Posts Tagged ‘conference speaker interviews’

This year’s only Affiliate Management Days show is just only 2.5 weeks away, and today I’d like to bring you an interview with yet another one of the conference’s speakers, Sarah Bundy. Check out her insight into the management of affiliate marketing programs below.

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Sarah Bundy is an award winning digital marketing strategist, affiliate marketing specialist, consultant, trainer and author. She is founder & CEO of All Inclusive Marketing, an award winning performance marketing agency delivering innovative, experience driven results that reach, engage and convert new buyers online.

Question: If you were to emphasize one important issue that every affiliate manager should be paying more attention to, what would it be and why?

Bundy:  We could go into details about FTC disclosures, attribution opportunities and major gaps in the market, however I’d like to reemphasize the importance of affiliate managers really needing to understand and pay closer attention to the very basic needs, both personally and professionally, of their affiliates individually and as segmented groups.

Affiliate managers often get caught up in the day to day “tasks” and more advanced topics of management, and try to bulk manage or automate the program to scale faster. This is often a huge misstep because they lose track both the key metrics of the program and of knowing the needs, wants and desires of their affiliates while maintaining meaningful relationships, which is what drives the best results.

When affiliate managers stop paying attention to the needs, wants and emotional drivers of their affiliates, that’s when programs suffer most. To counter this, affiliate managers can put more resources on a program because as they grow, one affiliate manager just can’t do it all. Luckily there are some great agencies, OPMs and consultants who can become an extension to the affiliate management team, so the most important part of having an affiliate program, the relationship and ability to fill an affiliate’s needs and desires, is consistently met resulting in true program optimization and growth.

Question: What do you see as the main areas of opportunity for online, in general, and for affiliate marketers, in particular in 2015 – 2016?

Bundy:  Aside from the most obvious advancements in mobile and data, one area I see having more significant play in 2015 -2016 is in Native Advertising.

Native Advertising is going to have more presence and exponential growth because of its ability to reach, engage, and convert highly targeted audiences with controlled messaging and guaranteed placement on high profile sites. Currently advertisers pay PR, content or social media firms millions per year in the hopes their articles and content will be picked up by recognized media outlets and high profile bloggers. However that content doesn’t always reach the right audience (or it’s too broad), the message can be contorted to tell a different story than originally desired, sometimes negative or damaging to brand reputation, and placement is never guaranteed.

With Native Advertising, both the publisher and the advertiser gets the exact desired content for their audience distributed while the reader has access to highly relevant content specific to their lifestyle and personal interests. The advertisers get guaranteed placement, and the publishers get guaranteed money in the door.

Because of this, I see Native Advertising being one of the most powerful performance marketing strategies taking the stage in the next two years.

Question 3: Between the fact that “affiliates are 7x more likely to be overwritten by another channel than another affiliate” and the fact that “30% of sales start on one device and finish on another” [source] how can an advertiser build a truly affiliate-friendly program, yet one that doesn’t cannibalize the merchant’s own marketing efforts?

Bundy:  Work with Impact Radius. Their technology can solve many of the tracking and attribution issues brands face in how to credit and value affiliate performance properly. The best management companies and brands will use them to look at the entire buying cycle and structure affiliate programs around different types of engagement and conversions, resulting in higher ROI across multiple touch points, a better understanding of different affiliate and channel value and allow multiple channels to be optimized to their full potential based entirely around sound data and multi-technology attribution touch points.

Question: In which ways can affiliates be adding value for the merchants they promote? And where does the “value” reside (new customer acquisition only or something more)?

Bundy:  I think affiliate value is determined by the key metrics that are most important to the brand according to their overall corporate goals and objectives.

For example, some brands use performance marketing to drive new customer acquisitions as their only priority result, which results in growing their customer database. Once acquired,  the brand then remarks to those buyers through email and other channels. They happily break even or sometimes take a loss to acquire the customer through the affiliate channel because their profits come from retention and an extended lifetime value of the customer, which are driven by other channels. In this case, the value the affiliate channel is brining is in growing the customer database vs growing net sales or profits.

