Affiliate Marketing

Has the affiliate channel outgrown the CPA last click model?

It’s well known that the affiliate channel works on a cost per acquisition (CPA) model, meaning that when the desired action is completed, be it a sale, lead or quote,  the affiliate is paid.

To be able to attribute the sale to an affiliate there needs to be an agreed metric by which a sale can be attributed.

Typically this is a ‘last click wins’ model: if the last click is attributed to a particular publisher then they receive the commission.

Referral marketing: how Nokia sends brand traffic to retail partners

You’re a big brand but you don’t sell from your website, so what can you do about it? 

Nokia is using its website, Facebook, email and even paid ads to push its brand traffic towards its retail partners.

Rob Durkin, Co-Founder and Head of Innovation at FusePump, spoke at this year’s JUMP with Jonathan Lewis-Jones from Nokia, about how they’ve turned brand traffic into sales, despite not selling direct.

Below I’ll give some details of Nokia’s work, but first some general comments from Rob on the place for referral marketing.

Presentations from this year’s Festival of Marketing are available to Econsultancy subscribers. You can access the JUMP presentations here.

The rise of internationalisation amongst UK retailers

A few months ago we received an interesting piece of research from OC&C Strategy consultants which investigated how UK retailers are well placed to outperform their overseas counterparts in the battle for online supremacy.

It was estimated by 2020 there would be an incredible sevenfold increase in non UK sales.

Within the report, the ‘jewels of Britain’s retail e-mpire’ were highlighted. This was based on the volume of consumer searches from international territories.

A number of advertisers across the network were included on this list so we decided to take a look and see how the affiliate channel was aiding internationalisation in the ecommerce market. 

Has the impact of encrypted search been consistent by sector?

At the end of September, Google confirmed the roll-out of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encrypted search to all users.

In short, this means that keyword-level data for organic (non-paid) Google traffic will no longer be provided. Consequently, website owners will no longer be able to view the keywords a visitor used in Google to find their website.

This announcement from Google will have a huge impact on the industry, with search marketers around the world rethinking metrics to track SEO performance.

What does native advertising have in common with an erotic French film?

“You know it when you see it”. This, of course, is the famous Potter Stewart quote from the Jacobelis vs Ohio court case (1964) which found the French film “The Lovers (Les Amants)” to be too obscene.

As the definition of native advertising continues to evolve this quote is incredibly fitting. But I’ll get to that later, let me first go back to the origins of this marketing tactic…

A step-by-step guide to RLSA and dynamic remarketing

The practice of remarketing has become increasingly common over the last couple of years, and a number of leading display marketing companies have developed some pretty advanced, highly tailored solutions for their customers.  

These are already helping many businesses achieve prolonged engagement with users who have shown intent on a given site.

Over the past few weeks Google has released some extremely useful new tools which help get closer to the competition’s offering, and open up sophisticated features to advertisers, no matter what the budget size.

A bombshell from Kia: Lady Gaga, Twitter, YouTube, Shazam and the VMAs

Kia has produced one of the year’s most memorable adverts, and with the use of Lady Gaga, Twitter, the VMAs and Shazam, the brand looks set for some great ‘traction’.

The advert featuring Lady Gaga’s new single, Applause, and a handful of America’s Next Top Model cast members premiered during the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) show on 25th of August, racking up 10.1m live viewers.

The Kia Soul demographic fits well with that of the VMAs. With many first-time drivers tuning in, the moderately priced and trendy car was a hit, as seen by some of the many tweets.

Creating integrated marketing experiences requires an internal focus first

As many marketers know today, both digital marketing practices (the channels that can be used, ways to communicate, etc.) and technology advances are evolving more quickly than marketers can keep up with in this ever-changing world.

This is creating an environment that causes many challenges, and a main goal that many executive teams are striving for is the creation of truly integrated marketing experiences across all channels.

The word ‘integration’ has been a hot topic at technology and marketing conferences around the globe, but the harsh reality is that this very thing that most companies are striving to achieve isn’t happening easily.

In working with executive teams in many different verticals, the basis for the problems in creating this integration is that brands aren’t taking a close look as to what is happening inside of their businesses.

Mobile now accounts for 18% of sales for affiliate marketers: stats

Smartphones and tablets now account for almost a quarter of traffic for affiliate marketing campaigns, a massive six-fold increase in less than two years.

A new report from Affiliate Window shows that 22% of traffic and 18% of sales come through mobile and tablet devices, figures which respectively stood at just 3.5% and 5% back in November 2011.

The data comes from millions of sales and clicks recorded every month from more than 1,400 retailers’ and advertisers’ affiliate marketing campaigns.

Smartphones alone account for 13.6% of total traffic, which shows the importance of tablets for ecommerce as the devices drive a similar level of visits to smartphones despite a much lower penetration rate.

Three tips for negotiating with online talent

Just when we were coming to terms with “blogger” being as legitimate a title as “journalist,” we learn that some are falling into a more rarefied category: online talent.

That subset, a wider group that includes Instagrammers, Pinners, Tweeters, and YouTubers, has reps who negotiate deals resulting in anything from emceeing runway shows and styling lookbooks to signing on as a brand ambassador for a major retailer.

IMW 2013 Econsultancy Hangout: Measurement, analytics, and attribution: part two

On Tuesday, I posted a first half summary of the Econsultancy Hangout I participated in with Jim Sterne and Tom Cunniff (moderated by Econsultancy’s Stefan Tornquist) on Measurement, Analytics, and Attribution.

Rather than summarize the entire second half of the Hangout, I wanted to focus part two on a great discussion we had on changing incentive structures to create an organizational culture of integrated digital marketing and attribution.

Announcing The Digitals awards shortlist

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So, after reading through a whopping 850+ entries, we have decided upon a shortlist of 156 for our Digitals Awards. 

All entries were judged during the first phase by Econsultancy’s internal staff then sent to our external judges, comprised of some of the finest minds in digital marketing and ecommerce. 

The judges work at firms such as House of Fraser, John Lewis, Poke, Santander, LBi. BSkyB, Samsung and more (You can see the full list here). 

There have been some really fantastic things going on in digital in the past year or so, and we believe that the shortlist represents real innovation and best practice in our industry.

Well done to all who have been shortlisted, and commiserations to the others who just missed out (some by very narrow margins).

The winners will be announced at our Awards night on June 27…

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