Every day, you’re faced with choices. In fact, researchers say the average adult makes around 35,000 choices per day on everything from breakfast to bedtime. Some of these choices have higher stakes than others.
When it comes to your marketing budget and your revenue generating efforts, it’s important to have data and insights at your disposal to make the right marketing choice, getting the most compelling message in front of the right consumer who will engage with your content and hopefully select your brand when they are ready to make that purchase.
How choice impacts the affiliate channel
We believe that with a commitment to data, machine learning and human intelligence, affiliate networks can provide their partners with more ways to optimize their programs so that they align with desired business outcomes. Brands are best positioned to succeed when they have choices–the choice to determine KPIs aligned with real business objectives and the choice to optimize campaigns against priority audiences and product lines.
Using all the information at their disposal coupled with guidance from strategic affiliate experts, marketers can make smarter choices when it comes to determining the optimal publisher mix in the affiliate channel. From there, brands need the ability to build bespoke commissioning strategies that incentive publishers to target specific audiences who are more inclined to respond to their messages and have the highest propensity to buy the products a brand is promoting. One way advertisers are becoming more effective with their affiliate spend is through Rakuten Marketing’s Dynamic Commissioning tool. Dynamic Commissioning gives advertisers the choice to offer higher or lower commission rates across multiple data inputs, including customer status, product category, and discount type among others. This, in turn, makes it clear to publishers which types of sales will generate more revenue for them while increasing the likelihood that the advertiser will see the results they desire.
Advertisers must also choose how they’re going to evaluate the overall value of a potential customer. As highlighted in Rakuten Marketing’s Evolution of Affiliate whitepaper, the increased amount of data at an advertiser’s disposal now helps them to better understand the lifetime value of a potential customer. This gives the advertiser the choice to adjust their messaging based on the long-term potential of that relationship.
For publishers, choice is critical when it comes to curating the best audience for their brand and the advertisers they work with. When it comes to creating more personalized content, it’s important for publishers to use data to make smarter content serving decisions. Affiliate networks can work with publishers to provide real-time audience insights that help them to understand more about the users on their site, including browsing history, buying history, and area of the country where a potential customer lives. This allows publishers to deliver better advertising experiences that align with customer expectations and the brands that they support.
Similarly, according to Rakuten Marketing’s Evolution of Affiliate whitepaper, publishers are expanding their offerings to include more video, branded or sponsored content, and even events to appeal to a broader audience. Content delivery options allow publishers the opportunity to diversify which channels they want to push offers and promotions and which consumers they want to focus on specifically.
Using data to make better choices
As the affiliate channel continues to evolve, publishers and advertisers need to utilize the data and insights available through their affiliate marketing network to make smarter and more effective choices to meet consumers along their path to purchase.
As advertisers spend more in the affiliate channel, publishers will continue to diversify their options to better serve their advertiser partners and their readers. Rakuten Marketing is dedicated to providing data-driven technology and strategic account support to help partners generate more revenue through the channel. Actual power happens when you’re given choices beyond the constraints and the limited variables designed into a platform. We empower our partners to make strategic decisions about their affiliate campaigns among the smartest of the 35,000 choices they will make on any given day. Empowering you as a digital marketer with the power of choice gives you greater power over the success of your marketing campaigns.
About Rakuten Marketing
Rakuten Marketing is a digital advertising business uniquely positioned at the intersection of adtech and agency. Harnessing the best of strategy and technology, our products help global businesses seamlessly expand into new markets, acquire valuable new customers and authentically engage their existing audiences by delivering experiences people love. Brands benefit with improved performance and efficiencies, and results that align to real business objectives.
