Affiliates4u Performance Marketing Guide 2011

2011

[PERFORMANCE

MARKETING GUIDE] Created by Affiliates4u.com and their supporters; a guide for anyone involved or considering involvement within the Performance Marketing Industry.

Performance Marketing Guide 2011 In Association with Commission Junction

All rights reserved. Existem Ltd grants you to store and print from this material for your own personal and commercial use. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission from the publisher. Copyright © Existem Ltd 2011

CONTENTS

Contents ..................................................................................................... 2

Foreword by Chris Johnson ................................................................................. 8

Foreword by Florian Gramshammer ....................................................................... 9

Foreword by Matthew Wood ............................................................................ 10

Search Marketing ......................................................................................... 16

PPC V’s SEO ............................................................................................. 17

PPC ...................................................................................................... 18

How PPC Works? ....................................................................................... 18

Why Use PPC? .......................................................................................... 19

What Is SEO ............................................................................................. 20

Why Use SEO? .......................................................................................... 20

Which Keywords? ...................................................................................... 21

Performance Analysis .................................................................................. 22

Display Marketing ......................................................................................... 25

What Is Display Advertising? ........................................................................... 25

Why Would You Use Display? ......................................................................... 26

Reach And Targeting ................................................................................... 27

Where to buy ........................................................................................... 28

Merging affiliate marketing and display advertising ................................................. 28

The future: .............................................................................................. 29

Email Marketing Produces Results .................................................................... 32

Technicalities Of Broadcasting ......................................................................... 32

Email Marketing Essentially Boils Down To Three Things: Acquisition, Retention And Growth. .. 33

Working With Email Affiliates ......................................................................... 33

Lead Generation Networks ............................................................................ 34

Mobile Marketing ......................................................................................... 36

Why Bother With Mobile? ............................................................................. 36

How Will This Affect Performance Marketing? ....................................................... 36

Will Mobile Traffic Actually Track With Affiliate Networks? ......................................... 36



Designing For Mobile Users ............................................................................ 37

Understanding Your Mobile audience ................................................................ 38

Mobile Applications .................................................................................... 39

Should I Build An App Or A Mobile Site? .............................................................. 41

Mobile Search .......................................................................................... 42

Looking to the Future .................................................................................. 43

Social Marketing........................................................................................... 45

Performance In Social Media .......................................................................... 45

Retention Vs Acquisition ............................................................................... 45

Facebook & Social Plug-ins ............................................................................. 46

What Is The Future For Performance In Social Media? .............................................. 48

Behavioural Retargeting .................................................................................. 51

UK Online – The Business Opportunity ................................................................ 52

Changing Consumer Behaviour ........................................................................ 52

What Is Retargeting? ................................................................................... 53

Static Retargeting ...................................................................................... 53

Segmented Retargeting ................................................................................ 54

Retargeting Gets Personal ............................................................................. 54

Benefits Of Retargeting ................................................................................ 55

Right Message At The Right Time ..................................................................... 55

Display A Personalised Message To An Ultra Qualified Audience ................................... 55

Taking The Guess Work Out Of Messaging And Delivery ............................................ 56

Tailoring The Message - Acquisition Funnel Management ........................................... 56

Cross-sell / Up-sell ...................................................................................... 56

Sequential Retargeting ................................................................................. 56

Comparable To Search Marketing ..................................................................... 57

Immediate And Measurable Results .................................................................. 57

Implementation ........................................................................................ 58

Where Do The Ads Appear? ........................................................................... 59

Reach ................................................................................................. 59

Flexibility ............................................................................................. 59



Privacy ................................................................................................ 60

Conclusion .............................................................................................. 61

Affiliate Marketing ........................................................................................ 63

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work? ................................................................. 63

Top Tips For Running A Successful Affiliate Marketing Campaign: .................................. 63

About Affiliate Marketing .............................................................................. 64

Affiliate Marketing For Advertisers .................................................................... 65

Case Study .............................................................................................. 67

Cashback / Loyalty ........................................................................................ 70

Overview Of Cashback Sites ........................................................................... 70

Affiliates Within The Sector ............................................................................ 70

Typical Site Users ....................................................................................... 70

Where Cashback Works Best .......................................................................... 71

Increased Conversion Rates Through Cashback Sites ................................................ 72

Dispelling The Myths Of Cashback Sites ............................................................... 72

New Customer Acquisition ............................................................................. 73

Working Effectively With Cashback Sites ............................................................. 73

Affiliate Networks ......................................................................................... 76

Benefits Of Networks .................................................................................. 76

What Are Affiliate Networks? ....................................................................... 76

Tracking .............................................................................................. 77

Technology ........................................................................................... 77

Affiliates And Merchants ............................................................................ 77

Affiliate Reach And Long Tail ........................................................................ 78

Control & Fraud ...................................................................................... 78

Commissions ......................................................................................... 78

Communications ..................................................................................... 78

Account Management ............................................................................... 79

Product Feeds ........................................................................................ 79

Affiliate Payment .................................................................................... 79

Tracking Methods.................................................................................... 81



Flash Cookies ......................................................................................... 82

IP Tracking............................................................................................ 82

Etag/Cache Tracking ................................................................................. 83

Voucher Codes ....................................................................................... 83

Database Tracking ................................................................................... 83

Cookieless Tracking Performance................................................................... 84

When is Cookieless tracking used? ................................................................. 85

The Future of Cookies ............................................................................... 86

Commission Types ........................................................................................ 88

Setting Your Objective ................................................................................. 88

Choosing Your Method ................................................................................. 88

CPM (Cost Per Mille)................................................................................. 88

CPC (Cost Per Click) ..................................................................................... 89

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) ............................................................................. 90

PPL (Pay-Per-Lead) ..................................................................................... 90

Hybrid ................................................................................................... 91

Best Practice Policies ................................................................................... 93

Introduction .......................................................................................... 93

Voucher Code; code of conduct .................................................................... 94

Ethical Merchant Charter ........................................................................... 95

Behavioural Retargeting ............................................................................. 96

Other work of the AMC ............................................................................. 97

Conclusion ........................................................................................... 97

Voucher Codes .......................................................................................... 100

About .................................................................................................. 100

Advantages Of Using Voucher Codes ................................................................ 100

Voucher Code Guidelines ............................................................................ 101

Case Study: ‘Controlling The box’ And Enabling URL-Based Deals (IntelliLinks) .................. 102

Affiliate Reach ........................................................................................ 104

Product Feeds ........................................................................................... 106

Why Do You Need A Product Feed? ................................................................. 108



What Are Product Feeds Used For? ................................................................. 108

Who Needs To Produce A Product Feed? ........................................................... 108

What Are Feeds Used For Within Affiliate Marketing? ............................................. 109

How Much Of My Affiliate Revenue Should Be Generated By Feeds? ............................ 110

Are There Differences In Feed Structure For Different Retail Categories? ........................ 110

Where Can I Go For More Professional Guidance On Product Feeds? ............................ 110

Which File Format(s) Should I Use To Create My Feed(s)? ......................................... 110

Should I Send Affiliates Products That Are Out Of Stock Or Available For Purchase In-Store Only In

My Feed? ............................................................................................. 111

How Should I Apply Tracking To The URLs In My Feed? ............................................ 111

What Should I Do If I Have Products That Are Restricted To Adults, Or Adult Products? ........ 111

Since Feeds Are Being Used Extensively In Fashion These Days, Do I Need To Include Gender

Information In The Feeds? ........................................................................... 111

What About Specific Attributes For Particular Vertical Categories? How Do I Include These? .. 112

Case Studies .......................................................................................... 112

Deeplinking .............................................................................................. 114

Analytics ................................................................................................. 122

The Importance Of Great Analysis ................................................................... 122

Process And Objectives Of Web Analytics .......................................................... 122

What Good Analysis Can Do For Your Business ..................................................... 123

Identification And Organisation Of Business Goals ................................................. 123

Goals And Targets Help Web Businesses: ........................................................... 123

Identifying KPIs ....................................................................................... 124

Analysis Of KPIs Needs To Be: ....................................................................... 124

Creating Historic Factual Evidence .................................................................. 125

Confirmation Of Instinct ............................................................................. 125

Market Research And Competitive Intelligence Analysis .......................................... 126

Analytics Packages ................................................................................... 127

Website Traffic Analysis .............................................................................. 127

Packages Available ................................................................................... 128

Affiliate Statistic Analysis ............................................................................ 128



Packages Available ................................................................................... 129

Next Steps ............................................................................................ 129

In-house affiliate campaigns ............................................................................ 131

In-house Methods .................................................................................... 131

Benefits Of Utilising 3rd Party Technology........................................................... 132

Case Studies ............................................................................................. 135

Mazda Knows Affiliate Marketing Is More Than Just Voucher And Loyalty ....................... 135

Introduction ........................................................................................ 135

Objectives .......................................................................................... 135

Strategy And Execution ............................................................................ 135

Setting-Up Defined Processes That Support Decision Making .................................. 135

Implementation Of End-To-End Tracking Functionality To Monitor Lead Quality Offline ..... 136

Adopting An Open Approach To Affiliate Business Models ..................................... 136

Allowing Test Phases At Higher Commission Levels ............................................. 136

Facebook Arbitrage: Beyond Demographic Targeting ........................................... 136

Giving Publishers The Tools They Need To Do The Job .......................................... 137

Results And ROI .................................................................................... 137

Case Study #2 .................................................................................... 138

Performance Marketing Campaign Drives 22% Sales Increase For Simply Electronics ........... 138

Introduction ........................................................................................ 138

Approach ........................................................................................... 138

Results .............................................................................................. 139

Quotes .............................................................................................. 139

Case Study #3 .................................................................................... 140

Increasing Growth And Customers For Online Footwear Retailer ................................. 140

Background ........................................................................................ 140

Approach .............................................................................................. 140

Results .............................................................................................. 141



FOREWORD BY CHRIS JOHNSON

PERFORMANCE MARKETING has, for the most part, become the ‘buzz-

word’ surrounding Digital Marketing throughout 2010. Having worked

within a ‘pay-per-performance’ model for numerous years, the wider

digital market has notably embraced the world of ‘affiliate’, partly due

to the tightening of budgets and scrutiny of spend from all quarters.

It is how affiliates have adapted, innovated and expanded their reach into other Performance

Marketing channels that has opened the eyes of many a marketing director’s budget within the

digital marketing arena.

Our aim with the inaugural Affiliates4u Performance Marketing Guide is to provide a ‘one-stop’

overview of digital channels perceived to be under the ‘Performance’ umbrella. We have in-depth

sections on Search Marketing, Display Marketing, Mobile, Social, Retargeting and an expanded

section on Affiliate Marketing.

The extended section on Affiliate Marketing is a useful resource for anyone starting out or becoming

increasingly aware of the affiliate channel. It also increases the awareness of the role of Networks

within Performance, and what they can offer Advertisers and Publishers alike – ranging from

Vouchers, Product Feeds, Deeplinking, Analysis and Tracking Solutions.

The Performance Marketing Guide can also be used as an insight for Advertisers on the

considerations needed when launching within one or more of these dynamic marketing channels.

Chris Johnson, Publisher, Affiliates4u.com



FOREWORD BY FLORIAN GRAMSHAMMER

PERFORMANCE MARKETING is still a new concept to many

marketers. Driven by online marketing, with new tracking and

measurability functionality available, performance marketing was an

innovation 12 years ago and continues to be so today.

Performance marketing is now truly a multi-channel discipline. It has

broadened considerably beyond affiliate and search - it now permeates all forms of online

marketing . In addition to this evolution, another change has been happening in tandem: namely the

broadening of ‘online’ marketing to ‘digital’ marketing. A captive audience is now not just chained to

a computer: they can be in their homes, engaging in interactive advertising through their TV’s; when

using their credit cards in-store, or on the go through their mobile phones. What marketers are

dealing with now are multiple options of multiple channels. So it is easy to understand why there is

confusion and why performance marketing isn’t always used to its full potential.

As with all marketing, each brand (and product) will react differently to the marketing mix. Different

companies will also have different internal set ups making it easier or more difficult to adopt

changing marketing practises. This guide is essentially a list of all options available – the right mix

and balance of which absolutely will make a difference to marketing returns. Almost all brands now

engage in some form of performance marketing and we expect to see this grow with the early

adopters paving the way for other marketers to follow.

This is a very exciting space to be in, who knows what it will look like in another decade? What is

certain is that it will continue to evolve and become the norm for all marketers, across the board.

Florian Gramshammer, Country Manager UK, Commission Junction



FOREWORD BY MATTHEW WOOD

COLLABORATIVE work between Advertisers, Publishers and

Partners continues to drive innovation within Performance Marketing.

Included in this guide are Innovations, technologies or strategies that

are being put into action today that simply did not exist for us this time

last year. It’s imperative in this ever evolving, incomparable channel that those working within it

understand the complexities and opportunities of these new and existing internal channels. By doing

so they will be able embrace each one effectively within their activity and with sound execution

maximise their own effectiveness.

At Affiliates4u, we are excited to be launching the Performance Marketing Guide with the support of

Commission Junction as a complimentary resource, and fully intend to expand and make the guide

an annual must read ‘Performance Marketing Bible’. Eventually becoming the first point of call

when looking to understand the complexities of Performance Marketing, and importantly stay ahead

of the curve.

Matthew Wood, Founder, Affiliates4u.com



FROM AFFILIATE TO PERFORMANCE

Affiliate marketing has come a long way since the launch of Amazon’s associate programme all those

years ago. It has evolved from a young, entrepreneurial network of eager individuals seeking out

new ways to earn money online, to a fully fledged multi-billion pound industry in its own right with,

according to a recent market evaluation, more than £4.5billion online sales expected to be

attributed to the channel in 2010 alone.

Where once it may have been viewed as a quirky way to drive a few extra pounds in the early days,

affiliate marketing now plays an integral part in the majority of online marketing plans, and over the

years its evolution has driven both significant ROI and marketing perception, contributing to the

growth of many organisations, including Amazon, eBay and Google.

On closer inspection, the channel’s own success can be attributed to three key factors:

- the adoption of a very simple, yet effective, pay-for-performance model

- the ease of access to networks of affiliates willing to work as an extended, commission-

based sales team

- the innovation and agility of the affiliates themselves to continually evolve new ways to

reach out to prospective customers

Whilst paying on performance is not an invention of affiliate marketing per se, there is equally no

denying that the adoption of this model online pioneered the way for digital marketing to become

truly accountable. It allowed advertisers to pay against a very specific metric; work to budgets

where they could calculate ROI to the last penny; and have explicit control over their customer

acquisition budget. In turn, it also led to the birth of affiliate networks to facilitate relationships

between brands and their ‘virtual sales force’, and to provide advertisers and affiliates with

platforms to not only connect, but to track and manage payments down the line as well.

However, responsibility aside, affiliate marketing’s own delivery has continued to evolve and

mature. It is not just about gap-filling or reaching the long-tail of online marketing (albeit it facilitates

these areas exceptionally well), this is now far from the case. The channel has propelled online



advertising into a new era, one of strategic, intuitive and innovative marketing. No longer a silo

business that once revolved around a few banners, websites and reports, affiliate marketing now

represents a broad spectrum of media channels, spread far and wide, with new and emerging

platforms such as mobile, social media and even offline promotions all playing a bigger part in it

now.

So it’s fair to say that affiliate marketing has pioneered a whole new way of looking at the digital

space, if not the wider marketing arena; opening marketers’ minds to the realms of possibility across

all digital media channels and, most importantly, for the whole delivery mechanism to be held to

account. From Affiliate Marketing, we now embrace Performance Marketing.

Performance Marketing is about truly being able to measure contribution; about understanding

what instigated, facilitated and converted clicks to a merchant site and rewarding accordingly,

whether it be through the traditional last click earns or through value attribution. However, although

the model is now firmly in our grasp, I do believe we are only just at the tip of the iceberg for

Performance Marketing - there is still so much more to come from this channel. In fact, I suspect the

next year or so will play out three-fold; through convergence buying, niche selling and continued

innovation.

And, okay, we’ve talked about it long enough, but Mobile will also continue to grow from strength to

strength as an abundance of smart phones continue to enter the market, mobile networks are

offering more affordable web packages, improving 3G coverage and more wireless hubs are

materialising in social environments. Affiliates are already profiting on a CPA basic across Mobile,

from search marketing and voucher codes, to site-builds and apps. But, more recently, niche Mobile

agencies have also emerged to target this one sector more specifically. Perhaps the next step will

be the launch of a Mobile affiliate network?

But it’s not only sector-specific networks that may appear. I believe we will continue to see more

and more multi-media platforms emerging; positioned primly to manage all aspects of Performance

Marketing, uniting the business model across all forms of media, both on and offline. If the industry

is prepared to shift in how it has habitually existed, these technologies will then give advertisers



even greater control of their campaigns and relationships, and will once more exemplify the whole

performance model ethos.

Drilling down specifically into other possible areas of growth, the recession has no doubt helped to

channel users down the voucher code/coupon path; however I still expect more to evolve from this

space, from more group-buying opportunities to demographically-driven voucher codes and

availability-driven real-time deal placements. As access to advertiser data further improves, along

with media partners’ ability to facilitate automated updates, real-time search and placement will

also start to flourish.

So to conclude, there’s no denying that the web is getting more complex and multi-faceted.

Companies are all striving for the next platform to advertise on, the next sector to emerge and the

latest partner to work with. However, alongside this, our focus on full return on investment

continues to get stronger and stronger, with measurement of cost and impact along the way

becoming more and more integral to each and every marketing plan. Performance Marketing is

therefore an open door for digital marketing to be truly held to account.



SEARCH MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is made up of Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation

(SEO). The aim of these processes is to better engage customers who are looking for information

related to your products or service. It is about making your website visible within the online Search

Engine powered spaces to attract new customers.

The online search space is a highly valued area for merchants to achieve strong visibility in and with

Google holding approximately 80% of the market share in the UK, it is a prime selling space for

marketing managers to focus on. The image below indicates how the search space is split into Paid

Search (PPC) and Natural Search (SEO), the red boxes show paid listings and the blue box show

natural listings.

Search marketing is constantly evolving, search engines continue to develop new innovations and

change the way that they classify websites and display the positioning of your site, mix this with your

SEO

Listings

PPC Listings



competitor’s development activity and the influx with new advertisers who continue to enter the

search space and you have a situation which is constantly changing and means that your own search

strategy needs to evolve to maximise your visibility in the search space.

PPC V’S SEO

PPC and SEO gives you a better chance of maximising the search space. The image below gives an

indication of where users click on a search page. Through a combined strategy you are more likely

to drive a higher proportion of users. PPC search is straightforward and easy to understand, SEO is

essentially free you don’t pay for clicks however it takes longer to achieve results and needs

commitment.

PPC can work as a test ground for SEO - through PPC you can understand if a keyword drives traffic

and if the traffic is right for your website only implementing it into the SEO strategy once its worth

has been evaluated.



PPC

Pay Per Click (PPC) is instant and reactive, giving the opportunity to drive traffic quickly. Google,

Yahoo & Bing have extensive interfaces where PPC campaigns are built and optimised. The search

interface is just one form of PPC. The system has extended through display networks which are

websites that place ads within their pages. PPC is also known as “sponsored links” and as per the

name an advertiser only pays when someone clicks on a link.

