Let’s be honest. It’s been a while since anything interesting has turned up within the realm of online affiliate marketing. Yet that could change and soon. We need to know how and when to exploit the next performance-based marketing opportunity. Rest assured, there are exciting new opportunities for DRTV’ers big and small in affiliate marketing—but serious challenges lie ahead. From managing the intersection of search and affiliate programs to diversifying the mix of distribution points, the key question multichannel merchants should ask is, “How can affiliates be encouraged to send more incremental sales or new customers?â€
Affiliates: Friends or Foes?
It’s a harsh reality: Web affiliates are taking a beating in search marketing. If you’ve been involved in affiliate marketing for more than a year, you’ve likely seen declining sales or leads from search-focused affiliates. Newbies and veterans of the performance-based strategies are noticing affiliates competing for searchers and wondering how to handle it. Do you ban them from using some tactics or all tactics? Do you partner selectively with them? The issue is a familiar one to the DRTV industry and was more thoroughly discussed by SendTec CEO Paul Soltoff in Electronic Retailer magazine. Bottom line is, affiliates are challenged and sometimes embattled. After wrangling with the issues, many DRTV marketers are asking “are affiliates even worth it?!â€
Pockets of Innovation
Most DRTV marketers find such investment to be a difficult pill to swallow, and therefore, rely on affiliate networks to scale their efforts. This begs the question, what are affiliate networks doing to support affiliate innovation? What tools and educational support are available to open new doors?
AvantLink is taking an open source approach to innovation, opening up its system to affiliates for further development, rather than simply offering them a boxed solution. AvantLink makes a bevy of RSS-enabled tools available to affiliates and advertisers. What does that mean?
“We’re offering merchants the ability to maintain ‘on sale’ and ‘deal of the day’ RSS campaigns for affiliates to publish on their sites,†says AvantLink’s Gary Marcoccia. “And to take it one step further the affiliates can promote ‘subscriptions’ to the same RSS feeds. The key in generating feed subscribers from their site (in addition to, of course, sales), is affiliate IDs being embedded in links from the deal feeds… for as long as they are in use.â€
Impressive! Affiliate link syndication by way of customer subscription.
Linkshare Corp. recently unveiled FlexLinks, a new linking technology allowing cost-per-action tracking to be “wrapped around†any kind of content. Publishers then post clickable, social-oriented content in the form of widgets or videos.
Linkshare Senior Vice President Arun Bordoloi points out that TigerDirect created a FlexLinks widget that provides a video overview on how to use its site.
“In my opinion, no tools have emerged as promising for affiliates and publishers to use in this space,†says Jivan Manhas, president of AdValiant. “There’s a real lack of innovation…and this needs to change.†Manhas says networks need more flexibility, “open†technology platforms and tools that help foster greater distribution opportunities across various platforms such as mobile, video, offline and audio.
On the video front, Videoclix makes individual objects in video content clickable and linkable. The potential for affiliates to get involved seems huge, given how non-intrusive the ads/links are for the viewer.
April Graham of TicketsNow.com manages a team of three affiliate account managers and uses a new system called The Partner Maker. The company connects marketers with top affiliates, optimizes relationships for more sales and secures communications details and history with affiliates. This is especially helpful when rotating in new hires.
“Affiliate networks are finding new ways to meet our growing needs,†Graham says, “but others are finding ways to help drive sales and scale as well.”
Ultimately, multichannel marketers have to step up and do more with what’s in hand today and find new ways to experiment. Easier said than done for sure, but trying bold, new approaches with affiliates may end up separating the winners from the losers.
Bottom line: The only way to sustain a healthy affiliate marketing channel in today’s uncertain world is to create unique, unquestionable value within it.
Jeff Molander is CEO of performance marketing consulting firm, Molander & Associates Inc.
Tags: , advaliant, affiliate marketing, april graham, avantlink, drtv, Electronic Retailer, flexlinks, gary marcoccia, jeff molander, jivan manhas, linkshare, molander & associates inc., paul soltoff, rss, sendtec, ticketsnow.com, videoclix
Jeff,
Interesting post.
I found it even more interesting when I saw the heading “Affiliates: Friends or Foes?”
That’s almost the exact title of an article I wrote for Electronic Retailer magazine which addresses many of these same issues…in 2005!
(http://www.nxtbook.com/fx/books/era/electronicretailer0105/index.php?startpage=62)
Same issues.
Three years later.
What does that tell us?
I have looked at many sites and not come a cross such a site as yours that tells you what you really need to know about affiliate marketing.
I’ve added your feed to my reader, are there any other good blogs you’d suggest I read on the subject?
the secret to affiliate marketing is always targeted traffic from developed countries like us, uk and canada. affiliate marketing would not give you a good income if you try it on asian internet traffic.
Success in any business will not materialize overnight. It still needs time and work to get your affiliate marketing strategy up and running. Nevertheless, if you are insistent, decided and willing to give it your all, affiliate marketing will be the perfect career chance for you.
OK cool to see- useful comments are always helpful! See yas.