Affiliate marketing handbook iab 2012

Internet Marketing Handbook Series

Affi liate Marketing works. It really does. The UK’s leading retailers, fi nancial services providers, utility companies all run affi liate programmes. They recognise the fact that affi liates generate sales and can do so in a cost effective way unmatched by any other online channel. But it’s not just the big boys who can take advantage of this channel SMEs too can utilise affi liates as an effi cient way to successfully achieve scale and sales.

The accomplishments of the channel over the past ten years are in no small part down to the continued innovation and entrepreneurial nature of the affi liate publishers themselves. However herein lays the problem of affi liate marketing – understanding it. It’s very easy for marketers unfamiliar with the channel to be confused by jargon and blindsided by how it all works. The continued development of the affi liate industry into a multi-channel discipline necessitating different approaches and management can make it diffi cult for advertisers to integrate it into more traditional or linear marketing plans. Affi liate marketing can also be diffi cult for marketers to explain internally and to justify the way in which affi liate budgets require a greater amount of fl exibility than other forms of marketing.

As the industry we need to be mindful of these issues. The IAB’s Affi liate Marketing Council brings together all elements of the industry to promote education, best practice and self-regulation to help advertisers better understand affi liate marketing. This handbook compiled by members of the council aims to deliver clarity and inspiration for marketers looking to better understand how this fl uid and pioneering channel works.

Visit iabuk.net/affi liatemarketing Affi liate Dating 01Affi liate Marketing Handbook

By Dan RedfearnIAB Membership Manager

and Head of the Affi liate Marketing Council

Affiliate

Tip for Marketing Managers

Affi liates are a sales force

Develop a positive relationship

and incentivise them. Treat them

with respect and keep them up

to date.

Introduction to Affi liate Marketing

Introduction to Affi liate Marketing

Visit iabuk.net/affi liatemarketing 02 Affi liate Dating Affi liate Marketing Handbook

Online marketing is dominated by analytics and accountability where forecasting is considered the norm. This is often driven by a requirement to keep within advertising budgets and hit a target ROI. It is understandable that merchants would also expect a level of forecasting for their performance marketing campaigns, but there are factors in play that make it difficult to forecast performance based campaigns.

Many affiliate sites are highly targeted to specific verticals and product types; this allows them to achieve high rankings on search engines and improve their quality score for lower paid search costs.

Forecasting difficulties can arise when the major search engines change their ranking algorithms as the changing positions of affiliate sites can have a major impact on sales and leads, for good or bad.

The same can be said for search costs, if competition increases for key terms or quality scores change, affiliate performance can increase or fall, making it difficult to forecast precise figures. Performance marketing is a very competitive industry and commission levels play an important part in attracting affiliates. Competitor commission increases or decreases are difficult to anticipate and can impact on sales, whether it be for a short term incentive or a permanent change.

The factor that has the greatest influence on forecasting is the availability of affiliate resource. Affiliates have to allocate and plan their time across a number of merchants and scheduled projects which can often be pushed back and forth. Forecasting revenue increases for a quarter or even a month can always be subject to change depending when the affiliate can allocate time to work on the merchants programme. It is important to realise that affiliate marketing relies on third parties whose development priorities can change throughout the year.

Visit iabuk.net/affiliatemarketing Affiliate Dating 03Affiliate Marketing Handbook

Forecasting Affiliate Marketing Programmes

By Chris WorthyAccount Director,

R.O.EYE

Forecasting Affiliate Marketing Programmes

Differences and Difficulties in Forecasting Performance Based Campaigns

Search engine changes

Fluctuations in affiliate search costs and competitor competition

Affiliate resource allocation


Why and How Should I Forecast?

Some merchants run their affi liate marketing campaign using fi nite marketing budgets. This leaves the potential of running out of budget to pay affi liates should they over deliver. It is important to understand that certain affi liate business models fi nd it extremely diffi cult to turn off or reduce merchant activity due to budgets. For this reason some level of forecasting is required to ensure suffi cient budget is allocated to the affi liate channel.

When approaching affi liate forecasting there are three key areas that need to be covered:-

Natural Delivery

Depending on the vertical, a performance marketing campaign can be expected to deliver between 5-40% of a merchant’s online sales or leads. The overall performance of the merchant site will undoubtedly have an impact on growth; a fast growing brand will carry some of that growth and can be built into the forecast using year-on-year and month-on-month trend data.