HOW PPC WORKS?

Advertisers bid on keywords and enter in to an auction to try and secure placement. The order of

the listings depends on other advertiser’s bids and the quality score of the ads shown for a given

search.



Some of the areas included in the quality score are indicated in the image below, the exact formula

is not publicly known, however search engines are aiming to give the users the best possible search

experience.

Associated with the target keyword is the ad copy which you are able to use to highlight features or

benefits of the product/services, Creative Ad copy helps make sure you stand out against your

competitors and ensures that users are aware of the key facts about the item you are advertising.

It’s a great way to promote special offers such as discounts, sales or new customer offers.

WHY USE PPC?

Paid Search can help you quickly achieve a range of online marketing objectives, as you are able to

publish your adverts in prominent positions in a matter of minutes and it is focused on customer

acquisition and promotion. Essentially, Paid Search can drive sales and increase your brand

exposure as your ad could be seen by millions of consumers who use search engines every day.



PPC is highly measurable. You can analyse your ads and keywords to review visitors, click trends and

conversion rates, evaluating the performance and adjusting accordingly. This can also be analysed

further with the use of additional tracking solutions to help fully understand exactly what value a

PPC user brings to your site.

WHAT IS SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of getting traffic from the “natural” listings on

search engines. The major search engines, Google, Yahoo & Bing have these results where web

pages and other content are ranked based on what the search engine considers more relevant to the

users’ search term.

SEO is the process of developing a websites visibility in the natural listings by improving key areas of

relevance and making them more search engine and user friendly. The next image outlines the key

attributes of SEO however this is not an exclusive list.

WHY USE SEO?

Natural traffic sources are a great way to drive free traffic to your website. There is no cost

associated from the search engines for each click delivered and as such this marketing vertical

becomes very cost effective for your website. Large volumes of similar keyword traffic can be



covered with the same optimisation strategies, due to the way that the search engines calculate

ranking positions, thus you are able to cover a large user base with minimal effort

WHICH KEYWORDS?

‘Keyword’ and ‘key phrase’ research is imperative to the success of an SEO & PPC campaign.

Extensive research should be undertaken to understand which phrases should be included in your

strategy. The research puts you in the shoes of the customer helping us to consider what search

terms or phrases typed into the search engines could potentially put them on the path to your

website and brand.

Mind-Mapping is a great way to develop an initial keyword bank which you can then develop on.

The table below helps develop ideas of where the keywords may fit into a structure, the competition

and number of estimated searches.

There are keyword tools available that help you develop further keywords you may not have

considered along with developing a list of keywords you do not want to appear for example if you

only sell women’s shoes you will not want to appear for the term “mens shoes”. Your initial

keyword bank will develop and evolve as you develop more knowledge about how customers

interact with your website.

If you have search functionality on your website this can be a great way of helping to develop your

keyword list by identifying what customers are searching for when they reach your site.



GENERIC TERMS REFINED TERMS NICHE TERMS (‘LONG

TAIL’)

Customer’s mindset Researching

Learning

Browsing

Comparing

Confirming choice

Purchasing

Nature of keyword Information terms

Product descriptions

Features

Brands

Product IDs

Merchant names

Level of competition Highest Moderate Lowest

Traffic volumes

generated Largest Intermediate Smallest

Traffic quality Low Higher Highest

Probability of

conversion

Less likely More likely Most likely

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

Unlike other forms of media every action on the internet is recorded allowing any SEO or PPC

strategy to be evaluated at each stage. There are a variety of tracking solutions available and Google

has its own free system Google Analytics. This free analytics package has a wealth of information

about how users have reached a website and what actions they took when landing on the site. The

data collected is vast, however core data such as:

Clicks via natural listings and paid listings

How long users spent on the site?

Where do users exit the site?

Conversions?



This enables you to optimise campaigns and generate higher returns through analysing the ROI. ROI

and measurement is unique to every strategy, you need to determine your goals and the value of

them this in turn will help you measure the success of the campaign.



DISPLAY MARKETING

Back in the mid-nineties; when marketers realized that they had a fast-growing, captive online

audience, display advertising was the most natural translation from offline marketing to online. In

the grand scheme of things this still remains the case and display still continues to flourish – albeit in

a much more sophisticated form.

According to the IAB H1 2010 online ad spend report , display advertising made up 19% of all online

ad spend (a total of £380.9 million) which showed a 6.4% year on year growth. Not bad in a

recession? The key to the success of the industry has been the constant innovations and adaptations

it has made in response to a growing market and pioneering technologies.

WHAT IS DISPLAY ADVERTISING?

Simply put, display advertising is when a marketer pays a publisher to display their advertising.

Similar to offline advertising, online marketers have a target audience to reach with a certain

message or call to action and they use display advertising in order to do that.

Publishers: tend to be high-quality content sites selling their white space on a CPC/CPM and,

increasingly, on a CPA/CPL basis – (see ‘Commission Types Section – Page 74 for

information)

Creative: is of paramount importance. They IAB’s standard creative sizes are here:

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabdisplaystandards2010.html

Buying points: advertisers can choose (and usually mix) a number of methods in which to

buy their display advertising: display networks; ad exchanges or individual site buys

Measurement: is dependent on the objectives of the campaign. For branding campaigns,

survey tools are often used. Ad networks will provide all reporting data which marketers will

http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabdisplaystandards2010.html



often cross-reference with third party ad servers if they use them

Brand protection: in 2005, leading ad networks teamed up with the IAB to form IASH -

http://www.iash.org.uk/AboutIASH/204359/the_role_of_iash.html - to regulate and assure

advertisers about ad placement on the internet.

WHY WOULD YOU USE DISPLAY?

Marketers would tend to use display advertising as part (or all of) a specific campaign. They would

identify their target audience and their objective; and incorporate online display advertising into

their overall media plan for this campaign. Quite often this media plan will be designed and bought

by media agencies although more and more marketers are now handling this internally. Many

marketers will measure their online display advertising within their econometric modelling.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES:

Obviously the key to measuring the success of a campaign is to clearly mark out objectives.

Objectives within display advertising can be split into two categories: branding or direct response

(although the marketer usually hopes for a combination of the two). As this guide is about

performance marketing we will focus on direct response.

With direct response, marketers are expecting their advertising to result in some kind of definite

response from their audience, so it is essential that they design creative which has a strong call to

action within it. This could be ‘fill in this form’, ‘click here to find out more’, ‘special offer, buy now’.

Of course, this call to action is dependent on the campaign objectives. Also obvious is the fact that

the more people see the campaign and the better-targeted the campaign is to the audience most

likely to respond, the better the campaign will perform in line with objectives.

http://www.iash.org.uk/AboutIASH/204359/the_role_of_iash.html



REACH AND TARGETING

Dependant on the type of campaign a marketer is looking specifically for a big but targeted audience

so it is important when buying a display campaign to get both of these things. Partnering with an ad

network or ad exchange should ensure reach however it is also important to drill down to your

target audience using a range of methods:

Demographics – publisher websites will give information about their user base. Marketers

can use this information to choose which sites to put their ads on

Geographic and time – if a marketer only wants to target certain regions or at certain times

(a fast food advertiser may want to advertise just before lunch and not just after) then this

can be managed by the marketer or network

Frequency capping – marketers can set a top limit on how many times a user sees a specific

ad so as not to bombard or frustrate them

Contextual – this could either be in a channel of sites which complement the advertising

creative or on sites which are similar to the context of the ad

Re-targeting – this is when a marketer re-targets a user (using non PII) which has interacted

with their creative or site. This can be done across an ad network and if done in conjunction

with dynamic messaging can give the user relevant messages to go back and re-engage with

the marketing, ideally to complete a transaction or to fill out a lead

Behavioural/Predictive Targeting - this is when data is used to predict how an anonymous

user will interact with creative, allowing marketers to target the user as opposed to work in

channels or target demographics.



WHERE TO BUY

It used to be that marketers could just buy from an advertising network (like our sister company

ValueClick Media) or from direct sites which were particularly targeted towards a certain brand,

demographic or product.

Now there are many more products available for marketers to use. As opposed to affiliate

marketing, many marketers will buy and manage their display activity through a media agency which

will manage a campaign holistically. The options are:

Demand side platforms (DSP): agencies will often use these incorporated with real time

bidding technologies in order to buy publisher inventory on behalf of their advertisers

Publisher-direct: publishers will often have internal sales houses or optimizers to ensure

that they get the best value for their inventory

Ad exchanges: advertisers can bid for inventory that they want

From an agency: remember that some agencies will have their own media so marketers

need to take this into consideration during purchase as agencies may be taking a

considerable margin

From a network: our sister company ValueClick Media is an international display network of

publishers which sells to marketers on a CPC, CPM and CPA basis. There are different kinds

of networks: some which buy and then re-sell inventory or some like ValueClick Media which

has its own network

MERGING AFFILIATE MARKETING AND DISPLAY ADVERTISING

Over the past few years display campaigns and affiliate marketing have merged to an extent. For

example, if an existing Commission Junction merchant wishes to do some additional short term



activity around a new product launch, they could roll that into their affiliate marketing programme

by using ValueClick Media as a publisher.

Marketers may also want to do short-term affiliate-type activity, for example a lead generation

campaign where they pay on a CPL-basis. Over the next few years we expect to see these merging

more, although display advertising will always have its own unique place, particularly when it comes

to branding campaigns.

THE FUTURE:

The future looks bright for display advertising as it continues to offer both branding and direct-

response solutions for marketers. Technologies are emerging in marketing and at the moment a lot

of them are in the display space which bodes well.

Currently there is a lot of change in the marketplace – there has been mass media fragmentation

and consequently technology has converged with a flood of new entrants (DSP’s, ad exchanges etc)

to the market. These new technology providers are all vying to be the ‘one-stop-shop’ solution for

marketers or planner/buyers whose lives have been made more complicated by this media

fragmentation.

Whilst the use of data is hugely important and will play a massive role in all future display activity (it

gives marketers the opportunity to target their audience on a very granular basis) the role of

experience and service is currently being underestimated in this market.



So, with that in mind, marketers will be well-advised to keep up with new technologies which will

save them money whilst buying their inventory but they should also seek the advice of experts who

will ensure that they see greater ROI from the display advertising.

“Display advertising is the online channel closest to traditional media channels, and often

the easiest to understand. But the key difference of course is visibility – thanks to tracking! We can look at the all the same metrics as TV or Outdoor, but relay them back to physical actions and response in a digital environment. Regardless of the campaign KPI’s a display strategy can be developed to achieve a brand’s objective – whether it’s focussed on brand awareness or direct response. We’ve run campaigns that see uplifts in brand awareness and favourability by over 40%, and campaigns that utilise targeting including retargeting to invoke uplifts in conversion rates by over 48%. Display advertising doesn’t just work in isolation; Comscore reported that using display in conjunction with search can increase site visitation in the 4 weeks after exposure by up to a massive 65%”

Fiona Robertson, Head of Affiliates & Performance, bigmouthmedia



E-MAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING PRODUCES RESULTS

According to research conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing generated an

ROI of $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. It outperformed all the other direct marketing

channels examined.

While email marketing may not be the newest Kid on the Block and therefore lack the sexiness of

some of channels explored later in this guide, its on-going capacity to generate high returns for

relatively low outlays are without question.

For that reason some of the top performing affiliate marketers are emailers. You’ve got the

specialists who have been in the email game for many a moon, but in recent times these have been

joined by affiliates in other genres, be they former Pay Per Clickers or voucher code or cashback

specialists, who have finally cottoned on to the value of building large mailing lists and now have

subscriber bases of many hundreds of thousands.

TECHNICALITIES OF BROADCASTING

Email marketers will either utilise their own servers or use an Email Service Provider for deployment.

If an emailer has a large database, there can be challenges in terms of getting into inboxes and

therefore considerable technical expertise is required to gain the highest deliverability. This includes

using the optimal HTML; cleansing the data; authenticating the send domain names; ensuring one

has pre-warmed, high quality broadcast IPs; and utilising delivery platforms with excellent

reputations with ISPs such as Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and the like.



EMAIL MARKETING ESSENTIALLY BOILS DOWN TO THREE THINGS: ACQUISITION, RETENTION

AND GROWTH.

Acquisition

It goes without saying you can’t send out emails if you don’t have any email addresses to broadcast

to. And therefore email marketers utilise an array of means to grow their databases, some more

salubrious than others. It’s given rise to the plethora of ‘Win an iPod’ and ‘Win an iPad’ campaigns,

but there are a multitude of methodologies to get people to opt-in to databases. These can be via

websites, but also many emailers utilise other mailing lists to grow their own.

Retention

Once email marketers have got people to sign-up to their databases, the name of the game is to

keep them. And that means broadcasting interesting and useful mailings to them.

Many affiliates have weekly newsletters they send out to their subscribers with the latest offers.

Some affiliates also broadcast solus emails to their members, which are emails dedicated to

advertising one company or offer.

Growth

Email marketers want to grow their databases and get the word out about their mailshots to as

many people as possible, and they will utilise a variety of means to do. This includes techniques like

‘forward to a friend’ links in their emails.

WORKING WITH EMAIL AFFILIATES

Advertisers can enjoy substantial volumes of leads by being featured in broadcasts which can go out

to very large numbers of people.

Email publishers who send out newsletters will often feature advertisers if they are offered

incentives such as higher commissions or exclusive voucher codes to offer to their readers. Bigger

brands are naturally more likely to be promoted.



As these newsletters recommend several advertisers, the only type of creative that is usually

required is a small logo of the advertiser in a 120 x 60, 125 x 125 or 88 x 31 pixel size.

Solus emailers are always screaming out for high quality email creative, which very few advertisers

provide, and any that have it readily available have a significantly higher chance of being promoted.

LEAD GENERATION NETWORKS

Specialist email publishers generally focus more on Cost Per Action and Cost Per Lead affiliate

programs as these tend to generate a significantly higher Revenue Per Member than Cost Per Sale

programs.

As the kind of campaigns that perform well on email marketing are usually quite different to those

via PPC, SEO, display, and other online marketing channels, there are a number of networks which

specialise in providing email marketing advertisers. These networks are often referred to as CPA or

Lead Generation networks, and most of leading players with UK campaigns have their roots in the

US.

These networks often utilise the DirectTrack tracking platform, an advantage of which is campaigns

can be cross-syndicated to other networks utilising DirectTrack of which there are many hundreds.

Unlike traditional affiliate networks, the campaigns on these platforms usually have the tools that

email marketers need, which includes email creatives, recommended subject lines, and suppression

lists.



MOBILE MARKETING

WHY BOTHER WITH MOBILE?

The next twelve months are being hailed as the long-awaited Year of the Mobile. By the end of 2011,

smartphone shipments will exceed shipments of PCs (PC World) and there will be one billion heavy

mobile data users worldwide by 2013 (Morgan Stanley). Consumers are embracing all things mobile

at a rapidly increasing rate, from iPhones to Android and apps to augmented reality. The shift to

mobile is changing everyday behaviour and critically, the percentage of mobile users who purchase

through their phone hit 13% in 2010 (eConsultancy). Here at Top10.com we’re certainly considering

Mobile as a vital part of our strategy for 2011.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT PERFORMANCE MARKETING?

The biggest change to the affiliate community will be the rise of applications as opposed to

traditional sites. It will also be critical to understand the effect of mobile browsers on search

campaigns and the suitability of both publisher and merchant sites for mobile traffic.

WILL MOBILE TRAFFIC ACTUALLY TRACK WITH AFFILIATE NETWORKS?

The short answer is – yes! A lot of publishers have expressed this concern, but Chris Giddins,

Product Director of Digital Window, says:

‘Most mobile devices now use web browsers that are very similar to those

found on a PC. Whether you're using Android or iPhone, all of these devices

use a browser that allows JavaScript to run and cookies to be set. This

means that the network’s standard tracking technology will work and track

transactions successfully. If the browser doesn't support JavaScript, then

basic pixel tracking will always be there as a backup. Apple Safari and

Google Chrome both support HTML5 so shouldn't have any issues with

advanced affiliate tracking.’



DESIGNING FOR MOBILE USERS

Although the tracking might be up to scratch, the merchants’ sites may be another question! Only a

third of advertisers have a mobile strategy in place (Forrester), with a very small minority actually

having an m-commerce site.

Mobile sites require a completely different design approach to regular websites according to Harry

Jones, Creative Director at Top10.com: ‘The most obvious difference is the smaller screen of mobile

devices which forces you to focus on only the essential features and calls to action. Although this is a

constraint for designers it can also prove refreshing, allowing you to create much simpler and clearer

products.

“Touch input also has a big influence on how we design for mobile. A finger is much bigger and

clumsier than a mouse so buttons and interactive elements need to be larger and you should

minimise text input wherever possible, such as in the checkout process and on order forms. On a

technical level the site should be rigorously optimised to load as quickly as possible and tested on as

many devices as possible – not just iPhones.’

Take this example from Amazon:



Although screen size and load time can be restrictive, working on a mobile platform offers a wealth

of opportunities that are simply not feasible on a desktop due to legacy browsers. Additional

features available to mobile designers include access to device position through an accelerometer,

user orientation from a digital compass, precise location via GPS, scanners and imaging from a

camera. Use of these new technologies allows designers to create highly interactive and engaging

features.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR MOBILE AUDIENCE

Mobile users tend to be much more receptive to impulse purchases, spending less time on any one

site. However they have a lot more confidence in the buying process – at a recent Google event,

M&S shared that a customer bought a £2,000 sofa through their mobile! In terms of their

demographic mobile internet users tend to be more urban and higher earners; 47% of mobile

internet users live in higher populated areas and 42% earn over £40,000 per year (Essential

Research).

Experian breaks down mobile shoppers into five categories:



MOBILE APPLICATIONS

The last 24 months have seen a meteoric rise in the use of mobile applications. As of Oct 2010, the

iTunes App Store has over 300,000 apps available and has seen over 7 billion downloads.

If you get the magic formula right then apps can be a license to print money – Jamie Oliver’s digital

cookbook is the top-grossing app to date with industry rumours placing its revenue close to seven

figures, while Angry Birds publisher Chillingo sold to EA Games for a whopping $20 million and has

even branched into plush toy merchandise.

A number of major players now operate heavily through applications, such as Facebook, Amazon,

eBay and Tesco. Affiliate companies have been quick to follow suit. Vouchercloud from Invitation

Digital is the UK’s largest mobile voucher app with close to a million downloads, which allows users

to find deals and offers for businesses in their immediate vicinity using geographical targeting.

Nectar offer exclusive bonus point offers via their iPhone app and Shopstyle have created a fashion

shopping portal that really embraces the tactile experience of a smaller touchscreen.



Top10.com also recently released their first iPhone app, The Top10.com Speed Test. This is a free

app that allows you to test your 3G data connection speed and see individual 3G speeds mapped

across the UK, even down to street level. Already Top10.com have collected several thousand 3G

speed tests with little promotion of the app, demonstrating how powerful the App Store can be.

