Many advertisers are still relying too heavily on coupon and loyalty sites to grow their affiliate programs. It seems to be the easy way to gain growth and whilst these publishers all have their place within a well run program, they are not the only publishers that should be making up the majority of your monthly sales!
The recent Honey-PayPal scandal has highlighted just how fragmented and flawed traditionally assumed customer journeys and attribution of sales can be.
Coupon and cashback extensions are often credited for sales they did not directly influence, distorting performance data and leading brands to invest in the wrong affiliate partnerships. The root of the problem lies in outdated attribution models, particularly last-click attribution.
With a number of companies specialising in helping brands manage their tracking methodologies, it’s imperative that marketers focus on how affiliates can truly augment all of the customer sales journey and brand awareness to purchase funnel. This means making sure your program is properly segmented with partners that are helping you convert customers from the top to the bottom of the customer sales cycle.
Failing to understand and embrace partners that work throughout the full customer journey, will make it difficult for you to keep driving incremental sales to your business and contributing to real growth. Konnecto helps to make this process easy by offering deep, competitive analysis of your customer’s purchase behaviour as well as competitor strategies helping you spot areas you’re missing in the segmentation of your program and partner traffic sources.
Last-Click Attribution and Mixed Media Modelling considerations
Many brands working with affiliates still rely on last-click attribution, where the final affiliate site or touchpoint before a purchase is made – gets credited with the sale. This has been the industry standard for more than two decades. However with more data being collected we can now identify how customers behaviours are influenced in the purchase journey opening brands up to consider other ways to remunerate and attribute sales. Many industry thought leaders are discussing such topics and how to manage tracking and attribution in light of this – openly now on channels such as LinkedIN.
Coupon and loyalty affiliates by default typically intervene in the customer sales process when the customer is close to purchase (bottom of the funnel).
This creates two major issues:
- Overpayment for non-incremental sales – Brands end up paying commission on purchases that would have happened regardless.
- Missed opportunities to invest in high-value affiliates – Influencers, content sites, and media partners that introduce customers to a brand often receive little or no credit for their role in the sale.
Similarly, Mixed Media Modelling (MMM) is not much better. While it provides a broad view of marketing spend, it lumps all affiliate traffic together rather than showing which specific partners are driving value. This lack of transparency makes optimising an affiliate programme almost impossible.
Without assessing the program data, brands risk spending too much on low-value partners and missing out on more effective acquisition channels that can help them to scale alongside their other direct to consumer activities.
Why ensuring a well Segmented Traffic Source within your Affiliate Program Is the answer
A strong affiliate program needs to be making use of a diverse mix of affiliates and traffic sources to really infiltrate that customer search journey which is now fragmented across multiple devices, channels and traffic sources. Affiliates help you to amplify your own marketing channels enabling you to expand your reach and engage customers at different stages of the buying journey.
By segmenting your affiliate program and inviting multiple partner types to promote your brand, you’re diversifying your reliance on any one type of publisher or traffic source. This will enable you to not be relying too much on last-click coupon and loyalty sales and instead optimize for partners that deliver new customers and higher lifetime value at different parts or stages of the customer sales funnel.
However, to do this effectively, brands need a clear view of the customer journey and data-driven insights on which partners are working best. That is where Konnecto comes in.
How Konnecto Helps You See the Bigger Picture
Konnecto provides GDPR-compliant insights that allow brands to:
- View their entire customer journey – See which touchpoints influenced a purchase, not just the last click and compare that to your nearest competitor brand to see where there are gaps in your customer acquisitions or partner traffic sources.
- Identify high-performing affiliates – Find out which partners are working for competitors and capture that well converting market share into your program.
- Optimise your program investments – Stop overpaying for non-incremental sales and redirect budget to partners that drive real results.
- Eliminate guesswork – Use data to make informed decisions about which affiliates to work with and how to structure commissions.
Rather than relying on outdated tracking models, Konnecto gives brands a real-time, data-backed view of affiliate performance.
The Future of Affiliate Marketing: Get Smarter with Data-Driven Decisions
The Honey-PayPal case was a wake-up call for the industry.
Affiliate marketing is changing, and brands that continue to rely on coupon-heavy strategies and flawed attribution models will struggle to compete.
To build a high-performing affiliate programme, brands must:
- Move beyond last-click attribution and understand the full customer journey
- Invest in a diverse mix of affiliates, including content creators, influencers, and media partners.
- Use in-depth data driven insights to track partner performance and optimize budgets for real growth.
Affiliate marketing should be a strategic, data-driven channel – not just a discount machine. With Konnecto, brands can take back control of their affiliate programmes, identify high-value partners, and drive more profitable campaigns. To see how Konnecto can help you rethink your affiliate strategy, visit Konnecto.