Sales Uplift

Successful performance marketing campaigns will not rely on the merchants profi le to increase sales or leads. The role of the network, agency or affi liate manager is to add value to the programme through the process of affi liate recruitment and publisher development. This uplift can be refl ected in a

forecast to show the uplift achieved through new publishers or initiatives that have been actioned. Another important consideration is to align the affi liate forecasts with the marketing calendars so that the effects of marketing campaigns can be compensated for.

Costs

The fi nal and most important elements of forecasting are the costs. These can all vary depending on the commercial agreements you have in place but the management/technology fees, overrides, commissions and any performance bonuses all need to be calculated to generate an overall cost and effective ROI.


It’s all about the EPC

If you can’t make it work,

affi liates can’t make it work.

Look at your conversions,

understand the route to sale and

optimise the process so when

they deliver traffi c it proceeds to

sales as effi ciently as possible.

From a budgetary perspective the CPA model remains the distinguishing feature of the affiliate channel. The principle that you only pay when you get a sale makes affiliate marketing transparent and measurable.

It is this pay-on-performance principle which supports the argument that budget allocated to the affiliate channel should be drawn not from the marketing budget but from the sales budget. Because affiliates are awarded only when sales are made the CPA model is risk-free from a merchant’s perspective, assuming they have control over affiliate approvals. The main budgetary consideration is instead the level of affiliate commissions.

However, from an affiliate perspective commissions are not the sole factor in determining whether to promote a merchant. A common fallacy is that merchants can buy more sales simply by increasing the payout. Although commissions should be

competitive, affiliates will not be duped by higher commissions if on-site conversion and resulting EPCs are poor.

Because affiliates utilise a variety of promotional methods, activity that has traditionally worked on a CPC or CPM basis can be run through the affiliate channel. For example, PPC affiliates can mitigate the risks inherent in paid search campaigns by working on a CPA basis, thus shouldering the burden of monitoring spend and optimising campaigns.

However, running an affiliate prog ramme goes beyond budget allocation. It requires proactive management and long-term commitment. Even if sales are generated quickly, a well-optimised programme will take months to reach maturity.

De-duping

De-duplication (or ‘de-duping’) is a practice that has a simple principle: that merchants have visibility over where their sales are coming from and control over who to award for those sales. If you are engaged in multiple online marketing channels (PPC, SEO, email, display), or with more than one

Visit iabuk.net/affiliatemarketing 06 Affiliate Dating Affiliate Marketing Handbook

Integrating Affiliate Campaigns

By Owen HewitsonClient Strategist, Affiliate Window

Separate From Other Forms Of Budget

Integrating Affiliate Campaigns

affiliate network, you will want to ensure that you are attributing incoming sales to the correct channel so you can then intelligently apportion spend to those different channels.

The easiest way of automatically de-duping is by conditionally tagging each traffic source.


Conditional tagging is a simple, cheap and accurate way to determine the last referrer, and through which channel the customer came. This can help you avoid paying twice for the same sale.

In deciding what you de-dupe against and the logic behind your conditional tagging it is worth thinking about the customer’s path to sale and what part each channel has played in referring that customer. For example, you may wish not to de-dupe affiliates against display in recognition that a click generated by the affiliate engages the customer more in the path to sale than an ad impression. Under this scenario a merchant may adjust the amount paid to each channel to split the cost between them.

On the other hand, if a merchant de-dupes against all channels and the affiliate is the last referrer, they may choose to pay a higher commission given they are crediting the sale to a single channel only.

It is good practice to be transparent about your de-duping policy, as you would be about other key policies around PPC and commission validations. Where de-duplication is introduced without notice affiliates will see a negative impact on conversion rates and EPCs.

Affiliate marketing as a multi-channel discipline.

It is misleading to think of affiliate marketing as a single channel, rather it is a group of activities with a common remuneration model. That remuneration model facilitates some powerful benefits, one of which is enabling specific models of operation.

Working with a network enables access to various affiliate models, the most common being; Content, PPC, Loyalty & Reward, Vouchercodes, Social media / blogs, price comparison and Email. Each segment of affiliates brings unique advantages and disadvantages to a campaign. A good affiliate programme will use some or all of these segments, according to campaign objectives.

Positive & Negatives of Each Model

Loyalty & Reward sites, offering consumers a reward in the form of cash or points for purchasing via their website. They deliver significant volumes, with above average conversions and positively impact on behaviour. PPC affiliates buy traffic through bidding on relevant keywords within search engines. They deliver high conversions and target effectively, however higher CPAs or hybrid remuneration models may be required, due to the increasing costs driven by search engines.

