Pick your filly: is affiliate marketing worth a flutter?

TAGS: Affiliate marketing

Client Service Manager at Silverbean, Emma Adcock, discusses the risks and rewards of affiliate marketing, how to make sure you back a winner and don’t lose your shirt on a nag.

I’m not lucky. I’m one of those people who never win raffles and hardly ever place bets on the national lottery - but even I’m prepared to place a small bet for fun. In life a little bit of loss is the fun of the fair (you aren’t going to wake up in cold sweat thinking about that fiver you lost at the casino on Saturday night) – in business however loss is a different affair- losses big or small are never fun, some can constitute a learning curve yes- but mainly they represent a waste of resources and energy- so I think we’d all agree it’s always best to avoid it or at least spread the risk of getting burnt by loss- and even curb your enthusiasm when it comes to excessive speculation.

So is affiliate marketing a dead cert or more of a gamble than you imagine? Let’s look at the odds….

Put your money where your mouth is

It has been widely reported that UK marketers have called for increased performance based marketing in 2010. Respondents at the recent TFM&A London believe 2010 will herald a strong skew toward said performance based marketing- 34% said there would be a greater emphasis on measurement and ROI and 25% thought this would be backed with an increased focus of targeted campaigns rather than a mass marketing approach.

In reality (and if the stats detailed above are to be believed) this means media channels must really measure up to new pressures – and who, what, where, why questions have never been traditional marketing’s strong point – although they’re based on a strong and solid foundation of facts, dates and customer profiling- marketing, design and media selection as a business discipline is often an art – instinctive and original wins out over stayed and formulaic every time.

So is online the answer?

Well affiliate marketing is in a great position to take advantage of this new marketing mantra. Marketers completing affiliate marketing can breath a sign of relief -as you can actually see where the money is coming from, and when drilled about their marketing budgets they can merrily hand over detailed statistical data (you can actually track your success by the hour) and (best yet) they only pay for the sales they receive – that’s right no sale = no pay.

Win/Win or even odds?

Yes it’s a beautiful thing 0% risk, but before you put away your TVRs, shelve your demographic splits, chuck your OTH’s and bin your OTS’s, (and before you drag your “Big book of media jargon” out of the cupboard to know what I’m going on about with those in any case!) hang on a min - affiliate marketing isn’t fool-proof. Not that I’m implying you’re a fool dear reader, more along the lines of as per everything in life- there are hazards and un-foreseen aspects that could potentially trip you up.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of affiliates out there and they all fall into different categories and their relative strengths and weaknesses naturally work better for some sectors more than others. Categories include; cashback affiliates, voucher code affiliates, community affiliates, blogs and shopping directories. Please note this list is not exhaustive- or else this blog would dissolve into a big list without any real advice!

The more the merrier remains general ethos of affiliate marketing and I am not denying this- actively recruiting a large amount of key affiliates is critical to the success of your campaign, however what to do with them once you’ve got them and which ones to focus upon at certain times should be lead by your own sector and the particulars of your products/services.

In the same vein different affiliates also function more effectively with different promotions and content. Customisation and strategy is everything when it comes to affiliate marketing.

The same strategy is employed when betting on a horse race, when it comes to a"Filly"ate marketing (I hope you liked what I did there) you assess and judge your different filly on its merits and position, track record and ranking. A good judgement call which will help you to assess their role in your overall plan.

The common mistake in affiliate marketing is to assume one size fits all, it’s too much of a generalisation, whilst there are some key tools each affiliate requires beyond that you have to refine each offer and each piece of content to suit your individual affiliate’s needs. And make it as easy as possible for them to understand and access that particular promotion or article of information.

Don’t lose out

Customers have learnt some new tricks in the UK over the past year.

Last Christmas should be christened the net’s first Cyber Shopping Spree- natural forces – namely the avalanche of snow that fell over the British isles and the nations newly developed taste for online voucher codes and cashback sites conspired to keep the UK shopper in- snugly shopping by the warmth of their laptops.

And this spring they haven’t kicked the habit. Current trends indicate this is unlikely to dissipate.

And what about the apparently “inherent” risk attached to shopping online? It’s strange I haven’t heard any media stories about risky online shopping antics for ages – have you? And customers have seemed to have forgotten too.

Online customers are also showing their allegiance to different affiliates, going to their favourites to root out those special discounts and bargains. Word has it that affiliate sites have the potential to over take search engines in the not too distant future as hybrids of the two begin to emerge.

So if your customers have faith in affiliates shouldn’t you have a no risk flutter?

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