During a crisis, leaders should lead from the front, and during the good times, leaders should lead from behind. We are working at SmarterChaos to “lead from the front” as we pivot towards affiliate marketing offers that help humanity like Tele Medicine Offers, Hand Sanitizers, and we are working on sourcing masks for hospitals to protect our doctors and nurses. Our offers like Shipt, or Gobble and others are really helping those quarantined to keep needed supplies coming in. In the long term, the industry and our company will be ok.
For large-scale ecommerce affiliate programs, the near future does not look so good. Many large ecommerce companies like Macys or TJ Maxx will not pivot, and therefore will close their affiliate programs, shrink their channels, and possibly never recover. In the near future, six months ahead, the companies that will survive will be thinking about physical delivery, digital delivery, ways to help out humanity, and ultimately putting profit aside to really focus on value. Much like everything else in our lives now post COVID-19, we have to streamline, focus on what matters, and really realize that relationships and people are at the core of all that we do as advertisers, as affiliates, as agencies and as networks.