Content affiliates optimise the content of their sites to secure positions within natural search results, the ability to target niche demographic is valuable.

Social Media/Blog sites target social media members by profile and are strong at targetting niche audience segments too. However, without a compelling offer, backed up with a strong call to action, users may not be lured away from their own content.

Price comparison sites compare products by price, typically in a table. They can deliver substantial volumes of sales when the pricing of a product is competitive. Competition for ‘top of table’ positions means CPAs can be high.


The different affiliate models

By Carla ArrindellGroup Account Director,

OMG

The different affiliate models

Vouchercode sites offer users a discount code to be redeemed online against their purchase. The significant volume delivered can be easily controlled by changing the consumer offer. Clearly mark expired codes so as not to deliver a poor customer experience.

Email affiliates promote to their own databases, acquired through a variety of sources, they have a broad reach. Consider the source and level of detail of the data to minimize over-promotion to existing customers.

Each model needs to be managed and engaged with differently, to ensure you get maximum results.

Interaction and insight

Advance warning of offer changes are key to ensure content does not become out of date. Integration and communication about wider marketing activity both online & offline, will create further focus from SEO, PPC, Loyalty & Reward and Vouchercode sites. Social media, price comparison and emailer’s traffic is driven more by consumer choice.

Define commissions and triggers accordingly

Compelling offers and strong call to actions are necessary for email and social

media affiliates as users reaching these affiliates are in a passive buying mode.

Broader

Clearly defined criteria around qualifi- cation for a discount or reward is crucial to ensure quality sales from Loyalty & Reward and Vouchercode sites. The same considerations don’t apply to PPC, SEO and price comparison affiliates. Delaying validation of sales for Loyalty & Reward sites can also be an effective way of increasing quality.

Maximize performance by continually reassessing and understanding volume drivers.



Last Click is not a panacea

Know your customers behaviour and allocate your marketing budget accordingly.

Do not be afraid to look beyond the last click to reward particular types of affiliates. For example paying email affiliates a

CPM or giving tenancies to top affiliates.

How to effectively engage and manage these segments


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When done in the right way incentivising affiliates is a popular driver to improving the performance of an affiliate program. A successful strategy can aid the affiliate recruitment process, increase the exposure of the advertiser’s product or service online, activate dormant publishers and build loyalty among the affiliate base. However in a crowded landscape incentivising effectively is becoming increasingly difficult and, when done in the wrong way, can even be detrimental to the success of a program.

It is important to consider what you want to achieve when putting together a strategy. Incentives can also be used to tactically drive sales in peak seasons, build momentum in quiet trade periods and can help to give an advertiser a competitive advantage when negotiating coverage on larger sites.


Incentivising affiliates

By Pete RoweManaging Director, affilinet

Incentivising affiliates

Effective ways to incentivise

• Increase the default commission rate.

The most effective and used in almost all affiliate programs. Raising default commission levels can be done on program launch to drive awareness and grow the affiliate base, when re-launching on a new network and for pre-determined periods of time to tactically boost revenue.

• Offer a tiered commission structure.

Simple yet effective. The concept being, the more sales the affiliate generates, the higher the level of commission they receive.

• Run prize draws and competitions.

Advertisers sometimes offer the opportunity for affiliates to be entered in to a prize draw in return for each link they put on their website, sale they make or other target achieved. Often used by large advertisers with big budgets to spend on impressive prizes.

The benefits of a considered incentive strategy

affiliates

Continued overleaf....

Key Tips To Consider When Incentivising Affiliates

Keep it simple - Time is precious, so keep your incentive simple. Affiliates want to be able to immediately understand the incentive offering and then simply implement a strategy. The size and scale of the incentive should reflect the amount of time that affiliates will need to invest.

Be creative - Affiliates are offered incentives on a regular basis and certain prizes are ubiquitous. iPods and small cash rewards may sound appealing but they don’t necessarily stand out from the crowd. Advertisers have been known to offer all inclusive holidays to Bali but being creative does not have to cost a fortune. If you have a limited budget, think of something fun or exclusive. Be inclusive - In many cases merchants offer incentives to the top performing affiliate to achieve sales targets in a certain trading period. However this excludes the longer tail of niche affiliates. Instead try to be more inclusive and offer scalable incentives based on individual affiliates increasing their own performance.

