Bob’s Weekly Reading Picks
2019.3.24- volume 11
Content
1.Getting Affiliated with a Different Side of Digital Marketing
2.The Awin Report 2019 PDF
3.Ben Cronin, Pinnacle: “Marketing strategies have to be well-rounded and data-driven”
4.Managing Different Types Influencers by Impact
5.5 Questions Partnership Channel Owners Need to Know How to Answer
6.16 Business Podcasts to Help You Become a Better Entrepreneur
7. Find Your Name: 10 Business Name Generators to Help You Create Your Brand
1.Getting Affiliated with a Different Side of Digital Marketing
Affiliate marketing to its most basic form, it is a performance-based channel in which an online retailer (merchant) pays a commission to an affiliate for any sales that were generated from their referrals.
Affiliate networks serve as a marketplace, through which merchants and affiliates can form partnerships. They provide tracking & reporting for the affiliate channel as well as managing payments for any commissions due.
2. The Awin Report 2019 PDF
The Awin Report 2019 tells the many varied stories of a marketing channel that is digitally diverse.
In this, the third edition of our annual definitive guide to the global affiliate industry, we provide a platform for our partners to share their insights on the state of affiliate marketing from a vast array of perspectives. Publishers, advertisers, agencies, influencer platforms, regulatory experts, industry bodies, and many more. All get their chance to speak thanks to a series of in-depth interviews, Q&As and thought leader articles. 
10 Predictions for the Affiliate Industry
- Tech gatekeepers will force a fundamental review of online tracking
- Industry consolidation will herald the rise of the ‘Uber Affiliates’ and a new opportunity for collaboration
- Amazon will represent a bigger threat than ever before
- International trade disagreements may hinder cross-border ecommerce growth
- A new emphasis on customer value rather than just customer acquisition
- 5G won’t revolutionise digital advertising yet
- Web tax initiatives may squeeze ecommerce margins in 2019
- Affiliates’ proximity to consumers will insulate them from ‘digital deadheading’
- Content monetisation dilemmas will receive new attention
- Automation of fundamentals will carve out more time for strategic support
3.Ben Cronin, Pinnacle: “Marketing strategies have to be well-rounded and data-driven”
Blog style article content is obviously great for SEO and ultimately acquisition, but if you’re more interested in instant engagement with your audience and helping them start a journey with your product then video may be a better route to go.
I think now more than ever, marketing strategies (and marketers themselves) have to be well-rounded and data driven. People tend to dedicate a lot of time to the creative work behind a piece of content but you need to put as much effort in to analysing its has as you do creating it.
As for AI, the impact it has had in recent years is incredible, but trying to grasp just how much it can develop and how big that impact can be in the future is actually quite frightening. We’ve already seen massive changes with automation, targeting and retargeting, personalization and even new forms of customer service, but there’s plenty more to come.
4. Managing Different Types Influencers by Impact PDF
Segmenting the Influencer Market
- Celebrities and Cewebrities (>1M followers)
- Macro-influencers (10K – 1M followers)
- Micro-influencers (<10K followers)
- Organic influencers (any size)
5. 5 Questions Partnership Channel Owners Need to Know How to Answer
Q1: Why do we have a partnership program?
A: To reach new audiences, increase conversions in other channels and drive a great return. And, in what other channel do you only pay for the final result that you want?
Q2: What’s our partnership program really doing for us?
A: Let me show you the granular data and customer insights we’ve discovered that shows exactly what drives our partnership program results.”
Q3: What would we lose if we turned our program off?
A: We know exactly how much revenue we can credit only to our partnership program, and to each partner individually through aggregated conversion path insights”
Q4: Who are our top partners and what are they doing for us?
Q5: How much time do we invest in growing our program?”
6. 16 Business Podcasts to Help You Become a Better Entrepreneur
- Shopify’s TGIM
- Duct Tape Marketing
- Vanguard by Shopify Studios
- HBR IdeaCast
- The $100 MBA Show
- The Copywriter Club
- Shopify Masters
- Mixergy
- The Jason and Scot Show
- The Creative Empire
- Nerd Marketing
- eCommerce Master Plan
- Social Media Examiner Podcast
- eCommerce Fuel
- The Goal Digger Podcast
- How I Built This