It’s that time of the year again. mThink’s 2023 Blue Book survey is now live, giving merchants, affiliates and agencies the opportunity to cast their votes for the Cost Per Sale (CPS) Affiliate Networks that have had the biggest impact on their affiliate marketing achievements over the last 12 months.
Last week, the Performance Marketing Association (PMA) held their second Virtual Conference which brought together nearly 30 speakers over the course of two days, and once again the event was packed to the brim with affiliate marketing educational sessions, amazing networking opportunities, and the latest performance marketing industry insights.
Did you know that roughly 80% of all U.S. consumers are expected to seek out and use online coupons this year?*Additionally, the value of digital coupon redemption is expected to reach $91 billion by the end of 2022–up from $47 billion just 5 years ago.**
Last week Affiliate Summit East (ASE) wrapped up their 2022 installment in New York City, and the LinkConnector team was on hand once again to take in the in-person networking and connect with both existing and new affiliate, merchant and agency partners. As part of this year’s event, LinkConnector’s Choots Humphries (Co-Founder and Co-President) and Tara McCommons (VP of Sales and Marketing) were invited to present one of six AM Days workshops that took place at ASE over the course of two days.
Whether you love or loathe them, it’s clear that toolbars and browser extensions are here to stay, and as affiliates discover new and innovative ways to capitalize on this evolving technology, affiliate marketing managers and networks will continue to evaluate the best ways to effectively utilize and incorporate them into their programs.
This month, LinkConnector Co-Founder Choots Humphries participated in a panel discussion, alongside other industry experts, in the 2022 AffiliateINSIDER Summit – a much anticipated virtual conference hosted by AffiliateINSIDER Founder Lee-Ann Johnstone and featuring presentations on a broad range of timely affiliate marketing topics.
The LinkConnector (LC) Team was on hand in Las Vegas last week for Affiliate Summit West (ASW) – the premier U.S. affiliate and partnership marketing event of the year. LinkConnector’s own Choots Humphries took the stage to give a presentation on one of performance marketing’s most important and timely topics: attribution.
With its plethora of holidays and consumer spending events, the 4th quarter is a make-or-break season and the most crucial time of the year for eCommerce merchants in a wide variety of verticals.
In contrast to 2020, when the locked down COVID-19 environment led to unprecedented digital acceleration and unpredictable spending behavior, more consumers have now adapted to the climate, becoming much more trusting and savvier in their online discovery and buying of products in 2021. This makes performance marketing relationships more important than ever to help merchants and retailers of all sizes stand out to consumers.
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’s Publisher Discovery powered integration transforms the essential recruiting process by connecting merchants with the most relevant affiliate matches.
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:
On the closing day of Affiliate Summit East (#ASE19) in New York City, LinkConnector’s Co-Founder and Co-President, Choots Humphries, presented on the topic of 5 Benefits and 5 Techniques that Add Value to Affiliate Networks. We are excited to recap actionable takeaways from this presentation.
Choots opened by making the point that all Affiliate Networks are not created equally and there are many types of networks. There are affiliate networks, like LinkConnector, offering a full range of technology and tracking solutions along with management services and program optimization. There are Ad Networks (or CPA Networks) which generally act without transparency to promote an advertiser’s offer based usually on an insertion order. And, there are networks which would be better classified as a pure tracking solution which offer advertisers tracking solutions for all forms of online advertising and aren’t exclusively geared towards an affiliate program. Choots further elaborated that the contents of this presentation were going to be focused around traditional affiliate networks.
Choots kicked off the presentation by listing five benefits of Affiliate Networks and announced he would be offering five techniques or considerations for each to extract value from network relationships. Here are the five benefits…
Proper tracking and crediting for merchant and affiliate customers is one of the most critical functions of a network. Here are five consideration points shared to demonstrate such:
ITP 2.2 Compliant and Supports Parallel Tracking
Make sure your network is ITP 2.2 compliant, if not Apple’s changes to Safari’s privacy policy will increasingly erode at your ability to track sales or receive credit from Apple devices. Also, if you are a Search affiliate or work with search affiliates, ensure your network supports Google’s new requirement for Parallel Tracking.