Exciting news from the UK today. PerformanceIN has released this year’s list of International Performance Marketing Award (IPMA) finalists, and LinkConnector is overjoyed to announce that we have been added to the shortlist for the Best Partnership Award, with our technology partner Publisher Discovery (PD).
Building an eCommerce presence to capture online market share is one of the biggest challenges facing new retailers today, with many struggling to stand out in an ocean of fierce competition. Today’s press release highlights how a properly executed and managed affiliate program can help to grow profits for these young businesses faster than a rising tide.
LinkConnector Named Finalist for 2021 Performance Marketing Award
LinkConnector is thrilled to announce that we have been named a finalist, alongside our technology partner Publisher Discovery, for a 2021 Performance Marketing Award hosted by PerformanceIN in the category of Best Affiliate Marketing Innovation.
LinkConnector is thrilled and honored to be voted a top 10 affiliate network on mThink’s 2021 Blue Book Global 20 Best Cost-Per-Sale Affiliate Network survey.
This annual survey conducted by mThink is the largest, most prestigious research survey in the performance marketing industry to identify the world’s best networks. Votes are submitted by over 20,000 advertisers, publishers and agencies within the global performance marketing community. Voting results are combined with input from the Blue Ribbon Panel of industry experts and mThink’s extensive research taking into account reputation, influence, scale, clientele and popularity to determine the best industry leading CPS Networks.
For the past nine years straight, our valued merchant, affiliate, and agency partners have recognized LinkConnector as one of the best affiliate marketing networks worldwide in mThink’s Blue Book Top 20 Affiliate Network survey. With so many notable networks from which to pick, our customers have consistently chosen us, and this is an honor that we do not take lightly.
As COVID-19 has upended our worlds and forced us into a new normal, we unquestionably recognize the importance of human connections and adaptability in these unprecedented times—two defining features of affiliate marketing.
This state of crisis that has become our reality has redefined ecosystems, shifted consumer shopping behavior and altered stages of growth—quickly beckoning the need for eCommerce retailers to adjust their online advertising spend and strategies.
As digital marketing initiatives are being constrained or paused due to budget cuts, online retailers are leveraging the cost-effective value of affiliate marketing ever more so to help reach today’s consumer and fuel online revenue growth.
Here are some examples demonstrating how affiliate programs are empowering growth for online retailers amidst the coronavirus pandemic:
Employing Customer Ambassadors: Underscoring the human connection factor, retailers are emphasizing the opportunity for their customers to earn money by referring their community of friends and peers to purchase from the retailer’s online store. A retailer’s customers are effectively becoming a 100% commission-based online salesforce for retailers.
Matching Talent to the Environment: Just as sports coaches adjust game time strategies to external factors like weather, injuries and opponents, affiliates are essential players in these changing times—a powerful combination of entrepreneurship and innovation that helps drive growth for retailers in ways now deemed necessary. Retailers that previously eschewed Coupon affiliates are now placing them in the starting lineup; recognizing the importance of giving consumers a cost-savings in these tough economic times. Search Engine Marketing affiliates are given priority for their peripheral vision expertise in helping retailers become discoverable for search results potential customers are now seeking.
Communicating Value Add: The affiliate marketing industry is a guiding beacon for the importance of communicating and sharing ideas and strategies to help our ecosystem respond to, and rebound from, setbacks. Affiliate managers are utilizing LinkConnector resources to communicate top-selling products, inventory availability, promotional offers and shipping times to their affiliates, who then communicate (within their promotional context) these important details to consumers. Similarly, affiliates are making their resiliency known by highlighting innovative ways which they can quickly pivot to give merchants exposure to relevant customer demographics in need.
Driving Orders in Surging Categories:
LinkConnector is incredibly proud and honored to be recognized amongst the best of the best affiliate marketing networks worldwide on mThink’s BLUE BOOK Top 20 Affiliate Network rankings for the past eight years in a row.
This recognition is a testament to the trust of our merchant and affiliate customers, agency partners, and industry peers in our commitment to make a positive difference in their affiliate marketing goals and relationships.
The definition of trust is “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something and one in which confidence is placed.” Trust is the bedrock of relationships; building and reinforcing trust is at the heart of everything LinkConnector does.
If you are an affiliate, merchant or affiliate marketing agency, now is your chance to vote for your favorite affiliate network(s) by completing mThink’s 2020 Top 20 CPS/Affiliate Network Rankings survey. The questionnaire takes only a few minutes to fill out, and we hope you’ll include LinkConnetor in your answer to the 2nd and 4th questions.
Three pillars of LinkConnector that demonstrate our worthiness of a Top Network spot and make the most difference in setting us apart from other brilliant networks on the Top 20 list are as follows:
Innovation is a hallmark of LinkConnector and an expected deliverable from our customers. Affiliates and merchants count on us to help them creatively overcome challenges – from tracking issues (such as Safair’s ITP and Google’s Parallel Tracking) to creating simple solutions bridging the monetization opportunity between influencers and brands – LinkConnector listens to our customers’ needs and purposefully develops innovative solutions to encourage their growth.
