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Advanced Affiliate Marketing
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Key Industries:
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Publishing & Media
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Retail
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Key Sectors:
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Affiliate Marketing
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e-commerce
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mobile
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21.06.2010
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What’s next as investment reaches new highs?
In 2009, affiliate marketing in the UK grew by 38.2% to a total of £72.6 million and if results so far this year are anything to go by, investment in the sector is only set to increase.
Affiliate marketing is continuing to go from strength to strength; today it is vital part of the digital toolkit for many businesses. In 2009, affiliate marketing in the UK grew by 38.2% to a total of £72.6 million and if results so far this year are anything to go by, investment in the sector is only set to increase. So what is next for this booming industry? What new technologies are emerging and how can brands increase the success and ROI of their campaigns?
Affiliate Marketing 2.0
Once the basics of an affiliate marketing strategy are in place, there are a variety of tools and web 2.0 technologies that can take the campaign to the next level and help publishers engage with new audiences. Some examples include mobile links, dynamic rich media and RSS feeds.
1. Mobile links
Shopping online using the mobile web is becoming increasingly popular with consumers and this presents a significant revenue generating prospect for advertisers and the brands they work with. Recent upgrades to network capacity and the introduction of flat fee mobile broadband plans have also contributed to this trend. Since it now costs less for consumers to browse the mobile web there are a greater number of opportunities for companies to capture consumer attention on the go through mobile advertising.
Research released in June 2010 from Ovum and Verdict Research suggests that by 2013, UK internet sales on mobiles will have doubled to £275m. This rise will be driven by a 119% rise in the m-commerce population, improvements in mobile technology, better interoperability and greater take-up of smartphones devices. Record mobile sales are also predicted for this year and as a result, advertisers who lay the groundwork now will be well placed to reap the rewards of their investment.
To reach and target mobile shoppers, advertisers and publishers require a trusted mobile distribution network. To help affiliates stay at the top of their game, tools such as LinkShare Mobile Links are available for publishers that want to work with specific advertisers to create tracking links for mobile devices. Mobile Links provide an easy to use technology framework for distributing and maintaining M-commerce links. M-commerce tracking technology also allows advertisers and publishers to identify and accurately measure the buying behaviour of mobile customers.
2. Deep Linking controls
Consumers are now accustomed to browsing the internet in its full feature-rich glory and to maintain the interest and meet the needs of online shoppers, publishers need to offer something more. To improve the quality of the consumer’s time online and to help retailers boost their conversion rates, LinkShare has just launched Deep Linking Controls, a new affiliate marketing technology.
Deep Linking Controls allow retailers to create deep links to specific product pages while at the same time enabling them to suppress others by developing a “blacklist” of internal pages to which deep links cannot be created. When a specific product page has been blacklisted, the online consumer is directed from the affiliate’s site to the retailer’s home page. Through these controls, retailers and affiliates can work together to ensure brand compliance while also protecting the consumer and adding value to their browsing experience.
3. RSS feeds
Similar to the RSS feeds that consumers use to find out about their favourite news topics and stories, affiliate feeds push relevant information directly to the user on demand. For affiliate marketing, RSS feeds are used by publishers to share information about an advertiser’s products and services with their customers, as an easy, quick and convenient way of keeping them up to date. This method also allows publishers to copy and paste the feeds straight into their own site and the number of advertisers delivering content in this way to boost conversion rates is growing.
Advertisers and publishers now have a variety of tools at their disposal to further their affiliate marketing strategies and bolster return on investment. To make the most of these technologies and to ensure an affiliate programme is on track, it is important to monitor success through solid Key Performance Indicators. This approach also helps to keep campaigns alive and interesting by incentivising affiliates in case interest begins to tail off.
Online channels allow businesses to respond quicker to what consumers want and engage with larger audiences, and for businesses looking to maintain their competitive edge affiliate programmes should be high on the agenda. Brands need to invest the time to develop to maintain targeted and strategic campaigns which closely match their target audience; those who do so will see the returns, both in the form of conversions to sale and through a groundswell of brand loyalty and increased audience engagement.
Liane Dietrich
UK Managing Director, LinkShare
Linkshare Blog
Twitter: LinkShareUKBlog
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