Affiliate marketing handbook iab 2012

Internet Marketing Handbook Series

Affiliate Marketing Handbook Visit iabuk.net/affiliatemarketing Affiliate Dating 01

Introduction to
Affiliate Marketing
As the industry we need to be mindful of
By Dan Redfearn these issues. The IAB’s Affiliate Marketing
IAB Membership Manager
and Head of the Affiliate Council brings together all elements of the
Marketing Council industry to promote education, best practice
and self-regulation to help advertisers
Affiliate Marketing works. It really does. better understand affiliate marketing. This
The UK’s leading retailers, financial services handbook compiled by members of the
providers, utility companies all run affiliate council aims to deliver clarity and inspiration
programmes. They recognise the fact that for marketers looking to better understand
affiliates generate sales and can do so in a how this fluid and pioneering channel works.
cost effective way unmatched by any other
online channel. But it’s not just the big boys
who can take advantage of this channel
SMEs too can utilise affiliates as an efficient
way to successfully achieve scale and sales.
Tip for Marketing Managers
The accomplishments of the channel over
the past ten years are in no small part down to
the continued innovation and entrepreneurial Affiliates are a
nature of the affiliate publishers themselves.
However herein lays the problem of affiliate
sales force
marketing – understanding it. It’s very easy
Develop a positive relationship
for marketers unfamiliar with the channel to
be confused by jargon and blindsided by and incentivise them. Treat them
how it all works. The continued development with respect and keep them up
of the affiliate industry into a multi-
channel discipline necessitating different to date.
approaches and management can make
it difficult for advertisers to integrate it into
more traditional or linear marketing plans.
Affiliate marketing can also be difficult for Affiliate
marketers to explain internally and to justify
the way in which affiliate budgets require a
greater amount of flexibility than other forms
of marketing.

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


Forecasting Affiliate
Marketing Programmes
Forecasting difficulties can arise when the
By Chris Worthy major search engines change their ranking
Account Director, algorithms as the changing positions of
R.O.EYE
affiliate sites can have a major impact on
sales and leads, for good or bad.
Differences and Difficulties in
Forecasting Performance Based
Campaigns
The same can be said for search costs, if
Online marketing is dominated by
competition increases for key terms or quality
analytics and accountability where
scores change, affiliate performance can
forecasting is considered the norm. This is
increase or fall, making it difficult to forecast
often driven by a requirement to keep within
precise figures. Performance marketing is a
advertising budgets and hit a target ROI.
very competitive industry and commission
It is understandable that merchants would
levels play an important part in attracting
also expect a level of forecasting for their
affiliates. Competitor commission increases
performance marketing campaigns, but
or decreases are difficult to anticipate and
there are factors in play that make it difficult
can impact on sales, whether it be for a
to forecast performance based campaigns.
short term incentive or a permanent change.

Search engine changes

Fluctuations in affiliate The factor that has the greatest influence
on forecasting is the availability of affiliate
search costs and
resource. Affiliates have to allocate and plan
competitor competition their time across a number of merchants
and scheduled projects which can often be
Affiliate resource allocation pushed back and forth. Forecasting revenue
increases for a quarter or even a month can
always be subject to change depending
Many affiliate sites are highly targeted when the affiliate can allocate time to work
to specific verticals and product types; on the merchants programme. It is important
this allows them to achieve high rankings to realise that affiliate marketing relies on
on search engines and improve their third parties whose development priorities
quality score for lower paid search costs. can change throughout the year.


Why and How Should I Forecast? forecast to show the uplift achieved through
new publishers or initiatives that have been
Some merchants run their affiliate actioned. Another important consideration
marketing campaign using finite marketing is to align the affiliate forecasts with the
budgets. This leaves the potential of running marketing calendars so that the effects of
out of budget to pay affiliates should they marketing campaigns can be compensated
over deliver. It is important to understand for.
that certain affiliate business models find
it extremely difficult to turn off or reduce
merchant activity due to budgets. For this Costs
reason some level of forecasting is required
to ensure sufficient budget is allocated to The final and most important elements of
the affiliate channel. forecasting are the costs. These can all vary
depending on the commercial agreements
you have in place but the management/
technology fees, overrides, commissions
When approaching affiliate forecasting and any performance bonuses all need to
there are three key areas that need to be be calculated to generate an overall cost
covered:- and effective ROI.

