Affiliate marketing has become a core component of a well-rounded marketing strategy. However, maximising the incrementality of the affiliate channel — ensuring that the traffic and conversions driven by affiliates are genuinely incremental and not just a result of double counting or overlapping efforts — is essential for businesses aiming to fully optimise this channel. This article will explore various ways to enhance incrementality, providing actionable insights for marketers and businesses.
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Understanding Incrementality in Affiliate Marketing
Before suggesting methods to maximise incrementality, it’s important to first understand what incrementality means in the context of affiliate marketing. Simply put, incrementality refers to the extent to which affiliate-driven conversions or sales would not have occurred without the influence of the affiliated person. In other words, it’s about identifying whether the affiliate program is generating new, additional customers or just capturing conversions that would have happened anyway through other channels.
Affiliate marketing is often seen as an excellent method for driving traffic and generating sales, but it’s crucial for brands to determine if the traffic generated through affiliates is truly incremental. Without understanding this, brands may misallocate resources, optimise poorly, or fail to scale their affiliated programs effectively.
Use Proper Attribution Models
One of the most significant challenges in measuring affiliate marketing incrementality is the complexity of attribution. The typical affiliate model is straightforward: an affiliate earns a commission when a user makes a purchase through their unique tracking link. However, the challenge lies in determining if the conversion would have occurred without the affiliate’s involvement or if it was merely influenced by other marketing channels.
To address this challenge, brands must use advanced attribution models that go beyond last-click attribution. Multi-touch attribution (MTA) models take into account all the touchpoints a consumer interacts with on their journey before converting. These models allow marketers to understand how affiliate touchpoints fit into the overall consumer decision-making process and to assess the true impact of each affiliate.
For example, if an affiliate’s banner ad only serves to remind a customer about a product they’ve already researched through other channels, the affiliate’s role in the conversion is less incremental. Using MTA will help identify such cases and ensure more accurate tracking and credit allocation.
Invest in Affiliate Fraud Prevention
Fraudulent activity, such as click fraud, fake leads and ad hijacking, can distort the true incrementality of an affiliate program. Fraudulent affiliates may drive low-quality traffic that ultimately results in conversions that would have occurred through other channels, thus inflating the perceived value of the affiliate channel. These kinds of activities undermine the accuracy of performance reporting and hinder the effectiveness of affiliate marketing efforts.
To maximise incrementality, businesses must take proactive steps to combat affiliate fraud. This involves using advanced fraud detection tools, such as machine learning algorithms and real-time fraud detection systems, to filter out suspicious activity. Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) for anomalies and conducting regular audits of affiliate activity can help identify patterns of fraud that would otherwise skew incrementality measurement.
In addition, working with reputable affiliates and ensuring they adhere to ethical practices can reduce the likelihood of fraud. By prioritising genuine, high-quality affiliates, companies can focus on driving incremental conversions rather than wasted efforts due to fraudulent activities.
Optimise Affiliate Program Structure
Another effective way to boost incrementality is by optimising the structure of the affiliate program itself. How affiliates are compensated plays a significant role in the quality of the traffic they drive. For instance, commission models should align with the goals of generating incremental value rather than rewarding affiliates solely for volume-based sales. This can be achieved by experimenting with performance-based incentives, such as:
- Tiered commission structures: Affiliates who generate more incremental sales receive higher commissions, incentivising them to work harder and deliver higher-quality traffic.
- Bonuses for new customer acquisition: Instead of rewarding affiliates only for sales, offering higher commissions for bringing in new customers — rather than those who would have converted through another channel — can help drive truly incremental growth.
By aligning affiliate incentives with the goal of generating incremental value, businesses can drive more genuine results, reducing the likelihood of overlap with other marketing channels.
Encourage Diversification Among Affiliates
One way to ensure affiliate marketing drives incremental value is to encourage affiliates to target a broader audience segment. If all affiliates are targeting the same demographic or user base, there is a higher chance of overlap with other marketing efforts. This can lead to the same customers being exposed to multiple touchpoints, diluting the true incremental impact of affiliate marketing.
To counter this, marketers should focus on diversifying the affiliate mix. This involves engaging a variety of affiliates across different niches, including influencers/content creators, discount sites and loyalty programs. By diversifying the affiliate base, companies can increase the likelihood of tapping into new customer segments that wouldn’t otherwise be reached through other marketing channels.
Affiliates who specialise in specific niches can introduce your product to previously untapped audiences, increasing the potential for incremental sales. This way, the affiliated channel becomes an effective tool for reaching new customers, driving true incremental growth for the business.
Implement Data-Driven Testing
Testing is one of the most effective ways to identify and maximize the incrementality of your affiliate marketing efforts. By continuously running A/B tests, businesses can experiment with different affiliate strategies to identify what drives truly incremental conversions.
For example, a brand may test the effectiveness of a special offer or promotion through different affiliates. By comparing the results of various tests, companies can determine which types of offers, creative formats, or messaging generate incremental value, rather than just serving as a reminder for customers who are already inclined to make a purchase.
Furthermore, testing can help identify the most effective affiliate partners in terms of driving incremental sales. For instance, some affiliates might have a highly engaged audience but produce little incremental sales, while others might drive substantial new customer acquisition. By continuously measuring performance and adjusting strategies based on data-driven insights, marketers can fine-tune their approach for maximum impact.
Implement a Strong Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
A strong CRM system can help identify whether customers are genuinely incremental or if they were already in your customer database and had purchased before. By tracking customer interactions across multiple touchpoints — including email marketing, social media, paid advertising, and affiliate programs — businesses can more easily understand the customer journey and the influence of affiliate marketing.
By linking affiliate data to a CRM system, you can segment your customers more effectively, allowing for better analysis of the impact of each affiliate publisher. For example, if an affiliate promotes your product to a customer who has already visited your website or engaged with your social media content, the sale is less incremental. With this insight, marketers can adjust their strategy to focus more on affiliates that reach completely new customer segments, ensuring true incremental growth.
Foster Strong Relationships with Affiliates
Building long-term relationships with affiliates based on trust and transparency can help enhance the incrementality of the program. Affiliates who are properly incentivised and engaged are more likely to put in the effort to target new customers, experiment with different promotional strategies, and provide valuable feedback on how to optimize the program.
Moreover, open communication between merchants and affiliates helps to ensure both parties understand the goals and metrics of the affiliate program. When affiliates understand that their efforts are focused on driving incremental value rather than just maximising conversions, they are more likely to adopt strategies that align with the brand’s objectives.
Maximising the incrementality of the affiliate channel requires a multi-faceted approach that involves using the right attribution models, preventing fraud, optimising affiliate program structures, diversifying affiliate types, testing strategies, implementing CRM systems, and fostering strong relationships with affiliates. By focusing on these areas, businesses can ensure that their affiliate marketing programs are driving genuine, incremental growth that contributes to the overall success of their marketing efforts.
With the right strategies in place, affiliate marketing can be an invaluable tool for driving high-quality, incremental sales, ultimately resulting in a higher return on investment (ROI) and sustainable business growth.
For more information on this story, or for support with your Affiliate Marketing, get in touch with one of Awin’sAgency Partners and a certified Webgains Agency. Send us an email to team@modo25.com
