Attracting new customers, brand awareness and speed of execution: The three main reasons why small- and medium-sized businesses will embrace digital in a time of crisis.
These were the findings of the UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) 2020 ‘Powering Up’ survey of more than 1,200 smaller companies that explored how they’re using digital advertising and where more support is needed to help the market’s recovery this year.
With Awin launching a new affiliate proposition targeting SMEs, startups and incubators globally, we were particularly interested in the results, especially because the survey also showed just 14% of respondents are currently using affiliate marketing. This seems disappointingly low because affiliate marketing is perfectly placed to help small businesses grow in 2021. So why isn’t the channel an automatic choice for them?
Awin Access arrived in the UK in January 2020. It offers a low-risk and easy route for advertisers launching an affiliate program without the worry of long-term contractual obligations. Our learning curve over the past 12 months has been steep, but afforded insights into how important the positioning of the affiliate channel is in attracting a flood of new entrants as well as how untapped the vast SME market is.
More than 800 businesses in Europe have since taken the leap into affiliate marketing by signing up to Awin Access, far outstripping our initial target. In building Awin Access, we essentially threw out everything we knew to rebuild from the ground up. We identified the core barriers to entry for any micro-SME: Fees, contract commitment fear, ease of use and trust in the supplier. In addition, we knew that startups often have single individuals performing a range of tasks and roles, they’re time poor and resource limited, and are unwilling to engage with a product they can’t immediately understand.
We also took our message to micro-SMEs rather than waiting for them to find us. Building a Shopify app and gaining its listing within the Shopify App Store has further streamlined the setup process.
When pitching to brands, it’s common for vendors to focus on the countless numbers of publishers or blue-chip companies they partner with to deliver multi-million-dollar campaigns. For micro-SMEs, this feels intangible, and even if it were within reach, would any startup have the time to invest? Instead, we should focus on the one-to-one nature of collaboration, and how the affiliate channel provides an online conduit for doing business flexibly and transparently with mutual benefits for both sides.
Micro-SMEs can have distinct advantages over retail giants. They often provide niche services and sell unique products. Higher margins on these products frequently result in hugely attractive commission payouts for their partners. Plus, Awin Access brands all offer faster payout terms and are much more nimble than their bigger counterparts at supporting partners. These small companies tend to have trusted and longstanding relationships that can be easily formalized via the tracking, reporting and payment functionality of an affiliate interface.
Every organization is built on relationships, and the affiliate channel in particular makes a big deal about it. Managing them effectively could be the difference between a business succeeding or failing. That’s why we should be positioning affiliate marketing as the solution for cultivating these partnerships, facilitated by customer relationship management technology that takes care of the admin.
Micro-SMEs need effective, easy shortcuts, quick wins and bitesize tutorials. I’ve often thought that in the race to be taken seriously we overcomplicate the inherent simplicity of the affiliate model. If you’re a business looking to dip your toe into paid marketing, you can set up a basic Google AdWords campaign in minutes. It won’t be the all singing, bells and whistles optimized campaign you ultimately might build, but it can deliver results immediately. Why shouldn’t affiliate marketing mirror that approach?
Similarly, affiliate marketing shouldn’t be the final piece of the puzzle you try once you’ve got other paid and unpaid channels cracked.
It’s not necessary to have a structured marketing plan in place for affiliate marketing with its test-and-learn heritage. SEO and PPC can be far more challenging, and in some instances be a much slower burn than the immediate impact affiliate marketing can deliver. Anecdotally, in speaking to Awin Access advertisers, many regret not starting their affiliate journey sooner.
Awin Access’ development will continue rapidly in 2021. Aligning with local trade bodies, incubators and small business networks offers a tantalizing view of the potential for affiliate marketing to spread far and wide beyond its current reach. With the IAB estimating that the 2.6m UK SMEs represent up to 45% of all digital advertising spend, the opportunity is obvious if the proposition fits.
With Awin launching a new affiliate proposition targeting SMEs, startups and incubators globally, we were particularly interested in the results, especially because the survey also showed just 14% of respondents are currently using affiliate marketing. This seems disappointingly low because affiliate marketing is perfectly placed to help small businesses grow in 2021. So why isn’t the channel an automatic choice for them?
