Article by Ben Eversden, Senior Account Director at Webgains
“There’s an affiliate for everything nowadays”. This was a response from one of the QBRs that I was involved with at the start of the year and it couldn’t be any more true.
I’m often in amazement at some of the brilliant concepts that are pitched to us as a network. They standout due to that fact that they are able to not only fix a problem but also drive significant commercial growth, sometimes just on a Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) model.
Webgains’ responsibility to our clients doesn’t just sit solely through affiliates; we need to understand the overall business function. Sometimes the affiliate channel provides a solution with less internal red tape whilst on a paid on performance metric.
Webgains’ responsibility to our clients doesn’t just sit solely through affiliates; we need to understand the overall business function.
Much like the revered Swiss Army Knife, affiliate marketing is a channel with many solutions for issues that our clients face on a regular basis. Using examples of high-performing publishers operating within our affiliate network, here are five I’m really liking at the moment:
Unleakable codes for every brand
There are more and more closed group offerings from employee benefits through to student discounts but a one size fits all code really doesn’t provide a closed group offering. This isn’t down to strategy but more lack of capacity or capability and it’s where an affiliate such as Uniqodo comes to fruition. The fact that an affiliate can create thousands of unique codes to prevent leakage to your brand just for a small piece of JavaScript to be added to your site solves such a big problem and gives you the access to not just other affiliate codes but all other digital and offline channels.
Target anyone – affiliate has exceptional reach
We can now go into client meetings and ask our contacts, ‘what customer demographic do you want to optimise with? Feel free to challenge us!’ and the likes of Gocertify will go to the drawing board and provide creative options. Students and key workers have been done and they still duly deliver but which other groups can we support too? Last year we launched our Maternity Leave Discount as a network exclusive for our brands. This is a must in the current economic state but there’s so much more on offer; from cinema tickets with exclusive voucher does for specific films, to discounts on luggage for airline staff; these innovative and creative solutions fill me with excitement!
We can now go into client meetings and ask our contacts, ‘what customer demographic do you want to optimise with? The weirder the better!’
Smarter connections at checkout
Providing a customer with an added on site incentive to help convert the purchase or upsell additional items is a great way to gamify without having to discount from the basket. However, if a brand’s lowest priced item is £100, this isn’t necessarily achievable. Tyviso’s gift with purchase affinity partnership fixes this problem. This affiliate is able to integrate with a merchant’s onsite basket and provide a relatable gift based on meeting basket requirements. One example is a related magazine with purchase over a certain value.
Providing a customer with an added on site incentive to help convert the purchase or upsell additional items is a great way to gamify without having to discount from the basket. However, if a brand’s lowest priced item is £100, this isn’t necessarily achievable.
Content with minimal risk
Content is the golden ticket. SEO-rich articles can drive high quality traffic to your site and leave you wanting more. But the issue is that more sometimes comes at a price. A price that can be way off in terms of affordability and there’s always a risk that it won’t pay dividends. Our brand point of contacts are predominantly not solely allocated to affiliate but oversee all paid marketing channels, so justifying tenancy for content is tough to sign off. Enter Linkby. Linkby speaks the language to well-rounded performance marketers by providing content with premium publishers on a Cost-Per-Click basis (CPC). The brand pitches the campaign and the proposals come in with the outlined CPC but capped at a minimum of £2,500 per article. Linkby are the much-needed bridge to the rest of the chocolate factory, avoiding the mysterious boat to who knows where…
SEO-rich articles can drive high quality traffic to your site and leave you wanting more. But the issue is that more sometimes comes at a price.
Abandon abandonment
Finally, we work with many clients that are resellers situated in a very competitive environment. Ensuring conversion on site is a must for the brand and spotting signs of abandonment is key. This is where Intent.ly provides multiple solutions that prevent basket abandonment through overlays. One in particular is where the customer has the intent to search for the product elsewhere and copies either the product name or SKU. This is where an overlay will pop up either offering a discount code or best price guarantee ensuring that the product is purchased through the site. Why invest the hard work in driving the user on site if the customer is going to purchase elsewhere, further proving the value of the channel whilst utilising a soft-cookie set up?
Ensuring conversion on site is a must for the brand and spotting signs of abandonment is key.
These are a handful of examples as to how the affiliate channel can benefit brands through non-traditional affiliates. I’ve mentioned just a few of the many thousands of amazing publishers currently driving sales and traffic to over 1,800 advertiser brands on the Webgains network. If you’d like to put your affiliate strategy into place, you can start a programme with Webgains here.