Affiliate advertising is being driven by programmatic advertising, social media and ecommerce. New technology trends have also come to play a role too, with smart assistants, chatbots and mobile all are also helping reshape the way consumers interact with marketing and how marketing networks can operate.
In the UK, the programmatic advertising market took a significant step forward in the second half of 2018, with programmatic viewability rates outperforming publisher direct buys across desktop and mobile web display for the first time.
The result comes as confirmation that programmatic ads are now no longer seen as low-quality advertising inventory and are being used by some publishers to market high value content via private marketplaces and that decreasing amounts of brand damage are being done via this form of marketing.
According to the Integral Ad Science (IAS) UK Media Quality Report for H2 2018, programmatic UK desktop display ads meeting the minimum viewability standard rose by 8.2% from 63.4% to 69.1% in the second half of 2018. In comparison, publisher direct ads rose from 65.1% to 67.7%.
Meanwhile, 62.4% of programmatic mobile web displayadvertising impressions met minimum viewability standards, having increased 16.6% year-on-year from H2 2017 to H2 2018, reflecting the industry’s demand for higher standards in the programmatic inventory from the buyer side.
Affiliate marketing is starting to see something of a renaissance, with some of its issues being resolved and many more publishers seeing it as a viable way to drive traffic.
Mobile, too, has played a role. According to the IAB’s most recent figures, affiliate advertising spend on smartphones grew 49% year-on-year to account for 23% of overall spend – there’s a strong case to argue that that figure fails to fully reflect the way consumers search and shop today. According to the latest Global Payment Trends report from Worldpay, the market is expected to be worth some $314.5 billion (£243.7 billion) in the UK by 2022, a rise of 55% on 2018.
Brands and publishers talk about being “mobile first” when designing websites and advertising, but not when designing affiliate marketing campaigns, often deeming it a secondary channel to their cost. This is, after all, messaging that reaches a customer in purchase mode. Failing to ensure that all aspects of a campaign are optimised for mobile creates a frustrating consumer experience and risks losing that potential customer to a competitor.
Are you going to Affiliate World Europe? We want to hear from you about the future of advertising
And with Affiliate World Europe kicking off in Barcelona on 8-9 July, what better time to take a deep look at what is happening in this exciting part of the industry.
Telemedia-online will be there, digging out the juiciest stories and reporting back on the latest developments. And we need you: we are looking to get key thought leaders, pioneers and experts from across the affiliate and performance marketing and advertising world to take part in a series of video interviews about their thoughts on the trends developing and how the show is going.
Building on last year’s coverage why not get your thoughts out there to help lead the industry through the rest of 2019 and beyond?
To register your interest in talking to our film crew FREE OF CHARGE, contact Geraldine O’Sullivan.
See you in Barcelona!
