The New Era of Affiliate Marketing: Full-Funnel Measured and Optimized
Affiliate marketing has always been the unsung hero of digital marketing — a powerhouse channel that delivers impressive results but often is left out of cross-channel measurement and optimization. Many marketers separate Affiliate marketing from the typical VIPs like Paid Search and Paid Social. Is it paid media, is it partnerships, is it business development? The answer is simple. It doesn’t matter. Consumers don’t experience Affiliate ads in a separate universe from other media, and marketers shouldn’t either.
Brands are finally starting to welcome Affiliate marketing into the cross-channel game, creating a unified media experience for their audiences. This allows them to cast a wider net, with ads that make more of an impact and tell more of a story at every touchpoint...but don't just take it from us.
Yon Dotan, VP of Agency Solutions at impact.com, shared his industry insights with us in the video below on the evolution of Affiliate marketing, and how brands can stay ahead.
Well said! Then the next question becomes, how can brands evolve their Affiliate marketing strategies?
1. Find the right Affiliate partners up and down the funnel.
Identifying the right Affiliate partners at every stage of the customer journey ensures your brand is present and effective, whether you’re creating upper-funnel awareness or driving lower-full conversions. This strategic alignment helps maximize the value of each partnership and ultimately improves the performance of your Affiliate campaigns.
2. Strategically message across media channels.
Messaging consistency across multiple media channels strengthens brand recognition and fosters a cohesive customer experience. By strategically aligning your Affiliate content with other digital channels, you can create a seamless (and personalized) journey for consumers that drives both engagement and conversions.
Then comes the hard part. How do you collect and optimize data from all of those different places?
This goldmine of information can only be found in a Martech tool that ensures a unified view of data and insights. Rise’s Innovation team, in partnership with impact.com, have been tirelessly working behind the scenes on just that. So hold onto your hats and your horses, because boosting your full-funnel and cross-channel marketing is about to get a whole lot easier.
We'll pass the mic back to Yon to reveal how Rise and impact.com are making the new era of Affiliate marketing happen!
NEW ERA OF AFFILIATE MARKETING PART 1:
CROSS-CHANNEL DATA
Bringing All Digital Channels Together in Connex
Rise and impact.com have officially integrated Affiliate campaign data into our cross-channel media optimization platform, Connex®. Now, performance data from key paid media channels — including Paid Search, Paid Social, Programmatic, Retail Media, SEO, and Affiliate — is centralized in one customized location. This integration is a major step forward in making all media accountable for business outcomes.
By consolidating data across channels and touchpoints into a single platform, Connex becomes an even more powerful tool for analyzing and optimizing the entire customer journey. It empowers brands to align cross-channel performance with business goals, enabling more informed strategies and stronger partnerships. With this unified approach, we help clients maximize their marketing impact, optimize budgets, and avoid missed opportunities.
NEW ERA OF AFFILIATE MARKETING PART 2:
FULL-FUNNEL INSIGHTS
How Affiliate Marketing Impacts the Entire Funnel
Once you have the data, now you need the insights. Connex provides insights into how Affiliate clicks lead to interactions across channels, illustrating Affiliate’s pivotal role in both brand growth and demand generation. The newly enhanced Affiliate Insights Page within Connex combines ease of use with depth, featuring options like custom filtering, saved reports, and trend charts specifically designed for Affiliate performance analysis.
These tools give marketers partner-level views, along with weekly and monthly reporting, helping segment partner groups for a more strategic approach. With the ability to generate tailored reports, based on KPIs, Connex empowers brands to strengthen their relationships with top-performing partners and uncover new growth opportunities. This consolidated reporting view ensures brands understand how each Affiliate partner contributes to cross-channel goals and optimizes partnerships for maximum impact.
NEW ERA OF AFFILIATE MARKETING PART 3:
REAL-TIME ALERTS
Affiliate Alerts: Stay Ahead of Performance Shifts
Connex also offers daily Affiliate Alerts to notify marketers of performance changes. These alerts cover key shifts like drops in spend, conversion dips, or notable partner activities, such as a partner’s first conversion or a sudden performance spike. With these timely performance notifications, marketers can act quickly to optimize campaigns, maintain strong partnerships, and capture high-performing traffic for greater impact.
Opportunities for Growth:
A New Era for Affiliate Marketing
Integrating Affiliate into Connex is not just about enhancing data; it’s a strategic move to expand your cross-channel and full-funnel marketing. This rollout is more than a simple update; it’s an invitation to give Affiliate the credit it deserves. Are you ready to seize the opportunity. Contact Rise today!