Will Affiliate Marketing Evolve?

Recently, there was a merchant who was outed on Abestweb for trying to entice affiliates into providing a non-affiliate link back to the merchant site in exchange for a 1/2 percent commission bonus. This practice was summarily criticized by affiliates, and the merchant was forced to withdraw the offer, make several apologies and replace the consultant responsible for the idea.

I think there were basically three camps of reasoning's behind the negative acceptance of this idea. 1) People were slighted at only being offered 0.5% commission increase for this valuable rank benefiting link back. 2) People felt that this idea was unethical search engine manipulation and 3) some people felt that the affiliate marketing program shouldn't be mixed in with the SEO strategy.

Reason #3 inspired me to think about how affiliate marketing will evolve in the future. I think the idea of keeping affiliate marketing as is, and not mixing it up with other online marketing efforts is going to be impossible to maintain in the near future. The perception of affiliate marketing is under assault and this assault is leading merchants to seek additional ways to gain the best value value from their affiliate programs.  The assault is coming from trademark bidders and parasitic affiliates and even coupon affiliates (not to question the overall value of coupon affiliates, just observing that SOME merchants question the value of coupon affiliates). Affiliate marketing is a great channel, it provides a measurable ROI, builds out brand presence, and employs some very creative individuals working for the benefit of a brand. Given the tremendous value affiliate marketing offers however, there will always be a trend by any business to seek more value out of a channel.

How can an affiliate channel demonstrate NEW value-add while under this constant assault from non-value adding affiliate enterprises? I think the misguided link back idea was an attempt at addressing this idea. While it was resoundingly criticized, it was an attempt at adding something new to the affiliate channel.

Can affiliates be asked reasonably to get involved in other marketing endeavors on behalf of a merchant?  Perhaps commission bonuses for helping to vote up an article on a social site? Generating comments and content to help with spin reputation management?  If it's true that the affiliates of a merchant are like an independent sales force can this sales force be employed further for the benefit of both the affiliate and the merchant?

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Word of Mouth Marketing and Affiliate Marketing

If you're involved in marketing, then you know the latest trend receiving much discussion involves conversation marketing and word of mouth marketing. Affiliate marketing never seems to get a lot of respect from other marketing designations, but I believe affiliate marketing can fit perfectly within the new conversation paradigm.

Conversation / word of mouth marketing is getting a lot of attention because it's effective. The world is interactive, and large corporations must adjust. It's almost as if we're taking a step back, to the neighborhood business, where you could  go right up to a store owner and manager, and discuss any issue. Now large corporations have to adopt back to this role on a global scale. The Internet is truly making us a global village. Additionally, word of mouth is not something new, but now the marketing world is waking up to the power of people that has been extended by the Internet.

I would put forth that any business with an army of happy and motivated affiliates is much better positioned to get into the conversation than a company without. All it takes is leveraging the relationship with the true value-adding affiliates by treating them as true partners.

Part of the bad rap that affiliate marketing earned for itself has come from the desire to drive hard revenue growth via the channel. The affiliate concept began as a way to bring new customers to a business. It evolved into a pure sales growth vehicle via rewards sites, trademark targeting search affiliates and even coupon sites. It has been argued that these type of sites really add no value to the brand and the marketing experience, thus the whole of affiliate marketing gets relegated to some sort of grey area in marketing circles.

Affiliate marketing has the potential to come out of the grey. Consider the idea of using an affiliate program as a means to approach your brand advocates and customer enthusiasts. Consider by bringing them into the affiliate program, it provides an additional means of feeling a part of the company/culture and environment. Now consider the potential impact on "the conversation" that all of these motivated brand enthusiasts can have.

A well run, balanced affiliate program will already have content based, value adding affiliates as well. These affiliates are already involved in the conversation. Build that relationship with them, harness the power of word of mouth, and get your message our onto more waves, for more people to experience.

Affiliate marketing is not a new concept, but it can be adopted to the marketing 2.0 world with incredible results. If you don't have an affiliate marketing program, consider starting one today. Not only will you receive cost-effective sales, but it' a a channel by which to jump into "The Conversation."

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What Does OpenSocial Mean for Affiliate Marketing?

Within tech circles, there is a huge amount of buzz swirling around the Google OpenSocial initiative. Google has partnered up with Myspace, Hi5, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Oracle, Bebo, Ning and a host of others (however not Facebook yet) in support of an open API for social web mini-applications. What the OpenSocial initiative is really about is providing a common API, or common language for application developers to write mini-applications for the various OpenSocial participants.

What are the advantages or uses of applications?

Using mini-applications/apps/widgets, companies / affiliates can now efficiently extend their website experience to existing communities on popular social networks.

What are social networks?

An existing network or community where friends or people of similar interest share.

Facebook was the first social network to open up their API for application development. Applications sat on top of the Facebook platform, and were accessed and used by users through their Facebook profile pages. There are a few affiliate approaches with applications; from Social Shopping Mall which allows users to share / clip and use coupons through the app to iBought which allows product recommendations and purchases through the app.

The OpenSocial API takes the Facebook concept and transforms it to an open standard accessible to any social network. Now with the OpenSocial APIs, application writers can write one application and have it run on a variety of platforms, thereby opening up exposure to even more users. One interesting side note about the OpenSocial participants, Oracle, SalesForce and LinkedIn have chosen to join up, thereby leading one to believe we'll be seeing many more business related applications in the future.

I have listened to some affiliates complain that they've tried to market on Myspace or other social networks with very minimal success. The initial attempts were flawed; making a profile, adding as many people as possible as friends, and then trying to push a marketing message out to these people. This approach didn't fill a need or solve a problem. Now with the opportunity to be creative and innovative, and write an application that can fill some need or solve some problem, marketers have a  new world of opportunities before them.

Will this be the gateway to instant success, or lead to fast millions, probably not. We are potentially riding the very beginnings of a shift. A shift away from traffic being driven by open searches through search engines on the open web, to more defined niche based traffic coming through user selected applications and widgets. Why not be prepared for when this potential shift picks up furious momentum?

If you are a merchant, do you have a social web strategy? If not, one potential way to dip your foot in the water is through your affiliate program. Partnering with value adding affiliates who are already building social applications can give your business and products exposure to the social web while minimizing your risk with the new medium.

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A level playing field in affiliate program selection?

One thing I get asked frequently by new clients is, "Will our program be as big as Brand XYZ?". One issue they face right away is that affiliates prefer big brands to no brands, they convert better just for starters.

Nicky Senyard from Share Results put together this very good article on the topic of considering brand awareness when selecting affiliate programs;

There are several things that go into selecting a merchant affiliate program, such as creative selection, affiliate support and reporting capacity. Brand strength is another important factor to consider.

As much as I'd like to say that every new brand stands a great chance of doing as well as their big brand competitor, the reality is that the Internet is not the level playing field that it once was, not even when it comes to affiliates picking partners.

There is the occasional new brand that bucks the trend, but the reality is that big brands will still take in the majority of the online dollars. Small brands need to tell a very compelling story if they want to attract big affiliates to their programs. Going beyond commission and product price, and selling not only their program but also their product and brand to the affiliates. Else affiliates will generally not consider signing up.

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