The Shopzilla UK Publisher Program’s blog prides itself on providing affiliates and those in the online industry not only information on our program itself but the latest news in the affiliate world and insights from various members of the industry who care about it as much as we do.
Mark Joseph is the Head of Affiliate Marketing at Digital Agency Steak, whose career began as an affiliate, and now finds himself sitting on the other side of the fence innovating and managing affiliate campaigns for an array of many key brands. Mark has a keen interest in web development and marketing, teaching himself to code and design his first content driven affiliate site which he later sold. Here he shares his thoughts on how publishers should approach their affiliate marketing activity in order to stand out from others and become noticed by their advertisers as vital assets with in their overall marketing strategy.
The affiliate marketing landscape is constantly evolving for retailers and publishers alike due to the rise of digital presenting new challenges, but also new opportunities as never before.
Consumers are continuously engaging with brands in many different ways online thanks to the rise of social media and affiliate network technology which have not yet been exploited by many affiliates. In order to keep up with consumer trends and best promotional methods, we as affiliate marketers must welcome the breadth of digital into our practice. I have highlighted three areas of focus that I believe will help affiliate marketers add value to their advertiser’s campaigns.
1. Get to know your advertisers and their products
The age old saying, “you get out what you put in” is of course very true within affiliate marketing. Spending time getting to know your advertiser brands and understanding the individual key products that convert for you is vital, in not only maximising consumer engagement and click-through via your website, but also increasing its natural search engine traffic.
As we know the basic principle of the internet is based upon words, and as consumers visit your website they are at a point where they are either ready to buy the product they found you for, or they are visiting your website during their research period. Either way your content must be engaging enough to ‘close the sale’, with an easy to follow click-through path to your advertisers site, in order to maximise your sale conversions.
2. Familiarise yourself with other digital practices
What I love about Affiliate Marketing is that, it encompasses the majority of other online marketing disciplines. Affiliate marketers should aim to at least have a basic understanding of how PPC and SEO work along with some of the tools used within these channels.
PPC tools such as The Google keyword generator and Google Insight allow you to better understand the key terms that receive the most traffic from the search engines, therefore allowing you to better optimise content towards the key advertiser, products from your chosen advertisers that are being searched for the most on the internet.
Although the concept of creating an SEO friendly affiliate website with lots of dynamic content can seem daunting, there are many available free tools on the internet that take the pain out of all this. For example blogging software Wordpress requires little or no technical knowledge in order to get a site up and running within a few hours.
3. Think beyond link and banner promotion
As the online space is becoming more and more saturated, affiliates have to do more and more to compete for their share of internet traffic; therefore it is imperative that affiliates are adding more value to advertisers then simply producing a website with a logo and a link.
Get thinking outside of the box, as consumers are becoming more familiar with new technology and social environments.
Affiliate marketing has become less about standard links on a web page as online consumers mature and become harder to please. It is now more important then ever to engage with the consumer on your site through useful content, interactive media or other value adding mediums before they leave your site. Be sure that the advertiser is happy to sign off any promotional ideas you have before you invest too much time in your creativity.
Start adding value now so as not to be left behind 
Shopzilla would like to thank Mark for some fantastic advice and for taking the time out to discuss adding value to an evolving affiliate market with us.
