In 2019, acknowledgement of our efforts abounded across a stellar year of achievements for the Awin Group. We’re proud to have received the following wins and recognition from well-known industry leaders, clients and partners in North America over the past 12 months:
- Network of the Year, Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards
- #2 Affiliate Network, mThink Blue Book’s Best CPS Networks
- #3 Affiliate Marketing Vendor, Internet Retailer 2020 Leading Vendors
- Best Use of Content with HP, International Performance Marketing Awards
- Highly-Commended Best Managed Affiliate Program USA with Viator, International Performance Marketing Awards
- Highly-Commended Best Performance Marketing Campaign USA with HP, International Performance Marketing Awards
- Highly-Commended Best Use of Performance with HP, The Drum Digital Advertising Awards USA
- Top Workplace 2019, The Baltimore Sun - with special honor for Employee Benefits
Adding to these fantastic recognitions, we are honored to have received 13 additional awards across our offices around the world.
Alexandra Forsch, Awin US President: “I am incredibly proud of the many wins across our talented teams and across our trusted Awin and ShareASale platforms have received, not only this year but every year. It’s a joy to be able to work for a company that celebrates nearly 20 years of championing affiliate marketing and the people that make this industry great.”
A year abundant with innovation, thought leadership and best-in-class partnerships
These great achievements are a culmination of our investment in the affiliate industry in 2019 to create trusted partnerships that drive growth, beginning in January by serving as the first-ever global sponsor of Affiliate Summit West (which we were proud to return as at Affiliate Summit Europe, Affiliate Summit East and Affiliate Summit APAC.) In addition to being global sponsors, ASW was a milestone event for Awin as we announced that our North American operations – comprised of the trusted Awin and ShareASale platforms – had centralized leadership under Alexandra Forsch (formerly responsible for oversight of Awin’s US and Canada activity) and that the businesses had begun formally unifying to solely operate under the Awin name in the future.
Following ASW, in March we released the third annual edition of The Awin Report, our definitive global guide to the affiliate marketing industry. In this installment, we provided a platform for our partners to share their insights on the state of affiliate marketing from a vast array of perspectives. Entwined within that tapestry of voices are an array of case studies showcasing the channel’s ability to shape itself to any goal, as well as numerous charts, graphs and insights that provide a wealth of informative context.
Come June, we brought to market our Publisher MasterTag technology and subsequent partnership opportunities to both our Advertiser and Publisher MasterTags, offering our partners exclusive access to best-in-class third-party technologies like SingleView by R.O.EYE and Monotote. June also saw the occurrence of the second-annual Awin + ShareASale ThinkTank US. Taking place on June 3 -5, 2019, at the Renaissance Downtown Chicago Hotel, our 2019 event brought together 250+ top advertisers, agencies, publishers and bloggers across Awin and ShareASale for three jam-packed days of education, program guidance, ample networking … including 800+ partner meetings.
In July, we announced our strategic partnership with Skimlinks. This partnership allowed us to offer advertisers on the Awin platform full visibility over the tracking data of Skimlinks publishers and provide Skimlinks-managed Awin advertisers with the ability to award custom commission rates. This meant these advertisers could take a more strategic, data-led approach with Skimlinks publishers, have more flexibility and ease to create custom commission rates and campaigns as they could now understand and see their full contribution.
September was a marked month for Awin, in which we announced a series of updates, investments and new partnerships, including the launch of our Tracking Optimization Plugin. Awin's Tracking Optimization Plugin is personalized to an affiliate’s users to ensure the highest chance of a successfully tracked click or sale. The plugin works with the current privacy requirements of the different browsers, selecting the tracking method based on the requested advertiser, the browser version being used, and the browser’s privacy settings – going beyond a ‘single tracking solution’ to a ‘best tracking solution.’
Also in September, we strengthened our partnership with Australia’s leading affiliate network Commission Factory by acquiring an equity state in the business, and proudly served as sponsors and contributors of the Performance Marketing Association’s inaugural US affiliate marketing industry study.
Continuing this momentum set, November saw Awin enhance its interface security with two-step verification for all users, as well as update our Click Reporting to reduce discrepancies between our systems and other tracking platforms. November also brought another stellar Cyber Week for Awin, where we tracked 1.1m sales, $118m advertiser revenue and $8.4m publisher commissions across our North American networks on Black Friday through Cyber Monday alone.
Finally in December, Awin’s innovative tracking solution Bounceless Tracking was made available for all publishers via our Publisher MasterTag. Bounceless Tracking sends a user directly to an advertiser’s website without any redirects. The tracking call is made asynchronously via the Publisher MasterTag without affecting the user journey in any way for smoother, faster user-focused affiliate tracking. In addition to quicker time to site – which correlates with improved conversion rates - Bounceless Tracking is our most accurate tracking to date and offers greater visibility on the referring pages, which can be seen in Awin's Transaction Reports. Additionally, December saw the release of PerformanceIN's Top 50 Industry Players 2019 and included our very own Awin US President Alexandra Forsch, Head of Publisher Management US Joris Cretien, and Awin Global Strategy Director Kevin Edwards.
From all of us at Awin and ShareASale, we would like to thank you for your continued support of the Awin Group across 2019. We are proud to be leading the charge, both in North America and globally, as an outspoken industry innovator and advocate, with the above merely some of the many investments and strides we have made with the performance marketing channel in the US and Canada alone over the past 12 months.
We look forward to an even more incredible 2020, together.
