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November 6, 2018
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Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

Three ideas to jump-start your affiliate marketing program

By | Affiliate Program, Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Miscellaneous, Online Marketing Ideas | No Comments

As an affiliate, finding ideas that work isn’t always easy. You can often spend a lot time considering different strategies to boost sales.

Being in the business of affiliate marketing for many years, Share Results has experienced firsthand the effectiveness of different strategies, particularly for banking products such as credit cards. So, if ever you’re not sure where to start, here are three ideas that have worked wonders for many of our affiliates.

Read on to find out how these tactics can drive traffic to your website, retain visitors and ultimately convert.

1. Blog Content

Target and acquire organic traffic

Having a blog allows you to rank for long tail keywords, which are not only less competitive, but also better for acquiring targeted traffic.

Build Interest That Resonates and Adds Value

Once you have traffic coming to your website through your blog, you can start converting that traffic into leads. If you’re consistently creating content that’s helpful for your target customer, they will see you as a trusted authority, making them more likely to start the sales process. So, it’s important to understand the key segments of your audience to deliver content that will be relevant and useful.

Increase Shares and Readership Through Social Media

Every blog post you create is an opportunity for people to share that content on social media networks, which exposes your business to a new audience.

Blog content can also be repurposed and distributed through different channels. Just this month, one of our affiliates repurposed their content about personal finance and banking products through their social media channels and e-newsletter. The result: acquisitions tripled from the previous month and traffic increased by 1267%.

Read more about creating shareable, value-added content.

2. Distribute Newsletters (Email Marketing)

 

Email isn’t going anywhere. Even in 2018, when it comes to digital marketing, after a website, email is the second most effective channel not to be missed according to a recent survey.  This year, one of our affiliates had 72.5% of their total monthly acquisitions come from a series of e-newsletters. One of their e-newsletter campaigns boosted their traffic by 46.3% from the previous month.

Email marketing is still 40x more effective than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to generating a sale, according to a McKinsey & Company study. This means if you don’t have an e-newsletter, you could be leaving money on the table.

That said, an e-newsletter adds significant value in several ways:

  • Reach readers

It allows you to take the conversation to your visitor’s inbox which is their most personal online space.

  • Build Engagement and Retention

Most of your website visitors are new visitors who will never come back, so getting them to sign up to your e-newsletter allows you to engage them, which can keep them coming back and help you retain the traffic you worked so hard to earn.

  • Offer Perks and Information of Value

E-newsletters also let you directly communicate offers to your audience and provide them with incentives to return such as discounts, valuable content or new products.

3. Display Banners

 

Display banners are often used and are a popular marketing tool. They are easy to launch and quickly test and when logging into any affiliate program, there is almost always a section where there are a selection of banners to choose from. Sometimes they are generic banners and other times they are promoting a specific campaign.

We’ve seen a new affiliate start driving traffic as soon as their banner went live on their homepage. Recently one of our affiliates who published content about a reward credit card saw their conversion increased to 25% as soon as they added a banner with a good CTA (call-to-action).

So, if you are thinking of using display banners, here are some pros and cons:

Pros:

Draw visitor’s attention and improve conversion rate

Banners are great way to draw your visitors’ attention and can help you convert.

Brand Awareness

More visibility means better recall rate for your brand and top-of-mind awareness. This is important because sixty-six percent of online consumers prefer to buy new products from brands that they are familiar with, according to a Nielsen study.

Cons:

Banner Blindness

As people are getting used to seeing display banners, they start developing banner blindness and often simply ignore them.

Ad Blockers

The use of online ad blockers is growing, and this results in a loss of banner impressions, conversions and sales.

If you decide to use display banners there are two things to consider.

First, do you have the right audience for banners? Some people don’t like to visit a website with advertising banners, which makes them more likely to use ad blockers.

Second, where do you place your banner? Since its location on your website will impact your conversion rate, you must try to ensure your banners are in an area that will draw attention. Don’t forget about banner blindness. Fortunately, it’s easy to change the location of the banner if it’s not getting the results you want.

Pro-tip:

We’ve noticed at Share Results that most affiliates get better results by using text links as they  allow them to generate focused CTAs. They seem to convert better than plain banners.

The Take-Away

 

Over the years we’ve seen blog content, e-newsletters and display banners be highly effective for our affiliates. So, trying these ideas can be a great way to boost your website traffic, customer engagement and conversions.