Other brands will use affiliates to drive increased net sales versus just new customer acquisitions. For example, whether the affiliate is driving a new customer or not, the brand just cares about whether the affiliate drove new sales (in dollars) because they were able to convert buyers at a faster rate, or higher average order value because of their influence and particular marketing efforts. The brands themselves might be marketing to the same customer, however some buyers trust third parties or other influencers who are not exclusive to a brand more, thus they add value by increasing either the average order value or the conversion that the brand would otherwise not be able to convert on their own.

A final example (and there are far more) that affiliates can bring is just in simple brand exposure.  A growing company with little to no brand exposure, or a recognized brand who simply wants to dominate a market, can benefit greatly from having their consistent brand messaging and imagery across hundreds or thousands of sites at a much lower cost than in paying upfront for that placement. Because of the performance based model, if zero sales come in from these placements, it costs the brands nothing. If millions of dollars come in from this exposure and mass placement, the not only does that drive a company’s bottom line that scales, it is a controlled cost that comes only after the money is in the door (or another desired action takes place).

There are no other marketing opportunities online today that can achieve these same types of values with this type of cost control, which is why performance marketing is continuing to expedite. Brands need new customer acquisitions, profitable sales growth and increased brand explore which all add value in driving their bottom line.

Question: What is the biggest challenge faced by affiliate managers, and advertisers with affiliate programs, today and what would you recommend doing to overcome it?

Bundy:  Affiliate managers and advertisers with affiliate programs actually suffer from different challenges.

Affiliate managers struggle with finding time to do everything they need to for their program to grow, be monitored and optimized as much as they need to be for maximum results. They also often struggle with either getting approval from the “higher ups” to try new things in the channel or communicate the value the affiliate program brings to the company’s overall corporate goals or bottom line.

One of the ways affiliate managers overcome this is by getting outside help from agencies, OPMs or consultants to become an extension to them, so the program has the right (and enough) experienced resources to properly manage all the moving parts. These parts include everything from affiliate recruitment to outreach, to placement negotiations to compliance, strategy, reporting, relationship development, content creation and much more. With a well-rounded team who can be strong in all these areas (whether in house or outsourced) the program and the affiliate manager will see much stronger results and be able to prove that value faster.

On the flip side, the advertiser with the program (the brands themselves, usually in the form of the owner(s) or executive management team) struggle with driving profitable sales growth and new customer acquisitions fast enough as a whole.  They need to justify the time and cost of running the affiliate program compared to other channels within a controlled budget, and need to see constant growth to justify investment in this area.

To their detriment, and because it’s often misunderstood, brands too often dedicate less resources than needed to the affiliate channel and look at it as a second or third tier sales driver. In comparison, brands usually understand the immediate value of search or social as an alternative. Additionally, because content and brand reputation often leaves the hands of the brand and is in control of the affiliates, there is fear of brand dilution or misrepresentation by the affiliates.

With the right resources in place and often with the help from an outsourced program management firm or team, brands can drive incredible value and results through their affiliate program, all positive, and all a direct contributor to sustainable, profitable growth in several capacities.   Their challenge is true for all marketing channels they manage, and therefore affiliate is just a piece of this.  With a well-managed program that has enough resources, and depending on the size of the brand, the affiliate channel can often drive anywhere between 10-50% of a company’s profitable sales.

Question: Why do you think affiliate managers should attend Affiliate Management Days?

Bundy:  This is my fourth year attending (and speaking at) AM Days and I’ve found value in each show I’ve attended. The depth of content shared here is more suited for an intermediate to advanced level affiliate manager or digital marketer, which is great because often times the content at other shows is too basic to drive true professional development in this area.

Further, if you were to take all the thought leaders in affiliate marketing management and put them in one room to have meaningful conversations with, this would be it. It’s an intimate show that’s designed for more advanced collaboration, education and networking so affiliate managers who want to get better at what they do can.

SNEAK PREVIEW: Please tell us a takeaway that you will provide during your presentation at Affiliate Management Days.

Bundy:  One major takeaway from my session will be how to identify new opportunities for growth and optimization with graphical data and analytics. We’ve built a visual reporting system and will be sharing some case studies around key metrics and KPIs that will help affiliate managers lead to even more success in their programs.

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With Affiliate Management Days 2015 less than three weeks away, sign up now to look forward to Sarah Bundy’s participation at the upcoming conference in San Francisco. Be part of what she describes as “…[taking] all the thought leaders in affiliate marketing management and [putting] them in one room to have meaningful conversations.”

