It’s always good to know how brands view affiliate channels.
After all, the field has evolved significantly in the past few years alone, especially in its approach to the “customer journey.”
The idea of a “funnel” in affiliate marketing is debatable. For many, it has become a prison that traps affiliates in the “bottom of the funnel” and overlooks a lot of the heavy lifting that affiliates naturally do for brand awareness. This means that affiliates are not properly compensated for their work.
A recent survey revealed that 94% of creators are fed up with associations. Decline flat-rate affiliate commissions.coupon partner have also expressed dissatisfaction They have generally been relegated to bottom-funnel sales, and today they argue that they can and do drive a lot of value near the beginning of the customer journey.
So we set out to learn more about the reality of this situation and to quantify and structure these feelings of dissatisfaction.
We surveyed leading e-commerce brands to find out how they view affiliate marketing in relation to the customer journey. We learned about the most important compensation plans, including whether they focus on funnels and which partners go where.
Let’s take a closer look at these findings.
Brands focus on funnels
While some affiliate marketers may be trying to bury the concept of a “funnel,” it’s alive and well for brands.
The majority of respondents (88%) said it is important or very important to consider funnels with affiliate partners. Only 3% considered it unimportant and 9% were neutral.
Brands think about where affiliates are going in the process
While many partners are able to adapt to a full-funnel approach these days, brands still prefer to consider more targeted strategies.
When asked if they consider whether their partner is top-funnel or bottom-funnel, 84% said yes.
Content commerce and creators come out on top
When you look at a brand’s preferred placement of partners in the customer journey, there are few surprises.
When it comes to top-of-funnel activation, content commerce ranks highest, with 77% of respondents choosing it. Creators follow him at 67%. Next, we see that micro-influencers and macro-influencers reach 50% and 40%, respectively. It’s interesting to see that the micro certainly outperforms the macro here. It’s a trend we’ve all heard over the past few years, and it’s clearly put into practice here.