Affiliate Marketing veterans Wade Crang, Todd Crawford, Roger Kjensrud, Per Pettersen and Lisa Riolo originally helped to kick-start the market back in the 90s. This year, they’re back with ideas to expand on their successes even further, and this time, across all Media channels.
Although we’re surrounded by proof that the Internet has a lot to answer for when it comes to the demise of Traditional (Offline) advertising channels - Online may not actually be its final executioner. In a surprising twist, Online technology may provide a rescuing lifeline for Offline’s future.
Back in the late 90s, when the Internet began taking a lead role in our lives, the era of Digital Marketing also started flourishing with innovative marketing tools being explored and adapted. Big brands such as Amazon dabbled with acquiring sales and leads referred by other Online sites. Soon the concept of Affiliate Marketing became an exciting addition to most clients’ Online strategies and the all-important balance sheet.
With many online businesses wanting to have a go at this simple and cost-effective channel, brokers, advisors and eventually Affiliate Networks joined the advertising landscape to optimise Advertisers’ return on investment.
As highly-experienced Digital Marketers, we found ourselves shaping a market-leading Affiliate Network. When Commission Junction (CJ) was born in 1998, it’s fair to say we set the pace for others to follow.
Still number one in the US and a top three Network in the UK, we sold to ValueClick in 2003, and each of us went our separate ways to further explore and innovate within the advertising world.
Over the next few years, we watched the Performance channel grow and prosper. Affiliates became powerful businesses, some earning revenue surpassing that of their Advertiser partners and Advertisers found their own feet, recruiting in-house Affiliate Managers and demanding greater service.
In fact, we wondered if there was room for improvement given the strength of Performance already? However, one thing we did recognise was that its technology and supporting business processes had not necessarily evolved at the same pace. With marketers seeking ever-improving returns from their budgets, Performance Advertising is undeniably the optimal channel to develop profitable returns; yet aspects of the model remained less efficient and transparent to prompt exponential growth.
Additionally, the industry had become too reliant on third-party policies and intervention. Alongside an industry-wide move towards greater transparency, both Advertisers and Affiliates were seeking to manage their own activity more closely.
The channel has matured, with Advertisers and Affiliates no longer requiring the support from intermediaries they once needed. They now prefer direct relationships and flexible tools to support their negotiated terms.
Since our time at CJ, we’ve each led other launches and projects that expanded our perspectives; similar to when everyone in a band goes off to do solo projects and then re-unites with a fresh sound. We saw clear opportunities to catapult this channel forward once more. In simple terms, we set out to make a great advertising model even better.
Our answer was the technology to directly connect Advertisers and Affiliates, allowing them to maximise their Performance activity still further and to discover and define their own relationships and not just in the online world. This allows us to take the learnings and successes of Online Performance to other Offline Media channels such as TV, Radio, Outdoor and Print, truly integrating Media and providing a way in which the entire advertising landscape can effectively work together and drive significantly increased revenue.
So are we sure there is a market there? Yes. Research shows that Performance campaigns currently running via Traditional channels represent a fraction of total Offline advertising spend; For example, in the US, Performance represents 60 percent of the total Online spend, whilst it represents less than 5 percent of Offline spend. But, here’s the interesting bit: the dollars spent in all Online Performance is the same as Offline Performance spend.
If the technology landscape for running Performance campaigns on TV, Radio, Outdoor and Print was therefore more closely aligned with the technology at the foundation of Online Performance campaigns, the overall move to incorporate more Performance deals Offline would open up new revenue for the whole industry.
We see the convergence of Traditional and Online Media as a huge opportunity for everyone.
Wade Crang, Todd Crawford, Roger Kjensrud, Per Pettersen and Lisa Riolo
Impact Radius
Twitter: impactradius