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Introducing the Google Affiliate Network

Claudia Kosny, Knewledge Sarl

15h40 – 16h00

Affiliation process part 1 – set up

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Merchant

Affiliation process part 1 – set up

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

• Signs up at network

• Provides advertising material

Affiliation process part 1 – set up

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

• Signs up at network

• Provides advertising material

• Signs up at network

• Applies for merchant’s program

• Uses advertising material

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 2 – visitor flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

Visitor

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 2 – visitor flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 2 – visitor flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 2 – visitor flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

• Makes a conversion

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 3 – payment flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

• Makes a conversion

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 3 – payment flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

• Reports conversion to network

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

• Makes a conversion

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 3 – payment flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

• Reports conversion to network

• Credits commission to affiliate

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

• Makes a conversion

Affiliate

Affiliation process part 3 – payment flow

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Affiliate NetworkMerchant

• Reports conversion to network

• Credits commission to affiliate

Visitor• Clicks on advertising

material

• Is redirected via network to merchant’s website

• Network registers click

• Makes a conversion

Affiliate

• Invoices merchant

Benefits of Affiliation

• Extremely performance based – pay only on conversion

• special commission models for specific products

• special commission models for specific affiliates

• Multi-channel marketing (source: A4U, European Affiliate Marketing Landscape Report 2011)

Content / portal: 21%

Price comparison: 12%

E-mail marketing: 11%

Niche / Micro-Niche: 11%

Voucher codes: 10%

Cashback / Incentive: 7%

Mobile / App development: 4%

• Affiliates can select best advertising material for their content

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Complexity of Affiliation

• No fixed budget, difficult to forecast

• Requires active management by merchant (or agency) Recruit and approve new affiliates

Provide incentives for existing affiliates

Inform affiliates about current promotions, update banners

Continuously check integrity of affiliates

Ensure good conversion rate to entice new affiliates (high EPC)

De-duplicate reported conversions

• Requires active participation by affiliate for best performance Needs to select banners and add to website

Needs to check back for promotions and new banners

• Manual optimization of campaign

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Affiliation and Paid Search/Display

• Important step in buying decision process (price comparison, niche websites)

• Opportunity to advertise on websites that are not available via GDN

• Not suitable for short term campaigns

• Not suitable for pure brand campaigns, more conversion-focused

• Not part of the search process lower CTR

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Benefits of using a third party Affiliate network

• Many existing potential affiliates on (well-known) networks

• Higher (perceived) reliability

• Single invoice

• Fraud protection, policy enforcement

• Often additional tools available Voucher code management

Banner rotation

Container-Tag solutions

…

• Less maintenance

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Google Affiliate Network

• Acquired through the DoubleClick acquisition in 2007

• Second major affiliation network in US, 38% YoY growth

• Since end of 2011 active in the UK

• Roadmap: Germany: Q3 2012,

France Q4 2012,

rest of Europe during 2013

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Google Affiliate Network

• Integration of merchant center data

• AdSense account is required same strict checks for compliance (no automated clicks or impressions)

• Easy signup for AdSense members unique affiliate distribution

• Easy integration into Blogger (currently US only)

• Cooperation with third party providers for keyword monitoring

• Easy automatic tagging of destination urls for (any) web analytics

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Google Affiliate Network – Homepage

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Google Affiliate Network – Manage ad material

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Google Affiliate Network – Finding new affiliates

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Google Affiliate Network – Finding new affiliates

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Google Affiliate Network – Reports

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Outlook

• Strong affiliate market in Europe Zanox: > 4.000 advertisers, >1.000.000 affiliates

Tradedoubler: >1.900 advertisers, >128.000 affiliates

Google Affiliate Network: >800 advertisers, >22.000 affiliates

• Generally positive outlook for affiliates, expected growth in 2012 about 14.9% (NL) source IAB

• 16% growth/year since 2007 (USA) source Forrester

• 313% YoY growth in revenues from mobile affiliate marketing (Europe) source Zanox

• 46% of surveyed affiliates now work full-time in the industry (2009: 34%) source Econsultancy.com

• 66% of affiliates earn more than 5000€/month source A4U

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