Affiliate Drives Strong Sales Growth

Rakuten Marketing Asia-Pacific (APAC) prove the power of affiliate marketing with a staggering 67% Year-on-Year (YoY) increase in client sales for the first half of 2019. The news comes following a tough couple of months for the Australian ad-industry with Morgan Stanley revising down their 2019 forecast and claiming Australia is in the midst of an ‘advertising recession’.

In addition to delivering 67% YoY growth in client sales, during the first half of 2019 Rakuten Marketing APAC experienced a 91% YoY increase in orders made via the affiliate network. Globally, the company in 2018 paid out more than US$1.2 billion in publisher commissions and facilitated more than 100 million orders for their advertiser partners.

In August, Morgan Stanley cut ad spend estimates for the 2019 calendar year to flat growth of ~0.4% from prior forecasts of +2.2%. Moreover, while many traditional media and advertising companies have reported challenging, soft or weak growth, the change in the market presents an opportunity for performance channels such as affiliate marketing to gain further momentum.

Affiliate Marketing at its most basic is a low-risk, low-cost channel, whereby advertisers only pay when the cash register rings and a sale is made. A full-funnel strategy that engages customers throughout the path to purchase, advertisers partner with publishers who in exchange for a commission of the sale referred, promote the advertiser to their followers or drive sales using bespoke technology.

In addition to this, advancements in commissioning technologies allow advertisers to assign sophisticated commissioning strategies that reward publishers based on the audiences and behaviours that drive their business objectives, from promoting a high-margin product to reaching new-to-file customers.

The affiliate channel is the only channel that gives marketers the ability to pay for marketing based on the product sold or whether the customer is new or returning. This, coupled with the already low-risk, performance based model of affiliate marketing, sees the channel experience continued growth during a time when marketers are cutting spend to traditional channels.

To find out more about Rakuten Marketing and our affiliate services, visit our website and speak to an expert today.