If you’ve enjoyed this read, visit our website for other articles and our affiliate network.

August 3, 2018
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Pillars of Affiliate Marketing Strategy: 4 Key strategies for a successful affiliate marketing program

By | Affiliate Program, Digital Marketing, Miscellaneous, Network, Promotions | No Comments

Have you thought about launching an affiliate marketing program for your financial services company but aren’t sure how to get started? We hear you. Launching an affiliate marketing program can seem daunting— but it doesn’t have to be.

To prove it we’ve put together:

  • Tips on what to do before you pilot your plan
  • 4 key strategies for making it work

Alignment & Focus

According to eMarketer affiliate marketing is forecasted to have a 62% increase in US retail spending between 2015 and 2020. In fact, affiliate marketing’s scalability and measurability are part of what make is so attractive (and effective).

But, before piloting your plan you need to make sure the target end results align with your defined business goals. Start by asking the right questions. Smart Insights’ interview with author Geno Prussokov nicely summarizes the top 5 questions to ask when crafting your affiliate strategy:

  1. What is the primary end consumer action (sale, lead, subscription, etc.) that you want to facilitate through affiliates?
  2. What types of affiliate marketers are you most interested in recruiting?
  3. Who will manage your affiliate program?
  4. What key performance indicators will you use to measure your campaign performance?
  5. How will your affiliate program become (and stay) attractive and competitive through commission arrangements and other incentives?

Now, consider your affiliate channel—instead of viewing it as competition for the same market with your other marketing channels, focus your strategy on increasing the size of a new market using a performance-partnership model. Or, as Robert Glazer describes it in his article on Entrepreneur:

“Rather than compete for bigger slices of the pie, the affiliate marketing model requires both sides to work toward increasing the size of the pie as a whole and allowing many options for customization.”

4 Key Strategies

Once you establish business alignment and areas of focus you’ll have the groundwork for planning your affiliate marketing strategy.

Use these 4 key strategies to optimize your results:

  1. Measure real time performance now where your customers are
  • Know where your customers are coming from. Tracking which sites are generating traffic and customers, and which aren’t proves the ROI of your marketing spend. With ShareResults you can customize the integration of the reporting from an affiliate to you—so you can analyze data the way that makes sense for your business
  • Know which affiliate campaign and tactics are performing to see what affiliates are doing to drive performance
  • Be responsive to affiliates and their marketing needs to ensure results through regular account management
  1. Recruit quality affiliates who align with your target market and target audience
  • Leverage the affiliates’ audience to promote your product. For example, the affiliates’ website could provide value through comparison tools, content insights, and 3rd party reviews to create a following. This following and established trust with the audience can resonate with your product/service enhancing your brand.
  • Try geo-targeting if your product or service is available at specific locations, recruit affiliates with an audience in those areas
  1. Use a commission structure that drives your business objectives

There are plenty of commission options depending on what your business is trying to achieve. Some options ShareResults offers are:

  • Flat or tiered CPA/CPL
  • Revenue share or CPA at a product level
  • And multi-tier referral commission

If you have a high value product, revenue share or higher CPA for that specific product might make sense. If you want to boost all sales, a tiered CPA can have greater incentives.

  1. Launch promotional campaigns to increase the participation of affiliates
  • Spearhead a campaign to attract affiliates to come onboard to promote your product/service.
  • Incentivize new affiliate programs to feature a product/service by offering a special bonus.

Follow these steps and strategies and you’ll be well on your way to a successful affiliate marketing program.

Still have questions or want to learn more about how ShareResults can help you with your affiliate marketing strategy? Contact us; we’d love to hear from you.

May 20, 2018
2
Creditcardgenius unveils best Canadian Credit Cards of 2018

The 2018 credit card winners are in: Creditcardgenius unveils best Canadian Credit Cards of 2018

By | Miscellaneous | No Comments

Excellence is its Own Reward…

There’s no greater reward than being acknowledged for excellence. Which is why, we’re excited to share that not one, but two of our partner merchants—Scotiabank and Tangerine recently made creditcardgenius’ coveted “Best Canadian Credit Cards of 2018” list. Credit cards competed across 18 categories such as “Best Cash Back”, “Best Air Miles” and “Best Balance Transfer” for a place on the list.

