plan some meetings with your program manager(s) to discuss placements, budget, and goals. Have your priorities changed? What does the budget allow for? Having everyone on the same page at the start is always a good idea. This also alleviates some work and stress on your end if your program manager is confident with their approach to the quarter. 

2. Get your partners engaged

Offering Q4 bonuses and/or commission increases are a great way to get your partners ready to promote during this busy buying time. If this is a route you would like to take, I would suggest sending out an announcement of the opportunity as soon as possible. This will make sure to get your brand in your partners’ minds while they’re planning their own Q4 schedule. 

The same thing goes for placements. Put out “feeler emails” now to your program’s top partners and see if there are any Q4 placements you want to get in on before they all get booked. A lot of top partners start scheduling their Q4 placements early, therefore, you’ll want to beat other brands to the punch. Having top placements set is the best course for affiliate success, especially in this quarter.

3. Q4 assets: ready and available

Affiliates are just as busy during the end of the year, so try to make things as enticing and easy as possible for them. Create new seasonal banners and text links to add to the network and let your partners know they’re available (include a few ad codes for them to easily grab as well). Another thing that your partners would appreciate is seasonal landing pages to promote. With such themes as Fall Style, Thanksgiving Recipes, Holiday Travel Tips, and other specific focuses popular this time of year, having landing pages dedicated to specific themes can intrigue affiliates and aid them in promoting.

This mindset works for your upcoming sale schedule as well. For example, when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals, create a newsletter schedule leading up to the big event so affiliates can better prepare. The sooner your partners know what’s available to promote, the more opportunities you have to be promoted.

4. Stay ahead of the game

Speaking of promotions, as hectic as things can get, try to have promotional details confirmed ahead of time. Last-minute sales aren’t always picked up and promoted this time of year. An affiliate or influencer has probably been planning and scheduling as much as you have, consequently ending up not having the time or space available if they are unaware of what’s being offered.

This is also a good thing to note throughout the year too. If you tend to offer deals and promotions at the last minute, then your partners are going to assume that Q4 isn’t going to change this. Therefore, you run the risk of not being considered for big placements and opportunities. Build that trust and relationship throughout the year and you’ll be one of the first brands your partners think of for the big holiday season.

5. Don’t forget to breathe

Yes, this is an important point to focus on during Q4. If you stress out, panic, or lose focus, you can forget something important, let things fall through the cracks, overcompensate, the list goes on. Keep you and your team calm, organised, and healthy. And, remember to always set realistic goals.

If you’re still wondering how you can have a relaxed Q4 with limited time available to hit your goals, I get it. Customers are saving for Christmas gifts, people are taking time off to travel for the holidays (employees and affiliates), so you’re feeling like you have to hurry and grab every opportunity you can at every possible moment you can. However, that’s not what good marketing strategies are made of. 

If you take the above tips and include your affiliate program as a true extension of your marketing efforts, you’ll hit the goals that matter. Worrying about every little opportunity can actually cause you to put effort into goals that aren’t that important; leaving you scrambling to get back on track.

Don’t let this Q4 get the best of you and your company. Start planning with your partner program in mind and you’ll be sure to see big wins. Just don’t forget about Q1 during it all.

The post Performance Marketing Q4 Planning: Five Tips for a Successful Quarter appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen some major shifts in the Affiliate channel.  Platforms have emerged, tracking has become more sophisticated, and in turn, so have the economics that drives our industry.  With that, the ecosystem of publishers has matured & expanded to truly evolve our industry into a partnership channel.  

Once upon a time, all the publishers in the affiliate channel were lumped together and managed with a general strategy and often times limited budgets.  But as new entrants have come on to the scene and existing partners have grown & matured, we have an opportunity to put a new strategic set of eyes upon publisher partners in order to support growth for an advertiser and to revisit how they’re managed within the channel & beyond.  

