Affiliate marketers across the globe have been relying on automation tools for quite some time in order to improve the overall productivity of their program. If you spend hours managing invoices or sending out emails individually, you are seen to be wasting your time in 2021. So, how do these marketing automation tools work? Most of them are powered by artificial intelligence and this is something that many people don’t realise. According to the experts, artificial intelligence has and will continue to transform the affiliate marketing industry over the coming years.
What is artificial intelligence?
If you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you may not understand what artificial intelligence is. However, you’ll find that most of the tools that you use in your day to day life are actually powered by AI.
Artificial intelligence is effectively the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems or machines. You may have come across applications of AI including natural language processing or speech recognition in the past. Many of these applications of AI can be found in tools used by affiliate managers and marketers.
Optimisation of keywords
In affiliate marketing, nailing the keywords and boosting your SEO is key to success. With the help of artificial intelligence tools, affiliate marketing professionals are able to properly optimise their content in order to drive traffic organically.
Long-tail keywords are extremely important for optimisation. Of course, testing is vital in order to determine the best route forward. Thanks to artificial intelligence, we are seeing excellent A/B testing tools that allow us to compare KPIs and avoid wasting our marketing budget. Over time, we expect AI to benefit keyword research even further.
Providing in-depth knowledge
How long do you spend each month analysing your campaigns? Most of us want to know how much we are paying per click and per lead in order to determine which campaigns are worth continuing over the next month. With the help of artificial intelligence, this is even easier than before as the industry has been transformed by these models.
AI models can help to track the performance of ads online and generate relevant KPIs. We can use artificial intelligence to generate information on our pay per click, pay per lead and pay per scale! Ultimately, AI can help to yield higher conversion.
Tracking with real-time data
The affiliate marketing industry revolves a lot around tracking and ensuring that affiliates are doing what they signed up to do. Of course, tracking this data is tricky, especially in larger affiliate programs with tons of affiliates. Most affiliate managers use tools for tracking in order to speed up the process and ensure they are getting real-time data – but how do they do this?
Artificial intelligence is often behind some of the best data and tracking tools. It has been noted by some of the experts that AI actually makes a positive contribution to the study of consumer behaviour. With the help of machine learning algorithms, it is possible to obtain both structured and unstructured data.
Cost-effective marketing campaigns
No affiliate manager ever has a blank cheque to work with when it comes to a marketing budget so how do they make it stretch? According to the experts, artificial intelligence has been helping to transform affiliate marketing by reducing the overall costs of campaigns. There are several factors that make a campaign expensive such as the labour, the data collection and the medium used to promote the product or service.
However, many of the best artificial intelligence tools are free to use or offer a free trial, reducing the overall costs of campaigns greatly. Affiliate marketing does require skill and experience but it doesn’t have to be outside of your budget. Over time, we expect the industry to truly leverage these cost-effective tools.
Can artificial intelligence replace humans?
Artificial intelligence may be transforming the affiliate marketing industry but it can’t replace everything. Affiliate managers still need to have that element of human contact with their affiliates in order to build relationships that can lead to conversions. If everything is completed by a chatbot or an automatically generated email, these relationships can break down.
While artificial intelligence is excellent for gathering data and saving time, many people can still tell the difference between a personalised email and one that has been automatically generated. Affiliate managers must learn to balance their use of AI tools with human contact in order to build those relationships.
What is next?
It is clear that AI has transformed the affiliate marketing industry as we know it but this won’t be the end. As machine learning becomes more advanced, we expect enhanced tools to be at our disposal. We don’t think the role of an affiliate manager will disappear as a result of improved AI tools but their job certainly will get easier.
Look out for enhanced SEO tools, lead generation options and improved analytics that can help to create effective campaigns. Artificial intelligence is just getting started in this industry.
If you’re looking for some advice on how to use these tools to improve your affiliate program, book a free call with a member of our agency team!
