What’s the Importance of Affiliate Marketing to Ecommerce?
The start of 2020s has been a pivotal moment for retail as ecommerce has outperformed the high street. We’ve read newspaper reports since 2014 proclaiming that retailers were abandoning the high street and moving online. The recent pandemic has seen a huge escalation of that process.
A 2020 CBSNews article shows pictures across the USA and around the world of abandoned shopping malls. The same is happening across Europe and established high street names like Debenhams and Top Shop are disappearing or going completely online.
Changes in Advertising
There have been changes in the pattern of advertising spend over the last two years as well. Many ad budgets were cut, sometimes slashed completely as lockdowns were introduced and consumer spending slowed.
This led me to thinking about the broader picture and how ecommerce players should respond – particularly in relation to affiliate marketing. I recently spoke to a few friends in the industry for an article on the Publisher Discovery blog based on X key points that anyone in ecommerce needs to consider in their marketing strategy.
- Affiliate delivers a strong ROI
- Every metric can be tracked
- Lets you reach new audiences and scale
- Affiliates should ideally be integrated into your wider channel mix
- Affiliate referrals offer social proof
- Advertising cost only comes after the sale
- SEO benefits
You can read the full article on the Publisher Discovery blog