What I mean by this is that to truly become a partnership channel – we need to make sure that we are taking the right approach when looking at the value exchange & development of relationships between publishers and advertisers.  We need to get back to basics & establish some core principles for how we think about & manage this channel.

In the past year, as I’ve built my own consulting practice, focused on helping publishers & Technology partners with their strategy in the Affiliate ecosystem, it’s become clear to me that although we’ve evolved – there’s still some work to do.  We’re flush with opportunities, which is a great thing!  Yet, it’s important to make sure that we’re taking the time to understand each other’s needs and digging in to articulate our mutual value which is what makes this channel so great.    

So how can we get back to the basics?

1. Dig in

This might be the simplest of all.  Yet, we need to be deliberate and understand each other and how we can mutually benefit each other when thinking about a partnership.  It’s not just what’s in it for one side (a new partner, a better offer, a coupon), it’s about how both sides can be successful.  

The way to start is simply – pick up the phone.  There is a lot of overhead when you’re managing a partnership, especially multiple partnerships – but taking the time to explain what you’re doing as a publisher and taking the time to understand the value prop as an advertiser is the foundation of everything we do.  It seems like too often we get caught in the busy trap and we aren’t able to take the time to prioritise this part of our jobs.  It’s important we’re clear on a few things – like what are the goals for the advertiser, both for affiliate and their overall business goals?   What keeps them up at night?  A few simple questions around their business and then drilling down into their Affiliate program can open up a ton of doors for publishers of all sizes.  

Each publisher has a unique value proposition and by first seeking to understand the challenges a potential partner is facing, as a publisher, you’re now putting yourself in a position to help.  I’ve found that there are always opportunities to be uncovered.  When an advertiser responds with just a generic “join my program” or the publisher is simply looking for an advertiser to “send me an offer” – we’re not really treating this as a partnership channel but more of a basic transactional endeavour that we hope will be successful.  It’s the old adage – throw it against the wall & see what sticks – and that doesn’t always work.

I encourage everyone to talk to at least one new partner a day, and I’m sure you’ll find an opportunity that wasn’t there before.  And even if you don’t, I’m pretty sure you’ll either learn something new, get a nugget of insight, or at least build a relationship you didn’t have before.  And remember, it might not solve an immediate problem or be the answer you’re looking for today – but it could be one for tomorrow, your next job, or even be someone you eventually hire or work for.

2. Create a diversified portfolio

One of the most important things you can do when thinking about your program is to make sure you have a diversified group of publishers.  And as a publisher – the question for you is, where do you fit in that mix?  Are you a loyalty publisher, or do you drive top of funnel traffic, can you target a certain region, or do you produce a certain type of content?  And for the advertisers, by working with a broad group of publishers, and understanding the value, the opportunity to create a solid mix will allow you to mitigate risk but also to see what works, what doesn’t, who can create a steady stream of customers, and where you might have more bespoke opportunities either seasonally or otherwise.  

In doing this, you’ll find you have a solid base of core foundational publishers, a mid-tier oftentimes made up of up & coming publishers or one’s with specific capabilities, and then a group that I would consider growth opportunities – those publishers where you can find that diamond in the rough.  

3. Test & learn

Once you’ve taken the call & dig in & understand where this potential partner fits in your overall portfolio mix, it’s time to try some new things.  The beauty of affiliate is it’s transparent, strategic in nature, and the economics are (as we all know) performance-driven.  

For an advertiser, identify a group of growth partners.  These are the folks who are new to market or at least new to the affiliate market.  I think of all the partners I’ve seen come & go over the years and without taking a chance on some, you’ll never be able to capitalise on those that move throughout the ranks of your portfolio from long tail to foundational. And the reason it’s a portfolio is because partners move – some grow, pivot or even fail, but for advertisers, this helps you mitigate risk – and most importantly test and learn.  And for publishers, this is what allows you to prove your value.

