Advertisers and publishers – a love story in affiliate marketing!

In affiliate marketing, the communication between advertisers and publishers is especially important. An affiliate cooperation is only economically successful when both parties collaborate. Ideally, it's about working together to acquire new customers and continually delighting existing customers with new products - all with top performance.

In practice, this is unfortunately not always easy. Many publishers feel overwhelmed by the task of managing a high-traffic site long-term. As an advertiser, you certainly can't pay much attention to the time management of the publishers. However, you can provide incentives to reward the publishers' efforts.

Fig.1: Communication between advertiser and publisher

What defines communication in affiliate marketing?

There are various ways to maintain communication between advertisers and publishers. We've listed the most significant topics here:

Research

It's a tedious but successful method: research! Advertisers should definitely reach out to relevant publishers themselves and not wait for a publisher to approach them. Through this initial selection, you can build a successful pool of publishers yourself and directly clarify what you need and expect from the websites.

Quality over Quantity

With a large pool of publishers, it's easy to lose focus on the most important ones. Generally, the 80-20 rule applies to advertisers. Accordingly, 20 percent of the strongest publishers deliver 80 percent of the total performance per month. Affiliate marketing is a very dynamic environment where decisions and work often need to be made under time pressure. It's all the more important to have reliable publishers who work independently and purposefully and continuously keep their websites updated.

Regular Campaigns

Advertisers should plan regular, ideally exclusive, campaigns with publishers. Everyone likes to be given special preference. Therefore, regular sales rallies, mailings, and coupon campaigns must be integrated into a good affiliate plan. Only then are publishers continually able to promote current products and services.

Attractive Compensation

The commission model should be as attractive as possible! Why pay every publisher equally when the aforementioned 20 percent generate qualitatively better traffic or even more revenue? Advertisers should be flexible when it comes to compensation. Do you want to compensate publishers on a CPL or CPA basis, while the publisher asks for a CPC? Try a hybrid model.

Currency of Promotional Material

Promotional materials should be updated regularly! By 2017, up to 25 percent of sales will be reached via mobile devices. Therefore, it is advisable to switch banners to a high-resolution responsive design. This way, banners automatically adapt to smartphone and tablet sizes. In addition, A/B testing is always helpful to identify user behavior per website. Don't be discouraged by the technical challenge and regularly test which colors, placements, or approaches work best to increase the conversion rate.

Transparency

Transparency and honesty hold the cooperation together! Not every publisher works full time on their website. Don't shy away from expressing criticism or introducing new ideas and innovations. Only in this way can cooperation grow and be optimized. With a marketing strategy, the publisher might better orient themselves rather than being bombarded with new updates every week. It would be a shame to carelessly discard a painstakingly built cooperation.

Conclusion

Building a new channel like affiliate marketing requires many different prerequisites and, above all, often also patience. The performance of the sites usually develops over time and must be continuously adjusted and optimized until then. The communication between advertisers and publishers remains the most crucial element for success until then. Innovation, a willingness to embrace new things, and a little patience help to work together successfully in the long term.

What can we do for you?

Do you need support in setting up an affiliate channel? We are happy to support you in selecting the appropriate performance network and are happy to take over research, publisher acquisition, campaign planning, and controlling for you - all tailored individually to your website and needs. We look forward to hearing from you.