Developing and submitting an app can be quite complicated, so here are some tips to get you

started:

Test your app thoroughly. It can be embarrassing if your launch in the App Store is ruined

by negative reviews, so make sure the app works well on all devices and software versions

Set aside time to submit the app. From certificate requests to screenshots the submission

process is quite complicated. With Apple taking about a week to approve your app you can

be back to square one if you make a small mistake

Consider your keywords carefully. Keywords are heavily weighted in the algorithm for App

Store search results so as with SEO, consider the terms you want to appear for when you

submit your app

Provide a means for feedback. Apple doesn’t allow you to respond to reviews or get in

touch with people who have downloaded the app, so provide a support contact or some

incentive for people to send you feedback



SHOULD I BUILD AN APP OR A MOBILE SITE?

There is a big industry debate about whether the move to mobile should take place via apps or a

mobile site. On the one hand, there was a reported 40% rise in browser usage on mobiles

throughout 2010. A mobile site also removes platform bias, with no need to choose between the

operating system you build for. There are now close to 50 different app stores, each with different

requirements!

On the flip side, an app can have much greater functionality. For example, ‘Amazon Remembers’ is a

feature within Amazon’s app that allows a user to take a photo of a product and view matching

results available to buy from Amazon, which trumps their mobile site.

The general consensus appears to be that if you’re going to take your mobile strategy seriously, then

producing both is the way forward. Apps can compliment mobile sites and interlinking between the

two can provide the optimum user experience.



MOBILE SEARCH

Mobile now accounts for 4% of all search traffic on Google, which is greater than the volume of

searches across the whole of Bing (Marketing Week). Paid mobile search has been slower to catch

up, as mobile only accounts for 2% of total PPC volumes. This means that companies who can get in

early and do it right can make big wins.

The reduced competition means click prices are lower, and the click-through rate for mobile ads is

20% higher than online (Marketing Week). However, the success of a campaign fundamentally

hinges on the mobile optimisation of the destination site.

Earlier in 2010 Google introduced the ability to add a ‘click to call’ telephone number to mobile ads.

A call from these ads costs the same as a click, meaning that advertisers can pick up ‘warm leads’ at

a bargain rate.

Big gains can be made from adding additional layers of targeting to mobile ads that aren’t available

in an online campaign. For example, sites that don’t convert on smaller handsets may work on larger

formats like iPads and tablets. According to Digital Window, network-wide click to sale rate on



iPhones is 1.5% compared to 3.5% on iPads, which shows that screen size is directly proportional to

conversion.

The phone numbers chosen for click-to-call ads are also important to think about. Mobile users on

O2 can’t directly click on an 0800 number to make a call, nor can they copy and paste it to the dial

pad of their phone. This means that campaigns using teletracking numbers should exclude O2, or use

another format of number for these customers such as those using 03 prefixes that are just charged

at a standard network rate.

Top10.com run successful mobile search and click-to-call

campaigns for the majority of their clients, and are

expanding their activity month on month as mobile

searches continue to grow in number. Partner sites

optimized for search and with robust call tracking allow

Top10.com to push growing budgets into the mobile space.

They expect to double their marketing spend on mobile

search by the end of 2010.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Consumers are rapidly changing their behaviour to

embrace the possibilities for researching and purchasing

products via mobile, and it will be a test of the affiliate

industry as to well we adapt. Publishers need to embrace this change or risk being left behind. We

would expect that the next twelve months will see the start of developments to the tracking and

reporting tools available specifically related to mobile. A major benefit of affiliate marketing is its

adaptability and the key will be to see mobile as a huge opportunity rather than a threat to ways of

working we’re accustomed to. This should lead to an exciting year ahead!



SOCIAL MARKETING

PERFORMANCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA

May 2010 represented a tipping point for Social Media in the UK. Until then, the greatest traffic

driver for unique visitors had been the big three search engines – Google, Yahoo! And Bing (With

Google taking a majority share). May brought online a new world order of traffic – whereas Search

Engines provided 11.3% of all UK visitors, Social Media contributed 11.9%. This shift in dynamic has

obviously been noted by the advertising world and heralded new avenue for planners to deliver

branding–focused advertiser budget. But where does this leave performance marketing?

Performance can be measured in many ways. An impression. A Click. Theoretically, any form of user

engagement can be considered ‘performance’. However, what advertisers are really seeking from

Performance marketing is a certain level of measurable return-on-investment. This is where Social

Media needs to be looked at very carefully.

As already mentioned, Social Media has proven itself as a prime channel for advertisers seeking to

align their brands with certain user/customer demographics. However, this kind of performance

does not necessarily mean greater products sold for the advertiser. In fact, according to

eConsultancy’s Social Media Guide (2010), two-thirds of marketers are actually planning to increase

investment in social media even though less than one-fifth can effectively measure ROI.

So where do we start to understand how Social Media can help advertisers effectively attract new

customers?

RETENTION VS ACQUISITION

Firstly, we need to reconcile the fact that Social Media can be used for both retention and acquisition

of customers. As a communication method, Social Media – due to both size and relevance – is

unrivalled when speaking to your customers. For examples on this just look at how brands use

Twitter (London transport organisations used Twitter to update customers on latest disruptions

during the severe weather conditions in London over December 2010). This customer service

ensures retention of existing customers. Having said that, recent studies have shown that only

nineteen of the top one-hundred UK technology companies are using Twitter commercially*.



To best comprehend where Social Media can contribute to customer acquisition we need to delve a

little deeper into the online behaviour of UK consumers. Acquisition by definition, states that you

are gaining something you did not previously have. This leaves Social Media in an interesting

position.

The availability of product ratings has proven to be a factor that influenced an online purchase for

59% of UK shoppers, as was the availability of user-generated content or consumer product reviews

(57%)*. This method of UGC (user-generated-content) and reviews has propelled price comparison

sites to be amongst the most successful of UK shopping sites (Kelkoo, PriceRunner & Ciao are all

good examples of this). However, Social Media holds a crucial ace up its sleeve…

FACEBOOK & SOCIAL PLUG-INS

Facebook (which now accounts for over 20% of all time spent online in the UK*) takes up around

90% of the 11.9% contribution of Social Media to UK internet figures. With such a large user

penetration it is easy to understand that any means by which Facebook can provide user reviews or

user recommendations would potentially increase take up of product sales.

At F8 2010 (the Facebook developer conference in San Francisco) Facebook unveiled their latest

product launches – one of which was the most significant yet with regards to Performance

Marketing and acquisition in Social Media (It will also be remembered for the definitive moment that

Facebook set co-ordinates for a direct head-on ‘fight for the future’ between themselves and

Google).

The over-arching theme of the conference was that of the effect of Social Media in moving the web

towards an interlinking series of ‘connections’ between people and their respective interests. On a

mass scale, this provides developers (and ultimately affiliates and advertisers) with a powerful tool

to target and add value to users.

Facebook now has the ability to stretch into each and every content driven website by offering

developers & affiliates the opportunity to integrate a number of key Facebook features (or ‘plug-

ins’).

The most significant of these is the ‘Like’ button. You’ll recognize this from the Facebook Fan pages

and as the option on every status update/picture/event that appears on your Facebook interface.



The Like button currently allows you to quickly and easily inform your friends when you have

positively engaged with something they have posted on their pages. This is now being offered to

publishers to allow users to see when their friends have ‘rated’ a piece of content on their sites –

importantly, these are external sites not currently in the Facebook universe.

For example, right now you can go to an article on CNN.com and see which of your friends have

‘Liked’ it. Obviously, this means your users are much more likely to read and engage with content

that their friends have recommended

For affiliates, this is significant for a couple of reasons. We saw with the Google changes (Nov 09-Jan

10) a turning point in our industry’s relationship with Google. The search-giant demanded an

improvement in the quality of affiliate sites and offer an added value to the ‘Google Users’ purchase

decision through PPC advertising. As many of you in the industry will know, this necessitated that

many affiliates solely reliant on search traffic shifted their business focus.

Then, through Real-Time, Personalized Search & Caffeine we saw Google asking publishers to start

integrating a greater level of Social Media through SEO (see the TradeDoubler Blog for more

information on how these effected affiliates – http://uk.tradedoublerblog.com/397/news/the-

effect-of-google-updates-on-affiliate-marketing/ ).

With these new changes, affiliates will be able to (quickly and relatively easily) bring a greater level

of Social Media to their sites. Hopefully, this will mean Google can start ranking affiliates higher in

SEO due to relevance and fresh/updated content. For advertisers, this obviously means their

Performance Marketing through affiliates will increase in return-on-investment.

One possible drawback may be that users are dwelling longer on the sticky content and overall

conversions rates dip (however, it can also be argued that the users that ARE being pushed through

to the merchant are of a higher quality as they have had more information in their buying cycle).

This will undoubtedly be a balancing act for Performance Marketing in 2011.

Other plug-ins that are available are a Recommended box (offering recommendations based on your

previous liked/friends-liked objects), an Activities feed and also a toolbar which sits at the bottom of

a publishers page which offers developers (and Facebook) a very strategic and flexible platform to

engage with users over a multitude of sites. It includes basic Facebook functions such as Chat and

Updates, but also has room for developers to input their own applications.

http://uk.tradedoublerblog.com/397/news/the-effect-of-google-updates-on-affiliate-marketing/

http://uk.tradedoublerblog.com/397/news/the-effect-of-google-updates-on-affiliate-marketing/



The biggest plus point of this implementation arrives with the aid of research that shows 90% of

online consumers trust recommendations from people that they know. Given how many people in

the country use Facebook it is clear the benefit this could have to new customer acquisition across

Social Media.

CASE STUDY In October 2010, TradeDoubler launched a test with one of the leading UK loyalty-shopping

sites for a large consumer retailer. The goal of this test was to analyse if performance could

be increased across the affiliate campaign by using Facebook Social Plug-ins – namely the

‘Like’ button.

The publisher we used operates in a congested field and competes with several top sites for

greatest share of users shopping habits. Any differentiation that can help increase

conversion would be of significance given the volumes driven on a daily basis.

The results of the test found that, by implementing the Like button on a number of specific

promotions, the click-through-rates rose by up to 4.3% (Vs. base average before Social

Plug-in implementation).

This also led to a 4.4% increase in transactions. For the advertiser, this represented

thousands of pounds worth of incremental sales at a crucial period of the year. The

publisher obviously benefited from increased commissions received over the period.

Added value to the publisher was also attained through new user referrals that appeared in

friend’s status feeds.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR PERFORMANCE IN SOCIAL MEDIA?

Combined, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Bebo, MySpace, Flickr & Orkut deliver around 425.9 million

unique visitors. The major benefit of perfecting performance over these sites through user

recommendations, UGC and product reviews is obvious – you will get greater market share quicker.



Once this is realised the next steps are to start identifying which users are proving the most valuable

to your product sales.

For example if ‘User A’ has, by ‘liking’ (or other forms of referring) your offer, generated a large

amount of sales from his friends – would you see this person as a valuable customer? Chances are

the answer is yes and, if you have the ability, the opportunity to offer this customer ‘special’ deals

on your products would (using indications from the above research) statistically improve your

attempt to gain market share quicker.

Be it over Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, this ‘Influence Targeting’ can be seen as the next level of

targeting in Social Media and, technology permitting, is something that we will be recommending to

all of our advertisers over 2011.



BEHAVIOURAL RETARGETING

The most important aspect of successful ecommerce marketing is capturing customer conversion to

a sale. On average, around 95% of visitors leave an e-commerce site without making a purchase.

While the ecommerce environment has evolved considerably over the last ten years, the "lost

prospect" problem remains a key concern. The use of behavioural retargeting can successfully

address this concern.

The problem is that modern consumers have grown accustomed to shopping online for almost

everything, but the majority of internet consumers are slow to commit. Attention is easily distracted

and it is common for online shoppers to forget about products they were interested in only

moments earlier.

During 2010 UK consumers were on track to spend an estimated £56 billion shopping online due in

part to the proliferation of broadband, as well as improvements in performance and services by

ecommerce companies1. This has made it quicker and easier to purchase online but increased the

available distractions for purchasers. It is becoming a business critical issue to retain the relationship

with the consumer and retargeting those consumers provides an effective way to do this.

Consumer behaviour is

becoming more challenging

to track, analyse and

interpret, and this has

required a more customer-

centric approach to emerge.

The increasing

sophistication, efficiencies,

and scale of retargeting

mean that retailers and

advertisers can now solve the lost prospect problem. A recent study by Criteo2 found that

retargeted customers are 70 percent more likely to complete a sale than their non-retargeted

1 IMRG/Capgemini eRetail Sales Index

2AB split tests of 5 multi-channel retailers conducted in April - June 2010



counterparts. And by incorporating additional product recommendations, those same retargeted

visitors spend, on average, 50 percent more than non-retargeted consumers.

UK ONLINE – THE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY The UK internet economy currently accounts for an estimated £100 billion, or 7.2% of the country’s

gross domestic product, making it the largest per capita e-commerce market in the world. It is

forecast to grow a further 10 per cent per year if current market conditions continue.3

Internet advertising in the UK alone was valued at £1.97 billion in the first half of this year - 24% of

the total UK advertising spend - only 2 per cent behind television advertising.4

As the value of this market grows, so does the requirement for more sophisticated, effective ways of

engaging with the online consumer. Ensuring that all advertising activity provides the highest return

for advertisers, whether in ecommerce or brand awareness terms, is crucial to success.

CHANGING CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Since January 2008, the average online

conversion rate of retailers participating in

the Capgemini Index has been falling.

There was an average conversion rate of

6% in 2008, down to 4.5% during 2009 and

3.6% to date in 2010. The decline suggests

that consumers’ online behaviour is

changing from that of a linear transactional

nature to browsing and researching

products extensively before purchasing,

either online or on the high street.

The increase of this type of casual shopping, and the growing number of available distractions that

draw potential shoppers away from their purchases, is having an impact on advertising. It means

3 Boston Consulting Group 2010

4 Internet Advertising Bureau & PWC UK Online Adspend Study H1 2010



that advertiser investments are not maximising sales from existing site visitors, and not delivering

optimal return on advertising spend. What's worse, a customer might end up on a competitor's

website to purchase a product not because the initial product was inferior, but because the options

are abundant and locating additional information is easy.

WHAT IS RETARGETING?

Retargeting allows an advertiser to find site visitors once they have left the site, and display relevant

advertising to encourage them to return to complete a transaction.

As consumers browse a website, information about their interactions is collected. This includes

things like the pages and products they have viewed, as well as purchases that they have made.

When these consumers then leave the original website and visit other sites across the internet, they

are shown relevant ads based on these previous interactions.

Whilst there are similarities to general behavioural marketing, which uses online actions to identify

good prospects, retargeting focuses on consumers who have already indicated an interest in the

advertiser. This results in a much greater propensity to respond to the retargeted ads, which in turn

results in much higher click-through and conversion rates than standard display advertising.

With a retargeting strategy, you can continue to expose consumers to specific and relevant ads as

they surf and shop, encouraging and reminding them to return to the site of the original advertiser.

In today’s ecommerce environment, bringing ready-to-buy visitors back after they have left an

advertiser’s site should be a key part of any customer acquisition and conversion strategy.

STATIC RETARGETING

Finding and re-engaging potential customers has been an ongoing concern for all retailers with an

online presence. In its infancy, the mechanics of retargeting - also called remarketing - were fairly

basic: a user would visit a site, leave, and then would be exposed to a generic branded display ad

from the abandoned site.

Basic static retargeting is effective and has become the default methodology for most retargeting

providers. It is only slightly more successful than existing brand campaigns however, as the



advertising offered remains generic and not targeted to the individual user. This effectively means

that the ads displayed are no different to a standard display campaign for that advertiser.

SEGMENTED RETARGETING

Segmented retargeting enables advertisers to engage consumers with increasingly relevant ads. It

does this by creating a number of display banner executions for specific segments of online

consumers. For example, if a shopper browsed the kitchenware section of a website, that consumer

would be shown a banner advertising kitchen items. Similarly, a shopper who abandons a full

"shopping cart" can be retargeted with a banner that offers a purchase discount.

Most intelligent networks offer this service, showing visitors ads based on the ‘user segment’ they

fall into. This helps build a greater rapport with the consumer than basic retargeting and moves

further towards full engagement with the consumer. Segmented retargeting has one drawback

however, which is that it doesn’t provide advertisers with the ability to personalise the conversation

by matching a specific product or offer with each individual visitor’s particular interests.

RETARGETING GETS PERSONAL

There is a third iteration of display retargeting available to online advertisers today: dynamic

personalised retargeting. A range of technological advances mean that the most sophisticated

retargeting providers are able to

offer unprecedented levels of

product personalisation in the

display ads they serve.

Instead of static, generically

branded ads or segmented ads,

retailers can now create a

unique ad for the exact shoe or

shirt or gadget that the

consumer initially sought as well

as product-level

recommendations based on their browsing history.



Each personalised ad is created for an individual visitor in real time and can feature multiple

products in a single banner, offering the consumer a "mini-boutique" within the ad. The placement,

creative and products displayed are optimised to achieve the highest click-through rate (CTR) and

conversion to sale or action which means the user only gets shown ads which they are likely to

interact with.

BENEFITS OF RETARGETING

What makes re-targeting unique is its narrow focus. Advertising content and offers can be based on

something as specific as an individual’s product view history, not simply a section or type of site

visited (like the boots category page on a fashion site, vs. a specific boot brand and style).

In addition, this level of personalisation allows banners to be created dynamically in real time,

optimising the placement, content and products depending on that individual’s history. Essentially,

a consumer may see a different ad variation every time.

In the end this means higher CTRs and conversion (purchase) rates. Criteo’s clients, for example,

achieve CTRs that are 400-600% higher than standard banner ads, and their conversion outperforms

current standards.

Ultimately, sophisticated retargeting provides a combination of personalisation and dynamic

interaction. It means that online consumers can be shown ads for relevant products, at the right

points in the buying cycle, ensuring that advertisers experience tremendous return on investment

(ROI) on their ad spend.

RIGHT MESSAGE AT THE RIGHT TIME

Retargeting can be leveraged at virtually every phase of the consumer lifecycle, from building

awareness to driving purchases and customer loyalty. The greatest benefit of retargeting however is

its ability to convert browsers into buyers at the right time – when they are considering a purchase.

DISPLAY A PERSONALISED MESSAGE TO AN ULTRA QUALIFIED AUDIENCE

Retargeting only potential customers that have previously been to an advertiser’s websites allows

the advertiser to personalise their marketing message and focus their efforts on their most valuable

prospects.



TAKING THE GUESS WORK OUT OF MESSAGING AND DELIVERY

Retargeting technology enables advertisers to spend less time and money on creative design and

execution, by taking the guess work out of predicting customer intent. Sophisticated algorithms

determine in real-time the most effective creative template, products and messaging as well as

placement that will deliver conversions.

TAILORING THE MESSAGE - ACQUISITION FUNNEL MANAGEMENT

By identifying where consumers are within the advertiser’s acquisition funnel, messaging can be

tailored accordingly. This means advertisers can retarget visitors who have just browsed the

homepage differently to those who have viewed several products or added products to their basket

and then left without purchasing – depending on which is more important to the advertiser.