In conclusion…

We work in a great industry & ecosystem that allows us the opportunity to see and test new things on a daily basis: be it new potential partnerships or optimising existing ones.  A common line you’ll hear about our channel is “it’s a relationship business”.  It’s true.  But to make it work, we need to put in the leg work, get back to basics, and make sure we’re taking the time to understand each other and how, as true partners, we can support each other.

The post Back to Basics: Fundamentals of Creating & Growing Partnerships appeared first on PerformanceIN.

When I ask myself ‘are we running out of talent in the industry?’ my honest and prompt answer is yes. I will explain the reasons why I think this is happening and how we can collaborate to increase the talent coming into our industry and keep it within our channel below.

Candidates’ experience

When it comes to finding the perfect candidate, the most obvious and key criteria that hiring managers look at is the candidates’ experience. The assumption is often that you need to hire people whose experience matches the role requirements, to ensure that they’ll be able to complete their work successfully. However, when looking to fill entry level roles or candidates with affiliate experience, companies sometimes have to expand their research to candidates with wider digital knowledge, as looking purely at affiliate experience can sometimes make the search too narrow. In addition, people with a wider digital experience can bring valuable experience from other channels, looking at how to adapt previous initiatives and strategies that could work well in the affiliate channel.

Global expansion and consequences

When finding good talent, other challenges are a consequence of the global expansion that businesses are experiencing nowadays. Companies want to be prepared to support clients in other countries but have their employees based in the same city. An example would be a client willing to launch their affiliate programme in the Spanish market, but having those employees based in the United Kingdom. This is increasingly a request of brands, so companies should take this into consideration when hiring candidates. They should ensure that candidates have the necessary languages, market knowledge and the right skillset to launch and support global programmes. If a candidate matches these criteria, the company will have greater success at scaling and managing global affiliate programmes. Companies also need to consider other factors such as Brexit which could make it harder to higher candidates suitable for global roles. 

Another external factor that cannot be ignored is the conception of affiliates within the digital landscape. The affiliate channel is very often scrutinised for its elasticity and “non-immediate” outstanding results, versus other channels like display, social or search. Consequently, this conception sometimes reaches employees’ opinion and the more junior employees decide to move from their roles in affiliates to other companies “to learn how other channels work”. 

Action points

Having summarised the current situation and the challenges that we are facing, I’d like to suggest a few actions our industry should take to ensure we are attracting and retaining talent in the affiliate industry.

Firstly, even if expertise is the most obvious criteria for hiring, I’d encourage companies to leave those criteria partially aside and look for the potential in people. If the person has the right profile, personality, is willing to join your company for the right reasons, shows excitement and commitment for the role and in addition, they speak other languages and have wider market knowledge, invest in them. Bring them on board and train them to make them successful at their roles, shaping and developing their experience. You’ll be able to shape their experience to make it fit perfectly within your company, which will reinforce the link between the employee and the company. This is not something that should only be done in the first few months, but something that all companies should commit to doing throughout an employee’s career. If the company cares about its employees and makes this clear to them by investing in training them, this person will be engaged and less likely to leave for another role.

Secondly, to overcome the challenge of the conception of affiliate marketing within digital, companies, leaders and each of us working in this industry must do a better job of explaining the values of our industry and embracing what we do. Our channel is a bedrock of innovation and is an exciting place to work. If this is represented daily by every employee and the leadership, these new “fresh” employees with limited experience in the channel will start to feel passionate about having chosen affiliates and will want to stay. Companies in the industry should also provide more education and valuable content to brands about the value and power of the affiliate channel and how it can be considered the safest channel due to its payment model.

Lastly, if employers invest in training and promoting employees when ready, they will be creating a fairer environment when it comes to real talent in our industry. 

Summary

In summary, we have some challenges to face when it comes to finding the right talent and we need to be aware of the external factors that can make this more difficult. However, there are a lot of initiatives that companies and each one of us can commit to overcome these challenges and to develop more talented employees that will not consider working outside of affiliates.

The post Talent in the Affiliate Industry, Are We Running Out? appeared first on PerformanceIN.