In this conversation, Lee-Ann Johnstone speaks with Stuart Allen and Adrian Jooste from Vegas Kings about the psychology of design and how to create successful campaigns for affiliate programs. They discuss the importance of a good brief and provide tips for creating one that effectively communicates the desired outcome to the design team. They also emphasise the need for open communication and feedback between affiliate managers and designers. The conversation covers best practices in design, including the use of colour, imagery, and messaging. They also discuss trends in design and the impact of AI on the industry.
Listen in here for all of the insights:
Creating a Universal Language
Lee-Ann comments, “Now, often I hear affiliate managers tell me that it’s difficult to deal with creatives because obviously affiliate managers are in the nuts and bolts of the data, the day-to-day, the kind of relationship building, but they’re not necessarily creative people themselves because that’s not part of the job. Some affiliate managers are creative and they are quite marketing focused, but others aren’t. They’re more data driven and sales driven and relationship driven. Adrian, I’m going to come to you because you are obviously the person that gets the brief and interprets it. How do you deal with people that aren’t creative? How do you actually pull out that information and what kind of tips can you give to people when they’re writing their briefs to actually get that storyline over to you – so that you can interpret it and create something amazing with it?”
Adrian replies, “I think the best possible way to start is if we were provided with the key message or the key element or response that they want to get out of people. So that I think is quite a universal language. That’s all we can kind of, not control, but try and influence a person or a user to respond to. So yes, that’s the key element for us to know is what do you want out of this? Then that can help translate the sort of personality differences between a very analytical mind and a very creative mind and bridge that gap.”
The White Space Debate
Lee-Ann says, “An affiliate could be doing an amazing job at driving traffic to their landing page or to their website. But then when the customer lands there, what they see doesn’t match with the precursor work that the affiliate has done to get them and then the conversion doesn’t work. That isn’t necessarily the operator or the advertiser’s fault. It is actually the decision-making process that the affiliate takes in terms of how they make that page look and what banners they put in different places. So the white space argument, like let’s talk a little bit about that because some affiliate pages are eye-splittingly busy and that could be impacting their conversion, right?”
Stuart replies, “It’s also important what gets shown above the fold as opposed to below the fold. It all boils down to what you’re trying to do. Like we’ve said before, so are you trying to get a million clicks to a million different places, or are you trying to drive traffic to one specific place more so over others?Then it’s about rearranging the page accordingly, according to what you need to do.
“So, if you aren’t getting conversions and of the stuff that’s above the fold, why is that? Is that because it’s too cluttered or it’s too empty, or you’re not showing the right message or you’re not appealing to the right demographic, or, you know, there’s lots of different questions of which, you know, obviously when we build homepages or we build landing pages, all of that comes to mind. Those are the kinds of questions that we ask – what is the primary objective here?”
Optimising Your Campaigns
Lee-Ann says, “My question to you now is if we had a variety of affiliates or affiliate managers in a room, what are the big trends, ideas and tips that you can share with them to get their campaigns optimised for maximum performance? In relation to what they look like and how they make customers feel? Especially considering that people’s attention spans from 10 years ago to now have shortened to a matter of seconds. So what are the big tips to take away from this episode today?”
Stuart answers, “So first and foremost, before any tips, you’ve got to understand the market that you’re talking to. For us and our experience, we deal with a global client base, so the kind of things that we deal with in America are completely different to what we deal with in Europe and UK and in Africa and Japan – completely different markets.
“The trends that we’ve seen we’ve kind of touched on it, but it’s striking imagery, it’s nice and colourful, and it’s clean and it’s got space.”
Adrian adds, “I would say that to the attention span side of things, messaging needs to be super condensed and concise and to the point. You want to know whatever the offer is or the new product. Whatever you’re selling needs to be almost like an elevator pitch on steroids! It’s very, very to the point. You’ve got to like it within a second.”
Listen to find out more about:
- Creating a detailed and clear brief to effectively communicate your desired outcome to the design team.
- Why open communication and feedback are essential for successful collaboration between affiliate managers and designers.
- Creating a strong and recognisable brand.
- Considering the user journey and creating designs that are concise, visually appealing, and have a clear call-to-action.
- Staying up-to-date with design trends and adapting your strategies to different platforms and target markets.
Key segments of this podcast and where you can tune in to go direct:
[08:50] Working with non-creative people
[12:50] Psychology of design and best practices
[21:30] Tips for Affiliate Managers
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