It goes without saying our industry stands on the crest of a growth wave in 2021. Last year’s disruption has provoked renewed advertiser interest, not only in the wider digital advertising and ecommerce sectors, but specifically in the reliable ROIs that are performance marketing’s bedrock.
Gartner’s survey of CMOs at the end of 2020 suggested 65% of them were planning on increasing their investment in our channel in 2021. This is the kind of C-suite recognition affiliate industry leaders have been yearning for for years.
Yet, we would do well to not get ahead of ourselves and lurch unthinkingly towards this growth. Part of the affiliate industry’s success over the years has been as a consequence of its iterative approach - scaling slowly and methodically across the globe from local ‘Wild West’ playgrounds to today’s professional, international marketplace.
Collaboration and consensus are
key to progress
Contrast the affiliate and partner marketing channel’s more muted evolution in the last 20 years to that of other ad models or platforms that have ‘blitzscaled’ their way to prominence and market share.
Programmatic is a space in which serious question marks on transparency have increasingly come to the fore and external regulation has now brought existential threats.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google have similarly scaled at such speed that lawmakers and media scrutiny have only recently caught up. Many of those chickens may come home to roost this year.
If 2021 is to be the year affiliate and partner marketing truly breaks through the CMO glass ceiling, then we need to ensure we present the very best version of what our industry can do. And that means establishing robust standards that give us a platform to grow collectively.
Of course, defining and agreeing on what those standards should be is one of the major hurdles.
Luckily, this has been a topic of conversation for many of us over the last several years. Whether it be via the self-regulatory frameworks devised by the UK's Affiliate Marketing Council, the efforts of the Performance Marketing Association in the US, or the newly-formed IAB Affiliate Working Group in Australia, these kinds of cross-industry collaboration are pivotal to ensuring standards are being discussed, established and upheld.
“Affiliate networks have a pivotal role to play in establishing standards as the impartial bodies sat between brands and publishers. Upholding these standards provides a platform to demonstrate a level of professionalism that is essential to the credibility of the industry."
Colin Carter
Director, Weather2Travel
Why it pays to be 'green'
In the UK (where I’m based) the more recent work of the Publisher Board, a combination of large and small affiliate businesses, has been instrumental in ensuring publisher voices are heard by brands and networks alike. Its industry surveys and guidelines for best practices have helped foreground some of the core aspects of the industry that we can sometimes be complacent about, yet are fundamental to our ‘pay-on-performance’ model functioning.
Take payments as an example. Cashflow for publishers has never been more important to their businesses than it is right now. Delayed payments for generated sales make it impossible to reinvest that capital in another campaign. These delays are a wrench in the affiliate marketing flywheel.
At Awin, it’s this dilemma that prefaced our introduction of the ‘traffic light’ system you can see today in our interface. Advertisers on ‘green’ status are those who validate their sales quicker and are covered by Awin’s Accelerated Payments program, where the network pays validated commissions out before receiving payment from the advertiser.
Thanks to a multi-million-dollar investment from Awin, affiliates receive their commissions within two weeks of generating a sale - far quicker than the sometimes months-long wait affiliates might face from slower-validating ‘amber’ programs.
Establishing a gold standard
for affiliate programs
This principle on payments is just one of five key pillars I’m pleased to say forms our newly-launched Awin Gold Standard for affiliate programs on our network, which is currently available in the UK and will be rolled out to other markets in the coming months. Our conversations with the Publisher Board have been influential in defining what these pillars constitute: Tracking, de-duplication, commissions, payment and validation.
“I'm really excited for the launch of Awin's Gold Standard initiative. As part of the Publisher Board, we have been seeking to improve affiliate standards, so it's reassuring that we have the backing of a major network to help push this agenda forward and highlight examples of best practices in order to improve transparency within the industry and incite change.”
Heather Peebles
Head of Affiliate Partnerships, Reward Gateway
Advertiser programs that demonstrate best-in-class characteristics across these aspects achieve Awin’s Gold Standard and are recognized as such within our user interface.
And this recognition is by no means a superfluous medal of honor for worthy advertisers. There are real, tangible benefits that can accrue.
Historically, we’ve seen how positive standards can help generate more successful affiliate programs. To refer back to the traffic light system, those Awin brands on green status have grown on average by more than 80% since 2018, compared to just 25% for those on amber status. Faster paying programs have been faster growing programs.
With the industry set to thrive in 2021, it is the responsibility of those companies and organizations in positions of authority and influence, particularly networks like our own, to ensure positive industry standards are upheld. In doing so we can spur that growth in the right way without risking leaving anyone behind.
Collaboration and consensus are
key to progress
Contrast the affiliate and partner marketing channel’s more muted evolution in the last 20 years to that of other ad models or platforms that have ‘blitzscaled’ their way to prominence and market share.
Programmatic is a space in which serious question marks on transparency have increasingly come to the fore and external regulation has now brought existential threats.
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google have similarly scaled at such speed that lawmakers and media scrutiny have only recently caught up. Many of those chickens may come home to roost this year.
If 2021 is to be the year affiliate and partner marketing truly breaks through the CMO glass ceiling, then we need to ensure we present the very best version of what our industry can do. And that means establishing robust standards that give us a platform to grow collectively.
Of course, defining and agreeing on what those standards should be is one of the major hurdles.
Luckily, this has been a topic of conversation for many of us over the last several years. Whether it be via the self-regulatory frameworks devised by the UK's Affiliate Marketing Council, the efforts of the Performance Marketing Association in the US, or the newly-formed IAB Affiliate Working Group in Australia, these kinds of cross-industry collaboration are pivotal to ensuring standards are being discussed, established and upheld.