Natural Delivery Tip for Marketing Managers

Depending on the vertical, a performance
marketing campaign can be expected to It’s all about the
deliver between 5-40% of a merchant’s online
sales or leads. The overall performance of EPC
the merchant site will undoubtedly have an
impact on growth; a fast growing brand will If you can’t make it work,
carry some of that growth and can be built affiliates can’t make it work.
into the forecast using year-on-year and
month-on-month trend data.
Look at your conversions,
understand the route to sale and
optimise the process so when
Sales Uplift
they deliver traffic it proceeds to
Successful performance marketing cam- sales as efficiently as possible.
paigns will not rely on the merchants profile
to increase sales or leads. The role of the
network, agency or affiliate manager is to
add value to the programme through the
process of affiliate recruitment and publisher
development. This uplift can be reflected in a


Integrating Affiliate
Campaigns
competitive, affiliates will not be duped by
By Owen Hewitson higher commissions if on-site conversion
Client Strategist, and resulting EPCs are poor.
Affiliate Window

Separate From Other Forms Of
Budget Because affiliates utilise a variety of
promotional methods, activity that has
From a budgetary perspective the CPA traditionally worked on a CPC or CPM basis
model remains the distinguishing feature of can be run through the affiliate channel. For
the affiliate channel. The principle that you example, PPC affiliates can mitigate the
only pay when you get a sale makes affiliate risks inherent in paid search campaigns by
marketing transparent and measurable. working on a CPA basis, thus shouldering
the burden of monitoring spend and
optimising campaigns.
It is this pay-on-performance principle
which supports the argument that budget
allocated to the affiliate channel should be
However, running an affiliate prog
drawn not from the marketing budget but
ramme goes beyond budget allocation.
from the sales budget. Because affiliates
It requires proactive management and
are awarded only when sales are made the
long-term commitment. Even if sales
CPA model is risk-free from a merchant’s
are generated quickly, a well-optimised
perspective, assuming they have control
programme will take months to reach
over affiliate approvals. The main budgetary
maturity.
consideration is instead the level of affiliate
commissions.
De-duping

De-duplication (or ‘de-duping’) is a practice
However, from an affiliate perspective that has a simple principle: that merchants
commissions are not the sole factor in have visibility over where their sales are
determining whether to promote a merchant. coming from and control over who to
A common fallacy is that merchants can award for those sales. If you are engaged
buy more sales simply by increasing the in multiple online marketing channels (PPC,
payout. Although commissions should be SEO, email, display), or with more than one


affiliate network, you will want to ensure that It is good practice to be transparent about
you are attributing incoming sales to the your de-duping policy, as you would be
correct channel so you can then intelligently about other key policies around PPC
apportion spend to those different channels. and commission validations. Where de-
duplication is introduced without notice
The easiest way of automatically de-duping affiliates will see a negative impact on
is by conditionally tagging each traffic source. conversion rates and EPCs.
Conditional tagging is a simple,
cheap and accurate way to
determine the last referrer,
and through which channel
the customer came.
This can help you
avoid paying twice for
the same sale.

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

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


The different
affiliate models
Positive & Negatives of Each
By Carla Arrindell
Model
Group Account Director,
OMG
Loyalty & Reward sites, offering con-
sumers a reward in the form of cash or
Affiliate marketing as a multi- points for purchasing via their website.
channel discipline. They deliver significant volumes, with above
average conversions and positively impact
It is misleading to think of affiliate marketing on behaviour.
as a single channel, rather it is a group of
activities with a common remuneration PPC affiliates buy traffic through bidding
model. That remuneration model facilitates on relevant keywords within search engines.
some powerful benefits, one of which is They deliver high conversions and target
enabling specific models of operation. effectively, however higher CPAs or hybrid
remuneration models may be required, due
Working with a network enables access to the increasing costs driven by search
to various affiliate models, the most engines.
common being; Content, PPC, Loyalty
& Reward, Vouchercodes, Social media Content affiliates optimise the content of
/ blogs, price comparison and Email. their sites to secure positions within natural
Each segment of affiliates brings unique search results, the ability to target niche
advantages and disadvantages to a demographic is valuable.
campaign. A good affiliate programme
Social Media/Blog sites target social
will use some or all of these segments,
media members by profile and are strong
according to campaign objectives.
at targetting niche audience segments too.
However, without a compelling offer, backed
up with a strong call to action, users may
not be lured away from their own content.