Awin Access arrived in the UK in January 2020. It offers a low-risk and easy route for advertisers launching an affiliate program without the worry of long-term contractual obligations. Our learning curve over the past 12 months has been steep, but afforded insights into how important the positioning of the affiliate channel is in attracting a flood of new entrants, as well as how untapped the vast SME market is.
More than 800 businesses in Europe have since taken the leap into affiliate marketing by signing up to Awin Access, far outstripping our initial target. In building Awin Access, we essentially threw out everything we knew to rebuild from the ground up. We identified the core barriers to entry for any micro-SME: Fees, contract commitment fear, ease of use and trust in the supplier. In addition, we knew that startups often have single individuals performing a range of tasks and roles, they’re time poor and resource limited, and are unwilling to engage with a product they can’t immediately understand.
We also took our message to micro-SMEs rather than waiting for them to find us. Building a Shopify app and gaining its listing within the Shopify App Store has further streamlined the setup process.
When pitching to brands, it’s common for vendors to focus on the countless numbers of publishers or blue-chip companies they partner with to deliver multi-million-dollar campaigns. For micro-SMEs, this feels intangible, and even if it were within reach, would any startup have the time to invest? Instead, we should focus on the one-to-one nature of collaboration, and how the affiliate channel provides an online conduit for doing business flexibly and transparently with mutual benefits for both sides.
Micro-SMEs can have distinct advantages over retail giants. They often provide niche services and sell unique products. Higher margins on these products frequently result in hugely attractive commission payouts for their partners. Plus, Awin Access brands all offer faster payout terms and are much more nimble than their bigger counterparts at supporting partners. These small companies tend to have trusted and longstanding relationships that can be easily formalized via the tracking, reporting and payment functionality of an affiliate interface.
Every organization is built on relationships, and the affiliate channel in particular makes a big deal about it. Managing them effectively could be the difference between a business succeeding or failing. That’s why we should be positioning affiliate marketing as the solution for cultivating these partnerships, facilitated by customer relationship management technology that takes care of the admin.
Micro-SMEs need effective, easy shortcuts, quick wins and bitesize tutorials. I’ve often thought that in the race to be taken seriously we overcomplicate the inherent simplicity of the affiliate model. If you’re a business looking to dip your toe into paid marketing, you can set up a basic Google AdWords campaign in minutes. It won’t be the all singing, bells and whistles optimized campaign you ultimately might build, but it can deliver results immediately. Why shouldn’t affiliate marketing mirror that approach?
Similarly, affiliate marketing shouldn’t be the final piece of the puzzle you try once you’ve got other paid and unpaid channels cracked.
It’s not necessary to have a structured marketing plan in place for affiliate marketing with its test-and-learn heritage. SEO and PPC can be far more challenging, and in some instances be a much slower burn than the immediate impact affiliate marketing can deliver. Anecdotally, in speaking to Awin Access advertisers, many regret not starting their affiliate journey sooner.
Awin Access’ development will continue rapidly in 2021. Aligning with local trade bodies, incubators and small business networks offers a tantalizing view of the potential for affiliate marketing to spread far and wide beyond its current reach. With the IAB estimating that the 2.6m UK SMEs represent up to 45% of all digital advertising spend, the opportunity is obvious if the proposition fits.
Affiliate marketing represented a core part of our marketing mix in 2020, and as a startup that only launched in April, it's proven to be a channel we can rely on for finding the low CPAs we've needed to grow. As we grow, we plan to invest further into affiliate marketing to ensure it is playing an even more critical role in our marketing mix.
As a disruptive startup, affiliate marketing played a massive role in our growth during 2020. Despite the difficulties operating in an economy full of uncertainty, affiliate marketing allowed us to reach more customers than ever, and after a brief dip in sales during March as COVID-19 broke, we saw consistent growth throughout the remainder of the year - exceeding targets by around 40%.
