Attention all marketing professionals! The era of big data has arrived. Whether you’re a company looking to market its products and services to new audiences, an affiliate marketer hoping to maximize their income streams or another individual involved in the industry, there are umpteen ways in which big data is influencing the realm of marketing and sales.
In this post, we’ll look specifically at how big data has turned the affiliate marketing sector on its head, with an emphasis on three key areas: identifying suitable affiliate programs, targeting consumers more effectively and building partnerships with like-minded companies. If you’re keen to take advantage of the capabilities of big data but aren’t sure where to start, read on.
Pinpointing programs
From an affiliate marketer’s perspective, learning which programs and networks are the most compatible (and therefore, the most lucrative) with your own content is paramount to achieving business success. In the past, this would generally involve a laborious process of trial and error by selecting a program based on its niche and commission rate and hoping for the best when it came to return on investment.
No longer. Thanks to the unique insights and comprehensive bigger picture provided by big data, you can sift through the noise and locate the best affiliate programs for your specific situation with the minimum of effort. That’s good news for individual affiliate marketers, but also for the companies who earn business from them, since more effective traffic will yield greater profits across the board.
Targeting consumers
Big data is built upon the ubiquity of cookies, which monitor and log the online behavior of consumers all over the world. By tracking which sites, they visit, how long they spend on them and the type of purchases they have made in the past, you can build up a much better picture of the kind of person you’re selling to.
This is a fantastic tool not just for the companies who wish to advertise directly to their customers, but also to the affiliate marketers acting as middlemen. They, too, can use paid ads, pop-ups, email campaigns and a robust social media presence to promote their own content, which in turn drives traffic towards the providers of goods and services. Better targeting is responsible for better conversion rates for all involved.
Forging friendships
Although it might sound counter-intuitive, working alongside your competitors can actually bring dividends on various occasions. Whether it’s establishing economies of scale together, joining forces to crack a new market or collaborating to promoting cross upselling, forging friendships with other businesses in your sector can be a great way to get ahead.
Big data makes such an endeavor mere child’s play. By accessing and analyzing the reams of available information about your industry, you can see which companies and individuals would be most amenable and appropriate for a mutually beneficial relationship, enhancing the reputations and ROIs of both in the process.
Big data offers unprecedented capabilities in almost all aspects of the business world – and affiliate marketing is no different. These three reasons alone should be all the encouragement you need to hop on the bandwagon and incorporate big data into your future strategies.