Reflecting back, we certainly have seen much transformation in our industry. For example, Google entering as an affiliate network and then leaving several years later. Last click attribution, once the only solution available, is now one of the least popular forms of attribution. Affiliate Marketing becoming Performance Marketing to try to separate from the early black hat days of our industry. Now, some are trying to rebrand as “Partnership Marketing” and some affiliates became influencers overnight. Due in large part to this constant evolution, entrepreneurship and innovation within our industry has changed how consumers all over the world find products, brands and services online. How cool is that‽
One thing that hasn’t changed over the past fifteen years is how essential relationships are to our industry. Make no mistake—networks are not simply technical tracking solutions. Instead, they are the linchpin of creating and sustaining vital relationships. Of course, the backbone of our industry is the relationship between the affiliate (or publisher) and the merchant (or advertiser). Without this relationship, the performance marketing industry wouldn’t exist. Both sides of this coin are equally important and, both sides heavily rely on each other to advance their business interests.
As a network, LinkConnector gets to personally interact with these core relationships. We have had the pleasure of getting to know many, many of these affiliate and merchant partners over the past fifteen years and then getting to introduce them to each other where mutual ambition for new growth ignites. As relationships are established, LinkConnector’s team members work passionately to grow and optimize each relationship not only through the use of technologies, but also with a human touch and empathetic energy creating an intimate experience not possible through automation.
Additionally, propelling this industry with so much potential, is the immense orbit around these central affiliate/merchant relationships. Over the past fifteen years, LinkConnector has had the pleasure of collaborating with a wide variety of professionals ranging from OPMs to competitors to fellow industry advocates at the PMA—all working as hard as LinkConnector to elevate and advance our industry.
Thank you to our merchants and affiliates, both past and present for your trust and confidence. You are the reason we remain undeterred in our mission to be the catalyst for merchant brands and affiliate partners to develop trusted lasting relationships that achieve and exceed goals in ways once not thought possible.
We can’t express enough gratitude for LinkConnector’s employees (the heart and soul of our company) and our investors. We have been extremely fortunate to have met and worked with so many talented people over the years and very much look forward to forging new relationships in the future.
The future is bright and we are excited to be a part of it. If we haven’t had the opportunity to be a part of your affiliate marketing experience, our team would love to talk with you. Reach us at [email protected].
As a final note, we are honored to achieve global recognition as a Performance Marketing Awards Industry Finalist (for the both the Industry Disruptor and the Publisher’s Choice of Network awards). If you’ll be attending the Performance Marketing Awards ceremony in London on April 30th, we look forward to connecting in person.
It takes a special group with a passion for relationships, entrepreneurship, innovation and technical talent to make our industry thrive. The Performance Marketing Awards, hosted by PerformanceIN, represents the extraordinary in performance marketing and LinkConnector is privileged to be a part of this esteemed group.
We graciously request (and appreciate in advance) consideration of your vote for LinkConnector as the Publisher’s Choice of Network; you may cast your vote here before 7:00 PM EST on March 5, 2019.
Innovation is a hallmark of our culture and an expected deliverable by our customers, particularly our affiliates as we deliberately develop innovative solutions to propel their unfettered growth. This award nomination is a testament to the contagious passion of LinkConnector for the advancement of our industry and benefit of our affiliate and merchant partners.
No school like the old school; learn how pay-per-click campaigns are sparking appeal with bloggers and influencer affiliates.
In the world of Affiliate Marketing there are always new strategies merchants will use to make their program attractive to potential affiliates. These strategies may include bonuses, extended cookie durations and most importantly – commissions paid to the affiliates. There are several methods of rewarding commissions by merchants; pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, pay-per- call, and pay-per-click as examples.
In the early days of Affiliate Marketing there was an explosion of campaigns compensating affiliates on a pay-per-click basis. Unfortunately affiliates utilized nefarious tactics (e.g., click bots) to drive up their commissions with these types of campaigns. Now, with the advancement of affiliate marketing technology networks are able to identify fraudulent clicks when they occur and prevent costs from being incurred by merchants.
Presently we are witnessing a comeback of pay-per-click campaigns due to the interest they garner from influencers and bloggers. This compensation method is an effective way for brands to ignite relationships with these types of affiliates.
Here are three reasons why:
First, pay-per-click compensation helps bloggers and influencers who may be unfamiliar with affiliate marketing to easily test the waters and gauge their audiences’ interest in the brand (or product) to determine if a successful match may be born.
Secondly, merchants who structure pay-per-click compensation to be based on clicks to specific product pages can appeal to niche influencers who creatively expose the merchant’s products to an enthusiast audience.
Last but not least, this compensation method can be a catalyst for merchants to gain exposure on influencer platforms, those connecting brands with Twitch streamers (as one example) to monetize their content.
Naturally pay-per-click can be inherently risky for merchants. Consulting with your network or agency on the best structure that aligns with your overall affiliate marketing goals is always recommended. You may be surprised by the tools and technologies available to support a pay-per-click monetization component with your program and build additional relevant relationships.
David Troop manages LinkConnector’s Affiliate Operations where he is integral in growing affiliate and merchant relationships.
Are you an affiliate seeking pay-per-click campaigns from esteemed merchant brands? LinkConnector has many; contact us to apply to these programs
mThink Blue Ribbon Panel Member, Jackie Bates, recently sat down with Revenue to discuss current trends in performance marketing. Here, we shine a light on Q4 strategy for merchants and two other trending topics.
We need your vote! If you value what we are doing at LinkConnector, we hope you will vote us as your network of choice. Our top priority is customer trust and loyalty and we hope it shows. If you agree, we hope you will consider writing in ‘LinkConnector’ as your favorite network choice on question #2 on page two of the survey!
Please show your support and Rock Your Vote!