Affiliate Management Days 2015 is just over one month away, and we had the opportunity to interview our keynote speaker, Declan Dunn, CEO of DunnDirectMedia. Learn from Declan’s perspective at the upcoming AM Days conference and in his interview below.

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Since 1995, Declan Dunn has been a pioneering insider in the fields of online education, corporate performance enhancement and affiliate marketing. This unusual skill set allows him to bring people together in business settings, enhance their relationships, and then empower them to monetize those relationships. By simultaneously honoring both the needs of businesses, and the humans who work within them, Declan’s unique systems consistently return mutual rewards to the process of increasing bottom-line profits.

Question: If you were to emphasize one important issue that every affiliate manager should be paying more attention to, what would it be and why?

Dunn: The tracking capability of cookies, or more appropriately web beacons, in a mobile world. Cookies have never been the greatest tracking tool, with some estimates of 30% of them never being tracked. This has always been part of the affiliate landscape, complained about and fixed a bit by the networks, but as an industry, there is still no reliable cookie system, and most mobile systems don’t accept or record the old fashioned cookies.

Meanwhile traffic is tipping to mobile, and while tracking on a mobile browser might be done by certain cookies, there’s going to be more leakage and more affiliates complaining, for good reasons.

Many of the affiliate networks are based on older technology; it will be interesting to see if they can adapt, or if the more recent and agile affiliate networks come up with better tracking.

Not only do you need this tracking for your affiliates, especially your top affiliates – management will be demanding more accurate figures as we transition from the old world of cookies to the new world of beacons, or whatever it becomes.

Question 2: What do you see as the main areas of opportunity for online, in general, and for affiliate marketers, in particular, in 2015 – 2016?

Dunn:  Native advertising, with a focus on a monetizable content strategy, will impact online and the affiliate world. Creating ads with direct links to products is nice, and still works for some sites, but for most marketing has become a multi-step process, with content leading the way.

Imagine a combination of Outbrain’s syndicated content, native advertising landing pages that adhere to rules, and affiliates who manage this multi-step process. This often includes opt in emails, search positioning, media buying, and content development on behalf of affiliates.

It’s already being done in the Native Advertising market, and while some affiliates do this, the whole mode will develop another level of creative, with multiple levels (and these are the rare kinds of affiliates you won’t punish with attribution, because this affiliate marketing, content model is based on repeat visits, not one time visits.

Mobile development, in terms of targeting and multi-step funnels, will increase in importance. The ability to connect the mobile user with the PC user is key to monetization.  Smart affiliate marketers are beginning to do this, for example buying Facebook ads on mobile only, and working to connect the mobile login to the desktop, where more purchasing is done.

Affiliate marketers have to step up and create new models in this increasingly mobile world, including custom monetization for Super Affiliates, especially social ones who are good at content, but not marketing. Many new affiliates are building loyal audiences, with smart affiliate managers working with them to manage the conversion and promotions. In this affiliate model, distribution is in place in social media, but the knowledge and interest in marketing is not. Several OPMs have jumped into this space, servicing specific affiliates with large and passionate social followings.

Question 3: Between the fact that “affiliates are 7x more likely to be overwritten by another channel than another affiliate” and the fact that “30% of sales start on one device and finish on another” [source] how can an advertiser build a truly affiliate-friendly program, yet one that doesn’t cannibalize the merchant’s own marketing efforts?

Dunn:  Longer answer on cookies below, the short answer here.

Affiliate marketing is high cost lead generation, because the real promise is not the first purchase, but the repeat purchase. In order not to cannibalize your own efforts, you have to set boundaries like attribution tracking and payout, but that also doesn’t make it great for affiliates. Merchants should be focusing on the second purchase as a measure of success, not the first, and keep the second for their own efforts.

That means making a program that seriously looks for the best affiliates and works with them on the lead generation portion (even a first purchase in my scenario is considered lead generation, because the cost of acquisition is normally a high cost for the merchant).

The best merchants will integrate multi step, lead to sale programs, and work with their best affiliates to put these in place. For the rest of their affiliates, they will keep the lead generation separate, in terms of tracking, from the follow up sale, and start challenging affiliates to build funnels with them, not just one page sales pages for purchases (where applicable of course).

Cookies still is the issue here, because we still track like it’s 1999, even with improvements.