Scotiabank won awards for Best Store Credit Card for the GM® Visa Infinite (noted as being especially good for GM car lovers offering up to 5% off your next GM vehicle) and Best Foreign Exchange Credit Card for the Passport Visa Infinite card which has no foreign exchange fee and an average 1.25% return on spending.

Tangerine won Best No-Fee Cash Back Credit Card for their Money-Back Credit Card that delivers “an impressive 2% cash back in any two spending categories you choose” (and has over 15 categories to choose from).

Objective & Unbiased Comparisons

With a commitment to providing objective and unbiased credit card comparisons, creditcardgenius (our affiliate partner) helps Canadians make informed choices by providing comprehensive credit card reviews—tracking and comparing over 50 features of more than 160 Canadian credit cards.

Here are just a few of the more than 50 features used for comparison:

  • Rewards
  • Fees
  • Insurance
  • Interest
  • Perks
  • Approval
  • And acceptance

Partners in Success

Congratulations to our award-winning partner merchants, Scotiabank and Tangerine! We’re proud of your achievements and continue to dedicate ourselves to helping finance-based merchants enhance their traffic, sales revenue, and digital marketing strategies. Readers can view the full list of winners along with ratings and comparison tools here.

 

May 16, 2018
0
CIBC AC Conversion™ Card

Promote CIBC AC Conversion™ Card through the Share Results Affiliate Platform

By | Miscellaneous | No Comments

For all our travel and credit card affiliates out there, we are excited to announce a new product available on the Share Results Network – the CIBC AC Conversion™ Card!

We are pleased to be working with the CIBC Capital Markets team to build exposure of their global currency prepaid visa card.

Here’s what you need to know about the AC Conversion™ VISA Prepaid Card:

 

  • Users can easily store multiple currencies.

The card can store up to 10 currencies– the first card of its kind!

Take advantage of the exchange rate at the time of loading the card. The currencies include Canadian Dollars, US Dollars, Euros, British Pounds, Australian Dollars, Japanese Yen, Hong Kong Dollars, Turkish Lira, Swiss Franc and Mexican Pesos.

These rates are fixed when you purchase the currencies and are from CIBC’s live streaming interbank rates.

CIBC AC Conversion™ Card

Promote CIBC AC Conversion™ Card through the Share Results Affiliate Platform

  • Users can manage the card through their online account.

For customers needing to make a purchase or pay for a restaurant bill on the go, they can easily access the product through the web or mobile app and top up their account immediately.

Users can load any amount between $100 to $2999.99 CAD per transaction. The maximum balance is $20,000.

  • Easily apply and get approved through the digital application.

Because users need to make a deposit equal to or more than the amount they will spend, this makes the application easier to approve than a credit card. There is no credit check and no bank account required.

  • While it is convenient like cash, it is secure like a credit/debit card.

The card has the Chip and PIN technology for verification. There are also daily point of sale and ATM withdrawal transaction limits to prevent fraud. Emergency card replacement and emergency cash are other services available.

  •  It is supported across 45 countries.

It can be used anywhere VISA payments are accepted.

  •  No risk of accruing debt.

Users are drawing money that have been deposited. They cannot overspend and there are no interests.

  • Canadians are eligible.

To apply for the card, users must be a permanent resident of Canada, have a Canadian address and be the age of the majority in their respective province.

Start promoting now!

Join the CIBC AC Conversion™ merchant in the Share Results Network now to promote the card and earn commissions for approved customers!

Not yet a member of the CIBC AC Conversion™ Affiliate Program? Find out more about the offer and product here.

April 17, 2018
1

Part 1: Top 3 KPIs to Drive Financial Affiliate Program Growth

By | Affiliate Program, Analytics, Digital Marketing, Miscellaneous, Program Optimisation | No Comments

Face it; running an affiliate program can be time-intensive. Whether you’re a marketing manager directly overseeing your campaign, are using an outsourced solution or a combination of both—understanding and focusing on the right key performance indicators (KPIs) from the start can mean the difference between a successful versus a not-so-successful affiliate program.

In this article we share our top three KPIs for driving financial affiliate program growth to help you optimize your performance and spend your efforts in the right areas. We’ll also walk you through what each indicator means, why it matters and how to use it to grow your program. Ready? Let’s get started.