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


Vouchercode sites offer users a discount media affiliates as users reaching these
code to be redeemed online against their affiliates are in a passive buying mode.
purchase. The significant volume delivered
can be easily controlled by changing the Broader
consumer offer. Clearly mark expired
codes so as not to deliver a poor customer Clearly defined criteria around qualifi-
experience. cation for a discount or reward is crucial
to ensure quality sales from Loyalty &
Email affiliates promote to their own Reward and Vouchercode sites. The same
databases, acquired through a variety of considerations don’t apply to PPC, SEO
sources, they have a broad reach. Consider and price comparison affiliates. Delaying
the source and level of detail of the data validation of sales for Loyalty & Reward
to minimize over-promotion to existing sites can also be an effective way of
customers. increasing quality.

Maximize performance by continually
reassessing and understanding volume
drivers.
How to effectively engage
and manage these segments
Each model needs to be managed and
engaged with differently, to ensure you get
maximum results. Last Click is not a
Interaction and insight
panacea
Advance warning of offer changes are
now your customers
K
key to ensure content does not become behaviour and allocate
out of date. Integration and communication your marketing budget
about wider marketing activity both online
accordingly.
offline, will create further focus from SEO,
PPC, Loyalty Reward and Vouchercode
o not be afraid to look
D
sites. Social media, price comparison and
emailer’s traffic is driven more by consumer beyond the last click to
choice. reward particular types
of affiliates. For example
Define commissions and triggers paying email affiliates a
accordingly
PM or giving tenancies to
C
Compelling offers and strong call to top affiliates.
actions are necessary for email and social


It all points to
a great opportunity
Nectar has over 17 million users across the UK and we can
put your business in front of them 24/7.
Interested? Then join us today and take advantage of...

Bonus point offers
Voucher codes
Gift finder
Comparison shopping engine
Nectar Toolbar powered by Yahoo!

To discuss affiliate opportunities as well as the finer
points of our loyalty scheme contact:

Maureen McDonagh, Head of E-Commerce
m.mcdonagh@loyalty.co.uk


Incentivising affiliates

Effective ways
By Pete Rowe
to incentivise affiliates
Managing Director, affilinet

• Increase the default

commission rate.
When done in the right way incentivising
affiliates is a popular driver to improving he most effective and used in
T

the performance of an affiliate program. almost all affiliate programs. Raising
A successful strategy can aid the affiliate default commission levels can be
recruitment process, increase the exposure done on program launch to drive
of the advertiser’s product or service online, awareness and grow the affiliate
activate dormant publishers and build base, when re-launching on a new
loyalty among the affiliate base. However network and for pre-determined
in a crowded landscape incentivising periods of time to tactically boost
effectively is becoming increasingly difficult revenue.
and, when done in the wrong way, can even • Offer a tiered commission

be detrimental to the success of a program. structure.
S
imple yet effective. The concept
being, the more sales the affiliate
generates, the higher the level of
The benefits of a commission they receive.
considered incentive
strategy • Run prize draws and

competitions.
Advertisers sometimes offer the
It is important to consider what you want to
opportunity for affiliates to be
achieve when putting together a strategy.
entered in to a prize draw in return
Incentives can also be used to tactically drive
for each link they put on their
sales in peak seasons, build momentum in
website, sale they make or other
quiet trade periods and can help to give an
target achieved. Often used by
advertiser a competitive advantage when
large advertisers with big budgets
negotiating coverage on larger sites.
to spend on impressive prizes.

Continued overleaf....


Key Tips To Consider When
Effective ways
to incentivise affiliates Incentivising Affiliates

Keep it simple - Time is precious, so
• Offer a cash reward

keep your incentive simple. Affiliates want
his method can be ineffective as
T to be able to immediately understand
it often rewards the same affiliates the incentive offering and then simply
and does not tend to incentivise implement a strategy. The size and scale
high earning affiliates. Offering a of the incentive should reflect the amount of
cash reward is only recommended time that affiliates will need to invest.
with careful consideration, carefully
consider the targets and incentives Be creative - Affiliates are offered
set to ensure that the strategy does incentives on a regular basis and certain
not leave you out of pocket. prizes are ubiquitous. iPods and small cash
rewards may sound appealing but they
• Offer own products as an

don’t necessarily stand out from the crowd.
incentive. Advertisers have been known to offer all
R
eliant on the advertiser under- inclusive holidays to Bali but being creative
standing their affiliates, success is does not have to cost a fortune. If you have
largely dependent on the appeal of a limited budget, think of something fun or
the product in question. exclusive.

