trends in affiliate marketing & attribution (am days, 2014)

trends in affiliate marketing & attribution

from a network’s perspective

chad waite

(hey, that’s me!)

marketing manager at

cwaite@avantlink.com

@ChadW8

so, what are we doing

here?present lots of raw data

offer helpful (hopefully) insight

give you plenty of info to draw your own conclusions

have an almost illegal amount of fun

what can you expect?

shorter presentation: 30 minutes

significantly biased towards AvantLink

get a bunch of information on attribution

let’s get started!

Typical Averages

X

“Stay back, Pacman!!”

Average Click-Through Rate

3.75%

@ChadW8

Average Conversion Rate

2.46%

@ChadW8

Average Order Value

$129.19

@ChadW8

Average “Click To Sale Time”

58 hours12 minutes

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

This time gap shows most affiliatereferrals made when a customer

is researching a product or deciding whether to buy or not.

See “Influencer” referrals in AvantMetrics.

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale %

16.4%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Whoa!

Nearly 1 of 6 affiliate sales completed from a mobile device.

Remember, in the affiliate world a responsive site with the same URL is the better choice than a “m. mobile” URL.

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale AOV

$106.60

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale “Click To Sale” Time

56 hours36 minutes

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Slightly less time from click to sale than non-mobile affiliate links, but still a significant gap.

Shows that many affiliate referrals take place well within the middle of a path-to-purchase.

See “Influencer” referrals in AvantMetrics.

@ChadW8

Most Productive Hour For Sales

6-7 pm(based on CTR vs conversion rate)

@ChadW8

Most Productive Hour For Clicks

9-10 am

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Hints to the idea that many customers look at products near the beginning of a work day and decide to make the purchase once at home.

@ChadW8

Least Productive Hour For Sales

2-3 am(based on CTR vs conversion rate)

@ChadW8

Least Productive Hour For Clicks

3-4 am

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Pro tip: Don’t spend lots of time checking your program’s stats from 2-4 in the morning.

@ChadW8

Most Popular Tools Based On Sales

Highest Adoption & Conversion Rate:Custom Links, 44% of sales (8% higher than Banner Ads)

Dynamic, Non-datafeed Tools:Roughly 8% of sales

Datafeeds + Datafeed Driven Tools:Roughly 12% of sales

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Majority of affiliate sales are driven from relevant deep links in content.

While banner ads are still popular, moreaffiliates are beginning to adopt dynamic,product level tools driven by datafeeds.

@ChadW8

Holiday Variations(timeframe: Nov. 15 - Dec. 23)

Sales Increase

247% Avg Increase In Sales Compared August sales data vs. December

sales data for top 100 merchants.

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Q4 brings in a massive boost for most online retailers. We know this.

But how does this affect the numbers?Let’s take a look.

@ChadW8

Average Click-Through Rate

4.49%

@ChadW8

Average Conversion Rate

3.64%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Click through rates are up nearly 30%.

Conversion rates are up nearly 50%.

@ChadW8

Average Order Value

$127.86

@ChadW8

Average “Click To Sale Time”

56 hours38 minutes

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale “Click To Sale” Time

55 hours27 minutes

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Holiday last click to sale times for regular and mobile sales are nearly identical to non-holiday

times.

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale %

16.9%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Interestingly enough, mobile usage doesn’t fluctuate significantly during the holiday season. Still a high number, however, with 1 of 6 sales

completed through a mobile device.

@ChadW8

Mobile Sale AOV

$106.55

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Both regular sale AOV and mobile sale AOV stay almost exactly identical through the holidays

compared to all other times of the year.

@ChadW8

Most Popular Tools Based On Sales

Highest Adoption & Conversion Rate:Banner Ads, 51% of sales

(23% higher than Custom Links!!)

Dynamic, Non-datafeed Tools:Roughly 11% of sales

Datafeeds + Datafeed Driven Tools:Roughly 9% of sales

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Affiliates overwhelmingly rely on up-to-datebanner ads during the holiday seasons topromote relevant sales and promotions.

We find that smaller ad lists that areregularly dynamically updated

experience the highest adoption and conversion rates.

@ChadW8

Holiday Wrap-up

The data clearly shows that most holiday metrics stay the same as non-holiday metrics, with the clear exceptions of # of sales and tools used.

Takeaway: Focus on solid, up-to-date creative for banner ads during Q4. Small ad lists with consistent dynamic updates works best!

@ChadW8

Attribution Stats

AvantMetrics.com

@ChadW8

Referral Groups

Basics:Affiliates are categorized into different referral groups

depending on where their referrals came into playin a customer’s path-to-purchase clickstream:

- Introducers- Influencers

- Checkout Influencers

@ChadW8

Referral Groups

Basics:@ChadW8

Introducers Influencers CheckoutInfluencers

Introducer

The first time a visitor haslanded on a merchant’s site, referred by an affiliate link.

@ChadW8

Introducers

Influencers

Influencer

Referrals made after the visitor’s initial visit and up until the

checkout process is started.

@ChadW8

CheckoutInfluencers

Checkout Influencer

Referral made by an affiliateafter a customer has already entered the checkout process.

@ChadW8

Closer

The final channel (any channel)to make a referral before a

customer’s finalizes their purchase.

@ChadW8

# Of Sales With Multiple Aff. Referrals

8%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Nearly one in ten sales has multiple affiliate referrals, making the “last click wins” model an

outdated way of compensation.

@ChadW8

Group With The Highest Referral Rate

Influencer

61%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

The vast majority of affiliate referrals help the customer make the decision to move ahead

with a purchase.

@ChadW8

Group With The Lowest Referral Rate

Introducer

15%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

The old idea of every affiliate referral being the first (and only channel) to introduce a

new customer to a brand is clearly dead and has been so for a long time.

@ChadW8

That Leaves…

Checkout Influencer

24%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

The idea that coupon and shopping affiliates only send referrals after a

customer has entered the click stream is challenged by this number.

@ChadW8

AOV / Group: Introducer

$109.41

@ChadW8

AOV / Group: Influencer

$151.64

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

We routinely see that affiliate referrals that help a customer make a decision to buy a

product result in substantially higher AOVs.

@ChadW8

AOV / Group: Checkout Influencer

$88.40

@ChadW8

Average % Of Sales Deduplicated

4.5%

@ChadW8

What Does This Mean?

Programs that run in multiple network see nearly 1 out of every 20 sales involved affiliate referrals from both networks.

Think about that overlap and the time and work it takes to manually deduplicate those

sales. Is having a program in multiple networks worth it? If so, do you have automated deduplication in place?

@ChadW8

Attribution Wrap-up

AvantMetrics presents clear data to show that:

- Assumptions on coupon/sales driven sites are often incorrect.

- Multiple affiliates are involved in a significant number of sales made.

- The value of affiliates as means to help a customer make a decision to purchase.

- Nearly 1 in 20 sales require commission deduplication

@ChadW8

Questions? Feel free to email me at cwaite@avantlink.com

@ChadW8

chad waite

(hey, that’s me!)

marketing manager at

cwaite@avantlink.com

@ChadW8

trends in affiliate marketing & attribution

from a network’s perspective