#1. CONVERSION RATE

What it is

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) provides one of the simplest definitions for conversion rate as “the percentage of users who complete a desired action.” Typically reported on monthly, conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of leads by the number of clicks (number of leads ÷ number of clicks = conversion rate).

Why it Matters

By measuring clicks against desired customer action, conversion rate puts clicks into context thereby making it more valuable (and informative) than click rate data alone.

Tracking conversion rate will help you:

• Identify your most lucrative partners, showing which affiliate partnerships and campaigns bring in the best traffic so you know where to invest in expanding.
• Identify your most lucrative digital channels, because you can compare a standardized rate across channels against affiliate channels.
• Identify high potential affiliates, that may only need small adjustments to their program to yield big payoff

How to use it to help grow your program

You can use conversion rate to help you identify breaks in your customer journey and show you areas for improvement. Very low click rates may signal poor ad placement and/or execution or the need for landing page optimization. Making necessary adjustments can prevent losing valuable clicks that could become leads and ultimately convert to sales.

Other ways you can use conversion rate are to:

• Compare high versus low conversion rate affiliate promotions, to see which placement types and techniques best drive leads for your business (ex. placement, ad, information presented, traffic demographic)
• Identify high traffic, low conversion rate affiliates as high potential and target your efforts to these affiliates to improve their promotional efforts and customer experience
• Gauge promotion and landing page impact on prospect interest level at various points in the customer journey.

But, don’t rely solely on conversion rate alone; use it in tandem with the next KPI—approval rate to gain deeper insights into your affiliate program performance.

#2. APPROVAL RATE

What it Is

Approval rate is defined as the percentage of approvals for a particular product such as credit cards that require a screening process. Typically reported on monthly, approval rate is calculated by dividing the number of approvals by the number of leads (number of approvals ÷ number of leads = approval rate).

Why it Matters

While a high volume of leads can be the sign of a healthy program, approval rate comes into play when the desired outcome is qualified prospects that become customers.

Approval rate compliments conversion rate by:

• Showing the quality of leads—adding dimension and value to conversion rate numbers. A high conversion rate without a fair approval rate is not necessarily delivering value.
• Helping identify the most lucrative partners and digital channels. Much like conversion rate, approval rate shows you where to best invest your energy.
• Telling a more complete story, of where to focus your partnership cultivation and program growth efforts.
• Giving a greater degree of targeting. A low conversion rate but high approval rate is an even more targeted way to identify and segment high potential affiliates.

How to use it to help grow your program

A low approval rate may signal a mismatch between the product offering and the affiliate audience it’s being offered to. Use this opportunity to correct course; communicate the target customer profile to your affiliate so that they can adjust their messaging and positioning.

Approval rating can also be used to:

• Help affiliate managers work with an affiliate, to better understand their audience demographics and give strategic recommendations on more suitable products.
• Evaluate affiliate’s ability to drive targeted and quality traffic. Instead of changing the product side, you can work with the affiliate on its traffic acquisition efforts to generate more targeted leads
• Guide positioning changes or improve product information on the site for better alignment with the product. This increases the chances that the affiliate is ready to convert when gets redirected from click.
• Identify lack of landing page optimization. A high conversion rate but low approval rate can signal where the origin of the low approvals may lie (i.e. too many steps in the buyer journey which is leading to bouncing).

In contrast to conversion rate, approval rate is a more specific quality metric pointing to the fit of the affiliate’s site and its traffic, with the product. Be sure to assess the brand fit on product-level and partnership-level and look at the affiliate’s method of acquiring and screening traffic.

Look closely at cases where approval rating is really low to avoid a poor fit that could potentially hurt your reputation. Make sure to monitor the messaging of the promotion to ensure it is accurate and not misleading. Depending on the situation, it may be worth re-assessing the partnership as a whole for alignment with the affiliate’s brand and yours.

Or, very low approval rate may signal that it’s time to sever the partnership altogether rather than continuing to invest heavily in an unfruitful partnership. Re-allocate your resources and time into more promising relationships. Looking at approval rate together with our next KPI—program growth – can help you make this decision.

Watch this space to read all about the third very important KPI that is key to driving the growth of your financial affiliate program! Part 2 is coming soon.

Want to know more about how to implement these KPIs using the Share Results platform? Get in touch!

