Tradedoubler hosted its very first DisrupTECH conference at CodeNode, the UK’s largest venue dedicated to technology events. PerformanceIN was proud to be the official media partner of the event, which saw representatives from the likes of Global Savings Group, RevLifter, Mindshare and Increasingly take to the stage to share their insights on how performance marketers can take advantage of emerging technologies and opportunities available in the technology industry today.
Here are some highlights of the jam-packed day which saw engaging talks and panel discussions from industry leaders that have shown intentions to disrupt the affiliate channel.
A vision for a new generation of affiliate marketing
Tradedoubler’s UK country manager Chris Russell-Smith welcomed everyone just before Tradedoubler CEO, Matthias Stadelmeyer kicked things off with his session. He touched on Tradedoubler’s belief that being open, transparent and collaborative is good for the industry and outlined how Tradedoubler’s vision of an open platform will allow automated and transparent direct relationships between publishers and advertisers using blockchain technology.
An open platform concept means the network can utilise tech and API so that partners can integrate with the platform using assets such as tracking and data and other functionalities. Some of the opportunities include easier access to affiliate marketing, shorter publisher payment delays, direct communication with advertisers and better transparency, to name a few. Russell-Smith said in the last few months, they have developed a prototype which has been available since the end of February.
Next up was Ricki Jones, COO of Soreto, talking about referral marketing and how referrals can be a powerful way for brands to leverage their existing happy customers to win new ones.
The growth of personalisation in technology
Soon after was Michael Alexander Hold (global product lead, Dynamic Solutions) from Global Savings Group, who explored why hyper-personalisation has become the norm and how companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google,and Amazon have made us accustomed to only what we find relevant. Take Amazon for example – Amazon utilises consumers’ previous shopping history and matching it up against all of its other transaction data to create hyper-personalised product recommendations. Hold said that research indicates that Amazon’s retail business is driving 35% of its revenues through its personalised product recommendations, which is a lot. The likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google are all customer-centric companies. Hold added that personalisation is not about high tech but about customer centricity.”
He looked at company size vs personalisation and noted the change in personalisation when businesses begin to scale the business and become more efficient, and delivering that personalisation can be tricky. Then, once a business grows to become a small enterprise, funds and stability comes back, and personalisation becomes more prevalent.
He also outlined how marketers can adopt dynamic coupons as a strategic marketing tool for not only driving customer acquisition but also take the coupon tool to a higher level to drive towards the overall objectives of your company and achieve them. “The more we know about customers, the better personalised we can be. It is a human thing, which we cannot forget,” he said to an eager crowd.
Following a quick networking break, Diana Golovko, intelligence consultant at SimilarWeb, delivered her ‘competitive intelligence for growth strategies’ session. She looked at three brands that had significant growth in their affiliate traffic and the lessons we could learn from them.
Dynamic deals and the future of personalised marketing
James Maley, head of business, EMEA & APAC at RevLifter, delivered a session about personalisation within affiliate marketing and how it was impacting the industry. “Executing your deal in real-time to a customer is important but personalisation is not just personalising towards the customer but personalising towards the retailer,” he said. Maley pointed out that we are shifting from moving to being able to dynamically serve content in real-time to hitting the retailer’s needs as well. He went on to say that technology is shifting to being able to hyper-target those consumers in real time. This is happening across the board in terms of third-party voucher code sites, too. He went on to outline what retailers want to achieve from personalised deals, before finishing with the ways in which you can personalise your travel deals based on rich data, and what the future holds for personalised deals and brand loyalty going forward.
Later, a panel of experts comprising Will Leuchars, sales director at Increasingly, Mike Fisher, direct to consumer e-commerce manager at Philips, Hannah Johnson, affiliate lead at The7Stars and Daniel Sichel, head of digital performance at Mindshare, all moderated by Amy Lucas, head of partnerships and business development at Tradedoubler, hosted a Q&A discussion looking at how technology as a whole will impact the affiliate marketing channel in the next 12 months and beyond.
Wrap up
James Boden, global business development director at SmarterClick wrapped up the afternoon with his talk investigating five key challenges of last year, such as time, control, innovation and trust, and how we overcame them. After networking drinks, we headed home thinking about the informative afternoon.
With many interesting talks inspiring debate, conversation and education, it seemed the conference went down a treat with attendees and we look forward to what’s next in store for DisrupTECH in 2020.
Do you know Tradedoubler is the headline sponsor for the Performance Marketing Awards taking place on April 30? There is still time to secure your space and enjoy an unmissable night of networking, drinking and celebrating the industry’s best. Find out more here.