Short-term, not much, long-term this ties into my cookies answer earlier. Cookies are old-fashioned, and they are what we have, but they don’t work in a mobile world. Many ad networks are developing their own Super Cookies, that supposedly work everywhere, but you have to be part of that network, so the overall value is limited.

In the short-term, merchants should work on their cookies and take a lesson from retargeting. When someone visits a web page, a specific ad is shown to them based on retargeting. When they click that ad, they go to a new page that overwrites the first cookie, and sets up a new one for retargeting.

This leads to sequential marketing based on the customer’s activity. Now let’s transfer that model to the affiliate world, and merchants doing retargeting and email and everything else that uses cookies.

Start creating a workflow of your cookies, and insure that your affiliates are not overwritten where possible. For example, you retarget a visitor who an affiliate sent to your site:

When that user clicks your retargeting ad, they are sent to a new page, and keep the affiliate cookie, while creating a separate cookie for your company that does not erase the affiliate one.

Ad networks will drop multiple cookies on high traffic content sites and the merchants should have their own cookies for internal tracking. This is likely a band-aid at best.

Question 4: In which ways can affiliates be adding value for the merchants they promote? And where does the “value” reside?

Dunn:  The value resides in the second purchase, or if a traffic game, the repeat visit. The only true measure of value is a repeat customer, or repeat visitors. Affiliates and merchants are notorious for being so over-focused on the first sale, pushing it to the limits sometimes, that the blend of quantity and quality is challenged because the affiliate’s incentive is more more more, and the merchant’s true goal is a higher percentage of customers who buy again.

From my own experience, I ran a financial services affiliate program as an OPM. In the first year, we just went out and signed up everybody and, like many initial programs in the early days, more was the goal, to prove the online channel.

So we got tons and tons of new customers, but half didn’t use the credit card. If you don’t use the credit card, it’s sort of a worthless lead in financial services.

Solution: We worked with our affiliates and basically found the usual 95/5 rule – 5% of the affiliates rock most of your sales/leads. So we ran numbers of repeat visitors against all of our data (which became a regular practice, and one I recommend for affiliate managers to do quarterly at least), and we found our 5%.

That core didn’t’ generate the volume, but did generate repeat usage which made it much more profitable.

We eliminated the other affiliates, even some generating volume, because the true value, the true metric, was usage, repeat usage especially, and for me that applies to every program.

It’s all about repeat visitors, repeat buyers, repeat subscribers. That’s the Long Term Value (LTV) of the customer, and the true value of any marketing program.

Question 5: What is the biggest challenge faced by affiliate managers, and advertisers with affiliate programs, today and what would you recommend doing to overcome it?

Dunn:  Stereotypes, from those who don’t know affiliate programs, and from the affiliate manager’s perception of who are the best affiliates.

The stigma of the word “affiliate” - many simply don’t understand the term, outside this space, and if they do, it’s because of some nefarious headline they read. When you deal with people, don’t think they have gone to Affiliate Summit, or even understand what affiliate programs are. The true growth is outside the traditional cpa and coupon/reward space, in social. But the old ways won’t work (cookies again a problem here).

Basically most of the world, from Google to Facebook to many unfamiliar with the strength of affiliate programs, stereotype affiliate programs as an expensive, risky cost channel. That stereotype is what you’re working on broadening your base of affiliates.

I’ve seen small OPMs doing this with major social followings, working with them closely and customizing the process for those generating quality, repeat customers.  This is only for the top affiliates of course, but the lock in isn’t just what you pay them; it’s how you work with them in social.

With the world going mobile, affiliate programs make sense in the social media that most use when they are mobile. Some smart AM’s jumped on Facebook Pages, which didn’t monetize for people, but with a good affiliate program and hopefully success at driving some traffic off of Facebook, they become affiliate partners.

Except these affiliates aren’t versed in marketing, they are all about communication. You don’t turn them into marketers, you give them the tools to do it with you easily, and you keep in touch. Done right, it’s tapping into revenue streams most affiliate programs are ignoring, because no one gets fired for chasing coupon and reward affiliates…yet.

We have to move affiliate programs beyond this reliance on coupons and reward affiliates. This won’t happen fast, but there’s a whole world happening outside of search, and much of the coupon space is a search game.

