trends in affiliate marketing & attribution from a network’s perspective
Trends In Affiliate Marketing & Attribution (AM Days, 2014)
May 27, 2015
An overview of affiliate marketing trends and data from the AvantMetrics attribution platform.
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trends in affiliate marketing & attribution
from a network’s perspective
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)
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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
trends in affiliate marketing & attribution
from a network’s perspective
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