The host of our third and final day was Luke Judge, CEO at Incubeta UK and US, and his passion and knowledge made him the perfect chair for the closing day of the event. In his closing comments he discussed the general optimism of the industry and its working as an open ecosystem, the huge movements in tech and, of course, the micro SME’s making their way into the channel.
Opening the third day of the show as the keynote speaker was Awin’s CEO Adam Ross, who set a positive tone for the day with his acknowledgement of the spectacular resurgence of the channel. However, he addressed the fact that there are still obvious issues, for example the challenges that cookie hierarchies present within the affiliate space, which he discussed in the “How Affiliate Marketing’s Resurgence is Giving Big Tech a Run for Its Money” talk.
The smaller ones among us
Another ubiquitous theme that arose was that we need to do more as a channel to support micro-SMEs. It is no longer a rarity to find them wanting to engage with the affiliate channel, meaning all areas need to do their bit to show support – whether that be with services such as Awin Access, or by optimising affiliate onboarding processes to make the whole journey a lot smoother. It seems as a channel we are definitely…
…becoming more intelligent
This leads me into the discussion of smart tech. A common opinion shared by the day’s speakers is that consumers are more than happy to jump ship if they can find somewhere with better user experience. Customer loyalty is decreasing, so it really is of paramount importance that we optimise the user’s journey when using our services. Caroline Mulvihill and Kudzai Mubaiwa stressed this point further in their session ‘The Performance-Up Approach’, in which they chatted about challenger brands that are kicking back against traditional means.
To sum up after a brilliant few days…
In the ‘Martech-ification of the Affiliate Industry’ session, RevLifter’s Simon Bird summed up a feeling shared by the majority of today’s speakers – what has previously been a one dimensional industry is becoming something multidimensional, and it is more important than ever that we focus on maintaining the quality of our services to suit this.
We’re broadening our horizons, and something I was personally very pleased to see was the overall positivity and pride in the channel. We have come out of a tough situation stronger than ever before, and a general theme, not just today but in day one and two of PI LIVE Global too, is that our industry truly has a great future ahead.
Thanks again to everybody who has been involved – our wonderful speakers, hosts, audience, and the entire PerformanceIN team, with special mentions for Kate McGregor and Matthew Wood – without you all, PI LIVE Global would not have been the success it has been. We can’t wait to see you all soon – and hopefully next time it will be in person!