At the start of this new year, many are looking forward to what Affiliate Marketing in 2024 promises to yield. We grabbed a few precious moments with Parul Bhargava, our CEO at vCommission, this week to get her thoughts about the biggest challenges and trends shaping the industry this year.
Read on for her take on where these moments will lead us and what she sees shaping change in the Affiliate Global market this year.
The industry will need to overcome its longstanding tracking woes. Privacy concerns and cookie deprecation remain the elephant in the room for many advertisers still. Advertisers will need to innovate and partner with networks whose tracking solutions can rely on first-party data, contextual targeting, and granular reporting that enables fraud detection. We spent the majority of last year upgrading our platform so that our clients and publishers could gain access to more tools and data to help drive performance driven stats and accurate tracking of data. The entire industry will be doubling down on fraud prevention – we’re seeing a rise in fraudsters disguised as “retargeting solutions” but instead cooking hijacking.
Networks with affiliates that have multiple promotional methods and publisher onboarding and relationship management will win out longer term as proactive partner vetting will be key. Niche Hyper-personalization is another area we see advertisers investing budgets to gain traction especially with lead generators and sites that capture data and interest segments from their customers.
Reaching micro-niches effectively takes hyper-personalization to a whole new level. Partnering with the right global networks opens doors to diverse publishers and lets you scale affiliate campaigns.
There is a lot happening right now in affiliate marketing both e-commerce and other industries more explicitly in B2B and SaaS partnerships I’m seeing:
1.AI-powered Optimization techniques impacting profit: Machine learning will optimize targeting, bidding, and campaign management, driving higher ROI for both advertisers and publishers.
2.Content Marketing Synergy: Blending affiliate marketing with strategic content creation strengthens brand awareness and drives better conversions.
3.Performance-Based Partnerships: Expect to see more pay-per-action (PPA) and revenue-sharing models, aligning advertiser payouts with actual outcomes as brand partnerships start to increase this year.
We recently re-launched our network platform and with that came a lot of important changes and processes for our team as we take the network forward globally. Whilst vCommission is based in India – our remit is Global. Here are some of the key activities our team will be undertaking this year to work with more publishers in Europe and the US region.
Expanding Global Partnerships: We’re attending major events like ASW and T+C and AMPLIFY summit to solidify our global partnerships and publisher outreach to a host of new local markets across a number of sectors both in person and virtually too!
Investing in Local Talent: Hiring top-tier personnel across key areas like sales, business development, technology, data analytics, and client services which will fuel vCommission’s growth in the UK, Europe and US regions.
Focusing on New Verticals: Expanding into untapped areas of growth – for example we recently launched COD Ecom in India – much like it happens in EU. Since EU is becoming competitive, it would be interesting & highly scalable for EU publishers to try the same techniques in the India region where competition is less & CPA’s much lower.
This really has a two-prong approach for us.
For Advertiser Brands: We’ll be doubling down on authentic brand storytelling and value proposition upsell. We believe our customers want genuine connections, not just sales pitches and our team is there to help you tell your story to publishers enticing them to drive sales forward. We’re investing in training for our team and supporting brands with account management teams that know and understand core deliverables to meet our clients ROI objectives.
For our valued Publishers: We’ll be focussing on expanding our traffic sources globally. We’re very honest as an affiliate network. We never do scrubs or cut backs. In fact, we claim that if our data and our advertisers data differs we’ll pay the affiliate double. Our aim is to ensure publishers can access granular data to optimize their campaigns and generate longer term earning potentials with our Advertisers.
Publishers looking to grow their commission in 2024 should prioritize quality over quantity. Focus on the following key areas in your business and I think you’ll see results come through consistently. It may appear to be boring – but I believe that simplicity is often the key to success.
Content Quality: Create stable, scalable advertiser or brand content that resonates with your target audience. High-quality content can drive more conversion and increase your commission earnings. By all means test AI in content delivery but remember your audience is authentic and your content should be too!
Diversification: Explore different niches and verticals to expand your traffic reach especially as first party data is now so important. Diversification can help you tap into new markets and untapped revenue streams.
Use your Data Analytics: Utilize data analytics to track performance and identify opportunities for further optimization. Data-driven decisions can lead to better commission outcomes – pick your advertisers wisely, know your customer first then decide who you’ll promote.
Strive for Collaboration: Collaborate with trusted affiliate networks to access a wider range of localized offers and gain access to valuable resources and support to build your business at the same time too!
That’s a really hard question to answer but I’ll try to contain it to just one thing. I think there are a series of small incremental things to do with your affiliate business this year that will make all the difference in how your business performs. I feel this is a year of getting back to basics. Doing the simple things better, more efficiently and utilizing new tools like AI to systematize your day-to-day administrative tasks so that you’re free to explore, test, learn and do something new.
Find ways to save time, get more cost efficient with lead generation, and measure accountability and outcomes with clear goal setting and KPI outcomes with partners. Let’s see brands get clarity on what they need and want and publishers see results when they decide to partner with brands that have solid offers.
I’d like to see the whole industry look forward and collaborate together to simplify the customer experience and focus on the small things that drive incremental growth and more revenue. This may be different things to each person reading this article, but that’s the simple answer to the one big thing!
Wrapping 2024 Affiliate Trends Up:
We’re clearly gearing up for an impactful 2024. Our focus on innovation, global expansion, and data-driven solutions positions us well to navigate the shifting landscape of affiliate marketing. By taking Parul’s advice, both brands and publishers can rise above the noise and achieve success in this dynamic arena.
Stay tuned for further updates from more of our global based team and keep an eye out for more exciting developments in the coming months!
If you’re interested in working with vCommission to grow your business this year, you can book a call with our sales team right HERE >> http://tinyurl.com/vcommtalk/