January 15, 2018
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Share Results Voted Top 20 CPS Affiliate Network 2018

By | Miscellaneous | No Comments

We are happy to announce that we have made the mThink’s Blue Book Best CPS Affiliate Networks for the 4th year in a row. Thank you for voting us as one of the Top 20 CPS Affiliate Networks for 2018 (Cost-Per-Sale)!

mThink undertakes the biggest research survey in the international affiliate marketing industry every year to determine the best of over 400 affiliate networks. With the consideration of mThink’s rigorous research and the input of the industry experts that make up the Blue Ribbon Panel, the results are decided by the votes from the publishers and advertisers from the global performance marketing community.

Those that make the list are described by mThink as “the industry leaders that provide the levels of customer service, professionalism and consistent ROI that is the mark of a top network. They have also learned to survive and thrive in an ever-changing and incredibly competitive environment, so they are without exception run by smart, effective leaders.” You can find the full ranking here.

We are invigorated to continue to strengthen our winning affiliate network and affiliate marketing expertise. For 2018, we strive to further our relationships with our publishers and continue to offer outstanding program management solutions for the financial services sector.

Thank you again for the support and we look forward to another successful year together!

December 22, 2017
2

High Impact Visuals for Engaging Banking Campaigns

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Miscellaneous, Online Marketing Ideas | No Comments

Use this cheat sheet for creating shareable, value-added content

Looking for ways to make a big impact and increase engagement with customers and prospects? Visual marketing is a powerful tool, especially in the finance industry. With relevant images and videos, a bank can grab consumer attention while telling a compelling narrative. Even better, those appealing visuals are easily shared across social media sites, such as Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook — boosting brand recognition and overall reach.

What is Considered Visual Marketing?

Visual marketing includes infographics that illustrate a quick snippet of data, short and insightful videos, entertaining animated gifs and other engaging visual assets. In fact, adding an attractive image with your Facebook posts will deliver 84% more clicks, 53% more likes, and 104% more comments, according to this Kissmetrics survey.

According to another report by Hubspot, infographics are “liked” and shared on social media three times more often than any other type of content. This means a significant increase in customer reach for your brand.

Visual Marketing in Banking: 10 Dos and Don’ts

There are dozens of tried and true rules when it comes to creating and sharing visual marketing assets. Here are 10 to get you started:

  1. DO keep it simple. The best infographics focus on one idea or concept. Don’t over stuff it.
  2. DON’T sell, engage. Customers will see an ad for what it is, and be less inclined to share it. Instead, entice users with relevant, interesting or unique information they can use.
  3. DO tell a story with images. Keep text to a minimum and let the images do the talking. Especially in a video. Aim for videos to be less than one minute for long format and 15 seconds for short.
  4. DO make an impact. Use creative imagery and graphics to tell a story or communicate a simple idea. Don’t shy away from using bold, playful or attention-grabbing colors, where appropriate.
  5. DO be consistent. Consistency breeds trust. By using consistent branding, content or delivery methods, even timing, your customers can predict your movement and build confidence. Don’t forget to match your marketing with your in-store/retail signage, print materials, displays, out-of-home and point of sale materials.
  6. DO track performance like any other marketing channel. Whether video, image or dynamic creative, be able to compare its impact on growth against your other marketing channels.
  7. DO optimize/customize to the specific platform/medium. Poorly displaying graphics (wrong size, resolution, time to load, etc.) provide a bad customer experience for prospective clients and can reflect negatively on your brand.
  8. DON’T ignore your creative team. Trust your designers when they recommend or suggest changes. Taking their feedback into consideration while respecting brand guidelines can go a long way for optimizing the customer experience.
  9. DON’T mismatch visual formats to the message/audience. Be strategic when creating your content by considering the audience and format. See this Bank of America on Pinterest case study for an example of how they constructed visuals to work within the Pinterest ecosystem.
  10. DO make sure you understand rights and usage of your visual assets. You don’t want to be penalized by an image library or photographer for using copyrighted materials.

As the financial industry continues to evolve the ways it engages and interacts with prospective customers, the use of high-impact visuals in a variety of mediums remains at the forefront. Add vitality to your banking products by incorporating videos, animated gifs and other more engaging assets into your campaigns to give customers a feel for your brand. Behind the scenes, don’t forget to track each and every campaign and visual to understand what’s making the most difference to your growth.

