Post Launch Strategy - Advertiser Guide

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Key Daily Checks 3 Build Awareness (0-3 Months) 4 Recruitment and Engagement (3-6 Months) 5 Review and Optimise (6-12 Months) 6 Find out More

Introduction

In your Advertiser Service Overview we strongly advise that an Advertiser should spend no less than 8 hours per week managing their publisher programme.

To help plan which activities need to be carried out we have prepared this guide which outlines the key daily checks that must be performed on your account to ensure a successful and well run publisher programme.

Further recommendations are also made on short, medium and long term management goals and strategies that you can employ on your publisher programme. Please note that this does not take into account what time of year you launch as key trading seasons such as Christmas will have a significant impact on the strategies of many online retailers.

To conclude there is a list of useful links provided for your reference.

Key Daily Checks

• Login to your account and review the performance graph on your Advertiser Dashboard. Have the number of sales significantly decreased or are there any unusual spikes? Regular performance checks are important as they ensure early detection of any issues such as problems with the firing of the tracking code / broken links, incorrect sale or commission amounts, poor promotional performance or a top performing publisher leaving or joining your programme.

• Check your Interface Activity Stream which details all the activity on your account and respond to any publishers who have sent you a message. Responding to publishers in a timely fashion shows you care about them and the success of your publisher programme.

• If you manually approve publishers onto your programme then make sure you process all pending publisher applications as often as possible to prevent them building up into a long list. Delays in processing applications can mean a loss of potential sales and publisher interest, which may result in them choosing to promote a competitor. Publishers can own many different websites so make sure you check their profile pages to find out as much as possible about their promotional activity and decide if they are a good fit for your brand. Applications can be approved, declined (reason must be given) or you can require further information from the publisher before making your decision.

• If you provide a datafeed to your publishers then it is essential that this is kept up to date with correct pricing and stock levels to ensure good sale conversion. If products are changing on a regular basis then your feed should be set up to update every 24 hours and you will need to action any product mapping. On occasion there may be an error with the processing of your feed so please let us know if you receive an upload error message.

• It is essential that you regularly process pending commission so publishers can achieve a good return on investment (ROI) and make it commercially viable to promote your brand. Industry best practice states that commissions should be processed within 28 days to ensure your programme remains attractive to publishers. Leaving commissions pending for a long period of time will create a poor brand image and may ultimately cause publishers to switch to a competitor. If you have a longer returns period than this and cannot validate this quickly please make this clear to publishers on your general terms page, so that they know when to expect payment.

• The dashboard will also alert you to any Transaction Queries that have been submitted. Please check these regularly as all Transaction Queries are set to auto-approve after 75 days.

Build Awareness (0-3 Months)

• It is essential that you are confident navigating around the interface if you are to make the most out of your publisher programme. Interface training will be offered by the Account Development team but please make sure you have alerted them to any specific training needs.

• Awin host an Advertiser training seminar every 2 months which provides a wealth of useful information about the industry, publishers and various optimisation strategies that can be explored. This will be discussed with you after your programme has launched.

• Ensure you set out clear and realistic programme objectives. Is your business goal to drive volume, attract new customers, increase average order value (AOV) or to grow your brand awareness online?

• Make sure you have a good understanding of the different types of publishers and their requirements including the new retargeting propositions that can now be explored in the CPA channel.

• Decide on your communication strategy. How often are you going to communicate with publishers and how? We can advise you on the different ways in which you can communicate with your publishers via email, TheHub, the Awin publisher newsletter, and finally the PerformanceIN forum.

• Start engaging with publishers that have been accepted onto your programme. Introduce yourself and find out more about their customer base, how you can work together and how they prefer to be contacted. Share your contact information and make yourself available.

• Always keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. What product information is being shared with publishers, what promotions/incentives are they running and where are they appearing? Some publishers will send out newsletters to their consumer base featuring advertiser offers so consider signing up to monitor coverage. Read both TheHub and Awin publisher newsletter to gather insight into how competitors promote their programmes to publishers on the network.