CROSS-SELL / UP-SELL

The sophistication of retargeting technology means that advertisers can extend their campaigns to

include recommended products in addition to those viewed by the consumer as well as retarget

existing customers with products and offers that may be of interest. A good example would be a

travel website where a customer who has bought a flight to New York may be targeted with hotels

for the dates they are travelling.

SEQUENTIAL RETARGETING

For products with a longer purchase cycle, retargeting can leverage sequential advertising to

reinforce the message as the consumer goes through the research and consideration process. A

potential customer who has not responded to the first or second ad can be presented with a

discounted offer in the third ad to incentivise the purchase. Certain providers can optimise the

messaging sequence based on the response to each creative.



COMPARABLE TO SEARCH MARKETING

Display advertising has historically been less successful in providing the direct response

measurement of search, but is still viewed as one of the strongest forms of advertising to

demonstrate creativity and build brand awareness.

Retargeting acts as the perfect hybrid of the two. It allows advertisers to benefit from the rich

environment of display advertising, engage with consumers who have shown an interest in the

brand and, when results are measured on a post-click basis benchmarked against conversion and

ROI, delivering ROI comparable to search.

In fact, retargeting is the perfect complement to a search campaign as it enables advertisers to

convert interested consumers who specifically searched for products but did not complete a

purchase.

A recent comScore study which looked at various display placement strategies such as premium,

contextual, run-of-network and retargeting, found that retargeting generated the highest lift in

trademark search behaviour.5

IMMEDIATE AND MEASURABLE RESULTS

Personalised retargeting offers attractive cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) pricing

for personalised retargeted banners. As a result each and every penny spent is an investment in a

potential customer. Due to the precisely targeted and personalised nature of this type of

advertising, the post-click conversion rates are significantly higher than other types of advertising.

5 When Money Moves to Digital, Where Should It Go? comScore and ValueClick, Sept 2010



Retargeting effectiveness – click-through and conversion rates

IMPLEMENTATION

The technical implementation of behavioural retargeting is simple. The relevant code is similar to

web analytics code and can be integrated into a site in the same way. This piece of code enables the

retargeting provider to analyse a consumer’s interaction with the site such as which pages and

products are viewed, and understand and respond to how far the potential customer progressed

through the acquisition funnel.

An advertiser can then provide the retargeting company with product feeds containing all the

information they would like displayed within the retargeting ads, from pricing, images and any offers

that may be available. These are usually provided in xml or csv format.

Creative is then designed in accordance with the advertiser’s brand guidelines.

When a consumer visits the site, an anonymous cookie (a small text file which does not contain

personally identifiable information) is automatically placed on their browser which enables the

retargeting provider to identify that browser across the web.

Everything else, from determining when and where the ad is displayed, to which products to show, is

optimised by the retargeting engine and is dynamically generated on-the-fly in real-time once the

consumer has left the advertiser’s site.



WHERE DO THE ADS APPEAR?

The retargeting ads appear across the network of the provider, which can differ in size and range.

There are two loosely defined inventory sources that a company looking to aggregate inventory can

access: automated supply and managed supply.

The growth of ad exchanges, supply-side platforms and new evolved networks or demand-side

platforms (DSP), means that aggregating audience and inventory can be automated. The latest and

fastest growing methodology is real-time bidding (RTB) which enables smarter buying decisions and

a competitive advantage for retargeting providers who truly understand the value of a consumer

and therefore the ad impression. Intelligent retargeters such as Criteo are using these sources to

great effect and as early adopters are enjoying a significant competitive advantage.

Despite the growth in automated supply, the best performance and strongest interaction will often

be achieved with a consumer visiting a premium publisher site, one whose inventory may not be

available through networks and exchanges. This is predominantly accessed via direct relationships

with individual publishers or networks.

A combination of the above will ensure the biggest reach and optimal ad performance.

IMPORTANT FACTORS WHEN DECIDING ON A PROVIDER

REACH

Retargeting should ideally be executed across a network that has the size and diversity of websites

to reach consumers virtually anywhere. The broader the reach, the more visitors the campaign will

reach in a faster time and higher frequency. This can be critical if the advertiser’s products and/or

services have a short window of opportunity (eg sale or flight dates).

Choosing a retargeting provider with a large media network will ensure the best reach and optimal

campaign effectiveness.

FLEXIBILITY

Another key consideration is how much flexibility the provider has in both creative and campaign

management.



The retargeting company should also be able to customise the creative based on an individual

consumer’s on and off-site activity, creating banners on-the-fly based on as much data available to

drive the highest CTR and conversion rate.

PRIVACY

In the current environment it’s critical to ensure that technological advances fully take into

consideration consumers' privacy. Every consumer should understand the following with regards to

online advertising in general and retargeting in particular: why am I receiving this ad, what kind of

information was used to tailor the ad to me, and if I want to, how can I stop receiving these ads and

others like it?

Retargeting providers do not collect personally identifiable information. The data gathered is

completely anonymous and is used for statistical purposes only, and there is no way to identify a

specific internet user. No data is shared with advertisers or publishers and no third-party data is

used for targeting purposes. Providers simply record specific product browsing data in order to

create ads that are most relevant to each unique consumer. The best providers are transparent

about their privacy policies and give clear, simple instructions to consumers on how to opt out of

future retargeting, if they so prefer. Criteo was the first retargeting company to proactively make

this information available to consumers by establishing an “i” icon in every banner they serve.



CONCLUSION

In the universe of behavioural marketing strategies, retargeting is a great way to cost efficiently

capitalise on each and every site visitor. Search marketing, generic display ads and offline efforts will

do some of the work, while retargeting will finish the job - converting browsers into buyers, buyers

into repeat buyers and repeat buyers into life-long, loyal customers.

“Behavioural Retargeting addresses the lifelong merchant quest of recovering lost traffic

and non converting visitors. It helps improve customer engagement, push up conversion

rates and increase revenue from the received traffic.

This advertising method is nothing new, but the widespread accessibility of BR providers,

the availability of advanced targeting platforms, the use of product feeds and the shift

to paying for the results it generates has created a high interest among merchants, who

are interested in maximising the return of every advertising penny.”

Robert Glasgow, Managing Director, Webgains Ltd



AFFILIATE MARKETING

HOW DOES AFFILIATE MARKETING WORK?

Advertisers allow their products or services to be promoted on other publishers’ websites (affiliates)

to drive customer traffic back to their own sites.

They do not pay for this advertising, they only pay a commission for any lead/sale or other action

determined that the affiliates then generate.

TOP TIPS FOR RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL AFFILIATE MARKETING CAMPAIGN:

Use a reputable Affiliate Network and/or Agency: utilise their knowledge,

experience & relationships with affiliates

Use multiple channels of communication with your key affiliates. Keep

them informed about developments, upcoming online and offline

marketing campaigns, involve them, talk to them about the program, listen

to their views

Make sure you have all the tools you need for an effective program;

product feeds, range of creative, and above all, a clear message about what

you are trying to achieve

Be aware of the competition, know what’s happening in your industry,

understand the peaks & troughs, what makes different affiliates tick and

most importantly, what your competitors are doing online. Then use the

information to your advantage, don’t just sit there and wait to see what

happens!

Understand that not all affiliates are the same in terms of traffic delivery

and that internal channels may need different incentivisation, commission,

monitoring and treatment

Look at your affiliate program as an integral part of your marketing activity

and not just a low cost way to acquire customers. And then treat it as such



ABOUT AFFILIATE MARKETING

As the global recession continues to leave its mark, Marketers are faced with an ongoing dilemma of

how to balance budget cuts whilst also maintaining brand visibility and growth.

For some, this can sadly mean simply slashing the numbers. However, as Online continues to

dominate our lives, more savvy Advertisers are seizing the Digital Marketing opportunity and

adopting multi channel strategies which cleverly combine cost effective above and below-the-line

activity, whilst at the same time achieving consistent brand messaging and keeping themselves

firmly in their consumers’ mind’s eye.

In terms of Digital support, this most likely includes a mix of Search, Display, Email Marketing, Price

Comparison and Affiliate Marketing. However, it’s the latter channel that continues to rightly receive

ongoing attention from Advertisers who recognise the benefits of its reach and flexibility, alongside

the very attractive added bonus of its transparent, performance-based business model whereby

they only pay commission for leads/sales or actions generated. After all, if a marketing route can

actually deliver to the bottom line as well as achieve standout, then finance directors will be even

happier!

In fact, Affiliate Marketing is now regarded as one of the most effective and remunerative Marketing

channels in the Online Marketing armoury, and is currently being utilised by many brands to not only

increase their Online standout and compliment other above-the-line and below-the-line Marketing

activity, but also deliver actual measurable revenue contribution and new business leads too.

Each year, this low risk channel’s slice of total Marketing spend therefore continues to expand and

alongside its rapid growth curve in terms of retail revenue contribution alone (over £4.6bn at last

count), the sector looks set to remain a key feature within the broader Marketing mix for a good

while yet.

However, although Affiliate Marketing allows Advertisers to utilise the ‘virtual sales force’ that

affiliates involved in their affiliate programs represent and possibly capture incremental traffic that

may have otherwise gone untapped, there are still a number of brands who may be missing out on

the channel’s full potential.



For a start, it shouldn’t simply be viewed as the answer to driving sales alone. The channel will

enhance and support a company’s sales activity, but not provide a single solution to its Online sales

requirement. Advertisers need to also consider how they will deliver subsequent lead or sales; how

they will be viewed by new customers; and how this will fit with their overall image.

The need to ensure an affiliate program is fully integrated into other promotional activity is

therefore vitally important. It must be viewed and managed as an integral part of a brand’s

marketing strategy and not simply as a bolt-on tool, or afterthought. On the most basic level, all

creative applications (ie offers, advertisements, branding) should be consistent, timely, relevant and

on brand message.

AFFILIATE MARKETING FOR ADVERTISERS

Advertisers equally mustn’t forget that it is a Paid-for Performance Model, and it is essential that

they understand and deliver their own key part in it.

In its simplest form, Affiliate Marketing revolves around the relationships instigated and nurtured

between merchants and affiliates. Indeed, this requires time input to regularly communicate with

partners; update them on latest promotions; evaluate and discuss joint activity; and to ensure they

remain as up-to-date as possible with business objectives and developments.

In summary, affiliate programs have to be managed and the more input an Advertiser puts into the

activity, the better the long term return. At the same time, brands should listen to their affiliates,

take note of what does and doesn’t work, and regularly discuss ways to make a program even more

effective.

Yet this level of focus is not always possible, and some Advertisers either do not appreciate the level

of commitment they need to contribute to these partnerships, or do not have the time or

experience to maintain and manage successful programs themselves.

For most brands, whether they have an in-house affiliate resource or not, the best course of action is

to utilise the long-standing experience and reach of Affiliate Networks to effectively broker their

affiliate relationships and then provide the pivotal point of contact between themselves and their

affiliate partners.



Some Advertisers may also prefer to appoint Affiliate Management companies, especially if they are

smaller merchants who don’t have the time or enough resource to maximise the channel’s full

potential, or, are embracing it for the first time.

These suppliers have the strategic skills and knowledge to help a brand launch and maintain an

affiliate campaign, and have the experience to recommend the best Networks for specific sectors or

campaign types. In effect, they become the Advertiser’s unbiased ‘outsourced program manager’,

performing the function of an in-house staff member, yet allowing the Advertiser to still own the

relationships they have with their affiliates and/or Affiliate Networks.

In this way, the merchants still have the total transparency and access they would if they were

knowledgeably managing their own program internally, but with the full support, guidance and

experience of an agency to ensure their campaign is optimised continually.

Whichever route, merchants also need to carefully consider what they are aiming to achieve from

their affiliate campaigns. Over the past few years especially, the channel has become so much

broader than simply a model for merchants who sell products online, and companies are using it to

drive a variety of results for their business now.

Typically, the sectors that have so far been most successful in using Affiliate Marketing include

Travel, Retail and Finance. But, increasingly, there are many other types of businesses that are now

turning to the channel, such as FMCG and B2B brands.

Merchants attracted to the business model should therefore ask themselves ‘What are we trying to

achieve online?’ Is it about acquiring Customers? Acquiring Sales? Collecting information? Is it about

Consumer interaction with our website? Or simply driving traffic to our site?

The good news is that all of these actions can be applied to Affiliate Marketing and the channel

doesn’t have to be a constant part of a brand’s Online Marketing plans either. The model is very

good at supporting seasonal activity or campaign based promotions. In fact, the beauty of this

channel is actually in its ability to successfully mimic and project a business’ Online strategy:

consolidating its existing sales routes; enhancing brand image and pushing that brand into new

territories.



CASE STUDY

Established global footwear brand, Crocs Europe BV, Inc. turned to Existem Affiliate

Management to co-ordinate its pan-European Affiliate Marketing activity in a bid to extend

its reach in the affiliate space and online presence across the continent.

Additionally, the iconic brand, which was running affiliate programs across eight European

territories, decided to integrate its UK activity into the Affiliate Window network to

especially leverage the size and scope of its publisher relationships within the country.

Jay Custard, Global Director of E-Comm of Crocs, said at the time, “As a global company,

the European market is an important territory for us. We are focused on ensuring the brand

develops a consistent share across all regions. Existem AM and Affiliate Window both have

the experience and relationships that will enable us to grow within the EU.”

Utilising their extensive knowledge of the market and the solid relationships they have with

key players, Affiliate Window, Zanox and Existem AM set out to ensure the brand was

capturing as many sales as possible over the continent, and in turn assist it in its goal to

expand market share. In the 6 months since the strategy was put into action, sales via the

affiliate channel have shown triple digit growth.

Consistent communication of both product ranges and tactical promotions have changed

the perception of the Crocs brand into a multi-product footwear retailer.

This has led to a reduction in seasonal revenue fluctuations and stronger year round

affiliate sales. In-house local language support and pro-active affiliate recruitment assisted

by both Affiliate Window and Zanox have increased the numbers of active affiliates driving

both clicks and sales. This has been positively reinforced by the communication and

promotional activity.

"This is a prime example of best practice being applied to an affiliate programme bringing



in positive results" says Mark Russell, MD of Existem Affiliate Management and lead

account manager on Crocs "It clearly shows the value of well managed collaboration

between client, network and agency, allowing all paries to leverage their respective

strengths under the guidance of the agency to bring the best possible opportunities to

publishers"



CASHBACK / LOYALTY

OVERVIEW OF CASHBACK SITES

Cashback sites are continuing to deliver vast volumes of sales for the advertisers that work with

them. There has been considerable growth in the sector over the past couple of years and has

shown no sign of slowing. Cashback sites will typically be among the top earning affiliates on most, if

not all, affiliate networks.

AFFILIATES WITHIN THE SECTOR

There are a number of cashback sites that merchants are able to work with. They vary from sites

that pay all of the commission as cashback rewards (so called ‘100%’ cashback sites) such as Quidco

(http://quidco.co.uk/) and Top Cashback (http://www.topcashback.co.uk/) to points based sites

such as Maximiles (http://www.maximiles.co.uk/) and RPoints (http://www.rpoints.com/). It’s also

important to consider company loyalty schemes run by companies such as Asperity.

Some of these sites charge an annual membership fee (including Quidco) while others are free to

join (Top Cashback).

TYPICAL SITE USERS

One important consideration for merchants in deciding whether to work with cashback sites is the

type of consumer who uses them. Feedback we have received indicates the typical cashback

consumer:

- Is a savvy online consumer

- Appreciates that there are savings to be had online

- Accesses multiple points of reference

- Is loyal to a cashback site or the cashback concept

Contrary to popular opinion, research seems to indicate cashback users are also more likely to be

drawn from a higher income demographic and therefore have an increased propensity to spend

more, with the cashback reward driving up average basket values. Data from one of the leading

http://quidco.co.uk/

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/

http://www.maximiles.co.uk/

http://www.rpoints.com/



cashback sites indicates that almost 50% of members earn £50k or over per year and just over half of

all members are within the A and B socio economic groups.

WHERE CASHBACK WORKS BEST

Cashback sites can drive incremental sales in a number of sectors but where they can especially add

value is in sectors where there is little product differentiation or if there is a switchers market – e.g.

Insurance/Broadband. With a carefully planned strategy you can effectively take market share from

competitors.

Similarly, the products that a merchant sells have an impact on how effectively they will work with

cashback sites. If the product is something that is widely available from a wide range of merchants

e.g. an electrical product that is offered by a number of retailers, the amount of cashback can be

used as a competitive advantage. By offering a higher rate of cashback, market share can be taken

from competitors.

Cashback site users are able to filter the results by amount. Where a product is available from a

number of merchants at a similar price, the cashback user may be unlikely to show brand loyalty to a

store and will instead opt for the highest cashback rate; in a sense brands share the loyalty to their

offering with the loyalty to the cashback site and model.

An exclusive rate for one of the cashback sites will often result in greater exposure across the site

which should in turn lead to an increase in market share. This will also feed back into the popularity

listings to ensure better placement for your brand. This can be rotated across the various cashback

sites so they are all able to demonstrate how effective each of them is at promoting your brand.

On the other hand, if the product that is being sold is exclusive to you as a merchant then the key

question is whether the customer is brand loyal and would have bought the product from you

regardless of cashback being offered. This is not to say merchants in this situation shouldn’t use

cashback sites but they will need to understand various performance metrics at play such as new

customer numbers, average spend and how incremental the sale is.

Merchants who run lead based campaigns would be advised to avoid promoting through cashback

sites, as sign up campaigns can be abused in order to earn cashback unless additional checks and



balances are put in place (quality of the leads for example and setting the CPA at a level that takes

account of the potential lower quality of leads through an incentivised channel).

It’s worth noting that consumer forums will often feature where to get ‘free’ cashback and lead

based programmes are usually referenced in this instance.

When promoting through cashback sites, the greater the checks and balances process at the

merchant’s end, the less chance there is for fraudulent or unethical activity to be carried out through

them. For example, if a telecoms merchant is able to track through from application to connection,

then cashback could only be paid once the connection has taken place. If you are a retail merchant,

cashback can be paid once the returns/cancellation period has passed.

INCREASED CONVERSION RATES THROUGH CASHBACK SITES

The nature of cashback sites also means that the conversion rates from these sites tend to be high.

When a consumer clicks through to a merchant on a cashback site, there is a good chance they will

have already carried out their research and will be in a position to buy.

In order to increase conversions further, it is important that merchant descriptions are kept up to

date and also take account of products a merchant sells that may not be eligible for cashback. It’s

also vital to include details of any existing voucher codes that may generally be available online and

whether cashback will be paid on purchases that have also involved a voucher code. If this is the

case, margins must obviously be worked to include cashback, voucher code and affiliate network

fees.

DISPELLING THE MYTHS OF CASHBACK SITES

There are a number of myths that are associated with cashback sites portraying them in a negative

light.

Sale Stealers

One of the myths that has seen a lot of debate in the affiliate community is that cashback sites do

not play a crucial part in the customer journey, they merely “steal” the sale from a content affiliate

who has done all the hard work to initially attract the customer.



Research carried out by Affiliate Window highlights that this is not actually the case; in most

instances the cashback site is the only referring affiliate in the sales journey and where there are

multiple affiliate clicks in a sale, they are most likely to originate from other cashback affiliates.