Now it’s as much a social game, as a search game, and affiliate programs are pivoting. The new affiliates take a different approach, and while the old affiliates aren’t going away, in 5 years this whole space is going to be mobile and social and connected. You can’t afford to run an affiliate program in the traditional way anymore.

Question 6: Why do you think affiliate managers should attend Affiliate Management Days?

Dunn:   Because you get to learn from and interact with speakers who deliver real information, data, and insights based on experience. You can often connect with them as well during the day, because the event is not so big that you get lost in the crowd.  Plus the people who attend are top-notch. I spoke a few years ago in San Francisco and met a future client I’d never have run into because the quality of AM Days drew him.  This is one of the few events I speak at because of how it’s delivered, the content, and the people who are sharing their insights are seriously good at what they do and must deliver value when they present.  AM Days is all about the quality of people and content. I always go away knowing more. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, so the opportunity to learn and implement what is offered here is rare and valuable.

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You do not want to miss Declan’s keynote speech on “Affiliate Gamification Driven by Attribution, Share Through, and Trust” at the upcoming Affiliate Management Days conference! Register today.

To say that my today’s interviewee is not a stranger to affiliate marketing would be to say nothing. Kerri Pollard is a major figure in this industry. As president of CJ Affiliate by Conversant, she oversees the operations of CJ’s affiliate network in the U.S. and Europe.

Kerri spoke at Affiliate Management Days for the first time in the spring of 2013. This year she is returning back with her Day 1 keynote on how affiliate network insights can help advertisers drive reach and results. She will also appear on our already-traditional Day 2 keynote panel with affiliate networks which in 2015 is devoted to “The Affiliate Industry Evolution.”

With Affiliate Management Days 2015 coming up in San Francisco in just over two months, catch a glimpse of the caliber of speakers we’ll bring together by reading the below interview with Kerri’s insights for advertisers and affiliate program managers.

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Kerri Pollard is the president of CJ Affiliate by Conversant. She has a proven track record of building partnerships between advertisers and publishers along with helping them grow revenue and increase profits through innovative technology plus strategic, analytical insights. Kerri’s thought leadership in the affiliate marketing space has earned CJ the recognition of the #1 affiliate marketing provider by Internet Retailer for the second year in a row.

Question: If you were to emphasize one important issue that every affiliate manager should be paying more attention to, what would it be and why?

Kerri Pollard: One important issue that every affiliate manager should be aware of and, more importantly, be a participant in the solving thereof, is the attribution challenge. Too often, we see affiliate managers reacting and responding to internal attribution decisions vs. having a seat at the table to ensure the affiliate channel is aligned with a company’s goals and objectives. In speaking with several attribution vendors, they do not understand affiliate or associated measurement and therefore, base their analysis on an impression-to-conversion basis, which doesn’t apply to affiliate – yet. At CJ Affiliate, we have been working with companies like Adometry and Visual IQ to help educate them and their customers. To this end, we encourage affiliates on behalf of their trusted, advertiser relationships to maintain – not eliminate - the impression code. We know value is being created throughout the customer decision journey and affiliates should get recognized as such. In short, grab your seat at the table and ensure affiliate is being represented appropriately!

Question: What do you see as the main areas of opportunity for online, in general, and for affiliate marketers, in particular in 2015 – 2016?

Kerri Pollard: Opportunities within affiliate have always been driven by the consumer and their associated decision journey. That journey has become less linear in nature and additional fragmentation has occurred. As affiliate marketers, it’s important that we support all consumer touchpoints by effectively guiding and tracking the consumer from end-to-end. We’ve seen many affiliates perfect their mobile presence, but there is much more opportunity to do so in the overall marketplace. In addition, according to a recent McKinsey report, “by the year 2020, 80% of all transactions will continue to occur within four walls.” The research and the evaluation phase may occur via a desktop or mobile device, but the transaction could be completed offline. We see additional opportunity for on-to-offline tracking beyond the printing/downloading of offers. Through the CJ Affiliate dataset, we can see the influence that affiliate has on offline conversions. We can leverage this data to enable additional tracking and compensation to further capitalize on such activity. Finally, we believe the next frontier will be a consumer’s home and leveraging such items as TVs and appliances in order to make a purchase. Where and how will affiliate participate? We have some ideas. 