The team at Share Results works with financial institutions on campaign creation, management and measurement. Learn more about how Share Results can help your brand expand its footprint in the financial services industry.  

 

November 2, 2017
1

Part 2: Smart, Data-Driven Campaigns with ShareResults

By | Affiliate Program, Affiliate Tracking Software, Analytics, Miscellaneous, Promotions | No Comments

Part one of Smart, Data-Driven Campaigns focused on the manual reporting that so many marketers have to rely on.  Today we are going to look at the importance of giving your partners, the affiliates, the right tools in order to run a successful campaign and essentially drive more conversions.

Quick Insights for Financial Marketers and Affiliates

If your financial institution wants to test or focus on performance marketing (a solid goal considering that 40% of financial services companies have 20%–80% of their overall revenue driven through their performance marketing partnerships) your partners, the affiliates, need the right tools to run a successful campaign and get you as many customers as possible. Your internal tracking is great to compare and track your marketing efforts but when working with affiliates who need real-time tracking, pulling the results from your in-house tool every week or once a month isn’t efficient.

The ShareResults software can be made available to both parties and allows a deep view into each campaign and how it’s performing. For example, the software can show how many applications were made and how many of those were approved — something other tracking tools can’t show.

This dynamic software also allows for comparing different affiliates. For instance, the Affiliate Manager can see if the “approval rate” for an ongoing gift card promotion is much higher on one affiliate website compared to another affiliate website. Maybe the first affiliate is also using targeted mailers and the other is running a less-trafficked PPC campaign. Using these data driven insights, the Affiliate Manager can recommend a different strategy for the PPC campaign and affect the overall success.

Plus, Affiliates often spend money on promoting their partners, so why would they spend extra time and money on a campaign that they can’t optimize? It’s an advantage to both the affiliate and the financial institution to access in-depth reporting.

An Affiliate traffic report allows users to see which merchants are performing the best using various KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Each report has customizable sorting and filtering capabilities to better analyze the data.

With real-time tracking, affiliates can log into their accounts and see which campaigns are working best. From number of impressions to click-through rates, from reporting by creative to seeing which is your top performing banner, and so on. Shedding light on those campaigns from beginning to end.

ShareResults offers easy-to-use and customizable software that delivers:
● Real-time data and reporting
● Paperless payment solution
● Easiest and most flexible interface around
● Unlimited users and affiliates

Case Study: Using Data to Make a Difference

Here’s an example of the power of using data strategically. In one month an Affiliate might run two campaigns: an email campaign and an online gift card campaign.

During the month, the Affiliate is able to see some click data on these two campaigns, but won’t be able to see the sales/conversion rates until the end of the month when the financial institution sends over a spreadsheet.

When the spreadsheet is finally sent, the Affiliate Manager discovers the email generated 90 approved sales and the online gift-card had 110 approved sales. This leads the Affiliate to think the online gift-card campaign was more successful than the email one. But was it?

Maybe the email campaign received 100 sales and 90 of these were then approved. And the online gift-card campaign received 300 sales but only 110 of these were actually approved. The conversion rate of the email ended up being a lot higher, making it the more successful of the two.

The Affiliate might have spent more time and money on the online gift-card campaign, but if they had put more resources behind the mailer, they would have sent the financial institution more approved customers. And both the Affiliate and the financial institution would have made more money. Without access to real-time data to expose this information during the campaigns, there’s no way to know until it’s too late.

The time for using big data to make strategic decisions in your marketing programs is here. Do you have the right tools to make a difference? Or are you still using a manually-created spreadsheet?

Shared Results offers turn-key reporting solutions and knowledgeable Affiliate Manager who will partner with you. Reach out for a demo and to learn more.

 

September 14, 2017
1

Part One: Smart, Data-Driven Campaigns with Share Results

By | Affiliate Program, Affiliate Tracking Software, Miscellaneous, Program Optimisation | No Comments

Financial industry marketers have long known that data-driven strategy can have a huge impact on their campaign’s success. But some companies lack the tools to analyze the high-volume of information available, such as real-time user activity and trends, and to make strategic refinements on the fly. How well are you using data?

