Nataly Ptitsyna is head of PR for ClickDealer, one of the most consistently popular and successful networks in the Blue Book rankings. In her six years with the company, she has helped it achieve huge growth and brings to her role a passionate belief that the only way to succeed in performance marketing is to partner with the best.
Blue Book: Let’s talk about publishers and affiliates first. How do you balance your marketing efforts between the recruitment of new affiliates and the retention of your existing partners? Which is more important?
Nataly Ptitsyna: ClickDealer works with affiliates, publishers, and agencies worldwide. A majority of our partners have worked with us for years, many since we were founded back in 2012. As a company, we are always open to forming new connections, new partnerships, and as a result, new success stories. We don’t prioritize either new or existing partners – they are both important to us.
When seeking to attract new partners we use a lot of different tactics, and put resources into developing sophisticated creatives and content. We typically emphasize our brand, our experience in the industry, and our technologies, and then we also utilize a range of newbie-friendly perks.
For our longer-term partners, we treat them as old friends, because they often are exactly that. We have individual deals for them, offer luxury goods through our loyalty program, and also often invite them to private parties around the world to meet face-to-face. Additionally, we have a referral program which means that we welcome friends of our friends.
Last year we also launched a VIP affiliate program, where our most loyal partners can get benefits like individual payment terms, more promotional and bonus programs, concierge services, and so on. My ultimate goal for the PR effort is to attract new partners, develop our joint business, and turn them into VIP partners for long-term relationships.
Blue Book: What are the key factors that advertisers should consider when selecting a new network partner? How can an advertiser tell the difference between a good network and a poor one?
Nataly Ptitsyna: That’s a good question. There are lots of factors, but I will mention the key ones:
- Reputation in the industry. Trust is everything in this business;
- The network’s ability to reliably deliver the traffic agreed upon;
- Industry experience and feedback from existing partners;
- Client and partner support, and management expertise;
- In-depth knowledge of relevant verticals and niches, as well as the details of flow, traffic, and funnels;
- Presence and capabilities of the network’s media buying team;
- A variety of traffic types, quality of traffic, and volume.
Blue Book: What about the ways you recruit new partners? Online is obvious, but what about offline? How did COVID affect your conference activities?
Nataly Ptitsyna: Face-to-face meetings and maintaining acquaintances are very important to us. Before COVID our team was attending around 40 events a year, but in 2020-2021 the number reduced to 20-25 conferences, many of which were online.
In 2022 conferences came back, though we faced another challenge: the war in Ukraine, where we have an office. We quickly opened a new office in Warsaw, relocated those who wished to move, and changed our strategy and orientation. For me conferences are like a melting pot of rockstar marketers, top executives, colleagues, and entrepreneurs, so you always have a chance to gain new insights, take part in panel discussions, drop by to see partners, and meet new people.
Blue Book: Many affiliates jump from one network to the next constantly seeking a higher-paying offer. What are the benefits for publishers that instead choose to build a longer-term relationship with a network?
Nataly Ptitsyna: The key point is that a higher paying offer does not necessarily equate to higher ROI, and nor can anyone offer usually provide the same results hour to hour and day to day. If an affiliate jumps from one network to another it is extremely difficult to achieve consistent results. You need to assess the performance of a particular offer, evaluate results over a longer period and, importantly, ensure that you are sending your traffic to a network that you trust, rather than simply choosing on the basis of the highest payout.
At ClickDealer we work hard to establish long-term and prosperous business relationships. We align with our partners because we have the same goal, to achieve better performance. That alignment brings multiple benefits: stability, profits, support, and valuable experience. I think it is really clear that longer-term relationships deliver more success.
Blue Book: Do advertisers also benefit from working with a single network over a longer period of time?
Nataly Ptitsyna: Advertisers often work with several networks at a time, because they tend to look for different sets of affiliates\ publishers\ media-buyers, types of traffic, and volume.
Having said that, building a long-term relationship with a particular network such as ourselves, for example, allows for mutual understanding, points of growth and development, loyalty, and effective exchange of knowledge and expertise.
I would even say that it is easier to start with a reliable company and grow the mutual partnership, optimize and find the best ways and opportunities for both sides, than to be scattered on 5-10 campaigns, to spend more on tests and to get less data. Partnering with a single but trustful company is about going ahead step by step and finding the best approaches. More pros than cons as you may notice
Blue Book: How was 2022 for ClickDealer and what are the plans for 2023?
Nataly Ptitsyna: As I mentioned previously, 2022 was overshadowed by the war in Ukraine but those people are stronger than anyone can imagine. As a result, in addition to our four offices around the globe, we opened a new one in Warsaw and our Kyiv office is also fully operational.
We have changed our focus and our PR strategy, focusing more now on local markets in Europe and other Tier 1 countries. We have big plans, particularly in lead gen and pay-per-call. These markets have already conquered affiliates’ and lead buyers’ attention in the USA, are growing fast, and becoming only more ambitious and profitable.
If you are an advertiser or publisher and wish to build a relationship with ClickDealer, please click here.