Advertisers: Basics of Running an Affiliate Programme
- Written by Emma Sharp on
No matter the size of your business, there are several key aspects to understanding and running a good affiliate programme.
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No matter the size of your business, there are several key aspects to understanding and running a good affiliate programme.
Working with brands and publishers of all sizes across the Awin network in 15 global territories, we’ve put together our key thoughts on how to work towards a strong affiliate programme in this ever-developing industry.
One of the key USPs of affiliate marketing is the payment model. Traditionally, this has always been a ‘last click wins’ CPA (commission per acquisition), although this has now begun to shift to incorporate new types of publishers and broadening of the channel. We see affiliate advertisers looking at attribution models, or alternative payment methods to ensure that publishers are rewarded fairly, but the fundamental idea behind affiliate marketing remain the same.
Before you begin to tackle any tasks, lay out your goals and objectives for the programme. Each retailer will be looking to achieve something different, be it increased transactions, increased order value, more traffic to site or greater brand awareness, or a combination of all of these.
Once you have a programme live, you will need to understand what metrics would mean your programme is performing well. Set out your budget and targets and have an idea of what looks like a realistic achievement. Make sure your targets match the KPIs you’re looking to achieve as this will be your primary measure of success. When putting together your targets, start with a focus on your key metrics and work the remaining figures back from there.
For example, the below targets have been calculated alongside each other, and therefore should see all targets worked on together. 200 transactions, at an average commission rate of 5%, will result in a £500 spend.
These targets have not been calculated alongside each other but instead focus on a maximum achievement for each metric separately. Whilst it’s important to have individual targets, these metrics are all intertwined and, in this method, despite hitting transaction, revenue and average commission targets it would still be possible to show an extreme miss in AOV and overspend in commission. 500 transactions at an AOV of £150 would mean a £75,000 revenue target, and with an average commission of 5% would mean a spend of £3,750.
There are lots of retailers offering affiliate programmes, and a key step towards operating a successful programme will be attracting the most engaged affiliates.
One of the greatest ways to attract customers is for them to see your product. The more creative – product images, banners, logos, lifestyle imagery – you can offer, the more views it can gather. Ensure you update creative regularly in line with seasonal and messaging changes, new collection launches or brand updates.
The interface is designed to offer both advertisers and publishers as much opportunity as possible to grow their affiliate activity.
Every affiliate site has a different demographic, style and way of working and it can be very difficult to work with them all in the same way. It’s important to be flexible in your approach and be open to face-to-face meetings and calls. A strong working relationship is a great way to build partnerships between advertiser and publisher. To aid with this, Awin offers a range of themed ‘Awin Days’ to bring together advertiser and publishers from certain sectors, provide insights on the industry alongside opportunities for networking with some of our key partners and account managers.
Awin aims to develop new tools and features to help aid the progression of the affiliate channel. One of the latest of these features is ‘voucher attribution’ which allows an advertiser to work with a specific publisher, and ensure they receive payment for every use of the code they are allocated, no matter what channel this has been attributed to. The tool can be found within the ‘My Offers’ section of the interface, and allows the addition of a code and attribution to publisher ID which will ensure all uses are reported correctly. This is a great way of working with influencers and content publishers who can often lose out on last click attribution, as they function as an inspiration and research resource in the earlier stages of the purchase cycle. If you’re unable to offer exclusive codes, another option to work with publishers who feature higher up in the purchase funnel is ‘payment on influence’.
Within the interface Awin offers visibility on which publishers have encouraged users to click through to a retailer without securing the final purchase themselves. Upper funnel publishers are just as important as last click converters and utilising the payment on influence method can be a great way to work closer with this genre of publisher. Using the tool, you can allocate a fixed payment per influence touch point to a selection of publishers or your entire publisher base. Read more here about how Superdry France incorporated this into their strategy for the year. It’s also possible to work with affiliates on a tenancy basis, offering a fixed sum in exchange for scheduled guaranteed exposure. This is one of the most common ways to increase promotional opportunities and ensure your brand features in some of the highest traffic areas of publisher sites.
The affiliate industry is ever-changing, and we see the continual release of new technologies and ways of working through our publishers, advertisers and networks across the space. This means it is essential to have a strong basis to your affiliate programme, leaving your brand in a prime position to take advantage of these progressions and excel within the channel.
If you’d like to know more about any of the tools available to you, contact your local account management team.
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