Death by Manual Spreadsheets

Some financial businesses rely on manual reporting — spreadsheets that are passed around to gather data from various, ongoing campaigns. Once compiled, they are reviewed by the team and leadership. This method is slow and doesn’t allow for in-the-moment changes that could lead to increased success. Plus, the man-hours used to create such a document could be better spent.

When a financial institution is running an affiliate program, the process is even more time-consuming. Often, the affiliate has to wait for the company to send a monthly spreadsheet detailing acquisition results (often with very basic information and manually created), before they can analyze campaign performance. Basically, the campaign runs in the dark.

To sum up, manually-created tracking spreadsheets are:

  • Time consuming
  • Labor intensive
  • Lacking access to real-time insights

Premier Reporting Tools For High-Performing Campaigns 

Ready for a real data solution? A best-in-class reporting tool cuts out the time to manually compile this information and delivers a full-view of all running campaigns in the moment. And that’s exactly what the ShareResults software offers.

Earnings Report

Earnings Report: In the robust ShareResults software, a merchant or financial industry marketer can easily drill down to specific metrics, including click-through, approved transactions and commission information.

Easy to use and customizable, this robust software reports real-time data and can compile a myriad of reports which you can email with one click — making those paper spreadsheets a thing of the past.

The customizable dashboard keeps things organized and easy to use.  It also allows users to manage multiple affiliate campaigns, with important data at-a-glance. It can be set up with an unlimited number of custom commission plans, multiple products and creative images. It also includes a paperless payment system for affiliates with monthly invoicing, balance statements and more.

Stay tuned for part 2!

July 22, 2015
0
Mobile Marketing

Marketing Agencies in the Year 2020 (Part 2)

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Miscellaneous, Online Marketing Ideas | No Comments

Beyond the Trends

Rather than bore you with a list-based article discussing the many marketing trends that will surely dominate practice in the years to come, we thought it might be more amusing to speculate about what a typical marketing agency will look like in the year 2020. Honestly, I beseech you to Google “marketing trends” and peruse the first few results… the same information, emphasized and recycled time after time. Boring!

In any case, last week, we tackled two essential components of a marketing agency, both of which advocate the philosophy that all customer-facing communications must be deep-rooted in value. What’s more, is that besides value, by the year 2020, it will be absolutely necessary for all marketing-related endeavors to inspire genuine interest and curiosity – which is, admittedly, a tall order if you’re not equipped with the appropriate talent.

CRM Becomes Entirely Personalized

Remember that scene in the Spielberg blockbuster Minority Report when Tom Cruise’s character enters the mall and receives a plethora of hyper-targeted advertisements? Yeah, imagine that, but perhaps less drastic. Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

Customer relationship management will no longer be wholly focused on retaining patrons and increasing loyalty, but rather; firms will deploy highly-skilled CRM teams with one, everlasting mission: to leverage social media and develop data-driven customer profiles that reflect the unique nature of people’s interests, behavior, attitudes and beliefs. If you’re petrified by such examples of marketing innovation, then you should probably try to ignore the proliferation of wearable technology – because, quite frankly, this is only the beginning. Sure, this also implies that agencies will also have to establish an unwavering ethics team that know precisely when and where to draw the line. But hey – when all’s said and done, isn’t that what marketing’s about?

Believe it or not, but entirely personalized CRM is already happening thanks to a mildly disturbing application called Crystal Knows – a web platform that scans a particular individual’s digital footprint to produce a set of personality traits from which hyper-targeted communications can be deployed.

We already live in the future!

Everything Optimized

In the year 2020, a marketing agency is nothing without its optimization team – an exceptional group of perfectionists who take great pride in their ability to cultivate an efficient browsing environment. Every aspect of a digital campaign will be polished to produce the smoothest, richest and most enjoyable user experience that circumvents any semblance of slow load times or poorly rendered content.

Just say it out loud… everything about the word optimization oozes with swagger. It could be the most universally admired term in the English language. I mean, its implications are profoundly beautiful! I implore you to include the word optimization into your-day-to-day vernacular. Honestly, it applies to everything.

There you have it – our predictions for what a typical marketing agency will look like in the year 2020. I’ll bet you’re wondering why anything mobile-related was left out? Come on, people! Everyone and their neighbour’s dogs are barking about mobile technology and how it’s imperative to marketing in the future… this is common wisdom!

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