Down Your High Street is an online marketplace for the UK’s independent shops to showcase and sell their products.
The organization opened its first affiliate program in 2020 via Awin Access to supplement its other digital advertising activity and reach more relevant audiences online.
Affiliate partners now drive the highest number of sales of any other marketing channel for the company at a hugely positive ROI.
Down Your High Street’s revolutionary platform was created in 2014 as an attempt to support the independent shops and smaller retailers in the UK that were struggling to cope in the era of big business and ecommerce.
Their marketplace offered an online space where these smaller shops could promote their businesses and the unique products they sold to audiences around the world. With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the online marketplace became an even more attractive proposition for these shop owners as many faced temporarily closing their brick-and-mortar stores.
With hundreds of retailers having since joined the platform and more than 50,000 products available for customers to buy, Down Your High Street quickly established a varied catalog of goods to sell that were distinct and appealing for those consumers missing out on their favorite local shops.
Establishing an affiliate marketing strategy
for the marketplace
Down Your High Street co-founders Dan Why tock and Amanda Lowe quickly recognized the value digital marketing was going to play in driving traffic to their marketplace and set about establishing presence in the typical channels of PPC, SEO, paid social and direct marketing.
Affiliate marketing was also a key consideration for them, and the launch of Awin Access provided a means of experimenting with the channel for the first time. “Awin has always been on our radar as the network within the channel we wanted to try,” said Dan. “The new Awin Access package that can be self-run helped us to get set up with minimal cost and the program started to build traction at a good pace.”
Getting the program up and running took little effort despite being a self-service offering, with their developer able to navigate the onboarding process independently thanks to the simple process. “The Awin platform as a whole is really user-friendly, which is a plus for anyone starting a new program and being able to communicate with affiliates, and finding new partners and opportunities is a great benefit too.”
Recruitment efforts earn significant rewards
Pivotal to the success of the Down Your High Street affiliate program since its launch has been the time and effort the team has spent on identifying the right partners.
“We spend a great deal of time looking at recruitment,” Dan explains, “building new affiliate relationships and booking in exposure. With the top performing affiliates, we book in activity on a quarterly basis, which we are then constantly building out as new affiliates come on board.”
It’s not just a case of repeating what’s tried and tested though. The Down Your High Street program has sought out completely new partnerships too, with the brand eager to explore alternative options to continue bolstering growth. “Be open to new opportunities on your program would be my advice for any startup or small business embarking on their first affiliate program. We’ve seen great growth in recent months because we are constantly seeking out new partnerships.”
Cultivating partnerships is not the only aspect of their program that Down Your High Street has invested in though. “We regularly invest in UX changes that have doubled the website's conversion rate in the last six months. Affiliate marketing has always been a huge part of our ecommerce strategy and these investments in growing our conversion rate obviously increase the conversion rate of our affiliates, which we aim to double again in the next 12 months as well as the number of products we sell.”
The results
Thanks to continued investment in its affiliate partners and marketplace platform, Down Your High Street has seen huge rewards off the back of that effort.
Affiliate marketing partnerships have become the primary source of sales for the business now, accounting for around 26% of monthly sales on average and generating a return of around $30 for every dollar invested in the channel.
By seeking out new partners, developing relationships with them, and optimizing the marketplace environment itself, affiliate traffic is converting at close to 3% - which makes the program an extremely attractive one for partners to work with too.
As Michelle O’Sullivan, Awin UK’s Business Development Director, said of the success they’ve witnessed so far, “This program sums up what we are trying to achieve with the recent introduction of Awin Access for small businesses and startups. The goal was always to support grassroots businesses and ecommerce in the UK, and this proposition embracing affiliate marketing to help shops and retailers maintain revenue and expand their customer reach shows we are realizing that ambition.”
Our affiliate program helped our business achieve a record-breaking month in November, in which we saw a particularly strong uplift over the Black Friday week. Less than two years from our first venture into affiliate marketing, the channel now represents over 25% of our total online revenue and continues to grow monthly. As a high-growth startup, this entry-level program was perfectly suited to our needs, so a big thank you to everyone behind the scenes!