Many loyalty and reward sites do not explicitly encourage users to delete cookies and seasoned

cashback users will know how to click through and purchase to avoid overwriting their cookies.

Therefore the chances of a significant amount of cookies being deleted from consumers’ machines

is likely to be reduced, although there is no evidence to currently back this up.

Cashback sites are becoming brands in their own right, so rather than being an afterthought to see if

cashback is available for a particular merchant, they are now becoming the first port of call and

should be seen as a valuable affinity or brand partner in much the same way a large publisher or

portal would be.

NEW CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

There is a common perception that cashback sites do not deliver new customers, rather it is existing

customers of the merchant using cashback sites to get an additional discount from their purchase.

However, cashback sites are able to deliver new customers to a merchant. A consumer that regularly

searches for cashback that may not know your brand has the opportunity to find it when browsing

these sites. Affiliate Window has looked at new customer data and has the following findings for

two merchants, one in the fashion sector, the other in telecoms:

WORKING EFFECTIVELY WITH CASHBACK SITES

For some merchants, merely be listed on cashback sites is enough for them. For the more savvy

merchant, planning a strategy around cashback sites can result in significant sales volumes.



In order to get the most return from cashback sites, there are opportunities to receive increased

exposure. By providing cashback affiliates with exclusive cashback deals, merchants can get their

offers featured in “top tips” sections as well as newsletters that go out to members.

To build up relationships with each of the cashback sites that are able to deliver volume, a rotating

cashback strategy can be implemented, where each site has the exclusive for a period of time.

During the period of the exclusive offer, the cashback sites will give increased exposure to push the

offer.



AFFILIATE NETWORKS

BENEFITS OF NETWORKS

The heart and soul of the affiliate marketing industry is the affiliate network, providing the tools

and technology that allows the process to work. Here we take a closer look at the affiliate

network, looking beyond the technology and highlighting the role they play in the industry.

WHAT ARE AFFILIATE NETWORKS?

At its core, the backbone of affiliate marketing is it’s accountability and the transparency that it

offers and the performance nature of remuneration. The ability to track clicks, match cookies and

report on the individual items in a shopping basket is, at a fundamental level what sets affiliate

marketing aside from any other ‘referral scheme’. The technology that powers and facilitates this is

at the heart of the affiliate network.

In the relationship between the merchant, the affiliate and the consumer, it is the network that at a

technological level binds them all together. The network provides the platform for the merchant to

promote their affiliate program to the affiliates who are signed up to the network and a mechanism

for payment. It allows the affiliate to easily pick up their ‘links’, small pieces of code unique to

merchant and affiliate. It allows both parties to report on their activity and the tools to manage

their campaigns.

Affiliate networks are usually remunerated via the network override, which is an additional

percentage (30% is industry standard) of the commission paid to the affiliate. A simple model to

demonstrate this would be that in a £100 sale where the affiliate commission is 10%, the affiliate

received £10 and the network would charge an addition £3. Total cost of sale £13.

There are alternatives to using a network including out of the box solutions and vanilla solutions for

white labeling, so what are the advantages of using an affiliate network? On a general level

merchants benefit from the various economies of scale in the services that networks provide and

that a merchant would struggle to match for the same price in house. Affiliates benefit from

accurate impartial tracking and the general activities networks perform on their behalf. The next

section will cover this in detail.



TRACKING

Fundamental to the success of an affiliate program is tracking. Network tracking has been

developed over many years and can be configured to work with most programs, merchants sites and

payment gateways. The network tracking provides visibility of activity, and will report at product

level giving merchants and affiliates full visibility of what is performing and what is not. Affiliates

also benefit from being able to manage all their campaigns through a single interface. Network

tracking system work with 1st or 3rd party cookies, server to server tracking and can be configured to

record single actions or a combined lead to sale.

TECHNOLOGY

Although the basics of tracking are similar, each network has developed their own approach and

methodologies over time. The main physical extension of a network is the network interface that

allows the merchant and affiliates to manage their activities, communicate, access creative and build

reports. Both tracking infrastructure and interface are a key benefit of using a network. They have

been the subject of major investment and developed over many years in conjunction with the

affiliates, merchants and agencies that use them.

The very nature of the network as a solutions provider means they have the skills in house to build

extra functionality. This can be bespoke for large merchants and affiliates, providing tools to handle

product feeds and increase conversion. Each networks interface will offer affiliates a different set of

tools, sometimes driven a by a particular strength in a vertical sector, and are a point of

differentiation for them. Most also provide an API for the more advanced affiliates and merchants

who can integrate the data into their proprietary systems.

AFFILIATES AND MERCHANTS

The networks represent the hubs of the affiliate marketing landscape and each will work hard to

make sure the best affiliates are working with them. Relationships on an individual and company

level are important, with those networks with well-established publisher teams being particularly

successful in this area. The network may define themselves by the types of merchant and therefore

affiliate (and vice versa) that they have on the network. A network can play a key role in increasing



the exposure of an affiliate program with their publishers through events, promotional spaces on the

interface, newsletters, and one to one communication.

AFFILIATE REACH AND LONG TAIL

Networks have large numbers of affiliates signed up to the network and the network provides a

single point of access. This is particularly useful for quickly building the number of affiliates on a

campaign and attracting the long tail where sales are purely incremental, albeit of lower volume,

and where a client may not invest logistical resources in recruitment. However these publishers do

promote a merchants brand and contribute to the groundswell of the campaign and therefore its

overall success. Networks can help a merchant source appropriate partners from their knowledge of

other programs in the same sector.

CONTROL & FRAUD

Fraud is not uncommon in affiliate marketing although it is the case of a few rotten apples rather

than the norm. Networks have invested significantly in reducing fraud by introducing various

measures to stop fraudulent affiliates before they join the network and making sure they cannot re-

join when they have been removed. Technical improvements such as IP checking, click to sale lag

time analysis and affiliate traffic lighting all contribute to the on-going process.

Affiliates must apply to join a network and in most instances must then apply to each individual

program as well. This puts the control in the merchants hands and gives a level of control over who

will promote the program.

COMMISSIONS

Affiliate marketing famously rewards performance. Cost per action (CPA) is the most common term

to describe this but it may apply to sales, leads, or any trackable predefined action. Networks are

active within a wide variety of sectors and will be able to advise a new merchant on what

commission they should consider offering on their program as well as tactical advice for promotions.

COMMUNICATIONS



Communication is key to the performance of a program. Networks can assist in communicating new

offers to a merchant’s affiliates. Most interfaces will allow segmentation of affiliates so that

communications can be tailored. Others compile lists of weekly offers so that affiliates can react

quickly to promotional activity or to changes on the program. Every network sends out regular

newsletters to the affiliate base with news of program changes or recent launches. Some will offer

merchants promotional slots on these newsletters and it may be charged. Many have Facebook

pages, blogs and Twitter feeds which allows the affiliate to choose the communications method of

their choice. Activity around key times like Xmas can significantly increase the presence of a

program in an otherwise noisy period and get cut through.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Account management will be offered by the network and for programs that bring significant return

to the network this will often be offered free of charge. For smaller clients where the resource

cannot be funded by the return ion override, account management may be charged as required. For

the larger merchants, the network will be a valuable source of expertise and intelligence due to the

large numbers of merchants they host campaigns for.

PRODUCT FEEDS

Product feeds have become important parts of a merchants program, on average accounting for 25%

of the program revenue. They allow affiliates to pick up data feeds of a merchant’s product

inventory and integrate with their sites. The network interface can host the feed, integrate their

tracking code and provide a platform from which the affiliate can retrieve it.

AFFILIATE PAYMENT

One of the most critical functions an affiliate network performs is paying the affiliates. As affiliates

are not salaried or employed by the network or the merchant, the network interface issues an

invoice on the affiliate’s behalf which is then paid by the network. The merchant receives a single

invoice including the networks fees rather than dealing with a ton of paperwork. It is also easier

from the affiliate’s perspective dealing with one payment for multiple merchants.



TRACKING SOLUTIONS

Tracking sales and leads is the heart of Affiliate Marketing, without the ability to track results reliably

performance marketing doesn’t exist. Affiliate Tracking is surprisingly simple. Each time a visitor

clicks an Affiliate URL the Affiliate Network will set or store tracking information on the visitor’s

computer so that the Affiliate Network knows which Affiliate referred that visitor to that Merchant.

The Affiliate Network will provide each Merchant with their individual HTML tracking code. This is

added to the page at the end of any action the Merchant is paying Affiliates for, normally this goes

onto the “success” or “thank you” page shown to the visitor after making a purchase. This tracking

code will pass order or lead data to the Affiliate Network. When the Affiliate Networks tracking code

is shown, for example after each purchase, the Affiliate Network will read back it’s tracking

information, which was previously set, and pay commission to the Affiliate, if any, who referred the

visitor making the purchase or lead.

Currently, Affiliate Networks in the UK operate on a “last click wins” basis, this means if before a

transaction takes place multiple Affiliates refer the same visitor, only the last Affiliate who sent the

visitor before the transaction takes place will be paid the commission. Other methods, such as

splitting commission amongst all the Affiliates who referred the visitor, are currently in the early

stages of consultation within the industry.

TRACKING METHODS

Most commonly, browser cookies are used to store tracking information. Unfortunately, some

reports have stated that privacy concerns result in almost 40% of users routinely deleting their

cookies. Newer web browsers make deleting cookies a one click process and even offer private

browsing, where cookies are not stored or set. It sure sounds like we should just give up! Luckily,

Affiliate Networks for a number of years have been investing in ‘cookieless tracking’ to ensure

performance continues to be reliably tracked.

Cookieless tracking is the ability to track sales and leads without solely relying on traditional browser

cookies to store the tracking information. There are numerous forms of cookieless tracking, and

most UK Affiliate Networks will use at least one or two forms. These are used in addition to regular

browser cookies, and will normally only be called upon in cases where there is no cookie available to



use, in other words they are fall back options used when no regular cookie is available. Regular

browser cookies are still the primary form of tracking.

In a recent survey Affiliates rated reliable tracking as the 3rd most important aspect of an Affiliate

Program. This is understandable, since Affiliates are investing time and money into generating

sales/leads for a Merchant - they don’t want to worry about their performance not being tracked

reliably. If Affiliates believe a Merchant has reliable tracking, then they will have the confidence to

support the Merchant. When a Merchant is considering which Affiliate Network will run their

affiliate program, the tracking technologies that each network can offer them, should be a key factor

in their selection process.

There are 5 common methods for cookieless tracking used today by most Affiliate Networks.

Merchants & Affiliates should ask their Affiliate Network which methods they support.

FLASH COOKIES

Since version 6 of Adobe Flash Player, Local Shared Objects has been available to flash movies.

These work much like regular web cookies, and offer flash movies with the ability to store data on

the user’s computer and read it back at a later date. It is the closest replacement to traditional

cookies available. When the visitor clicks through an Affiliate URL, the Affiliate Network will load a

flash movie which sets the necessary tracking information. When a sale or lead takes place, another

Flash movie will be loaded by the Affiliate Network to read the tracking information.

IP TRACKING

One of the most basic forms of cookieless tracking is to use the users IP Address. The IP Address is

recorded when the user clicks an Affiliate URL. Later when a sale or lead takes place, the IP Address

of the user is again taken and compared to the IP Addresses which previously clicked an Affiliate

URL. If a match is found, that can be used for tracking. However, increasingly ISP’s are using proxy

or cache servers, so many users may share the same IP Address. Also dynamic IP allocations – where

the user will have a different IP Address each time they connect to the Internet, means this isn’t a

very reliable form of tracking and certainly cannot be used long term. It can be used for limited

periods of time however – so for example, only used if that same IP Address clicked an Affiliate URL



in the last few hours, you can then be pretty certain it is the same person who clicked the link. You

do still have to remove and ignore common proxy and cache servers.

ETAG/CACHE TRACKING

It is possible to track visitors using the browsers web cache by manipulating the Etag or the Last

Modified date of a page or file. Each time a browser requests a page it first checks its cache, and

then sends a request to the server asking for the file if it has been modified since the version in the

local cache, or if the file has a different Etag. Using this it is possible to cache a file in the user’s

cache which contains the tracking information or to assign a different Etag to each visitor. It’s

certainly not as flexible as other methods as it is much harder to update the information stored in

the cache once set, also users tend to clear their cache regularly or have set a maximum size for

there cache, so its always being refreshed. However, this method will certainly help in situations

where regular cookies are blocked from being set by the browser or third party software.

VOUCHER CODES

Recent years have seen a massive surge in voucher codes which is only going to grow as users

become more and more savvy looking for a bargain. Voucher codes can also be used for tracking

depending on the tools offered by your Affiliate Network. By creating unique customised voucher

codes for a single Affiliate, your Affiliate Network can assign commission coming from sales which

use that voucher only to the Affiliate who was assigned the unique voucher code. This opens up

opportunities for Affiliates to promote the vouchers in printed or offline media, where an Affiliate

URL cannot be clicked.

DATABASE TRACKING

Even with the best tracking platform, the time span of a cookie and even cookieless tracking options

may be shorter than the time a visitor may take to make a purchase. A visitor may take days, weeks

or sometimes even months before making a purchase, especially when it comes to high value ticket

items. Merchants who prompt or encourage visitors to sign-up to a newsletter or create an account

prior to purchase – perhaps with the incentive of exclusive offers or discounts, are able to make use

of database tracking.



Once a Merchant is able to convert the user into giving their details, such as an email address, this

can be assigned to the Affiliate who sent the visitor. Whilst no commission is paid at this stage, it

means either the Affiliate Network or the Merchant knows which Affiliate is due commission when

the visitor makes their purchase. This means that cookies are no longer used and it is a more

permanent form of tracking, only failing if the visitor uses either different account details or email

address. Your Affiliate Network may be able to make this process easy, meaning minimal

development or integration cost to the Merchant.

COOKIELESS TRACKING PERFORMANCE

This graph shows the percentage of sales and leads tracked via each different tracking method,

between 1st January 2010 and 30th November 2010 through the Paid On Results Affiliate Network. It

shows regular cookies still being the prime method used for tracking. In total, cookieless tracking

accounts for 12.22% of all sales and leads for this period.

Certain Merchants show a higher percentage of cookieless tracking. Adult toy/gift Merchants have a

higher percentage of cookieless tracking than other types of Merchants, with Food/Drink and Health

& Beauty Merchants showing the lowest percentage of cookieless tracking being used.



WHEN IS COOKIELESS TRACKING USED?

Every Merchant will pay Affiliates commission for sales which happened within so many days of the

last click taking place. This is referred to as the “cookie period”. For example if a Merchant offers a

30 Days Cookie, it means sales which take place within 30 days of the last click will be tracked and

paid to that Affiliate. The same principle applies to when cookieless tracking is used by the Affiliate

Network.

Are cookieless tracking technologies only needed when a Merchant offers a long cookie period? Is

relying only on regular cookie tracking reliable for short period of time? The answer is no. Below is

a graph which shows the percentage of sales which tracked using regular cookies vs. cookieless

tracking. Each column represents the period of days between the last click and the sale taking place,

the further right in the graph the greater the number of days between click and sale, with the first

column being all sales which happened in less than 24 hours from the last click.

The graph shows that 3.88% of sales which were tracked within 1 day of the last click taking place

were tracked using cookieless tracking. As the period between sale and click grows, the number of

those sales tracked using cookieless tracking grows. This shows that as time passes an increasing



number of regular cookies are deleted or lost, so the need to use cookieless tracking increases.

However, even in the early days after the click, performance cannot be reliably tracked without the

Affiliate Network offering some form of cookieless tracking.

THE FUTURE OF COOKIES

Each time a new version of a web browser is released brings with it more ways for users to block,

clear or reject cookies. One recent example is Private Browsing. In Private Browsing mode, the user

can browse websites without history being recorded or cookies set, this is now a standard feature of

most new browsers. In these modes existing cookies are not transferred over, and cookies set

within this mode are not stored.

Internet Explorer 9 when released will offer a new featured called Tracking Protective List. This is a

list of websites which can or cannot set regular cookies on the user’s computer. However, a useful

feature is that websites themselves can suggest the domain names which need to be added to the

user’s white list. Therefore, websites which rely on third party domains being able to set their

cookies, such as their Affiliate Networks, should be able to prompt the user to add these to their

white/allow list. At the time of writing this it is unclear how the integration of this will work. This is

certainly better than a complete block of cookies.

Newer browsers also offer new creative ways of cookieless tracking which will continue to provide

an important fallback to regular cookies. Already some features in HTML5 offer the potential for

cookieless tracking.

The good news is cookies are used for more than tracking users. Try disabling cookies and browsing

your favourite websites, the constant prompts to log-in to each website is enough to make anyone

re-enable cookies! Users take for granted the ability to visit sites such as Facebook, Twitter and

Hotmail and be instantly signed in. This is all made possible with cookies, so they are not going away

anytime soon and will continue to be a primary form of tracking for Affiliate Networks. Along with

the continued investment by Affiliate Networks in other forms of tracking, the future of reliable

tracking for Affiliates is assured.



COMMISSION TYPES

Performance Based Digital Marketing is an increasingly diverse landscape with payment models that

reflect this. Fortunately the industry has developed a variety of TLA’s (Three Letter Acronyms) to

further confuse the matter! In this section we look at the major payment methods that exist, how to

choose which method is most applicable for your campaign and the advantages and disadvantages

of each.

SETTING YOUR OBJECTIVE

As with all marketing activities, your first priority is to identify your objective. This should be a

distinct and measurable aim. Potential objectives may be:

Generate Additional Sales

A general increase in targeted traffic

Improve Reach to a specific audience

Increase brand recall within a geographic area

Increase Average Order Value

Your set objective should have buy-in from across your organisation. Internal discussions are

imperative to ensure that your chosen objective adds value to the overall business.

Once your objective is defined, clear targets should be set. The next task is to ensure that your

chosen commission/payment type is appropriate for your objective.

CHOOSING YOUR METHOD

CPM (COST PER MILLE)

Impression based payments are as old as Internet Marketing itself. Publishers charge advertisers a

fixed cost per thousand impressions served. Costs vary significantly according to both the reach and

targeting of the impressions. Usually the more specific the targeting, the higher the CPM rate. The



traffic delivered should then be tracked internally by the advertiser to determine the overall return

on investment.

Advantages

Delivers targeted advertising to an appropriate audience

Specific audiences easily targeted

Breadth of impact simple to achieve

Creative messaging controlled by advertisers

Disadvantages

Performance measures usually limited to impressions only

Tying spend to sales increase difficult unless measuring post impression

sales

Post impression sales measurement flawed

CPC (COST PER CLICK)

Perhaps the most well known of all performance marketing methods due to the phenomenal success

of the adwords system. Publishers charge advertisers either a fixed or variable cost per click.

Payments are tied directly into traffic delivered to the advertiser. Costs vary significantly depending

on the sector of activity and the competition within the sector. This traffic should then be tracked

internally by the advertiser to determine the overall return on investment.