Be inclusive - In many cases merchants
offer incentives to the top performing affiliate
to achieve sales targets in a certain trading
period. However this excludes the longer
tail of niche affiliates. Instead try to be more
inclusive and offer scalable incentives based
on individual affiliates increasing their own
performance.

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


Know
Know who y re working with
you’re
you g

Finding the right partners for your program is key. Contact the affilinet team for strategic advice. T. 020 7067 2480 I E. newbusiness-uk@affili.net

AFF_a4u2_A5_2010_RZ.indd 1 04.11.10 10:32


Objectives
CASE STUDY • Motivate all affiliates, large or small, to

lift sales into a higher sales tier.
• Motivate new affiliates to grow their

Red Letter Days and performance as quickly as possible.

Affililate Window • Maintain long-term interest in the Red

Letter Days programme and combat
deliver affiliate seasonality drop-off.
incentive programme • Increase the contribution of affiliate

sales to overall web sales.
to drive sales
• Deliver a significant uplift in affiliate

sales from 2008 to 2009.
By Kevin Edwards
• Ensure that the cost of the incentive

Strategy Director, Affiliate Window
programme was delivered on target.

Overview
Incentive programme structure,
In 2009 Red Letter Days set itself the Q1-Q3 2009
challenge of delivering the best affiliate
The primary aim was to reward a broad
incentive programme in the market. The
spectrum of affiliates of all sizes and
key measures of success were to make
types; smaller affiliates could significantly
it available to all affiliates, ensure the
uplift performance with the right tools and
incentives were highly achievable and to
recognition, while larger affiliates could be
deliver to a target ROI. The result was a
incentivised to invest greater amounts of
quarterly incentive scheme combining
time into Red Letter Days above competitor
compelling prizes with an innovative
programmes.
approach. By rewarding affiliates based on
their own performance rather than requiring
The model adopted was to offer
them to compete against each other, Red
guaranteed prizes for hitting various sales
Letter Days demonstrated understanding
tiers, starting at just £1,000 per quarter
that a successful affiliate programme should
from Q1-Q3 and £1,500 in Q4 (around 8-12
treat affiliates as individuals. The incentive
sales), ensuring that prizes were within the
scheme was key in exceeding sales targets.
reach of every affiliate.

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


2009 Q4 incentives – the crucial
Christmas gifting period Results

Following the success of Q1-Q3 2009 it was
Contribution of affiliate
recognised Q4 2009’s incentive scheme sales to overall web sales
would have to be the best yet. In addition: more than doubled.

All affiliates who hit £1,000 worth of
Affiliate revenue uplift was
sales received a hamper delivered in
time for Christmas. nearly threefold.

Three holiday prizes were offered Affiliate revenue in 2009
including 7 nights in Bali for 2 and
was significantly above
two European city breaks.
target.

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

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

Winners were announced via videos posted
on youtube.

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


Working with networks,
agencies or in house
Having a direct relationship with the affiliates
By Alistair Nichols enables you to negotiate the commissions
Head of Agency Sales, directly and possibly give yourself room to
Webgains offer more than your nearest competitor
should you choose to pass on the saving to
As a merchant, there are roughly speaking your affiliate partners.
three avenues to choose when launching
your affiliate program. Firstly, you could Downsides include difficulty in recruiting the
always go it alone, purchase a white label biggest affiliates and the labour intensive
tracking solution and set up your own in- work involved in this process should not
house network. Secondly, you could use be underestimated. Affiliates will only join
your existing agency or hire a specialized your program if they have 100% trust that
affiliate management agency to run your sales are tracked and that they will be paid
program. The last option is to join an affiliate promptly and correctly.
network and opt for a self managed or
account-managed solution utilizing the In-house programs have worked very well
network’s tracking and reporting technology, for the likes of Amazon (with huge in-house
experience and trusted payment solutions. resource) and now eBay but in the latter’s
case this was after years of running a very
Each option offers benefits and successful program on a network and
disadvantages. The right solution for you building up trusted relations with affiliates.
will be dependent on numerous factors
including: which activities you want to be
personally involved with, the business you
are in, the amount of control you require
over your brand usage and your marketing Working with an Agency
budget.
Working with an agency allows you to
establish a relationship with them which
allows them to know about your brand,
marketing strategy and brand values. An
Running a Program In-house agency is also more likely to have a view

of the fully integrated marketing plan and
The main benefit to running an in-house therefore integrating the affiliate strategy
program is the perceived cost saving. should be seamless and efficient.


