In this week’s member-guest post, we hear from Igor Gubin, Region Manager Europe at Admitad Affiliate Network, as he shares their latest research into paid search and affiliate programmes and how they have boosted textile industries.
In times of crisis, companies start to pay extra attention to their spending. As paying for clicks gives way to solutions that support ROI, the role of affiliate marketing continues to grow. Has it worked well for apparel in a challenging 2020? And which publishers have been able to benefit? Admitad Affiliate and SimilarWeb conducted a joint report to investigate these questions. Here are some insightful answers below.
More traffic
Traffic to the top 500 global Fashion & Apparel e-commerce sites grew 33% between January-March in 2020 and the same time period in 2021. Most of these impressions were brought by Social Media (Youtube, Instagram) and coupon sites. Paid traffic remains one of the most important channels, as well as display advertising and affiliate marketing.
Continued growth in influencer marketing
In 2021, we expect to see continued growth in influencer and social media activity and sales across a variety of industries, not just apparel and footwear. 2020 was quite a challenge, but things are beginning to look up. The affiliate will play an important role, so we expect more publishers to prefer percentage-based rewards. For advertisers, we believe even more industries will begin to turn to performance marketing now that even cars and homes can be purchased online. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will also look for growth and will find it with affiliate networks developing businesses of all sizes.
Value for money
In the YoY change in traffic to the top 500 global Fashion and Apparel sites from 7 key acquisition channels, such as organic search or social ads, paid search appears to be a big focus for Fashion and Apparel sites, with a 62% increase in traffic. Display ads and Social grew by 22% and 12% respectively, while email traffic sources grew by just 1%.
It's a long-term game
There are many pitfalls for newcomers to performance marketing, but the most common of these is the expectation of immediate results. Even if your affiliate marketer is kind enough to provide you with a responsible account manager, it still takes time to get your program known to publishers, adjust compensation rates, etc. These things take time, so the key to success is realising that you're playing a long game - an essential understanding for every business - and thus, you can adapt your long-term strategy to the volatile market requirements using flexible and measurable earning models.
However, the balance of power is slowly shifting: as more SMBs become more willing to handle campaigns themselves, they will also be able to take advantage of various tools and platforms, with all the pros (transparency in measurement and fair payments) and contras (long time needed for a campaign concept and realisation).
Want to find out more and get extra value from your affiliate channel? Take a look at Admitad Affiliate’s Academy for useful affiliate marketing content and free courses, and contact me if you need any specific insights. The full version of the AdTech report is available here.