Advantages

Payments directly tied to performance – will definitively increase traffic

Usually very targeted traffic either by user search, or industry sector

Usually some element of creative control

Disadvantages

Competitive markets tend to become very expensive



An increase in traffic may not lead to an increase in sales

Budgets are directly linked to user activity making them harder to manage

CPA (COST PER ACQUISITION)

By linking payments directly with the acquisition of a customer, publishers are able to offer an easy

to understand and genuinely performance advertising solution. Tracking on the advertisers site (very

often delivered by an affiliate network) provides both the publisher and the advertiser full visibility

on both performance and commissions owned. The advertisers perceived value of a customer and

the publishers perceived value of their traffic govern costs.

Advantages

Direct link between the generation of a customer, and payments

Transparent relations between publisher and advertiser

Shared agenda of improving conversion rates

Disadvantages

Tight control of messaging can be difficult to maintain

Entire model relies on “last-click” tracking, does not reward publishers for

traffic in the early stages of the buying process

Highly competitive markets may operate below the point of marginality

PPL (PAY-PER-LEAD)

Particularly well-used within the finance sector, advertisers will establish a set rate for a delivered

lead. The criteria for an acceptable lead will vary significantly between advertisers, from a single

email field to a 15 field form. Leads will then usually be validated based on an agreed set of criteria

(usually related to ensuring the lead is “real” – ie the prospect can be contacted and initially

expressed interest).



Advantages

Usually very scalable, can produce very high volumes

Allows for internal follow up and conversion

Low initial commitment from user

Particularly appropriate for certain verticals

Disadvantages

Considerable administration involved in validation

Can be open to fraud (large quantities of invalid leads) if not managed

appropriately

No guarantee of lead conversion

HYBRID

Although currently not widely considered, as objectives become increasingly sophisticated, it’s only

natural that multiple payment methods should be considered to fulfil them. Advertisers create

bespoke campaign payment structures with publishers with a focus on providing value across the

purchase process. If objectives are focused on reach, then CPM rates can be increased, if the focus is

more related to traffic then a CPC element can also be introduced.

Advantages

Precise and multiple objectives can be targeted

May be more appealing to publishers with competitive inventory

Disadvantages

Can be extremely difficult to define an appropriate model Complex commercials may be off-putting to some publishers



BEST PRACTICE POLICIES

INTRODUCTION

The affiliate marketplace has long been an amalgam of many different promotional methods and

disparate interests. In order to provide some clarity and coherency the industry over the past couple

of years has worked hard to formalise best practice initiatives through the formation of an industry

body.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the trade association for online advertising and each online

discipline has their own separate council designed to represent their needs, for affiliate marketing

this is the Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC).

The AMC is comprised of nine affiliate networks (Affiliate Window, Affilinet, buy.at, Commission

Junction, LinkShare, OMG, TradeDoubler, TradeTracker and Webgains) and is free for affiliates,

advertisers and other interested parties to attend. Meeting every other month, the AMC deals with

a wide range of issues broadly categorised under the headings of self-regulatory initiatives, best

practice, research, educational and promotional activity.

The self-regulatory work of the AMC has attracted the most coverage from the industry and is

becoming an increasingly important part of online activity. As more and more budget is shifted into

digital advertising so online channels will need to ensure they have appropriate checks and balances

in place to offer assurances to advertisers and external regulators.

Therefore since 2008 the AMC has been focused on providing ‘codes of conduct’ for various areas of

promotion designed to standardise and further professionalise procedures to ensure excellence is

delivered by the channel daily.



VOUCHER CODE; CODE OF CONDUCT

In late 2008 the AMC decided one of the first areas that needed self-regulation was voucher coding.

The growth of this market has been well documented. It’s now one of the most dominant and

compelling areas of affiliate marketing but with growth came a realisation that certain practices

needed to be modified in order to demonstrate the incremental value the industry has long prided

itself on.

Therefore the voucher code; code of conduct was issued, being further modified twice since its

launch in December 2008. The code deals with how codes can be displayed on site. It also requires

deals, promotions, sales and other content be split out in order to provide clarity for the consumer.

Expired content must also be labeled as such with further guidelines for how this could be

showcased on affiliate sites. The most recent incarnation of the code of conduct also made

reference to all affiliate sites that make use of voucher codes rather than the traditional ‘voucher

code’ sites that have previously drawn most attention.

An additional modification from late 2010 made reference to user generated content. This activity

may not typically be used by traditional voucher code sites but codes will often be posted by users

on consumer champion sites. It’s obviously imperative where these sites have a commercial

relationship with the advertisers whose codes are listed that the codes are eligible for the affiliate

channel. The changes to the code therefore extend to cover these relationships.

In drawing up the code of conduct it was imperative that clear guidelines be provided without overly

prescriptive language for fear of damaging the entrepreneurial nature of the industry. Underlying

the code is an understanding that affiliates should ensure the content they provide is clear and

unambiguous, offering a positive consumer experience.

In order to offer further assurances to the industry a disciplinary procedure was also drawn up

outlining the process for dealing with contraventions of the code. Additionally an email address was

created for potential breaches of the code to be reported to.

The full code can be viewed http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com/updated-voucher-code-code-of-

conduct/.

mailto:[email protected]?subject=AMC:%20Voucher%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20



ETHICAL MERCHANT CHARTER

The AMC is keen to offer best practice guidance for all areas of the industry and there was a general

feeling amongst members that advertisers entering the channel for the first time needed

standardised guidelines for a range of practicalities they may not be best placed to address

themselves.

Affiliates can often feel there is not enough transparency between themselves and merchants and

improving this would make them more likely to promote that merchant above competitors. The

AMC feels closer relationships should be sought by both sides and being as open as possible will help

engender this. Inevitably much of the responsibility for fostering this will fall to the affiliate

networks.

Whilst not all areas will be relevant to all advertisers in 2009 the AMC issued the Ethical Merchant

Charter.

The Charter requests advertisers are transparent with their affiliates on their de-duplication policies.

As digital marketing has matured so advertisers may only pay for the last referring click that led to a

sale, transaction or lead. However some advertisers (for a variety of reasons) will choose to exclude

some channels from their de-duplication policies. The Charter therefore suggests advertisers inform

their affiliates which channels they are de-duplicating against.

In addition the Charter recommends advertisers spell out the affiliates they work with and why they

may restrict certain affiliate groups from their campaigns.

One area guaranteed to frustrate affiliates is the decline of a lead or sale. Whilst for some

advertisers this may be a natural consequence of not wanting to pay out on returns or credit failed

transactions there can frequently be little guidance offered on why a sale or lead is not paid out.

Therefore it is again recommended that advertisers endeavour to provide this information. A list of

reasons advertisers might choose to give is provided in the Charter.

Other areas the Charter encourages advertisers to offer additional clarity on include the products or

add-ons that are commissionable and finally ensuring enough notice is provided if significant

changes are being made to a programme’s terms and conditions.

http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com/ethical-merchant-charter/

http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com/ethical-merchant-charter/



The Charter is available for all advertisers and offers neutral, cross network advice designed to

facilitate transparency between all parties in the affiliate marketing relationship.

BEHAVIOURAL RETARGETING

Behavioural Retargeting (BR) is a method of online promotion that entered the affiliate channel for

the first time in 2010. It is premised on serving banner advertising that is targeted based on previous

user behaviour. Retargeting helps companies advertise to website visitors who leave without a

conversion, encouraging them to return and transact.

The core premise is that because the consumer has had a level of engagement with the

advertiser/merchant, additional exposure (be it a general banner or banner featuring specific offers,

deals or products) following the consumer visit to the advertiser/merchant site will lead to that

consumer transacting when they previously may not have done.

The ads that are served will usually be bought from ad networks by BR companies on a CPM (cost

per thousand impressions); the resulting sales from the ads being rewarded by

advertisers/merchants on a CPA basis when operated via affiliate networks.

In order for behavioural retargeting to be effective many BR companies require Post Impression (PI)

or Post View (PV) cookies to be used alongside traditional click cookies. PI/PV cookies are impression

based as opposed to click based; in other words, a cookie is stored on an impression being served

rather than a click.

Historically very few networks or affiliate programmes have operated PI/PV cookies, the ‘harder’

action of a click being seen as more in line with the CPA and sale function of affiliate marketing

rather than the branding element of banner creative (and therefore impression cookies).

In working with PI/PV cookies the industry needed to set some hierarchy rules involving click and

impression cookies and standardising overwriting procedure across all networks.

Also, given banner impressions are perceived as a more passive, brand focused area of online

marketing, clarity is needed on whether the cookie length should be different depending on the type

of cookie.



With BR becoming more prevalent and BR companies looking to run activity on a CPA basis via

affiliate networks a code of conduct has been devised that all BR companies must adhere to when

running activity via member networks of the AMC. The code will be available before mid 2011.

OTHER WORK OF THE AMC

In addition to the codes of conduct and Ethical Merchant Charter the AMC has also published

guidance for advertisers looking to work with affiliates who may have plug-ins or downloadable

software running through the channel.

This type of promotional method is relatively rare in the channel but the AMC felt clarity that an opt-

in to the technology offered was a good way of ensuring advertisers would be aware of the

ramifications for their existing affiliate traffic. The technology tends to be offered as an add-on for

current affiliates.

The full code of conduct can be seen here.

It was also felt the quality of product feeds offered by advertisers left much room for improvement

so a comprehensive guide to retail feeds was issued in late 2010. This comprises two documents, the

first offering more of a general introduction to product feeds and why they are important and the

second more of a technical specification. Further explanation and links to the guides can be found

here.

2010 also marked the launch of the AMC blog, Twitter account and regular minutes and agendas.

Minutes can be viewed on the blog as well as occasional case studies, industry updates and other

useful information. The blog is also available for guest posts. Contact Helen Southgate for more

information.

The AMC meets every two months with two separate committees (regulatory and promotional)

meeting every month and feeding back to the full Council. The meetings are held at the IAB’s offices

in Macklin Street, central London.

CONCLUSION

http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com/downloadable-software-code-of-conduct-may-2010/

http://www.iabaffiliatemarketing.com/the-product-feed-puzzle-solved/



As the digital space continues to grow its share of marketing and advertising budget so it will fall

further under the scrutiny of external regulatory bodies. By demonstrating we are continuously self-

policing, offering industry wide best practice as well as guidance we stand the best chance of

securing the channel’s future longer term.

The AMC can only succeed if it is embraced by the whole affiliate community, advertisers, agencies

and networks. Whilst the work will inevitably be network focused (as they are best place to elicit

change) the interests of all parties need to be served in order for the Council to remain relevant.

Future work has to focus on the strengths of the channel and Council members will be tasked with

finding new and innovative ways to shout about the channel and extol the virtues of performance

marketing.

In a relatively short space of time the Council has achieved a lot but it’s evident there is still much

more to do in order to secure a bigger share of digital spend. Fortunately with the strongest talent

committed to the task the future of affiliate marketing is very bright indeed.



VOUCHER CODES

ABOUT

This document is set to give an outline of what an advertiser needs to take into consideration when

working with voucher codes.

There has always been a lot of speculation within the industry about voucher codes and the best

practice. Some non voucher code affiliates were concerned about the potential overwriting of

cookies by voucher code sites in the final stages of the buying cycle.

In September 2009, Red Letter Days resolved to respond to this concern. The challenge was to

develop a fairer system that would enable every affiliate to provide compelling and exclusive deals

to customers, without disadvantaging any particular affiliate type. After four months of intensive

development work from October 2009 to January 2010, Red Letter Days proudly unveiled an

innovative approach to this issue that represented a huge step forward in the way in which

advertisers deliver special offers to affiliates and which responded directly to a complex and highly

emotive industry issue.

ADVANTAGES OF USING VOUCHER CODES

Voucher code sites are rewarded more effectively on incremental sales, while content

sites receive highly targeted and relevant offers to drive stronger conversion.

The system addresses a common problem for advertisers, whereby constant requests

for exclusive offers are received. The Red Letter Days website contains over 2,500

products which can be provided at exclusive discounts, enabling affiliates to suggest

and create their own highly targeted deals.

The same product can even simultaneously be offered at a wide variety of different

prices on various affiliate sites, and the price seen by the customer is entirely

dependent on the affiliate link followed.



The discount available to the customer is visible throughout the entire customer

journey, providing a continual visual reinforcement of the offer available.

Any affiliate can decide to opt in or out of the system, depending on individual

preferences for delivering special offers.

The Red Letter Days approach to voucher codes has always been to empower affiliates

by offering complete transparency about the margin available and enabling affiliates to

determine how that margin is divided up. A voucher code site can now continue to opt

for a deeper discount with less commission without any fear of an exclusive offer being

republished without permission.

VOUCHER CODE GUIDELINES

When looking to implement voucher codes on your affiliate programme, there are many things that

need to be considered and planned for. Affiliates can be seen as a virtual sales team and in order for

them to promote the programme effectively they need to be given all possible information that will

help with their campaigns.

Here are some points that need to be considered when looking to use voucher codes in an affiliate

programme:

Do you have the ability to create bespoke trackable codes/deals?

Will the code be available to everyone to promote?

What is the biggest discount/commission combination you can afford to give to your

customers & affiliates without infringing on margins?

How long with the code be valid for?

Are there going to be any restrictions on the code?



How do you deal with sales from a voucher code affiliate where a discount code has not

been used?

Would you decline commissions for any sales that have been made from a non-voucher code

affiliate where a code has been used in the purchase?

Always try to create deals/ discount codes that give you some room to manoeuvre around your peak

selling seasons.

It is important to ensure that you publish comprehensive guidelines and terms & conditions on your

programme as these are a useful resource for affiliates when researching your programme. They

also provide the necessary transparency between merchant and affiliate, acting as a reference point

when explaining breaches to any terms & conditions of your programme.

CASE STUDY: ‘CONTROLLING THE BOX’ AND ENABLING URL-BASED DEALS (INTELLILINKS)

The first step in achieving the overall vision was to develop the ability for the Red Letter Days site

to either display or hide the voucher code entry box in the checkout, according to the affiliate ID

and whether the affiliate has an active discount code. This would ensure that customers driven

from sites without a code would not see this box (and therefore not be prompted to search for a

voucher code), whereby non-affiliate or voucher code affiliate traffic would still see it.

The next stage involved enabling affiliates to pass in an extra parameter in the inbound URL called

a ‘deal ID’. This ID, represented in the URL string as dealid=!!!id!!!, is recognised by the Red Letter

Days site and a corresponding promotion is applied automatically throughout the customer

journey. The types of deals that can be arranged are highly flexible, including:

£ or % off an individual product;

£ or % off a category of products e.g. Driving;



£ or % off a subcategory of products e.g. Driving > Ferrari Driving;

£ or % off products site-wide;

the ability to exclude any already discounted products or any other products specified from

any category, subcategory or site-wide based deal; and

the ability to set a minimum spend before the customer can receive a discount.

the ability to create limited number deals, “Deal available to the first 20 customers, etc…)

In addition, an affiliate is not restricted to running only one deal at any time. Deal IDs are exclusive

to individual affiliates and must be used in combination with the affiliate’s ID, so there is no risk

that another affiliate can hijack an exclusive deal.

One of the most powerful features of the system is that deals are session-based, meaning that the

customer must follow the link from the affiliate site in order to display the relevant offer/s. This

gives real exclusivity to the affiliate and a very strong call to action. It also addresses any potential

issues caused by hiding the voucher code entry box, as the customer has been provided with a

compelling reason to convert.

The discount would be displayed to the customer throughout their purchasing journey.

Discounted pricing shown throughout a

category

Picture name – product-category

Discounted pricing reflected in the basket

Discount shown for individual product

Picture name – product-specific

Minimum spend in order to receive a special

offer



AFFILIATE REACH

This technology allows an Advertiser to deal with each affiliate on an individual basis and not on a

blanket or cluster approach. Many affiliates tend to have more than one promotional method,

therefore, making it important that they are treated as individuals and not clustered together with

other affiliates based on their sign up details. Exclusive deals can be created for more than one

affiliate, allowing for maximum exposure to many different customer segments.

The release of this new technology has enabled Red Letter Days to increase the number of active

affiliates on their programme. By limiting your programme to certain affiliates, you risk losing out

on opportunities to increase your customer and affiliate reach. Therefore, careful planning and

consideration should be undertaken when deciding what promotional methods are supported and

made available through your affiliate programme.



PRODUCT FEEDS

Product feeds are used for a range of applications, both within Affiliate Marketing and within online

marketing wherever it is important to include specific product information within the advertising.

The advantage of product feeds is that an eCommerce merchant can easily communicate

information about a large number of products, or about changes in pricing or availability of those

products, or both, to partners and affiliates. Hence, feeds tend to be particularly important for retail,

mobile and travel retailers as their product offering varies continuously based on merchandising,

pricing and availability.

The simple way to conceptualise a product feed is to imagine that all the key information from your

website has been condensed into a simple data file. Forgiving the graphics and layout, a third party

would be then be able to use that data file to recreate your product offering on another third-party

website, as with many applications in affiliate marketing.

Specifically within affiliate marketing, feeds are used for the following types of activity:

Price Comparison

By bringing lots of feeds together from multiple retailers, a price comparison

affiliate is able to compare the pricing and availability of products, allowing the

consumer to choose the cheapest, or usually a combination of the cheapest and

most trusted, retailer to purchase from.

Shopping Comparison Engines & Aggregators

The key difference between “shopping comparison” and “price comparison” is that

the affiliate is using product attributes other than just price and availability to

provide users with a shopping experience. For example, the affiliate may offer a

fashion shopping experience where a user can filter products by colour size, style

and price band to find products that match the users’ requirements. These sites will

use the rich attribute information available in some retailer feeds to improve the

user experience. Within travel the term “aggregator” is often used to describe the

affiliate publishers who process multiple feeds and APIs from a range of flight



and/or holiday companies. This data is then presented to users on a range of

selection criteria, usually including destination, date, board basis and availability

information so that a user can review pricing and make effective comparisons

between travel offers.

PPC Affiliates

PPC Affiliates will use product feeds as useful sources of keywords from which they

can construct PPC campaigns and build landing pages. Key attributes for this type of

activity will include descriptions, titles and categories which will contain rich

sources of keywords from which to construct both keyword lists as well as

interesting advertising copy.

Third-party applications and plugins

There are many applications and plugins available within the affiliate marketing

sector which make use of product feeds. For example, dynamic link technologies

(e.g. Skimlinks) and pre-configured widgets (e.g. Easy Content Units) make

extensive use of product feeds to allow affiliates to use product data on their

websites without necessarily having to have the technical capabilities to work

directly with product feeds.

Affiliate Network Tools

Once an eCommerce company’s products have been loaded into their affiliate

network platform, a range of tools have been developed to help affiliates quickly

build links for specific products and categories they wish to promote. Hence,

content sites can ensure that they promote products that are relevant to the

context of their articles, improving conversions and earnings. Product feeds are by

far the easiest way of keeping this product information up to date within the

affiliate network as they can be updated as often as required (normally once per

day for retail and mobile and more often for travel).



Each affiliate network will have its own range of tools and it is recommended that affiliates spend

some time reviewing these on each affiliate network to ensure that you are able to maximise the

promotional opportunities available to you.

WHY DO YOU NEED A PRODUCT FEED?

A product feed is a data file containing information about the products listed on an e-commerce

company website. Hence, feeds are data files which can be used to represent the inventory that you

had for sale on your website at the time the data feed was generated.

