Affiliate marketing has become one of the fastest ways of earning money online for several people and way of marketing for many businesses. Just a few years ago, affiliate marketing was considered to be on the edge and marketers were on the barrier, about, if or not this technique would bring success. But today, affiliate marketing programs are treated as an estimable (reputable) and effective approach for product promotion and increasing conversions.
Affiliate marketing has been in vogue ever since leading e-commerce websites identified it as one of the most high-growth avenues inside the digital marketing realm. A study conducted by Forrester Consulting predicted that affiliate marketing will go through an annual growth rate of 10% by 2020.
If we take into account that together with email marketing, affiliate marketing is one of the largest sources of online income, accounting for more than 16% of all e-commerce orders in the USA and Canada, it is quite clear why it is only going to become more relevant in 2019.
Influencer marketing is taking off
Influencer marketing is the current hotness. With the rise of YouTube and Instagram stars who are looking for opportunities to monetize their audience and the money is following. Last year 39% of ad agencies reported plans to increase their influencer marketing spend compared to only 5% planning to decrease their spend.
An influencer is someone who has an audience who listen to them. They team up with marketers to promote products or services via collaboration, promotions, or even just wearing items. Affiliate marketers can get in on the act by teaming up with influencers and providing their own links to products.
Influencer marketing is growing quickly associated has virtually established itself as an own vertical. 74% of people trust social network to guide them to purchase decisions. And 75% of all marketers claim that they have allocated money to influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing has seen substantial growth in relevance in 2018, as it has been one of the trends to rake in the biggest return on investment. Just to give you a clear picture, according to recent reports, businesses are receiving $7.65 on average for each $1 they spend on influencer marketing.
Optimizing for Voice Search
Voice search is a rather new topic, but with a massive push from big players like Amazone, Apple, Facebook and Google. So this will have a big impact on our business in the future. 50% of all searches, according to ComScore, will be done on voice searches by 2020. Around 30% of searches will be done without a screen, via third-party tools.
Data - Driven Marketing
Today there are various digital marketing technologies that help the publishers to collect the data of visitors as well as generate insights. This data gives an idea to bring improvements in their content as well as promotion strategies.
Today there are various digital marketing technologies that help the publishers to collect the data of visitors as well as generate insights. This data gives an idea to bring improvements in their content as well as promotion strategies.
Data-driven digital strategies - 90% of all data that was generated in the lifetime of mankind was generated in the last two years. Massive data growth is also true for our affiliate marketing campaigns. In order to get to actionable insights, affiliate marketers need to establish new methodologies.
You should define KPIs that are supportive of your business objectives for taking complete advantage of data-driven marketing. For example, you as a publisher need to track each click that reaches to sale, instead of just calculating the impression or click-through-rate.
You can establish extremely valuable advertising channels via the insights generated from data analytics. Therefore, polish your messaging channels as those work best for your audience and cement the breakages in your purchasing paths to increase the conversions.
Audio and Video Content
As it always has been, the content will remain the most integral part of affiliate marketing in 2019 in addition. Organizations are churning out quality content that appeals to both customer and search engines. Over the next few years, the creativity of content will take center stage and affiliates will branch into rich audio-visual Content.
Video has been a rising trend since the internet began thanks to gradually increasing internet speeds and user bandwidth provision. Video ad formats include pre-roll, banner, pop, in-video ads and more. All of these can be directed to an affiliate offer or lander.
But video isn’t alone here. Audio content’s recent revival growing 24% in 2017 and predicted to double in total time by 2020 is worth nothing too. While it also Owens a lot to the previously mentioned factors helping video, audio’s rebirth is thanks to an increase in the high-quality program and smart speakers which help deliver micro audio content.
Affiliate marketing with audio, things are more tricky as you can’t click a sound but that doesn’t mean you can’t run affiliate campaigns. Slideshows, images and video demonstrations of products and services will reign over the traditional approach to content. The written word, of course, will also continue to gain scale as companies create relevant how-to pieces, buying guides, editorials and other educational pieces to bolster their promotional endeavors.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is, in some respects, a misleading word. What we really mean is sneaky advertising that doesn’t appear to be an advertisement. Native advertising that’s truly successful is usually fuelled by quality content marketing. That means creating useful content that appeals to consumers and has value in and of itself.
Many advertisers face the challenge of banner ignorance from the visitors. But this issue can be resolved by the publisher who creates valuable content with native advertising. Native advertising actually focuses on sharing info during a non - disruptive, targeted, contextual, and audience-centric fashion.
It is used for content promotion moreover traffic generation to your website by linking the products of advertisers using your affiliate links.
Leveraging Facebook ads and remarketing tools
Affiliate marketers are increasingly using Facebook ads in their efforts, likely due to their super detailed targeting opportunities, as well as their abilities to help with remarketing campaigns. Social media is still one of the greatest tools affiliate marketing has in its arsenal, and this is often a trend that shows no stopping in the near future.
Many are even branching out into Facebook’s Messenger tool to broaden their efforts. Keep in mind though, Facebook isn’t always welcoming to affiliate marketing, so make sure to watch your campaigns closely.
While Google and Facebook still dominate because of their duopolistic presence, consumers are starting to look beyond tech giants. Increasing dissatisfaction with their growing power, as well as concerns over privacy and censorship, are leading people to alternative social media platforms
Mobile Phone Marketing
Mobile phone affiliate marketing is something you can’t afford to overlook. We shouldn’t be surprised if mobile makes up to 80% of all online traffic in the upcoming few years, and so the marketing programs need to adjust and be mobile friendly. Mobile affiliate marketing is the process of using offers, tactics and tools tuned specifically for the mobile audience, and it should be one of the main trends to implement in 2019.
Of course, the first step is to check the number of purchase that has originated from a mobile device, this will provide you with a clear idea of how much you should be investing. Next, you could try to harness the power of mobile are the in-app ads, while not very loved by users they are more than effective and should be in your arsenal.
Obviously, affiliate marketing is quickly becoming one of the best ways for your product marketing to a broader audience. In case, you are an affiliate marketer you can rest assured about the availability of work always. Apart from this, it has given a chance to earn money online to many individuals without any hard work.
2019 will bring great advancements in the marketing field. Therefore, it is important for you to lead these trends for becoming successful as an affiliate marketer.