Question: Between the fact that “affiliates are 7x more likely to be overwritten by another channel than another affiliate” and the fact that “30% of sales start on one device and finish on another” [source] how can an advertiser build a truly affiliate-friendly program, yet one that doesn’t cannibalize the merchant’s own marketing efforts?

Kerri Pollard: The best affiliate programs are those that support the principles of communication and transparency. This question references my earlier point of attribution and as affiliate managers, ensuring one has a seat at the table. Not only does such participation allow one to contribute to such discussions, but also communicate back to his/her affiliates as to why and when they are being credited – or not. There is no silver bullet in attribution as each advertiser has unique, consumer paths, but helping affiliates understand those paths and where they can add the most value is key.

Question: In which ways can affiliates be adding value for the merchants they promote? And where does the “value” reside?

Kerri Pollard: Are you maximizing an opportunity on behalf of an advertiser? Addressing a challenge? Solving a problem? If “yes” to any one of these questions, then you are adding value, which may or may not include new customer acquisition. As a network, we focus much time and effort on understanding the goals, objectives and challenges of the company overall – not just an advertiser’s affiliate program. By doing so, we recognized that personalizing the consumer experience across all channels was important to not just the CMO, but also the CEO. By leveraging the Conversant infrastructure and anonymous consumer profiles, we’ve been testing the concept of personalization within affiliate. We are able to recognize new customers on behalf of an advertiser via an affiliate site in order to showcase a unique and compelling offer in real-time to increase conversion rates. This solution has resulted in double-digit growth rates in new customers. In addition to personalizing the experience on behalf of new customers, we’ve been working with several of our clients as it relates to their “top shopper” persona. Using data from both the CJ Affiliate dataset and the advertiser, our affiliates can target such individuals and increase engagement. By offering these solutions, we ensure that affiliate is integrated into the overall marketing mix along with the associated messaging strategy and therefore, adding more value.

Question: What is the biggest challenge faced by affiliate managers and advertisers with affiliate programs today and what would you recommend doing to overcome it?

Kerri Pollard: Margin compression. With an ever-growing competitive marketplace and associated pricing pressure, one of the biggest challenges faced by marketers is margin compression. In retail, many marketers are struggling to compete on price and simultaneously, having the budget necessary to successfully promote their products and services. Although affiliate has always been a very cost-effective channel for marketers, we have been working with many of our clients to provide even greater insight to enable smarter and more targeted marketing within affiliate. For example, we can now show the percentage of new customers via affiliate versus all other marketing channels; average order value and repurchase rate of all affiliate consumers; and offline impact of said consumers. These stats compare affiliate with all other marketing channels and can also be viewed by publisher promotional method (i.e., deal, loyalty, content) and individual publisher. If a company is seeking to better monetize their offline presence, an affiliate manager can identify those publishers that drive the most offline consumers and incent them to do more. Smarter, more targeted marketing can expand margins and drive top-line revenue.

Question: Why do you think affiliate managers should attend Affiliate Management Days?

Kerri Pollard: As we’ve learned from our annual conference, CJU, Affiliate Management Days provides a great forum to network and learn from your peers. Time and time again, we hear from our clients their desire to connect in order to share best practices and discuss shared challenges in which one conversation could provide a solution.

Question: If you were to leave online advertisers, merchants and affiliate managers with one piece of advice, what would it be?

Kerri Pollard: Ensure that affiliate has a “seat at the table” and work – via data and transparency - with your responsible network and affiliates to ensure all parties are aligned for success.

Question: SNEAK PREVIEW: Please tell us a takeaway that you will provide during your presentation at Affiliate Management Days.

Kerri Pollard: Big data is all the rage, but what data is important to affiliate in order to provide actionable insights and results? How does one drive sales without cannibalizing margins? I will be speaking to our new consumer dataset at CJ Affiliate and how such data is being leveraged for smarter, more targeted marketing vs. a one-size fits all approach resulting in greater growth in both margins and revenue.

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Don’t miss Kerri’s participation in two keynotes of the upcoming Affiliate Management Days in San Francisco! Register while the Early Bird registration period is still open (through February 6, 2021).

It is an honor for me to acknowledge that the legendary Todd Crawford, the co-founder of Impact Radius, has spoken at every single U.S. Affiliate Management Days conference to date, keynoting this year’s show of ours too.

In 2015 he’ll be back at our San Francisco show to speak on “Everything You Need to Know About Attribution & Affiliate Marketing” as well as to appear on our keynote panel on “The Affiliate Industry Evolution.”

