INSIGHT
“Operators will feel more comfortable partnering and
associating their brands with affiliates whom they know
understand the same best-practice industry standards
they themselves have to adhere to”
of the savviest business people I know.
Having spent much time over the past
two years looking at digital marketing
mentorship and engaging affiliates to grow
their business, I have seen this first hand.
Being an affiliate not longer just about
driving traffic from a network of sites; it’s
about running a business, planning growth
strategies and understanding value – from
partnerships and from the websites that
they create and maintain.
●●Technology and data
Affiliate marketing and the evolution of the
digital technologies that are used to support
this channel lend themselves to allowing
affiliates to obtain better insight into
their traffic sources and where and how
their customers behave online after being
transferred to a marketing partner. This
means they have a better understanding of
customer profiling and consumer behaviour
after the point of sale, and not just at the
acquisition point of the customer journey
or consumer funnel. Therefore I believe
we are now in a time of the evolution
cycle where affiliates are finally becoming
a more important part of a brand’s digital
marketing strategy in that they can help
to break through the “noise” and not only
bring new business (the summary of an
affiliate’s original intended purpose) but
stimulate the retention and marketing
activity of their partners too. Think about
the role of DSP and retargeting platforms
and how we now understand cookie
tracking and, more aptly, device tracking,
to analyse audience profiling. Affiliates
play a key part in this chain and can help to
influence it too.
As content marketing and SEO
specialists, affiliates are helping brands
drive intrinsic value to reduce marketing
costs – when they are being embraced
and channelled into the wider digital
acquisition strategy. Affiliates still provide
brand exposure and can help influence
brand content that is commonly referred to
as hygiene activity. They offer this service
free – until a conversion takes place. The
fact remains that brands need this exposure
to help cement their offer as a preferred
consumer choice over their competition
(marketing costs would significantly
increase if you didn’t use affiliates to
promote your brand and secure int