Last week, Awin and ShareASale were thrilled to return as global sponsors of Affiliate Summit West, and then stay for Creator Economy Live. We saw thousands of agencies, technology partners, advertisers and publishers reunite for perhaps the biggest turnout at an industry event in three years.
It was amazing to witness how the performance marketing industry has grown and developed. Seeing ASW return bigger and better than ever is a testament to the industry's resilience and dedication to providing valuable resources and opportunities to its participants. Affiliate Summit West continues to be one of the most beneficial events for the Awin Group to meet face-to-face with partners, and as first timers at Creator Economy Live, the show provided an equally high-caliber experience around influencer marketing.
Here are our top five takeaways from ASW:
'Armchair' vs 'Adventure' approaches will define success in 2023
Awin CEO Adam Ross joined other senior leaders from major partnership platforms to discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities our industry is facing at the moment.
"For advertisers to find success in the coming year, a concept of ‘armchair’ versus ‘adventure’ approaches will play a key role," said Adam. "Last year, we looked at differences in performance of Awin programs that were passively managed (few partners, little diversity, no extra budget for experimentation) vs those that were proactively managed (lots of diversity, scope and budget for experimentation). Year-on-year, armchair advertisers lost out to their adventure counterparts across almost every valuable KPI, with traffic surging for adventure advertisers by 30% (versus a 6% decline), sales growing by 33% compared to 16%, and AOVs improving by 8% over their armchair counterparts.
Ultimately, those advertisers (and publishers by extension) that continue to experiment, innovate and invest in their partnerships will reap the benefits."
One of the great strengths of the partner marketing channel is unlimited opportunity
With over a million active partnership opportunities available on Awin and ShareASale, including 80 integrated tech partners, Awin Americas President Alexandra Forsch offered insights into how the Awin Group's partners can solve any ecommerce problem across every phase of the customer journey with- from pre-purchase to post. Whether a brand needs to increase website traffic, reach more audiences on social, improve conversions... there isn't a challenge without a solution.
We are in the next generation of marketing technology
Chris Rueckert, ShareASale's head of product, shared the new release of marketing connectivity tools available to retailers on the platform, such as ShareASale's Shopify plugin, which allow merchants to scale their affiliate campaigns through automations and efficiencies.
Despite a pandemic and economic recession, affiliate marketing continued to grow at an impressive 14% rate from 2018 to 2021
Jeannine Crooks, Awin US Partner Acquisition & Development Manager, joined a panel moderated by Performance Marketing Association's Executive Director Tricia Meyer to discuss findings from the PMA Performance Marketing Study. Beyond the growth of top-of-funnel affiliates entering the space, affiliate marketing has grown 27% to $9.1b by driving $71b in ecommerce contributions. This further proves the outstanding value of the affiliate channel.
Brands that blend affiliate and influencer activity enjoy increased conversions
Our Influencer Partnerships Lead Carissa Flinders, Bespoke's Joey Asleson, Caitlin Eliza Gieseking and Mavely's Peggy O’Flaherty discussed three case studies that showcased the success of micro-influencers to increase brand awareness, user-generated content, and conversions. For those not familiar with the term 'micro-influencer', it's as it sounds: an influencer, but one that typically offers more niche content and a smaller, more focused audience. While they may not have as big a reach, smaller influencers have an extremely engaged, growing audience. Brand's can still target a strong audience that values the opinion of the micro-influencer, making them far more likely to purchase the products being endorsed.
If you missed us at this year’s Affiliate Summit West or Creator Economy Live, you can reach out to our team here. Congratulations to Affiliate Summit on a successful conference, and we look forward to seeing you again across other events in 2023.