“Affiliate networks have a pivotal role to play in establishing standards as the impartial bodies sat between brands and publishers. Upholding these standards provides a platform to demonstrate a level of professionalism that is essential to the credibility of the industry."
Colin Carter
Director, Weather2Travel
Why it pays to be 'green'
In the UK (where I’m based) the more recent work of the Publisher Board, a combination of large and small affiliate businesses, has been instrumental in ensuring publisher voices are heard by brands and networks alike. Its industry surveys and guidelines for best practices have helped foreground some of the core aspects of the industry that we can sometimes be complacent about, yet are fundamental to our ‘pay-on-performance’ model functioning.
Take payments as an example. Cashflow for publishers has never been more important to their businesses than it is right now. Delayed payments for generated sales make it impossible to reinvest that capital in another campaign. These delays are a wrench in the affiliate marketing flywheel.
At Awin, it’s this dilemma that prefaced our introduction of the ‘traffic light’ system you can see today in our interface. Advertisers on ‘green’ status are those who validate their sales quicker and are covered by Awin’s Accelerated Payments program, where the network pays validated commissions out before receiving payment from the advertiser.
Thanks to a multi-million-dollar investment from Awin, affiliates receive their commissions within two weeks of generating a sale - far quicker than the sometimes months-long wait affiliates might face from slower-validating ‘amber’ programs.
Establishing a gold standard
for affiliate programs
This principle on payments is just one of five key pillars I’m pleased to say forms our newly-launched Awin Gold Standard for affiliate programs on our network, which is currently available in the UK and will be rolled out to other markets in the coming months. Our conversations with the Publisher Board have been influential in defining what these pillars constitute: Tracking, de-duplication, commissions, payment and validation.
“I'm really excited for the launch of Awin's Gold Standard initiative. As part of the Publisher Board, we have been seeking to improve affiliate standards, so it's reassuring that we have the backing of a major network to help push this agenda forward and highlight examples of best practices in order to improve transparency within the industry and incite change.”
Heather Peebles
Head of Affiliate Partnerships, Reward Gateway
Advertiser programs that demonstrate best-in-class characteristics across these aspects achieve Awin’s Gold Standard and are recognized as such within our user interface.
And this recognition is by no means a superfluous medal of honor for worthy advertisers. There are real, tangible benefits that can accrue.
Historically, we’ve seen how positive standards can help generate more successful affiliate programs. To refer back to the traffic light system, those Awin brands on green status have grown on average by more than 80% since 2018, compared to just 25% for those on amber status. Faster paying programs have been faster growing programs.
With the industry set to thrive in 2021, it is the responsibility of those companies and organizations in positions of authority and influence, particularly networks like our own, to ensure positive industry standards are upheld. In doing so we can spur that growth in the right way without risking leaving anyone behind.
Although it’s often hard to agree on standards for the entire industry, it’s to the benefit of everyone when we can. The reputation of our industry rises and falls with the actions of those involved. When everyone meets certain minimums, our industry is viewed more favorably by those outside of it, which encourages them to want to join in or invest in it.
Reward Gateway is the leading employee engagement platform that gives the world's most innovative individuals in HR beautiful products and tools to attract, engage and retain their people.
Reward Gateway was looking for a way to limit the number of inquiries received from its members due to restrictive offers from the platform's advertiser partners. These offers were acting as a barrier to engagement, and as a result not fulfilling their sales potential while making customers disillusioned with the cashback product.
Incorrect tracking, lengthy validations and slower payments were just some of the contributing factors that made it difficult to maintain best-in-class service for clients and their employees, putting pressure on support teams and increasing operational costs.
To address these issues and help prioritize improvements, Reward Gateway and Awin implemented a new metric across Reward Gateway’s affiliate activity - Defect Per Million Orders (DPMO). This provided a score based on a ratio between the total number of orders for each advertiser partnered with Reward Gateway (transactions generated) and the total number of defects (inquiries received).
Closer partnerships and improved transparency
Awin raised these issues with advertisers and supporting networks, and highlighted the importance of improvements in order to continue working effectively.
To build confidence, Awin needed two-way transparency so both parties could understand one another’s strategies; but to get advertisers on board with making changes there had to be an incentive.
Along with the DPMO scoring metric, Awin created an operational checklist to attribute tiers to advertisers that would incentivize them to make changes and reward those who adopt best practices – i.e. the better the affiliate program, the cheaper the marketing costs.
Tiers were built based on how many operational requirements were adhered to in order to qualify as a top partner of Reward Gateway:
The results
Awin and Reward Gateway collaborated with some popular advertisers within the Travel, Smartphone and Insurance verticals to improve user experience across the publisher’s platform.
Here are just a few examples of what was achieved:
A combination of these changes and reward exposure produced results across three key metrics (Fig. 1).
Ultimately, the improvements with member engagement and advertiser sales demonstrated this strategy was beneficial to all stakeholders and successful in growing existing partnerships. This initiative is just one example of what can be done as a publisher to create stronger partnerships with advertisers that encourage optimization and growth, but more importantly, seek to improve current industry standards.
For affiliate marketers to see improvement across the board, a similar approach needs to be adopted by all publishers where there is a share of benefits and the championing of best practices.
One of the biggest challenges the industry faces is the lack of consistency across programs, publishers, advertisers and regions. Other channels, such as paid search, have a universality which makes assessing effectiveness easier. Affiliate programs' individual nuances make this much harder. The lack of a standardized framework of measurement has implications across the industry, as individual campaigns don’t evolve and a lack of transparency and understanding could undermine the value the channel is driving.