Employing an affiliate management agency for a detailed Service Level Agreement and
has further benefits as they are the compare and contrast the offerings.
specialists in this field. They will have much
more knowledge and experience managing With regards to technology, does your
affiliate campaigns. You would be able to network offer “Whistles and Bells” or are
leverage long established relationships with they just tracking your sales and paying
hundreds, if not thousands, of established your affiliates? Can your potential network
affiliates. manage Voucher Codes effectively? How
do they police your PPC policy? What fraud
protection technology is there on offer?

Running a program with a
network

The most common way to launch
an affiliate program is to join an affiliate
network. When joining an affiliate network,
you are tapping into the network of affiliates
built up after many years in the industry, Brand control
as well as having instant access to the
knowledge and experience of the network’s eep an eye on the quality
K
staff. Remember, that it is in the interest of of the sales you are being
the affiliate to be joined to every network so
sent. Put in place processes
it is very rare indeed that one network has
exclusive deals with the biggest affiliates. to check the real value of the
generated sales.
When choosing a network to work with,
you should concentrate on looking at their
record of customer service both for you and
your affiliates and their record of developing
their technology.

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


Using Affiliates as
Partners
considerably sized affiliate programme.
By Sanjit Atwal
Network Director, Then there are the commercials...
Tradedoubler The metric of choice for the savvy affiliate
is EPC – Earnings Per Click. “What, on
Section I: Introduction average, do I earn for each click I send
through to you, Mr Advertiser?” To warrant
One word we will not be using in this an affiliate giving you valuable real-estate
section of the IAB Affiliate Marketing on their sites there must be a compelling
Handbook is ‘Supplier’. Effective affiliate argument for them to do so.
marketing has long evolved away from the
setting of hierarchical frameworks in which Section III: De brief
advertisers, agencies and networks take
unnecessary liberties with publishers. So, Affiliates can provide an instant measure-
with this in mind, this chapter will help frame ment of success of your business – a gauging
how best to use affiliates as your partners. of market appetite for the latest range
your brand have deployed.As previously
Section II: The Brief mentioned, affiliates will be working with
many merchants and, as such, will have
This briefing can take many forms but access to competitive market information
the most effective in terms of driving that would be both valuable and, without
sales and leads for your products is the a good relationship, otherwise inaccessible
sharing of your marketing and promotions to you. You can ask for an intelligent
calendar. Regularly communicating offers, benchmark of where your offering sits in the
discounts, voucher codes and the USPs affiliate channel and any recommendations
of your products will ensure that you are on how to increase the quality and quantity
gaining a greater market share on affiliate of sales.
sites through the process of education
(remember – affiliates can choose who they From the affiliate’s point of view, the decision
do or do not promote!). to work closely with a trustworthy advertiser
to optimise offers for their users will be an
This communication strategy brings with it easy one. Use this information wisely to
a commitment of openness of agenda with constantly refine your affiliate proposition
regards to remuneration, technical set-up into a market-leading offering. The other
and de-duplication. All of which build trust benefit of such an approach is that you
with your valuable virtual sales-person. will be bringing your affiliates closer to your
Your affiliate network account manager (if brand – something which bodes well for the
you have one) will be a key in this process successful long term stability and scalability
– especially if you are aiming to have a of your plans in the affiliate channel.


