As the affiliate marketing industry further evolves and matures, the trend among enterprises is to grow and diversify affiliate partnership programmes in search of ways to maintain personalisation at scale. Affiliate networks, brands and publishers can be seen investing heavily in new technology that makes their affiliate partnership programmes more manageable, targeted and profitable. A particular focus is on mobile, not least because it now accounts for 50% of affiliate-referred traffic.
Unlock mobile opportunities
There’s no avoiding the mandate of mobile. As the path to purchase has evolved and become increasingly native within mobile apps, consumers find it easier to purchase there. That in turn yields higher conversion rates, bigger average order values and higher lifetime value.
Partnership managers who adopt a mobile solution for affiliate partners also unlock new, untapped partnership opportunities, as there are all sorts of mobile apps with which clients can begin to partner once they have a solid mobile partnership solution in operation — from social video platforms and shopping apps to rewards programmes and even augmented reality apps.
Mobile deep linking then allows numerous enhancements to user experience, which in turn encourages the propensity to convert. Deep links direct users to a specific place in an app and, with the right partnership platform in place, enable marketers to track their partners’ referrals seamlessly, without having to grapple with the complexities of app links, universal links or proper click tracking.
It is incumbent on affiliate teams to address the challenges of the mobile app world and start driving mobile affiliate traffic into mobile apps in this way. This is an opportunity, but it is also increasingly an obligation, as failure to do so will inevitably result in missed opportunities, with affiliate traffic dumped into suboptimal mobile web pages.
Be a mobile-first mover
Embracing mobile enables marketers to drive more revenue and higher conversion rates with existing affiliate partners and to extend their reach into entirely new types of partnerships.
There’s also a competitive advantage to being a mobile-first mover. Even at this increasingly mature stage in the development of mobile, relatively few enterprises boast a comprehensive mobile partnership solution, and partners typically want to work with those brands that have the best tracking and conversion rates — after all, it makes them look good, too.
You can learn more about getting the most value from your affiliate partnerships in our eBook: 13 best practices for affiliate partnerships.