Affiliate marketing is gaining momentum among e-commerce brands as the year-end busy season approaches.
Over the past few years, affiliate marketing has become an integral part of a brand's marketing strategy. They found that partnering with affiliate publishers not only provides a new revenue stream, but also increases credibility for some mediums. Similarly, ahead of the holiday season, competition for spots in coveted guides like Oprah's Favorite Things is fierce.
However, affiliate marketing efforts have exploded in recent years, making it more difficult for brands to stand out with these partner campaigns. Similarly, public relations agencies that support brands and affiliate partnerships are conducting more training and building dedicated teams to help their clients get featured in top publications. Other young startups hold off on investing heavily in affiliate programs until they have enough brand recognition to focus on building relationships with well-known national publications.
Shift to “performance PR” created a gold rush
High-traffic, high-converting affiliate sales are no longer as easy as sharing a link with an editor.
Kylea O'Connor, founder of KMO Consulting and owner of the Affiliate PR Club training program, said affiliate programs were still fairly new for e-commerce brands in 2020. At the time, O'Connor said, “The publishing group has a small commerce team led by one of his affiliate managers, and he has a small commerce team that handles high-return projects such as high-demand restocks, brand-focused, celebrity-focused, or new product launches.'' The focus was on articles.” ”
Examples include headlines like “Jessica Simpson's favorite leggings” and “The moisturizer that sold out 5 times is finally back in stock.” “These independent works will bring in revenue of $10,000 to $35,000 per product article, and AOV will range from $12 to $100,” O'Connor said of the brand's sales. Ta. “It was definitely quality over quantity back then.” These articles typically appear in high-traffic publications such as People magazine or his Allure, generating sales over several months.
But now, integrating SEO and affiliate links has become profitable, especially as Google tightens its algorithmic requirements when it comes to proving a site's EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Trust, Authority). O'Connor said that by acquiring readers through Google search, publishers can guide customers through the sales funnel. “Affiliates' focus and strategy now is on evergreen content with searchable keywords, rather than creating new content.” In this way, their outlets continually publish articles. Updates so you can rank higher in Google search results.
“If a DTC brand hasn’t prioritized an affiliate growth channel or didn’t have one in Q4 2021, they felt it economically,” she said, adding that if they started an affiliate program or , leading to a significant increase in DTC brands investing more in affiliate programs. O'Connor has trained more than 200 PR professionals in the past two years alone, she said. She says, “PR agencies' brand clients demand and invest in affiliate support, so agencies are forced to learn or lose them.”
Julian Fraser, founder and CEO of Dialogue New York, a digital marketing consultancy that has worked with brands such as Sakara Life, Brooklinen and Olipop, says that affiliate marketing includes product bundles and gifts. We agreed that we needed a dedicated team to market the publication with financial incentives to have brands featured in the guide. Thematic content such as.
However, while creator affiliate platforms such as ShopMy, ShareaSale, and LiketoKnowit make it easier to distribute funds to creators, “we've found that the most successful affiliate programs require relationship building beyond financial incentives.” Fraser said.
Brands moving to sophisticated affiliate models
Personalization is a key aspect of a publisher’s affiliate content to generate real sales.
Sexual wellness brand Foria has been expanding its affiliate network in recent years in an effort to diversify its marketing mix beyond paid channels such as Meta and TikTok.
Foria co-founder and CEO Jon Brandon told Modern Retail that the company currently has several team members dedicated to growing the channel. Brandon said, “Affiliate is a particularly important channel for us given the myriad challenges we face in terms of 'policing' our ingredients and sexual wellness products on social channels.” “More authentic communication is often possible through affiliates.”
When promoting sexual wellness products, companies like Foria often use careful language and sexual euphemisms to describe their products. Brandon believes that leveraging the trusted expert opinions of carefully selected affiliates can help circumvent some of these barriers and provide “an effective way to communicate the benefits that our products offer to consumers.” It's a method.” Foria's popular affiliates include Cosmo, Vice, and Well + Good.
But Brandon said that standing out on the channel requires “generous affiliate commissions and personalized attention for each partner.” To that end, Brandon said Foria is willing to work with each affiliate to “understand their needs and provide custom offers to effectively reach their communities.”
Overall, Brandon said, providing publishers with high-converting assets is a key factor in converting viewers into customers. “We invest in creative split testing and hand over our best assets to our affiliates to support Foria’s promotion,” he said.
a daunting task
As competition for quality affiliate content increases, young DTC brands are also considering how best to approach this channel.
Apollo, a candle brand launched in 2021, was cautious in its approach to affiliate marketing in the early days. Apollo founder James Napoli said that while the company has a small affiliate program, the marketing model was not a direct focus or primary strategy for gaining media coverage. Napoli said that as a relatively new company, Apollo remains focused on increasing awareness by tailoring PR pitches to publications that highlight the brand story and product offering, with the goal of organic coverage. He said there was. “We will share a link to our affiliate program if a publication requests it, but it is not driven by us,” he said.
Beyond major publications, Napoli said Apollo is currently being “cautious” about its affiliate application process, saying “rather than risk the brand's reputation with a large number of unknown or untested affiliates, “We would like to see fewer high-quality partners.”
Because Apollo's candle line is a luxury product, the company encourages them to target specific publishers whose readership overlaps with the brand's target audience, such as publishing content focused on travel, luxury lifestyle, and interior design. ing. Apollo's publications include Elle, Who What Wear, and Forbes. “And we are closely monitoring whether there are any affinities with other brands featured in this publication,” Napoli said.
In fact, Dialogue New York's Fraser says this is one reason why affiliate marketing “isn't right for every brand,” as brands outsource the sharing of promo codes and discount-earning offers to media partners. He added that it was necessary. “This could devalue the brands of luxury goods and certain lifestyle companies,” she says.
Mrs. Mama Bear, one of the newly launched direct-to-consumer brands, is putting its affiliate program on hold, at least for now. This women's workwear brand launched in July and is primarily focused on acquiring customers through physical pop-ups in Houston, Texas, and Aspen, Colorado. Founder Lee Evans Lee said the fashion line is made from activewear fabrics and it's difficult to introduce it to new audiences through affiliate content alone. “You have to touch and feel to understand the value proposition,” she said. “I also knew that I wanted a relationship with each customer.”
Mr Lee said it was risky to put money into affiliates and pay them fees because it was still an unknown brand. It also requires hiring a full-service agency to handle marketing and affiliate account management, which can be expensive for private brands.
For some brands, affiliate marketing, rather than performance marketing, remains part of their earned media strategy. “We view our efforts in this area as an investment in the brand, rather than a conversion or reach play,” Napoli said.
But just as brands feel they may have found the right affiliate strategy, there are further changes on the horizon that may force a change in strategy.
“There's another big change coming early in the fourth quarter of next year, with Google and Apple eliminating third-party cookie tracking. That's going to have a big impact on the affiliate landscape,” O'Connor said. By then, if sales numbers change from the previous year, brands will need to work with their publisher partners to address the changes. “The key to survival in this channel is adaptation,” O'Connor says.
