Affiliate Marketing during the Holiday Season

16%.

This is the volume of transactions in e-commerce whose provenance is directly related to a marketing affiliate strategy. This is a growing figure which is also emphasised by the volume of business generated by the affiliate. In the United States, it went from $4.21 billion in 2015 to a forecast figure of $6.8 billion in 2020.

But with the holiday season approaching, most advertisers are working on finalising their marketing strategy. And what could be better than trusting affiliate marketing to sell your product differently? To find out how let’s review what matters most to boost your business performance.

The key thing to remember here is advance planning!

All affiliates are in great demand during the Black Friday period at Christmas, and sometimes even up until the January sales. If you want to succeed in your holiday season campaign, you have to spend some time working out what to sell as part of a performance marketing strategy. This is an approach that makes it easier to plan affiliate marketing better during the holiday season:

• Make a list of products to promote – this can be your new arrivals, star products or surplus stock.
• Find people who can relay it – each product has a buyer target, and each target has a network of affiliates. So you have to know which affiliate may agree to promote a particular product, based on its editorial line and the sociodemographic typology of its community.
• Produce content and kits for sharing – this work will save affiliates time and they will therefore be able to communicate better about your product, using the right sales pitch.

Know how to tell wonderful stories

Today, you are no longer selling products or services, but experiences.

You’re not selling makeup, you’re selling a way to gain self-confidence. You’re not selling a mattress, you’re selling a good night’s sleep so you’re on top form the next day. As a consequence of this paradigm shift, you need to be imaginative and have a good story to tell that can be picked up by your affiliates.

Good stories generally include genuine testimonials from people. These are case studies from customers whose life has changed after using your products. This could include professionals who are able to work more efficiently using new software, sports enthusiasts who have taken on new challenges after being motivated by their new connected watch or a coaching program, or workers who are making clothes in fair trade, equitable environment, etc.

You have to find the right angle that will serve your story so that you don’t just focus on your product’s features, but what it can give your customers. Obviously, everything needs to be authentic and real.

Update your offers

You can adapt your commercial offers according to the time of year. For example, you can start slowly at the end of November, then accelerate in the three weekends before Christmas. This means special offers, free services or exclusive products.

What matters most is not to sell the same product with the same offer all the time. You can adapt your pitch and marketing based on your personas.

Be transparent

A relationship with an affiliate goes beyond the usual relationship between a customer and a supplier. Above all, it must be a genuine partnership which is based on trust. For it to bear fruit, you need to communicate in advance about the commission amount, the timeframe and the terms of payment, etc.

Advertisers must focus as much on taking care of their affiliate network as they do on taking care of their customers. Because if you don’t, your competitor might do it in your place.

Find the right partner

Nothing is stopping you from going into affiliate marketing yourself. However, you will waste a lot of time looking for the right profiles and creating relationships of trust. This is where the added value of specialised agencies comes in. They know all the challenges with affiliates and more especially have the right technology to help with establishing these relationships. A link can be easily tracked across platforms so that advertisers end up with helpful KPIs for measuring their return on investment.

If you want to find the right agency, you should look at the following:

• Their references – who are their current clients and are they satisfied?
• How they operate – is there one project manager per client? Is their support local or outsourced from abroad?
• Their organisation – what are the internal skills to be built upon? Who are the experts working for the agency?
• Their services – are they the providers or are they strategy consultants? Do they go beyond simply getting you in touch? What technology is used and does it comply with the GDPR?

Affiliate Marketing during the holiday period is an effective performance marketing lever.
Not only does it help structure your lead generation, but it also reduces risks. The advertiser only pays for the results they get. It’s a win-win for optimising your business during the holidays.

Contact our experts. Get in touch to hear more about our performance marketing services, products and the possibilities of working together.