Todd was kind enough to dedicate some time to my interview with him, which I am happy to bring to your attention below.

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Question: If you were to emphasize one important issue that every affiliate manager should be paying more attention to, what would it be and why?

Todd Crawford: Including their key performance indicators (KPIs) into their affiliate program analysis and metrics. Advertisers are trying to squeeze out as much as they can from their affiliate partnerships and it is critical that they utilize as many data points as possible in order to optimize each partnership towards what is most important to their company.

Question: What do you see as the main areas of opportunity for online, in general, and for affiliate marketers, in particular, in 2015 – 2016?

Todd Crawford: I believe attribution still has a lot of promise for online marketing and can be very instrumental for affiliate managers in determining the true value of each affiliate partner.

Question: Between the fact that “affiliates are 7x more likely to be overwritten by another channel than another affiliate” and the fact that “30% of sales start on one device and finish on another” [source] how can an advertiser build a truly affiliate-friendly program, yet one that doesn’t cannibalize the merchant’s own marketing efforts?

Todd Crawford: Here again, attribution is critical to understanding not only which affiliates are providing the most value but also which affiliates are support conversion credited to other channels. As an example, if a certain affiliate is contributing a lot of traffic that is getting credited to another channel, an advertiser might consider increasing that affiliate’s commission rate to compensate for the lost conversions or move them to a CPC structure.

Question: In which ways can affiliates be adding value for the merchants they promote? And where does the “value” reside (new customer acquisition only or something more)?

Todd Crawford: This is dependent on each advertiser and can change over time as well. The best thing affiliates can do is to have open conversations with their top advertisers to learn more about what they are looking for from affiliates and marketing in general. In some cases, advertisers are looking to increase new customer acquisition. In other cases it may be geographic or demographic focused. Some advertisers are focused on new products or services launches. So it is critical to discuss their goals in order to understand what’s working and what are they focused on.

Question: What is the biggest challenge faced by affiliate managers, and advertisers with affiliate programs, today and what would you recommend doing to overcome it?

Todd Crawford: Having a complete view of the marketing ecosystem and understanding where/how affiliate fits into the mix.

Question: Why do you think affiliate managers should attend Affiliate Management Days?

Todd Crawford: I think it is some of the best content in the industry – the speakers always deliver great insights and practical information. You also get a chance to network with your peers who are challenged with many of the same issues you are.

SNEAK PREVIEW - Please tell us a takeaway that you will provide during your presentation at Affiliate Management Days.

Todd Crawford: My presentation will help affiliate managers better understand the role of attribution and how they can avoid some common mistakes and also leverage the data to optimize their affiliate partnerships.

Question: If you were to leave online advertisers, merchants and affiliate managers with one piece of advice, what would it be?

Todd Crawford: Attend AM Days this spring!

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Don’t miss Todd’s presentations at the upcoming Affiliate Management Days in San Francisco! Register while the Super Early Bird pricing is still available (through December 20, 2020).

It is already customary for us to conduct pre-conference speaker interviews leading up to Affiliate Management Days. And our U.S. Affiliate Management Days 2013, which is coming up in just 7 days, hasn’t been an exception.

Here is a handy list of a dozen of pre-show interviews with AM Days SF 2013 speakers:

• David Adler: Legal Risks Facing Affiliate Marketers Today
• Hunter Boyle: Affiliate Management, Challenges and Email Marketing
• Todd Crawford: Opportunities in Affiliate Marketing
• Robert Glazer: The Role of the Affiliate Network
• Chris Goward: Affiliate Programs and Conversion Optimization
• Kristin Hall: Importance of Mobile in Affiliate Marketing
• David Naffziger: How Merchants Can Protect Themselves from Affiliate Violators
• Gary Marcoccia: Value of the Affiliate Marketing Channel
• Brian Marcus: eBay Partner Network’s Lessons for Affiliate Managers
• Geno Prussakov: Affiliate Management Days and More
• Geno Prussakov: Affiliate Management Days West 2013 Preview [radio interview]
• Jim Sterne: Big Data and the Human Side of Analytics

The above list is merely alphabetical.

If you haven’t yet registered for AM Days SF 2013, there is still time!! Register by the end of day Friday (April 12) to get in at regular price.