The 2019 shopping season is upon us! We spoke with agency thought leaders on how to maximize affiliate sales over the holidays as most brands fight to compete for partner attention. Check out our latest eGuide: Agency Leaders’ Expert Perspectives for holiday sale insights and 2020 affiliate trends from: PartnerCentric, Acceleration Partners, All Inclusive Marketing, Ignite OPM, Gen3 Marketing/OPMpros, JEBCommerce, and Streamline. This eGuide discusses everything from best practices for partner enablement to which deals experts have seen perform extraordinarily well. Here are a few highlights from our conversations:
1. What are your predictions for this year’s holiday season for the partnerships industry?
Brands and their affiliate partners will continue to leverage data to build more customized shopping experiences.
-Adam Dahlen, Partner Centric
Buy online pick up in-store is growing in popularity as people realize they can utilize the benefits of cashback and loyalty sites, while still having an in-store experience.
-Holly Kristof, Streamline
2. How early should brands be communicating their holiday partner strategies and programs to partners? How much promotional notice is ideal for advertisers to provide to their partners to maximize brand and offer exposure?
Sending product samples in September and October gives content partners enough time to review the product and schedule the post during Q4.
-Max Johnson, Ignite OPM
3. There’s huge competition for partner attention around the holidays. What is the most effective way you communicate with partners during this busy season? In your experience, what gets a brand and its offers noticed by partners in this hectic environment?
Follow up with your partners. As mentioned above, some of these partner sites are managed by a lean team and sometimes persistence pays off during peak holiday seasons.
-Stephen Robinson, JEBCommerce
4. Great offers are important to get partner support in Q4. But beyond big discounts, what other things can brands do to equip their partners for maximum success?
By combining personalization and the flexibility of the cost per action compensation model, brands in every industry and vertical have the opportunity to target the highest-value audience.
-Nick Montrose, Acceleration Partners
“Brands might also consider making co-branded banners, exclusive landing pages, vanity codes (with the affiliate’s name in the coupon code, even if it’s not a deep discount or exclusive), ensuring free shipping and easy returns…”
-Sarah Bundy, All Inclusive Marketing (AIM)
5. Please share an example of a promotion, partnership or commission offer that outperformed your expectations during this time. Keep it vague if that makes you comfortable, i.e. Clothing retail merchant offered a BOGO for 24 hours and it increased revenue by 60%.
In an effort to optimize performance for a high-end apparel merchant in Q4, we leveraged competitive intelligence and prior experience… the partner generated a 217% increase in revenue year- over-year and the conversion rate improved from 3.5% to 5.6%.
-Jon Kendall, Gen3 Marketing/OPM Pros
Thank you to all of our agency partners for sharing these insights with us! To read more please click for an instant download of the eGuide: Agency Leaders’ Expert Perspectives.