• If you did not run an incentive at launch then consider running a strong publisher orientated promotion to help drive awareness amongst the publisher community. To reach publishers who have not already joined your programme submit a promotion to the Awin publisher newsletter as well as posting details on TheHub and PerformanceIN forum. Details of how to submit offers for the publisher newsletter can be found in the interface under the “Communication” tab.

Recruitment and Engagement (3-6 Months)

• After 3 months of being live, the network will calculate and publish your Awin Index score in the Advertiser Directory. The Index is a score out of 100 derived from 4 key performance metrics also known as CAVE data: Conversion Rate, Approval Percentage, Validation Period and Earnings Per Click (EPC). The higher the score the more optimised the programme which makes it more attractive to prospective publishers.

• Analyse your publisher mix. Do you have good coverage across different publisher types? The Account Development team can help to indentify top performing publisher types that may not be joined to your programme.

• Run targeted publisher recruitment initiatives to attract the right publishers with a proven track record in your sector. The Account Development team can assist by compiling a recruitment list and you can also use the Interface Affiliate Directory to search for and contact relevant publisher partners.

• Identify your top performing publishers and start to build a relationship with them. Find out how you can secure more exposure on their sites, feature in their newsletters and consider testing different incentives such as increased commission.

• Implement an activation strategy for any inactive publishers who are signed up to your programme but have yet to send any traffic. Focus on partners that are a good fit for your brand or are known high volume drivers on the network.

Review and Optimise (6-12 Months)

• Review your programme objectives to see if they are being met. If not then consider a programme review to identify specific improvement areas.

• How does your programme compare to other online channels? A well optimised programme can generate up to 20% of your total online sales. Does publisher performance mirror your overall sales activity and what trends are emerging?

• Is the publisher channel delivering a good return on investment (ROI)? If not then it may be necessary to review your commission structure. If the programme is performing well then can you improve commission across the board or for specific publisher partners? Consider introducing commissions groups based on product categories to help you to better manage your margin.

• Review your linking methods to ascertain if they are engaging publishers. Is your datafeed fully optimised and if not how can it be improved by adding extra fields? Could you create more tailored banner creative with targeted sales messaging? Always overlay out of date promotional banners but keep a generic set for brand awareness. Indentify any new linking tools that you could introduce for publishers. Can you be more innovative? What is going to make you stand out from the crowd?

• Review the success of your incentives to identify what has created the most publisher engagement and generated the highest revenue. Gain a better understanding of the types of incentives which work well in your sector and continue to monitor TheHub and PerformanceIN forum for ideas.

• Once top performing publishers have been identified it is important to optimise each relationship. Develop a more tactical strategy such as be offering exclusive promotions & discount vouchers, increased commission for newsletter coverage, unique content or providing products for competitions.

• As the programme becomes more established consider arranging to meet your top publishers in person or think about organising a Publisher Day.

• Start forward planning any promotional activity. Communication is the key to the success of a programme so always keep your publishers and the network up to date with important programme news.

Find out More

• The Hub - our dedicated publisher portal housing all advertisers' promotions, it is used to post programme specific news and promotions for all publishers to see.
• PerformanceIn - Previously known as the PerformanceIN Forum, a newly rebranded information portal brought to you by the same company responsible for the Performance Marketing Awards and the PerformanceIN Expos. Specific sub-forums are available to post your promotions.
• Subscribe to the monthly 'Awin Strategy Newsletter'.
• Awin's Blog - Where all network updates are posted, definitely one to bookmark
• Wiki - Awin has our very own Wiki. If you're searching for more information or details this self serve information hub is a great resource to bookmark.
• Keep updated on industry news from the Affiliate Marketing Council on the IAB affiliate marketing site
• Sign up to the Awin strategy newsletter – strategy@awin.com

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch by emailing accountdevelopment@awin.com