WHAT ARE PRODUCT FEEDS USED FOR?

Product feeds can be used within a variety of online marketing practices. Common applications of

feeds include affiliate marketing, comparison shopping engines, Google product listings (Google

shopping), paid search automation, dynamic display advertising, social media integrations and

mobile phone applications. As the use of the web becomes more sophisticated, new applications for

feeds are appearing all the time, meaning that they are becoming increasingly important in online

marketing.

WHO NEEDS TO PRODUCE A PRODUCT FEED?

It’s important to consider product feeds as part of your online sales and marketing strategy,

particularly if your site retails many different products, or if you sell products who’s pricing and

availability frequently change. Hence, the three main e-commerce categories for product feeds are:

Retail

Where the product feed describes each product’s attributes, pricing and

availability.

Mobile Phones

Where the product feed describes the combinations of product (phone) attributes

such as the handset features as well as the contract attributes such as the price per

month and the number of minutes of calls per month etc.

Travel

Where the product feed could describe one or two legs of a journey (e.g. flights), or

describes the combination of a product (perhaps a hotel and its facilities) along



with the journey information (the combination providing us with all the

information on a holiday).

Other categories can also benefit from the use of product feeds provided that a suitable data format

can be used to communicate the products and services between the e-commerce company and the

user of the product feed. However, they are out of the scope of this guide.

WHAT ARE FEEDS USED FOR WITHIN AFFILIATE MARKETING?

Within affiliate marketing affiliates use product feeds in a multitude of ways, all culminating in

driving sales to the merchant. Here are some examples of how product feeds can be used within

affiliate marketing:

Product comparison Feeds are essential for affiliates who compare pricing, attributes and

availability of products for users.

Paid search affiliates PPC affiliates will use a range of attributes within feeds to determine

campaign keywords, copy creation, which products to bid on.

Content affiliates From blogging to news aggregation, product feeds help to ensure

well-matched embedded links within content-rich sites.

Loyalty affiliates Voucher code and cash back sites are starting to incorporate

product information into their sites.

Innovative Sites Affiliates are entrepreneurs and innovators. If you have a poor

product feed (or don’t have one at all) you could be left out of

exciting and dynamic revenue generating projects.

Dynamic Advertising/Widgets

There are a growing number of third-party providers who build

functional widgets and applications based on data feeds. These can

then be incorporated easily onto affiliate sites while providing

enhanced functionality and conversion for merchants and affiliates.



HOW MUCH OF MY AFFILIATE REVENUE SHOULD BE GENERATED BY FEEDS?

Clearly, the exact amount of revenue that your product feed generates depends on several factors.

However, a good quality product feed that is well distributed could be generating over 25% of all

affiliate sales. Therefore, a good quality product feed is an essential part of your affiliate marketing

toolset and is worth investing in. Your affiliate network will be able to advise you more specifically

on your particular category, and based on their experience in your category.

ARE THERE DIFFERENCES IN FEED STRUCTURE FOR DIFFERENT RETAIL CATEGORIES?

Clearly, the information required to describe a book, a DVD or a TV will be very different to those

required to describe a pair of shoes or a dining room table. Hence, when considering which

attributes (or data fields) your product feed will contain, it is important to evaluate the different

types of products that you sell, and consider how the data contained within your feed(s) might vary

between your product types.

However, in Part II of the Product Feed Best Practice Guide – Retail called “Feed Structure and

Attributes”, we detail how some of these individual categories should be catered for, as well as

providing guidance on core attributes such as title, category, image, URL, price and SKU which every

product should contain.

WHERE CAN I GO FOR MORE PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE ON PRODUCT FEEDS?

As you’ll be using product feeds for affiliate marketing, one of the best sources for additional help

and advice on your feeds will be your affiliate network(s). Your network will be able to provide you

with specifications and information on uploading your feed to their feed platform. It is important to

note that these vary according to each network. Your network(s) will also be able to provide you

with information and contact details for feed creation and management specialist companies who

are able to assist with all aspects of your feed marketing.

WHICH FILE FORMAT(S) SHOULD I USE TO CREATE MY FEED(S)?

The most common file formats for product feeds are XML and CSV. There are advantages and

disadvantages with each of these, the key advantages being that XML files are better at representing



products which have variants (e.g. colours and sizes in fashion) whereas CSV files can be opened and

viewed in standard spreadsheet software such as Excel.

SHOULD I SEND AFFILIATES PRODUCTS THAT ARE OUT OF STOCK OR AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

IN-STORE ONLY IN MY FEED?

As affiliates only get remunerated from online sales that they have initiated, providing products to

affiliates that are not available to purchase online (be they out of stock or in-store purchases only)

will lead to reduced earnings per clicks (EPC) and conversions which will negatively impact your

affiliate programme. Hence, it is not recommended that you include these products, or at least

include the appropriate attribute values so that these products can be filtered out by affiliates as

required. Another possibility is to enter a date into this attribute to indicate when a product will be

available to purchase if you have this available (this is especially the case for items that can be pre-

ordered).

HOW SHOULD I APPLY TRACKING TO THE URLS IN MY FEED?

Should you wish to incorporate your own tracking into your feed activity you simply need to apply

this to the URLs as per normal before supplying the feed to your affiliate network. Your affiliate

network will then apply their tracking to your URLs prior to sending it out to affiliates.

WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I HAVE PRODUCTS THAT ARE RESTRICTED TO ADULTS, OR ADULT

PRODUCTS?

If you sell adult rated products such as adult DVDs, alcohol or provocative lingerie it is recommended

that you include an attribute in your feed to mark which of your products is adult rated. Hence,

affiliates can filter these appropriately to suit their own audience requirements.

SINCE FEEDS ARE BEING USED EXTENSIVELY IN FASHION THESE DAYS, DO I NEED TO INCLUDE

GENDER INFORMATION IN THE FEEDS?



If you sell product which is targeted at particular genders such as fashion it’s important to help

affiliates filter these products by gender. Hence, this attribute should feature in your feed.

WHAT ABOUT SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES FOR PARTICULAR VERTICAL CATEGORIES? HOW DO I

INCLUDE THESE?

Many product categories have specific attributes which only apply to these types of products. For

example, if you retail books and DVDs then you can make use of attributes such as “ISBN” numbers

and “genres”. If you are a multi-category retailer then it’s worth reviewing your categories to

determine which attributes you need to add for these particular products.

CASE STUDIES

FusePump and Argos published a recent case study, showing how improving the quality of a

product feed improved their metrics in the affiliate channel. Argos achieved an increase of

171% in their earnings per click (EPC) and 34% increase in their conversion. For a copy of

this case study, please contact FusePump directly.

Marks & Spencer also replaced their feeds with feeds that meet the requirements of the

IAB guidelines. They have seen a significant return on investment on this project and have

continued to expand on their feed marketing activity since.



DEEPLINKING

‘Deeplinking’ is very simply the act of creating a hyper link or dedicated URL that points to a specific

page or image within a website, rather than that website’s homepage or default landing page.

Within the deep link URL will be all the information required for the user to navigate to the

appropriate page.

The benefit to a website in providing a deep link URL is that it takes the user directly to a relevant

page within the website, as opposed to that user needing to find his or her own way there. With

that lies an inherent risk that the user won’t find the relevant information, most often information

which would lead said user to interact positively with the website content e.g. purchase an item,

read a relevant article, see a photo, etc.

In digital marketing, deep linking is seen as best practice for advertisers who wish to point users [and

potential customers] to the most relevant page on their site.

The choice of deep linked page will depend on the journey the user has been on up to that point, for

example if Clive started a particular web journey searching for “cheap iphone 4 deals” on Google and

clicks on the link illustrated below:



This URL is a deep link to the iPhone 4 specific page of the 3 website

http://www.three.co.uk/Phones/iPhone. All the content on the page is iphone 4 relevant including

product image, price summaries, and clear signposts for Clive to take that next step to ordering the

iphone from 3. Perfect.

Imagine if Clive had navigated from the same search term to the 3 home page

http://www.three.co.uk. It’s a nicely built page, which acts as a satisfactory introduction to the 3

consumer offering, with the latest phone deal, and a number of other offers for the user to browse

to.

What it doesn’t do is give Clive any information whatsoever about the iPhone 4 which he is looking

for. It’s highly likely he will click the back button and find an alternative supplier from the Google

search results page, and 3 lose out on a potential new customer.

http://www.three.co.uk/Phones/iPhone

http://www.three.co.uk/



Deep linking to a relevant page from Google is one thing, and advertisers on the whole have

embraced the deep linking advantage.

Deep linking also promotes the exploration of your site by visitors, providing additional points of

conversion.

In affiliate marketing, driving a potential customer as close to completing a transaction on an

advertiser’s website is vital, as the affiliate tends to occupy a large proportion of his or her time,

least not a fair amount of income trying to put the consumer in front of the content relevant enough

to the consumer’s needs to maximise the propensity to transact. Deep links play a vital role here.

As explained above, taking a user deeper into a website improves chances of conversion. Conversely

not deep linking doesn’t only mean the user is less likely to convert, as an advertiser you are actually

harming the chances of conversion. You are going completely the other way. The user will be

frustrated and the chances of that user returning to that advertiser’s website, at least for the

purposes of that particular transaction, are remote.

In this day and age retailers cannot afford to lose prospects in this manner. At a time when brands

are building dialogue with individual target customers, deep linking has to be seen as standard.

Though the incidents are diminishing, it is alarming how many advertisers still do not deep link, or

offer affiliates deep linking opportunities, or affiliates not utilising deep linking functionality or a

combination of all three.



Here is an example of what not to do. A popular travel website invites Alan to ‘Check availability in

Egypt, Africa with any of these operators’. Alan arbitrarily clicks on the Jet2 button.

Alan is taken to this page with no reference to Egypt or Africa. This means that Alan has to re-

search, navigating through choices he already made on the previous website. He will feel this is

wasting his time, and the advertiser has already compromised the conversion opportunity. The

propensity to transact has diminished.

Whose responsibility is it to deep link? The advertiser or the affiliate?



Well both actually. The advertiser ought to supply the affiliate with the deep link URL so that Alan

navigates directly to an Egypt search page on the Jet2 website, and if the affiliate does not have it,

he should ask the advertiser to supply one.

It may be that Jet2 cannot supply a deep link URL of this nature in which case no fault lies with the

affiliate. That is inexcusable though.

A reduction in conversion rate affects both parties financially so both should be looking to maximise

conversion rate potential.

Here’s an example of an affiliate doing it right. Recombu the mobile phone comparison engine –

http://recombu.com - carries a ‘Recommended Deal’ for the Blackberry Torch:

Penelope visits Recombu looking for some information about the Blackberry Torch. She navigates to

the relevant page and sees the offer and clicks on the Recommended Deal from Vodafone and deep

links to the exact deal offered on Recombu.

http://recombu.com/



By deep linking to the exact offer she saw on the Recombu site, Penelope remains within the journey

and the likelihood of her navigating on to purchase information is maximised. She doesn’t have to

re-type her requirements on the advertiser’s site.

This is an example of using deep links to maintain the propensity to transact. It’s now up to Tesco

(on behalf of Vodafone) to maintain Penelope’s user expectation levels, as a new customer prospect

right through the basket confirmation, but the deep link task is complete.

For retailers and advertisers with a large range of products, it is vital that deep links are supplied to

affiliates. In order for affiliates to effectively market the merchant’s product suite, pointing

prospects directly to searched products is key.

Distribution of deep links is simple and most merchants use their product feeds to do this; manually

via an excel spreadsheet or CSV, or automatically and regularly (e.g. daily within an XML file or data

post.

In summary all merchants should supply affiliates with deep link URLs for all key areas of their

websites, and key products they are selling. Deep link URLs are one of the mandatory marketing

tools for affiliates to maximise conversion, and therefore revenue for a merchant’s affiliate program.



“People are impatient nowadays! Gone are the times of dial up connections whereby you’d

happily watch a page load up bit by bit as it made a funny whirring sound.

If your customers don’t get the information they want in 3 nanoseconds or less then they

are likely to make their way elsewhere. Consequently it is imperative to deeplink, specifically

to the product or category they are looking for. Failure to do so really signifies a missed

opportunity for both you and the Affiliate. Linking to the Home page simply doesn’t cut the

mustard.”

Zak Edwards, Managing Director – Prezzybox.com



ANALYTICS

THE IMPORTANCE OF GREAT ANALYSIS

Analytics is arguably the most important part of any project! After all, you can’t tell where you

should be going if you don’t know where you are.

The emphasis of performance marketing revolves around being paid on performance only. This

makes it an excellent choice of promotion for advertisers and just as good an option for publishers

to engage their visitors with relevant promotions. However, without strong and accurate analysis it

is almost impossible for advertisers and affiliates alike to improve their performance, which is of

course the ultimate shared goal.

Everybody knows that there are no guarantees with any projects, which proves the strong need for

analysis. However, many companies still see data analysis as a secondary process, to be completed

occasionally, and find it hard to spend much time keeping tabs on what is going on with their

website.

Even those businesses that do set up analytics software often miss out on the importance of keeping

track of this data. Over time the benefits of analysing trends can be easily lost.

PROCESS AND OBJECTIVES OF WEB ANALYTICS



WHAT GOOD ANALYSIS CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS

IDENTIFICATION AND ORGANISATION OF BUSINESS GOALS

Targets and goals are vital when it comes to web analytics. They are essential for ensuring that your

business stays on track and should be regularly reviewed in organisational planning meetings. The

most simple and important goals are to decide what your website is, what your products are, and

what you do in your business to generate profit.

Your overall business goal should be clear, defined and focused in order to get the best results. Can

you answer the question “So, what does your website do?” in 20 words?

Deciding on a goal for your website helps the rest of your business work towards an objective with a

strong sense of direction to drive them forwards and keep them on track. It is then advantageous to

set targets within clear time frames to achieve your goal. Because the web is constantly changing,

most web businesses find that it is a good idea to set short term achievable targets (around 6

months) and then have bigger goals that allow room for stretching your team's efforts to achieve

things that you may, at first, see as a long way off.

GOALS AND TARGETS HELP WEB BUSINESSES:

Focus and define strategies for development which are clear to everyone in the organisation

Create a culture of teamwork and encourage employees to be accountable for their actions

Are often the tiebreakers for discussions when people get tied up in new ideas and start to

go off track

Allow management to decide where money and resources should go

Aid with the measurement of performance on an individual and overall basis

When goals and targets are used well in conjunction with web analytics you will see big changes in

the efficiency of your business and everyone within it.

Analytics, when used correctly, should aid the definition and creation of goals enabling good

decisions to be made, monitor the gradual performance of your business, and eventually produce

results that are in line with your overall objectives.



IDENTIFYING KPIS

Many websites will use the same metrics to analyse how well they are doing as a business. Different

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will appeal to different websites and businesses, but the overall

point to remember for any website is:

KPI analysis is most valuable when multiple metrics are segmented, tracked, analysed and are viewed

in context.

It is common to think there is a “most important KPI” which everyone should put in front of other

metrics and obsess over (the one most often used is conversion rate). However, it is far more

important to build an overall picture of how your website or business is performing using a variety of

metrics which are specific to your business and objectives.

If you focus on one metric you are missing a whole world of analytics that could do a lot more to

help you reach your goals than you may originally think. Remember that it is often only a minority of

visitors who actually have the intent to convert the way you want.

There will be a handful who are in limbo and can sway either way, but the majority will be doing

other things such as comparing your site to the one they just came from/are going on to, or

browsing and reading content, weighing up what your offerings are. Lots will just be trying to work

out what the point of your website is and whether it relates to what they are looking for. If you

spend all your efforts on improving something like conversion rate, you can easily end up missing

out on your biggest market of visitors.

ANALYSIS OF KPIS NEEDS TO BE:

Detailed but clear

Actionable

Targeted/segmented/focused (general KPI analysis doesn’t provide actionable data)

Specific to your business and objectives

Analysed in context

Goal orientated



The point of any analysis is to produce accurate results that are actionable. You need to be able to

draw something from your results and act on them, otherwise using analytics is futile. You can do

this by making sure that the first thing you do is get an accurate knowledge of your business goals

and the objectives that you want to achieve through analysis. Identifying these goals will mean that

you can focus on the right KPIs and get the information you want from the data you gather.

CREATING HISTORIC FACTUAL EVIDENCE

The process of web analysis can become a long one and if you only focus on weekly, monthly and

yearly changes and improvements it can sometimes throw you off course.

It is therefore vital that you also look at the much larger picture and analyse what your progress has

been in the longer timeline. Where are you now compared to 3 or 5 years ago, and where are you

aiming to be in 5 or 10 years' time? These are important questions to answer, but should not be

looked at as all important.

The nature of the web and its speed of growth and change are immense. The importance of being

able to recognise and adapt to changes in different verticals and within the web as a whole is

essential to staying at the top of your game. This is why monitoring your performance over a long

period of time is crucial to being able to spot dips or rises, not only in performance, but in its

relevance to the outside world. This will help you identify what effect the rest of the world's

influential factors have on your business and in turn will enable you to predict possible future issues

and react to them quickly and effectively.

CONFIRMATION OF INSTINCT

Another area where good analytics can help is in confirming your and others' instincts. This is

especially true when moving from a mainly offline advertising strategy and trying to bring your brand

and offerings online. During this process it is very easy, especially for creative minded people, to

expect the development of your web presence to have a certain effect on your marketing and

promotional efforts.



Predictions can often be right, but in the same way as you would not rely wholly on your instincts

when marketing your business offline, you need to make sure that research, and analysis of this

research, is thoroughly taken on board for your online promotions.

This also goes for convincing others of the validity of your instincts, and using strong analytical

figures to present a case to management for marketing your business will go a long way as numbers

and factual evidence are hard to argue with!

MARKET RESEARCH AND COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

One of the key benefits of analysis is knowing where you stand within your marketplace. Market

research is the most commonly used process of analysing your competitors' products and services

and researching either where there are gaps in your chosen market that need filling, or whether

there are ways in which you can do a better job than your competitors. By doing so you can establish

your business and brand and also position yourself as a valuable source for your chosen target

market to get what they are looking for. Market research is not only useful at the start of a project,

but throughout all stages of development.

Competitive intelligence fits in well with market research, focusing on your competitors and

involving looking at your business within the context of what the rest of the web (and the rest of the

world) has to offer. You may have spent a long time analysing your website’s visitors, knowing their

behaviour, gathering their personal data, driving them in the direction you want them to go, and

even predicting their movements around your site, but all of this information is useless unless you

know what your competitors are doing.

Maybe you have spent time analysing your visitors' behaviour and have been able to increase your

sales conversion rates by 200% over the last 6 months by making a few small changes....great!

However, when you look at this rise in a wider context you may realise that your biggest competitor

has had a 500% rise in online sales over the last 6 months, the reason for which becomes clear when

you notice that the market or vertical you are both operating in has been all over the news. Having

had the masses of off and online advertising thrown around for all to benefit from, you have now

gone from being ahead of your game (in your mind) to being well behind your competitors.



In its most basic form, a mistake can be made by thinking that you show up highly in search engines

for your branded keywords, but for the non-branded keywords (which probably have higher search

queries) you are nowhere to be seen!