Offer bespoke incentives - As with consumers the best method of appealing to affiliates is to target them individually. This method may be time consuming but will definitely pay off and result in optimum revenue generation. Managed strategically, it will also ensure that you are rewarding affiliates for pushing their sales efforts at different times across the sales cycle, and that you can negotiate top coverage spots on competing affiliate sites.


Effective ways to incentivise

• Offer a cash reward This method can be ineffective as

it often rewards the same affiliates and does not tend to incentivise high earning affiliates. Offering a cash reward is only recommended with careful consideration, carefully consider the targets and incentives set to ensure that the strategy does not leave you out of pocket.

• Offer own products as an incentive.

Reliant on the advertiser understanding their affiliates, success is largely dependent on the appeal of the product in question.

affiliates


Finding the right partners for your program is key. Contact the affilinet team for strategic advice. T. 020 7067 2480 I E. [email protected]

Know who you’re working with

Finding the right partners for your program is key. Contact the affilinet team for strategic advice. T. 020 7067 2480 I E. [email protected]

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AFF_a4u2_A5_2010_RZ.indd 1 04.11.10 10:32

In 2009 Red Letter Days set itself the challenge of delivering the best affiliate incentive programme in the market. The key measures of success were to make it available to all affiliates, ensure the incentives were highly achievable and to deliver to a target ROI. The result was a quarterly incentive scheme combining compelling prizes with an innovative approach. By rewarding affiliates based on their own performance rather than requiring them to compete against each other, Red Letter Days demonstrated understanding that a successful affiliate programme should treat affiliates as individuals. The incentive scheme was key in exceeding sales targets.

• Motivate all affiliates, large or small, to lift sales into a higher sales tier.

• Motivate new affiliates to grow their performance as quickly as possible.

• Maintain long-term interest in the Red Letter Days programme and combat seasonality drop-off.

• Increase the contribution of affiliate sales to overall web sales.

• Deliver a significant uplift in affiliate sales from 2008 to 2009.

• Ensure that the cost of the incentive programme was delivered on target.

The primary aim was to reward a broad spectrum of affiliates of all sizes and types; smaller affiliates could significantly uplift performance with the right tools and recognition, while larger affiliates could be incentivised to invest greater amounts of time into Red Letter Days above competitor programmes.

The model adopted was to offer guaranteed prizes for hitting various sales tiers, starting at just £1,000 per quarter from Q1-Q3 and £1,500 in Q4 (around 8-12 sales), ensuring that prizes were within the reach of every affiliate.

The quarterly incentive scheme was communicated to affiliates via the a4u forum, network email, the Red Letter Days affiliate blog, via new affiliate sign-up emails and on network signup pages.


Objectives

Incentive programme structure, Q1-Q3 2009

Red Letter Days and Affililate Window deliver affiliate

incentive programme to drive sales

Overview

By Kevin EdwardsStrategy Director, Affiliate Window

CASE STUDY

Red Letter Days and Affililate Window deliver affiliate

incentive programme to drive sales

2009 Q4 incentives – the crucial Christmas gifting period

Following the success of Q1-Q3 2009 it was recognised Q4 2009’s incentive scheme would have to be the best yet. In addition:

One of the city breaks was given to the affiliate judged to have produced the best Red Letter Days landing page, while the other was drawn from a pool of the top 5 most improved affiliates and the top 5 best new affiliates signed up after 15 September 2009. The Bali holiday prize was determined by a prize draw, but with a twist. Affiliates earned tickets into the draw in return for fulfilling certain criteria e.g. uploading a particular type of creative, or selling a particular product, rather than rewarding sales results alone.

Winners were announced via videos posted on youtube.

Feedback for Red Letter Days’ Christmas incentive was hugely positive and received bloggers’ praise.


All affiliates who hit £1,000 worth of sales received a hamper delivered in time for Christmas.

Three holiday prizes were offered including 7 nights in Bali for 2 and two European city breaks.

Results

Contribution of affiliate sales to overall web sales more than doubled.

Affiliate revenue uplift was nearly threefold.

Affiliate revenue in 2009 was significantly above target.

The cost of the affiliate incentive programme was well within the objective.

Successful elevation of a number of affiliates from mid to top performers.

As a merchant, there are roughly speaking three avenues to choose when launching your affiliate program. Firstly, you could always go it alone, purchase a white label tracking solution and set up your own in-house network. Secondly, you could use your existing agency or hire a specialized affiliate management agency to run your program. The last option is to join an affiliate network and opt for a self managed or account-managed solution utilizing the network’s tracking and reporting technology, experience and trusted payment solutions.

