How To Evaluate Growth Strategies In Affiliate Marketing And Increase Your Revenue By 40% from Affiliate Summit
- Introduction This session will present a comprehensive strategy for:
● Identifying segments of affiliate traffic,
● Placing them in today’s purchase funnel,
● Evaluating their alignment with core business objectives,
● Developing an execution plan,
● Iterating for best results. - The Basics I’m going to assume you already have…
● An active website or e-commerce site,
● Integration with Google Analytics,
● Custom sales reports,
● Your own in house marketing efforts …
and you’re looking to explore further opportunities in affiliate marketing. - Affiliate Marketing Opportunities – Great Because…
✓ Unique opportunities
✓ Broad variety of opportunities
✓ Works for small & large budgets
✓ Can deliver growth at scale
✓ Collaborative But Remember…
✘ Hard to compare channels.
✘ Easy to overspend.
✘ Sometimes opaque.
✘ Sometimes unsuccessful.
✘ Critical to control brand image. - Types of Digital Marketing Opportunities
● SEO
● Search Engine Marketing
● Social Media Marketing
● Display and Advertorials
● Influencers & Bloggers
● Email
● Coupon & Deal Sites
● Comparison Sites
● Cashback/Loyalty Sites
● Toolbars
● Lead Gen - Sample User Path How do we allocate marketing spend to cover all these channels to achieve the final purchase?
● Learns about a product on social media
● Googles product and reads comparison sites
● Reviews brand’s website
● Abandons purchase
● Remarketed via display
● Researches selected brand on Google
● Googles discounts for first-time customers
● Purchase - Purchase Funnel: Traditional Linear decision-making process:
● Brand Awareness
● Research & Information Gathering
● Purchase
● Retention - Purchase Funnel:
Today Research & Information Gathering
Product & Brand Awareness PriceResearch
● Cyclical decision-making
● Research throughout the funnel
● Many segments contribute to the final sale
● Some overlap between segments
● Good data can isolate performance of each segment - Bucket Opportunity Groups
● Product & Brand Awareness
○ Social ○ Display ○ Email
● Research & Consideration
○ Influencers ○ Comparison Sites
● Pricing
○ Coupon & Deal Sites ○ Cashback/Loyalty Sites ○ Toolbars - Cross-Bucket Groups Can target strategies to any stage of the funnel:
● SEO ● Search Engine Marketing ● Email (sometimes) - Define Your Brand’s Goals
● New customers vs. retention
● Brand awareness vs. conversions
● Customer lifetime value
● Transparency in consumer path - Allocating Across Segments
● Categorical statements are almost always wrong
○ “There’s no value to working with bloggers.” ○ “We’re exclusively focused on social.”
● Be the owner of your data
○ Control tests and focus on high-quality partnerships
● Drive results with preferred monetization
○ Channels with greater scale potential require greater investment - Remember Additional Value Segments
● Non-tracked Sales
● Incremental offline growth
● Alignment with trusted brands - Compare Risks and Opportunities
Opportunity
✓ Can influence brand awareness beyond a specific transaction.
✓ Great balance between investment and performance.
✓ Critical — the make or break point of the user journey.
Risk
✘ Challenging to gauge success, potential to overspend without results.
✘ Competitive and requires greater investment.
✘ Overlap with other channels, last click attribution can over-attribute.
Stage Early Funnel Mid-Funnel Late Funnel - Iterate
● Review all partnerships critically at regular intervals
● More data means better decision-making
● Look at user behavior to identify better-performing affiliates