This is where competitive intelligence and market research come in. Using sites like Hitwise and

Alexa, which analyse web trends, will enable you to get an idea of what you are up against and also

what is going on in the rest of the world (online and offline) which could affect your business.

You can even track things like your visitor journeys once they leave your site. Are you driving traffic

to your competitors, or are they driving traffic to you?!

It is important to remember that when you are using competitive intelligence tools, you should take

less notice of any rankings given to your websites and concentrate more on your positions in various

segments in comparison to your competitors. This is what the tools are made for and are best at

assessing.

ANALYTICS PACKAGES

There are many packages available for use in website analysis and the best method for most

webmasters and businesses would be to use a combination of different packages.

This does not need to be expensive, and there are a number of free or open source platforms that

will give you an excellent insight into your traffic with minimal or no costs, especially if you have the

technical expertise in your organisation to get you up and running with these packages.

WEBSITE TRAFFIC ANALYSIS

With all these analytics packages you can get a really comprehensive insight into your visitors and

their behaviour which will help reach the all important goal of trying to work out user intent.

However, you must be very careful to analyse all the data and metrics very carefully and always take

into account the bigger picture. Any metric can be analysed in minute detail but if you miss what the

big picture really tells you, or whether it actually tells you anything significant, then you could be

wasting your time.



For example, you could spend a lot of time trying to look at your “Top Exit Pages” which show what

page your visitors were viewing when they decided to leave your site. On the face of it most people

would assume that they need to improve those pages in order to keep people on the site. However,

these statistics could actually prove that your visitors are performing a positive step. After all, they

are all going to have to leave your site eventually. It is just as likely that those visitors reached your

top exit page, found exactly what they were looking for and left happy.

Therefore the statistics on their own don’t give you anything actionable. However, add the “Time

Spent on Page” metric to the “Top Exit Page” metric and you know whether the visitors are staying

on the page long enough for you to be satisfied that they have digested the content and left happy

or alternatively visited the page and left straight away. This gives you a better insight, but there are

still many other metrics that would be useful to include in your analysis.

This makes the vital difference between simply reading the data and analysing it.

Features include the ability to drill down into your web visitors' profiles and learn more about their

behaviour, geographical location, technology usage, path analysis. You can also see where and how

your visitors came to your site, what pages they are on when they decide to leave your site, how

long they spend on your webpages and what they clicked on.

PACKAGES AVAILABLE

Google Analytics - https://www.google.com/analytics/

Piwik - http://piwik.org/

Woopra - http://www.woopra.com

Reinvigorate - http://www.reinvigorate.net/

AFFILIATE STATISTIC ANALYSIS

When it comes to performance marketing, whether you are on the advertiser or publisher side, data

analysis is essential to working well with the other party and producing the best results possible.

https://www.google.com/analytics/

http://piwik.org/

http://www.woopra.com/

http://www.reinvigorate.net/



Performance marketing is a win win situation, with minimal risks and initial investment from both

advertisers and publishers, but making it work well requires a lot of in- depth analysis and once you

have looked at all the above web analysis solutions and have started tracking the visitors who are

converting, you will need a program which will let you drill down into the data to establish what

people are buying, when they are buying it, where they are buying it from and how much you are

paying out versus how much you are making.

PACKAGES AVAILABLE

AffJet - http://www.affjet.com

AffJet is an online package which offers the opportunity to combine your affiliate networks and

analyse many different metrics. There are many extra features to make your analysis simple and

quick. You can combine links from any network or merchant into a project and create custom

dashboard reports that can be viewed whenever you log in. AffJet supports multiple users, has

access control for each user and a really easy to use interface!

Alternatives

Staagg - http://www.staagg.com

Affmeter - http://www.affmeter.com

NEXT STEPS

With all these analysis packages available free of charge or for minimal cost, you really don’t need to

spend a lot of money on getting good software. However, you should aim to spend your money and

time in analysing your data effectively to produce actionable results.

This will get you well on your way to developing good online strategies that improve your brand

awareness and image, increase your market share, drive your conversions and push up your sales



IN-HOUSE AFFILIATE CAMPAIGNS

Whilst the de facto way of running an affiliate marketing campaign is to do so through one of the

‘traditional’ affiliate networks, there is a growing move towards merchants looking to take greater

control over their affiliate activity and bringing their affiliate campaigns in house. Many of the larger

players in the market already run direct in house campaigns, for example eBay, Amazon and many

gaming companies, but increasingly more and more merchants are beginning to explore this option

as well.

IN-HOUSE METHODS

There tends to be two methods that companies adopt when moving in house:

Complete removal of the network to work directly with all affiliates - i.e. eBay and

Amazon

Working direct with a section of affiliates and working with the ‘long tail’ through

an affiliate network or multiple networks.

There are obviously pros and cons to this approach and this article attempts to outline these. There

are five basic elements that an affiliate network provides and this seems a good place to start in

identifying the benefits of working directly.

The network provides the tracking technology that enables affiliates to be credited

for the sales that they drive.

On top of this the networks have historically developed additional tools that assist

affiliates in promoting their merchants.

The network provides payment solution to the merchant, meaning that the

merchant only has one consolidated payment to the network rather than paying all

affiliates directly.

The network offers varying levels of account management to its merchants,

advising them on how best to drive sales and effectively utilise their online

marketing budget.

The network provides reach to a wide base of affiliates, typically being able to

match up publishers to a merchant based on the past performance of that affiliate



on similar campaigns.

As the affiliate industry has evolved in the UK, more and more merchants and agencies are

beginning to gain greater understanding of the affiliate channel, scrutinising the channel more and

adding increased resource to manage their affiliate programmes. In many cases also there is an

added realisation that there is a need to ensure that affiliates are driving not just a large volume of

sales, but that those sales are valuable to the merchant.

Allied to this, the majority of large affiliates are now investing considerable resource into account

management, as they seek to get closer to merchants in order to enhance the relationship and gain

a greater understanding of the merchant’s requirements. Through doing this, the affiliate is able to

work closer with the merchant and drive more sales for them.

So we have a situation where merchants, agencies and affiliates all have account management

resource that means they are liaising directly with each other. Many of these merchants and

agencies are questioning the need to have a network sat in the middle when the relationship

between them is held directly. Why are they paying the network for all five of the factors outlined

above when they are only using two of them at most?

BENEFITS OF UTILISING 3RD PARTY TECHNOLOGY

The benefits of utilising 3rd party technology to track affiliates are:

The enhanced relationship that comes from a merchant/agency working directly with their

affiliates, leading to a greater understanding and an increased ability to work together to

achieve the desired results.

Typically it would generate a cost saving as working direct with a partner through a

performance tracking solution means you are saving the portion of the override that goes

towards paying for account management and the other network services that are not used.

As a merchant, you are able to focus on ensuring that affiliates are driving valuable sales for

you. Because a network is generally paid a percentage of every sale that their affiliates drive,



the accusation can be levelled that they are focussed on increasing the volume of sales with

little understanding of the quality of these sales. For example, were these sales already

coming to the merchant regardless of the actions of the affiliate. By taking greater control

over your affiliate campaign, you can ensure that they are focussing on value as well as

volume.

The drawbacks of not working with a network

You may miss out on the long tail of affiliates who could drive sales for you. However, a large

number of affiliate campaigns are reliant on a small number of affiliates who drive the

majority of their sales.

You would miss out on the additional tools that networks make available to their affiliates.

Recently, however, network innovation seems to have been scaled back and increasingly

these tools are being developed by independent 3rd parties.

You would not benefit from the account management offered by the network, but if you

have the requisite resource in house, then you may not be gaining through having this in

place anyway.



CASE STUDIES

MAZDA KNOWS AFFILIATE MARKETING IS MORE THAN JUST VOUCHER AND LOYALTY

INTRODUCTION

Mazda originally entered the affiliate marketing space in July 2008 offering affiliates the opportunity

to earn commission for brochure requests and test drive bookings. The program launched with a

number of restrictions including the inability to deeplink, consequently for the first 18 months

activity grew slowly. Towards the end of this period Mazda, Mindshare (Mazda's agency) and

affilinet ran a detailed review of activity and decided a relaunch was required. The successful

relaunch demonstrates how Mazda embraced the full spectrum of affiliate business models available

and ultimately made the most of this dynamic marketing channel.

OBJECTIVES

Increase overall program performance by 297.9% to hit the target budget.

Increase the proportion of test drives generated from 2% to 14% of total affiliate actions.

Increase actions delivered whilst maintaining an overall CPA commission rate of under £20.

Establish a broader publisher base with greater reach, using ‘push marketing’ methods. Before

the re-launch the publisher base was restricted to automotive content sites.

STRATEGY AND EXECUTION

Following feedback from affiliates and an in-depth review of the program’s performance it was

decided that a number of actions would need to be taken in order to improve the performance of

the program and expand Mazda’s portfolio of affiliates beyond automotive content sites.

SETTING-UP DEFINED PROCESSES THAT SUPPORT DECISION MAKING

Improving integration between network, agency and client was a key method for the successful re-

launch of the program. Procedures were put in place to ensure both agency and network were

better placed to make decisions autonomously and in turn respond to affiliates more swiftly. These

included the creation of an affiliate profile form for affiliates to complete when applying to the

program, which resulted in a more efficient approval process.



IMPLEMENTATION OF END-TO-END TRACKING FUNCTIONALITY TO MONITOR LEAD QUALITY

OFFLINE

Before the re-launch Mazda had limited visibility to lead quality, and therefore placed restrictions on

the types of publishers used. To overcome this Mazda introduced innovative, end-to-end tracking,

which allowed them to tag the lead with publisher information and pass this to their CRM system.

With more insight into the quality of leads Mazda opened the program up to a broader publisher

base.

ADOPTING AN OPEN APPROACH TO AFFILIATE BUSINESS MODELS

Before the re-launch Mazda implemented a very tight affiliate approval strategy, in essence working

only with affiliates that operated websites about cars. With the re-launch Mazda dramatically

increased the scope of their affiliate activities by lifting some of its restrictions regarding publishers it

worked with and broadening the spectrum of affiliate business models to include email,

communities and Facebook arbitrage. This resulted in achieving increased volume and broader reach

whilst still paying on a performance basis.

ALLOWING TEST PHASES AT HIGHER COMMISSION LEVELS

With the re-launch of the program, Mindshare and Mazda together with affilinet established

bespoke commercials for test drives based on tiered commission structure. This enabled affilinet to

target and run test campaigns with new affiliates such as Rocketer, which drive a high volume of

good quality test drive leads from Facebook. It also gave more room to negotiate with publishers

that drive higher volumes of traffic such as high-quality content sites.

FACEBOOK ARBITRAGE: BEYOND DEMOGRAPHIC TARGETING

Rocketer were recruited in the early stages of the re-launch, to help drive higher volumes of test

drive leads from this major new traffic source. They took a ‘test, learn and refine’ approach, and

after some test phases and a new bespoke tiered commission structure, ran a successful Facebook

campaign. Success was largely due to the use of thousands of ad variants and analysing click to

action rates to optimise the activity. As well as the standard demographic targeting, Rocketer were



also able to target through user activity on Facebook, such as status updates, groups joined and likes

and dislikes.

GIVING PUBLISHERS THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO DO THE JOB

Feedback from publishers showed that conversion rates on

the Mazda program were not as good as they could be, and

that they could be improved with some changes to the

advertising creative. In response Mazda made efforts to

improve the effectiveness of their activities by providing a

new set of creatives with better imagery and a stronger call

to action. In addition they provided trusted partners with

brand guidelines to enable them to tailor creative, subject to

approval, to suit their purpose. Mazda gave final sign off on

all creative allowing them to keep control of how their brand was portrayed. This was supported by

Mazda providing affiliates with a full set of demographic profiles by Mazda car model to aid

targeting. This innovative and open approach to creative execution gave affiliates more control on

conversion, in turn optimising both creativity and performance.

RESULTS AND ROI

Mazda’s re-launch strategy and the methods adopted were key in creating a commercially viable

campaign and optimising the affiliate channel. Between January and September 2010 the following

was achieved:

Performance increased by over 297.9% and affilinet had to request 30% more budget.

The number of test drives increased to 29% of all affiliate actions.

The number of active publishers increased by 166%. The number of publisher types also

rose.

Conversion rate increased, peaking at 8.2% of those who clicked on a Mazda advert.



CASE STUDY #2

PERFORMANCE MARKETING CAMPAIGN DRIVES 22% SALES INCREASE FOR SIMPLY ELECTRONICS

INTRODUCTION

Simply Electronics operates in the crowded and competitive consumer electronics market. It sells

some of the world’s best known brands, from manufacturers of memory cards to high-end

photography equipment. Competing predominantly on price, the retailer was looking to implement

a new channel to market to support its wider e-commerce strategy of increasing sales and driving

awareness online.

Simply Electronics identified affiliate marketing as an ideal tool to improve customer engagement

and increase sales. The company’s priority was to find a network that could offer deep levels of

insight as well as outstanding customer service and reporting – requirements that would help the

retailer stay one step ahead of the game.

In January 2009 Simply Electronics selected LinkShare to develop an affiliate programme that would

help it meets its sales objectives and increase the number and quality of online customer

transactions.

APPROACH

LinkShare designed an affiliate programme that would target voucher code and cashback sites, a

segment whose audience overlaps to a significant degree with the Simply Electronics’ customer

base. These sites are proven both to drive incremental sales and attract new customers, making

them ideally suited to Simply Electronics’ needs.

The programme utilises cash back, loyalty and price comparison sites, all of which are proven to

drive incremental sales and attract new customers. It offers affiliates the added incentive of earning

extra revenues from the campaigns they run and runs on a CPA model for maximum transparency

and accountability.

The campaign also integrates online video, a trend that has seen significant growth in the last 12

months. Videos which Simply Electronics has placed on YouTube have been repurposed for affiliate



use as an added incentive for partners. This allows Simply Electronics can target specific products

and contributes towards click-through, sales and ultimately revenue.

RESULTS

The affiliate programme has grown 20 per cent month-on-month and 17 per cent year-on-year in

terms of click-throughs. Offers which have run on sites such as Idealo, Twenga, MVC as well as

selected employee malls have converted especially well and this flexible approach to the campaign

has meant Simply Electronics is able to reinforce its key messages around price and value for money.

Simply Electronics has seen a 22 per cent increase in month-on-month sales, accounting for

approximately 115% of year-on-year sales. A key part of this success has been the focus on

optimising relationships with key partners to help increase volumes and is clear evidence of the

success of the overall campaign.

QUOTES

Simply Electronics’ online marketing manager comments: “Our affiliate programme has gone from

strength to strength and the fact we have a presence on a mix of affiliates is helping to reinforce our

brand position across a range of sectors. With innovation at the core of our approach, we’ve also

been extremely satisfied with the consultancy LinkShare has provided which has also helped us forge

relationships with a broader range of publishers to help increase sales. This coupled with easy to

manage and monitor platforms means we have a clear idea of how the programme is performing

every step of the way.”

Liane Dietrich, MD, LinkShare, adds: “Affiliate marketing is now a core part of many retailers e-

commerce strategies and our work with Simply Electronics is an excellent example of how such

programmes can really drive home the benefits in terms of ROI and increased sales. Vouchers and

cash back sites are excellent tools for a company like Simply Electronics which is striving to boost

awareness amongst its customer base. We’ll be working closely with Simply Electronics to help evolve

the campaign as prevailing customer behaviours evolve.”

http://www.idealo.co.uk/compare/1677306/panasonic-lumix-dmc-fs62.html

http://www.twenga.co.uk/search.php?m=70296

http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/discounts/simplyelectronics.net



CASE STUDY #3

INCREASING GROWTH AND CUSTOMERS FOR ONLINE FOOTWEAR RETAILER

BACKGROUND

Cloggs has over ten years experience selling branded footwear online. Cloggs.co.uk, offers top

brands including Dr Martens, Converse, UGG Australia, Fitflop and many more, providing home

shoppers with access to top brand footwear at low cost.

The site receives 15,000 unique users per day on average whilst the European site www.cloggs.eu,

launched in 2008 after an excellent track record with affiliate marketing, receives approximately

4,000 unique users per day.

With a relatively modest marketing budget compared to some of the larger online retailers, Cloggs

needed to focus on the most effective marketing measures. In-house activities centred on SEO,

content development and site design, to enhance its USPs of great customer service and user-

friendly functionality.

APPROACH

Affiliate marketing was acknowledged as the

best way to allow Cloggs to compete and build

and maintain their online presence. Cloggs had

worked with a number of other networks

before signing up with Webgains. Webgains

was selected because of its European reach

and strong reputation for customer service.

Cloggs is 100% committed to making its

affiliate strategy work and employs an affiliate marketing agency, Existem am, to help realise this

objective. Each month Cloggs plans, produces and sends in advance new promotional codes as well

as seasonal campaigns to its affiliates. All supporting marketing initiatives including banners and mid

season sales offers must be ready long before the “go live” date to ensure distribution is fully

prepared and ready to maximise exposure. Thanks to the transparency and inherent functionality

http://www.cloggs.co.uk/



within the Webgains platform, Cloggs can communicate directly with all affiliates involved, or a

specific sub-set, and at the same time are able to create bespoke creative for them if required.

Kerry Gunn, Marketing Manager at Cloggs explains the importance of communication with affiliates

and how it contributed to the success of the program: "Cloggs has spent time maximising the use of

all the relevant communication channels available to increase its contact with affiliates. These

channels include - the Existem-am blog, Cloggs Affiliate Blog, Webgains Blog, the Webgains email

system, the Affiliates4u Forum and direct msn contact through Existem am. We have found all these

channels have really helped to make sure that affiliates are always up to date with our top selling

products and also any new products or new brands we launch. We also provide affiliates with the

option of exclusive codes to help convert their traffic while promoting their own website.”

Following the success experienced in the UK market with Webgains and Existem-am, Cloggs has now

expanded the program into Europe.

Nick Thomas, Company Director, comments on the success of their European activity:

“We have been merchant partners with Webgains for a number of years now and it has provided our

online business with a first class and dedicated service that you just don’t get with some of the larger

networks.”

“We always get fast support and I find Webgains’ systems the friendliest to use and manage affiliate

relationships with. This has encouraged us to use Webgains’ services to enter Europe confidently

and the results have been astonishing. The success of our European site in its first year would not

have been as profound without the excellent support of the whole Webgains team.”

RESULTS

Gunn says, “Affiliate marketing is a good way of getting into the ‘nooks and crannies’ of the internet

whilst targeting unique customers. Affiliates drive a significant volume of our overall number of new

visitors. We get completely fresh customers from this channel, with no issue of duplication or

conflicts with other marketing efforts from other online channels. Another benefit is that this is

completely pre-qualified traffic, which means it is more likely to convert into customers. Conversion

of this traffic is actually higher than pay-per-click, shopping feeds and comparison websites.



“The challenge for the future,” Gunn comments, “is finding new affiliates and of course ones who

can become key affiliates on our program. It is important to be consistent and find creative ways to

incentivise affiliates and keep them loyal.”

The Cloggs affiliate marketing program has grown by 112% in 2008. We fully expect continued

growth in the years to come.

Affiliates4u Performance Marketing Guide 2011

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