Over 1,900 advertisers

Over 128,000 active publishers

Over 154 million unique visitors per month

Europe’s No.1 Performance Marketing Specialist

Sanjit.Atwal@TradeDoubler.com Network Director
Paul.Wright@TradeDoubler.com Agency Services Director
Ricki.Jones@TradeDoubler.com Head of Affiliate Sales

TradeDoubler
24th Floor
Portland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5BH

Tel: +44 (0) 207 798 5800
Fax: +44 (0) 207 798 5801
Sales.UK@TradeDoubler.com


Affiliate Marketing
and Creativity
By Fiona Robertson The key points for
Head of Affiliates developing banners are:
Performance, Bigmouth Media
• Well branded – have a logo or

Not usual bedfellows brand name in most frames
ut remember an absolute affiliate
B
A poor creative toolkit is a handicap. marketing no-no is an URL on the
Today affiliates have the choice of thousands creative
of merchants and a good toolkit helps with
affiliate recruitment, retention and helps • Eye catching - have a message

affiliates accurately represent and promote in mind and get this across
your brand. effectively

• A strong call to action – think

of this from a consumers’
At the very least affiliates perspective and talk their
should have banners in gif and language
flash format in the following Get a quote’, ‘Download’, ‘Open
‘
sizes: an account’, are all good – “More
information” is not!
468x60
• Contain price points or USPs –

125x125 shout about where your brand
is strong
120x600
120x60
234x60

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

Affiliate Marketing Handbook Visit iabuk.net/affiliatemarketing
Affiliate_Marketing_Handbook_A5_Advert copy.pdf 1 11/10/2010 14:50:25 Affiliate Dating 25

Is your affiliate marketing
as effective as it could be?
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MY we know how to look at your online strategy as
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WISTE FIONA ROBINRTTHSISN’S
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www.bigmouthmedia.com | 0845 130 0022 | hello@bigmouthmedia.com
S E OO • • PP P C •• AAF F IFLII L ITA T E• SD I• S P LI A YP •L A O C •I ASL OMCEIDAI L •MO N LII A E • PO N LWI O REL D W I D EW O R L D W I D E
SE P A ES D S SY A ED N R • N PR •


Give your affiliates a solid set of generic The availability of feeds has allowed
creatives summarising your brand and offer other tailored creative solutions to appear.
tailored messages for key offerings. Give Content Widgets are an example of creatives
affiliates the option to select what is best for that affiliates can utilize highlighting specific,
their audience. Tactical messaging works; relevant products. A standard 120x600 ad
when there is a sale; give affiliates the unit can showcase one or more product
creative to promote this. offerings. If a feed is in real time then these
ads can be dynamically updated to show
Once your set of creatives is complete do the most relevant product.
not leave them untouched until the end
of time. Creative gets old. A quarterly/
seasonal refresh is best practice.

Enabling search or booking banners
Affiliates have a knack of using your best
for the affiliate channel shortens the
creatives but one of the most effective
consumer journey, increasing conversions.
techniques for conversion are text links.
For example a hotel booking banner from
Pre-written text links will give your affiliates
a merchant’s site on an affiliate’s allows
an easier route to displaying your key
users to select location, dates of stay, etc.
messages and promotions.
When checking availability the users will be
taken to search results on the hotel site,
rather than the homepage or hotel page –
increasing the chance of that sale.

Affiliates are creative and
entrepreneurial so tap into this

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


Ask u
s
indep for an
progr endent
am re
view

Accelerate your affiliate
marketing program

• The affiliate management agency with global reach.
Contact us:
• Dedicated, exceptional, proactive account management.
 nonstopConsulting
• Recently launched London office bringing nonstop’s Lemon Studios
expertise to the UK market 2nd Floor, 85 Clerkenwell Road
London EC1R 5AR
• Fully scalable local and international affiliate
management services paid search solutions  tel. +44 020 7681 4049
www.nonstopconsulting.co.uk
• Proprietary management technology powering your
 Follow nonstopConsulting UK
program. on Twitter @nsCi_UK

• We listen, understand, devise and deliver winning
solutions to exceed your commercial objectives.

info@nonstopconsulting.co.uk


851
ForUSC,oneofourclients,weachieved
%
an851%Q4yearonyearincreasein
affiliatesalesasaresultofourspecialist
affiliate programme management.

“Themanagementofaffiliateactivityandthe
salesachievedby7thingsmediainthepastyear
havebeenastonishing.”
LyndsayMcGonigle,HeadofeCommerce,USC

…doyouwant7thingsmedia
toscaleyouraffiliatesales?

T: 020 3384 5650
E: hello@7thingsmedia.com
www.7thingsmedia.com

Affiliate marketing handbook iab 2012

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