In the opening discussion of the Amplify Summit, Lee-Ann was joined by Finder Head of Performance, Stephen Davis, Shopify Product Leader, Mike Schmidt, and Perform CEO, Erin Cigich, to discuss trends that social media and affiliate marketers are likely to see over 2023. We’re going through the key takeaways from the first panel of the Amplify Summit.
Gifting
Mike had an interesting idea, saying: “I think 2023 is the year of gifting. Gifting is one of the just incredible mechanics for affiliate marketing, especially in the creator landscape. This is not necessarily something that’s new for traditional publishers. [Brands] have been sending samples for years and years but gifting is just this trend we see so pronounced in the data.”
“It just makes sense. If you want someone to promote your products, an individual publisher, creator, influencer, to start talking about you, you kind of have to send them what you’re making before you end up getting them to promote your products.”
Mike goes on to point out that gifting has a lot of benefits. The larger sum of money that you would put aside for Google ads, etc. can instead be spent on the cost of your product to send it to affiliates that would then go on to create affiliate relationships.
Return on ads
Erin’s key takeaways include seeing a shift in business goals across the industry.
Erin said: “A lot of big enterprises and even small companies will reset their goals as we flip the calendar pages. And so we have this conversation with one of our largest clients and they said ‘Last year for us, it was all about volume. We wanted as much volume as possible. We needed to gain market share. This year we are focused on ROAs, efficiency and trying to shorten the payback period on their customer acquisition costs’.”
Separating content and brands
A lot of brands are expressing disappointment with their ROI when it comes to brand content. According to Stephen, they’re very excited about the content but become disillusioned when, down the line, brand content doesn’t return a lot of clicks.
Stephen said: “There is two different investments there. One is, we call it, performance. So we have performance products and we have brand products. And we don’t really like even reporting on clicks for brand products. We like to report on page views, dwell times, video watch hours, things like that. That’s what you’re paying for. That’s the engagement with the brand.”
If you are interested in more affiliate and social media marketing insights, take a look at our blog for all the latest news and advice. Or for a more personalised approach, book a free call with a member of our team.
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