Tradedoubler has made a deep dive into the word of ‘shoppable’ social media courtesy of a new partnership with visual commerce platform Curalate.
The performance marketing group is allowing its network of 180,000 publishers to monetise another aspect of their editorial by embedding links into the images they post on Instagram and their own blogs.
This hands over 2,000 advertisers the chance to form partnerships with these publishers to drive traffic and revenue via the channel, paying out commission for interactions with ‘click-to-buy’ links on a CPA basis.
Words from Dan Cohen, regional director at Tradedoubler, hint at the network looking at new ways of allowing affiliates to make money from what they do without angering their audiences.
“This technology innovation develops our digital advertising offering and allows our partners to deliver the type of non-invasive advertising that consumers want to be served.
“The ability for customers to click-to-buy directly from an image streamlines the online purchase journey and improves the user experience, which directly boosts both our publishers’ and advertisers’ revenues by improving conversions.”
Instant buying
Tradedoubler’s new partnership with Curalate sees the network side of the business working with two solutions: Curalate Reveal and Curalate Like2Buy. The first allows consumers to quickly “reveal” information about the item they’re browsing before clicking through to buy it.
This is ideal for bloggers who are looking at ways of showcasing a product whilst providing a seamless way to earn commission from a user buying it.
The second is geared specifically towards Instagram – an increasingly important platform for affiliates around the world – and facilitates instant buying via the placement of links in the description of images.
Curalate’s ongoing campaign with Suja Juice, a US-based drinks manufacturer, has culminated in the social platform becoming its client’s top referrer for traffic, despite the company having five times the following on Facebook.
To get on board with these new options, publishers on the Tradedoubler network must sign up for a Curalate account by supplying their Publisher ID among other details.
Networks take advantage
While this is a new addition for Tradedoubler’s publisher base, it’s not the first time that an affiliate network has sought to capitalise on the opportunity posed by Instagram’s 400 million-strong user base.
Last September, the eBay Enterprise Affiliate Network entered into a similar partnership with Curalate which also saw it link up with the US-based firm’s Like2Buy and Reveal tools.
That “exclusive” partnership looks to have come to an end, though, as now Tradedoubler publishers can use the same options to monetise their image-based editorial.
Both deals come at a time where publisher interest in Instagram is high, with a study from Greenlight showing that 30% of users have previously bought an item after seeing it on the app.