Each option offers benefits and disadvantages. The right solution for you will be dependent on numerous factors including: which activities you want to be personally involved with, the business you are in, the amount of control you require over your brand usage and your marketing budget.

The main benefit to running an in-house program is the perceived cost saving.

Having a direct relationship with the affiliates enables you to negotiate the commissions directly and possibly give yourself room to offer more than your nearest competitor should you choose to pass on the saving to your affiliate partners.

Downsides include difficulty in recruiting the biggest affiliates and the labour intensive work involved in this process should not be underestimated. Affiliates will only join your program if they have 100% trust that sales are tracked and that they will be paid promptly and correctly.

In-house programs have worked very well for the likes of Amazon (with huge in-house resource) and now eBay but in the latter’s case this was after years of running a very successful program on a network and building up trusted relations with affiliates.

Working with an agency allows you to establish a relationship with them which allows them to know about your brand, marketing strategy and brand values. An agency is also more likely to have a view of the fully integrated marketing plan and therefore integrating the affiliate strategy should be seamless and efficient.


By Alistair NicholsHead of Agency Sales,

Webgains

Working with networks, agencies or in house

Working with networks, agencies or in house

Running a Program In-house

Working with an Agency

Employing an affiliate management agency has further benefits as they are the specialists in this field. They will have much more knowledge and experience managing affiliate campaigns. You would be able to leverage long established relationships with hundreds, if not thousands, of established affiliates.

The most common way to launch an affiliate program is to join an affiliate network. When joining an affiliate network, you are tapping into the network of affiliates built up after many years in the industry, as well as having instant access to the knowledge and experience of the network’s staff. Remember, that it is in the interest of the affiliate to be joined to every network so it is very rare indeed that one network has exclusive deals with the biggest affiliates.

When choosing a network to work with, you should concentrate on looking at their record of customer service both for you and your affiliates and their record of developing their technology.

Using a network means paying (in most cases) a 30% override premium and therefore you want to know that this money will be spent wisely. Ask your network how many accounts your account manager works on, as well as how much time will be dedicated to optimizing and marketing your program? If possible ask potential networks

for a detailed Service Level Agreement and compare and contrast the offerings. With regards to technology, does your network offer “Whistles and Bells” or are they just tracking your sales and paying your affiliates? Can your potential network manage Voucher Codes effectively? How do they police your PPC policy? What fraud protection technology is there on offer?


Running a program with a network


Brand control Keep an eye on the quality

of the sales you are being sent. Put in place processes to check the real value of the generated sales.

Section I: Introduction

One word we will not be using in this section of the IAB Affiliate Marketing Handbook is ‘Supplier’. Effective affiliate marketing has long evolved away from the setting of hierarchical frameworks in which advertisers, agencies and networks take unnecessary liberties with publishers. So, with this in mind, this chapter will help frame how best to use affiliates as your partners.

Section II: The Brief This briefing can take many forms but the most effective in terms of driving sales and leads for your products is the sharing of your marketing and promotions calendar. Regularly communicating offers, discounts, voucher codes and the USPs of your products will ensure that you are gaining a greater market share on affiliate sites through the process of education (remember – affiliates can choose who they do or do not promote!).

This communication strategy brings with it a commitment of openness of agenda with regards to remuneration, technical set-up and de-duplication. All of which build trust with your valuable virtual sales-person. Your affiliate network account manager (if you have one) will be a key in this process – especially if you are aiming to have a

considerably sized affiliate programme.

Then there are the commercials...

The metric of choice for the savvy affiliate is EPC – Earnings Per Click. “What, on average, do I earn for each click I send through to you, Mr Advertiser?” To warrant an affiliate giving you valuable real-estate on their sites there must be a compelling argument for them to do so.

Section III: De brief

Affiliates can provide an instant measure- ment of success of your business – a gauging of market appetite for the latest range your brand have deployed.As previously mentioned, affiliates will be working with many merchants and, as such, will have access to competitive market information that would be both valuable and, without a good relationship, otherwise inaccessible to you. You can ask for an intelligent benchmark of where your offering sits in the affiliate channel and any recommendations on how to increase the quality and quantity of sales.

From the affiliate’s point of view, the decision to work closely with a trustworthy advertiser to optimise offers for their users will be an easy one. Use this information wisely to constantly refine your affiliate proposition into a market-leading offering. The other benefit of such an approach is that you will be bringing your affiliates closer to your brand – something which bodes well for the successful long term stability and scalability of your plans in the affiliate channel.


