We caught up with Margaret Herrera, an e-commerce affiliate manager for leading British department store House of Fraser, to discuss the company’s new attribution model, plans for long tail affiliates and the importance of utilising industry events.
Herrera, who is involved in an attribution roundtable and is exhibiting at this week’s Performance Marketing Insights event in London, has been with House of Fraser since April this year.
Although there are more than 60 physical stores, House of Fraser, which works with Affiliate Window, has become renowned for having a rapidly growing web-store.
Q: What are you top three job responsibilities as affiliate manager at House of Fraser?
MH: Managing the relationships we have with existing affiliates, finding and recruiting new affiliates alongside looking for new affiliate opportunities and developments.
Q: House of Fraser found that customers who spent a longer time on the site generally have a higher AOV, which led to a new model being attributed by engagement. How is the new model fairing? And what response have you had from affiliates?
MH: The new model has performed really well, it’s a much fairer way of rewarding affiliates and has been well received by all of our affiliates. We spent a lot of time with DC Storm to develop a model that really benefits our affiliates and engagement was added after looking at data relating to AOV – and this has been an integral part of the model as a whole
Q: Is having more of the transaction value attributed to you, if you direct the customers that spend a longer period of time on site, the future of the much-debated attribution model? And do you think other retailers will follow in House of Fraser’s footsteps?
MH: We believe it is. There has been so much debate about attribution but no retailer has been bold enough to actually put an attribution model into action until now. We believe that with the help of DC Storm and a lot of research and development, we have found the best way to award affiliates, however we will be reviewing this model every three months to ensure we make any adaptations to this model to evolve with the constantly changing marketplace
Q: Roughly, what percentage of your programme is with long tail affiliates?
MH: We are hoping that attribution will involve more of our long tail affiliates but at the moment it’s not a significant amount.
Q: How do you think you could do more with long tail affiliates?
MH: Part of the reason behind introducing attribution was to ensure long tail affiliates were rewarded for any promotion of House of Fraser. We are also planning to launch a hub that will be a one-stop shop for all of our affiliates to access anything they need to work with us, so this will help long tail affiliates who may sometimes feel like they are ‘ignored’ by large affiliate programmes.
Q: As affiliate manager, why is it important to attend performance marketing/industry related events such as Performance Marketing Insights (PMI) London?
MH: I believe it’s essential to attend these events, primarily to interact with affiliates both new and existing and as a forum to find out what is happening in the industry, as well as showcasing our new developments and plans for our programme.
Q: What are your ‘must attend’ sessions at this year’s PMI?
MH: We are involved in a attribution roundtable so I am looking forward to that.
Q: How do you plan on splitting your time at PMI London?
MH: We are exhibiting so I expect it will be 90% meetings and introductions and 10% sessions.