Every year we try to produce relevant, useful content on the JEBCommerce Blog Post. Stuff you can use whether you are an affiliate, advertiser, agency, affiliate manager, search guru or marketing exec. Here are a few of the most visited and shared posts from 2013.
Incremental Affiliate Sales – It’s Coming
Many years ago I was involved in a profitability rationalization project at a large retailer. The assumption was made, by others, that affiliate sales were not as profitable as previously thought and that many sales would have happened already, or they were simply increasing costs of other channels. I learned a lot during that period, a lot of things I still use today. I’m extremely lucky to have had that experience as this type of thing is being discussed more and more these days. Many of our clients are now asking these questions, the most frequent being “Are my sales truly incremental?”. Some advertisers are even asking if they need an affiliate program at all. READ MORE ON INCREMENTAL AFFILIATE SALES HERE.
Affiliate Marketing Market Size Infograph
Have you ever asked yourself how big the affiliate marketing is? We have, many times. So have our clients, potential clients, affiliates and the press. We took some time this spring to scour the interwebs and find any possible data on the affiliate channel we could. It is surprising how little data is aggregated by the performance marketing channel. But, we were able to pull together many nuggets. It’s clear, affiliate marketing is big, vital to the success of any online companies and isn’t going anywhere soon. READ MORE ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE AFFILIATE INDUSTRY HERE.
Incremental Sales Part 5 – How to guide for tracking
Have you increased affiliate sales dramatically and you are still getting the grumpy cat from the CEO? Than you have come to the right place. This is the 5th and final part in our series on incremental sales in affiliate marketing. Catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 andPart 3 and Part 4. We have discussed definitions, some possible ways to calculate incremental, who should be working on a project like this and things you should know before getting started. READ MORE ABOUT TRACKING INCREMENTAL SALES HERE.
Lifetime Value – What is it – Why is it important and what do you do with it.
More and more profitability is being discussed within the affiliate marketing industry. Incremental sales, new customer acquisition, cart sniping etc, these all are concepts that advertisers are now very aware of and requiring their affiliate managers to know, manage and develop strategies for. They are also looking at Customer Lifetime Value. READ MORE ABOUT LIFETIME VALUE IN AFFILIATE PROGRAMS HERE.
Incremental Affiliate Sales Part 2
I truly wish there was one simple formula that all advertisers used all the time. There isn’t. Incremental is defined differently across industries and companies. Every company I have worked with in this regard has been completely different. Some start and end with first click vs last click. Others care for nothing more than new vs existing users. Still others follow the customer across all marketing channels and attempt to apply certain assumptions and models to determine what touch point(s) added value to their path to purchase and which ones did not. READ MORE ABOUT INCREMENTAL SALES HERE.
Using Cart Sniping to Your Advantage
It’s time to rely less on tech and more on strategy. So what is the problem with cart sniping. Wait, what is it exactly? Simply put, it’s when a customer has come to an advertiser’s site in a non-affiliate path and when they reach the check out process (they liked something, added it to the cart and started the buying process), they quickly Google “brand name + coupon”. They find a coupon, click through the affiliate link and finish their sale. Affiliates may say, “so what?” But many advertisers find this type of sale much less valuable than one that initiated with the affiliate. READ MORE ABOUT CART SNIPING HERE.
Wow, almost all of our top blog posts have to do with the constant search for profitability. It seems to be a constant concern for our clients and prospective clients. We also continue to see the affiliate size infograph as one of the top posts this year, it was also THE top blog post from 2012. There seems to be a hunger to quantify just how big the affiliate marketing sphere is.
Enjoy!