Using Affiliates as Partners

By Sanjit AtwalNetwork Director,

Tradedoubler

Using Affiliates as Partners


Tel: +44 (0) 207 798 5800Fax: +44 (0) 207 798 [email protected]

TradeDoubler24th FloorPortland HouseBressenden PlaceLondonSW1E 5BH

[email protected]@[email protected]

Network DirectorAgency Services Director

Head of Affiliate Sales

Over 1,900 advertisers

Over 128,000 active publishers

Over 154 million unique visitors per month

Europe’s No.1 Performance Marketing Specialist

A poor creative toolkit is a handicap. Today affiliates have the choice of thousands of merchants and a good toolkit helps with affiliate recruitment, retention and helps affiliates accurately represent and promote your brand.

Affiliates will request creatives in other formats that fit their site so it is a good idea to bear this in mind, be flexible.


By Fiona RobertsonHead of Affiliates &

Performance, Bigmouth Media

Not usual bedfellows

At the very least affiliates should have banners in gif and flash format in the following sizes:

468x60

125x125

120x600

120x60

234x60

Affiliate Marketing and Creativity

Affiliate Marketing and Creativity

The key points for developing banners are:

• Well branded – have a logo or brand name in most frames

But remember an absolute affiliate marketing no-no is an URL on the creative

• Eye catching - have a message in mind and get this across effectively

• A strong call to action – think

of this from a consumers’ perspective and talk their language

‘Get a quote’, ‘Download’, ‘Open an account’, are all good – “More information” is not!

• Contain price points or USPs –

shout about where your brand is strong


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SEE FIONA ROBERTSON’S

CHAPTER IN THIS

HANDBOOK

As a cross-channel agency, at bigmouthmedia we know how to look at your online strategy as a whole to make sure you get the best out of digital channels.

We are experts at calculating ROI, maximisingsynergies and integrating a�liates with SEO,PPC, display and social media. And, thanks toour network neutrality, we only work with thepartners that truly �t your program.

If you’re ready to take your a�liate marketing to the next level, come and speak to us. We bet you’ll like our a�liate management style – and the results that it achieves.

Is your a�liate marketing as e�ective as it could be?

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Give your affiliates a solid set of generic creatives summarising your brand and offer tailored messages for key offerings. Give affiliates the option to select what is best for their audience. Tactical messaging works; when there is a sale; give affiliates the creative to promote this.

Once your set of creatives is complete do not leave them untouched until the end of time. Creative gets old. A quarterly/seasonal refresh is best practice.

Affiliates have a knack of using your best creatives but one of the most effective techniques for conversion are text links. Pre-written text links will give your affiliates an easier route to displaying your key messages and promotions.

Product feeds, or data feeds, have in recent years become a key method for many affiliates. Initially used in price comparison, a feed allows affiliates to be provided with live information – imagery, descriptions, price points, etc. A feed is generally provided to a network in CSV or XML format – and the more fields included within a product feed the better. Common feed errors include incorrect pricing, out of date stock information, bad descriptions and incorrectly categorized products. Real time or regularly updated feeds with accurate information will stand you in good stead with affiliates.

The availability of feeds has allowed other tailored creative solutions to appear. Content Widgets are an example of creatives that affiliates can utilize highlighting specific, relevant products. A standard 120x600 ad unit can showcase one or more product offerings. If a feed is in real time then these ads can be dynamically updated to show the most relevant product.

Enabling search or booking banners for the affiliate channel shortens the consumer journey, increasing conversions. For example a hotel booking banner from a merchant’s site on an affiliate’s allows users to select location, dates of stay, etc. When checking availability the users will be taken to search results on the hotel site, rather than the homepage or hotel page – increasing the chance of that sale.

Affiliates are creative and entrepreneurial so tap into this


[email protected]

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Ask us for an independent program review

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Follow nonstopConsulting UK on Twitter @nsCi_UK


“ The management of affiliate activity and the sales achieved by 7thingsmedia in the past year have been astonishing.”

For USC, one of our clients, we achieved an 851% Q4 year on year increase in affiliate sales as a result of our specialist affiliate programme management.

Lyndsay McGonigle, Head of eCommerce, USC

851%

…do you want 7thingsmedia to scale your affiliate sales?

T: 020 3384 5650E: [email protected] www.7thingsmedia.com

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Affiliate marketing handbook iab 2012

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