Smart and Scalable Affiliate Marketing with Kevin Osborne, SVP of Client Strategy at Acceleration Partners
You may have some fear or feel a sense of resistance when you hear the phrase “affiliate marketing” if you were ever involved with such a program in the past. So much has improved in the affiliate space and that development has stemmed from the creation of affiliate tech tools. Kevin Osborne, the Senior Vice President of Client Strategy at Acceleration Partners, has the low-down on how affiliate partnerships can be thought of as more than a last-ditch effort to milk the remaining dollars out of the market. Management, implementation, and fraud resistance are all areas of modern affiliate marketing that have vastly improved as of late.
There are technology brands out there that have really pushed this industry forward. Platforms like Impact or Partner Eyes, or Share a Sale, are the guys that have built the foundational technology that provides all of the reporting, the attribution, the commissioning, that is the technology layer that connects these relationships. It’s enabled us to actually drive new strategies. Right now we can do coupon blocking. We can do fraud leaping where we give attribution to the person before the last click, we can do split commissioning. So different partners get a different percentage of the sale that they drive. So that technology is driven forward has really enabled us to actually drive new tactics and new strategies for our brands.
It’s about more than just having the right tools of course. A big part of the value that Acceleration Partners brings to its customers is by providing guidance on best practices and partnerships as you roll out your program. At the end of the day, there’s really one metric that matters, and that’s sales.
“We look at brands that are trying to acquire subscribers, sign-ups, sell shoes, whatever it may be, and at the end of the day, an affiliate is simply a channel that’s able to pay partners once an outcome takes place. Once a sale takes place at the end of the day, I think a lot of marketers are trying to get to that final accountable metric, which is, ‘Does this drive sales?’ What this kind of world enables marketers to do is spend media in that fashion, right? When a sale takes place, when an action takes place, then you pay your partner. Not before that fact.”
Using data, tapping into tried-and-true marketing channels, and reducing friction on the back-end has given modern affiliate marketing the power to be a key tool in your marketing mix, not just an afterthought. Get excited about affiliate marketing again with Kevin and Acceleration Partners, in this full episode of Marketing Trends!
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