Affiliate Marketing – looking towards 2023

Adam Weiss

2023 will continue to be a year of growth and maturity for the affiliate channel.  More publishers will see Affiliate commerce as a viable opportunity to diversify their revenue. With more distribution in the space, the technology the industry is built on will need to further evolve.

A lot of the attribution based tracking, reporting, and economic structures exist, but they will need to continue to develop and see adoption by advertisers as managing the channel becomes more complex.  

As a channel predicated on partnerships we will continue to need to balance the people that make the business run and software that helps them drive revenue and optimize programs.

Brook Schaaf

Brook Schaaf’s FMTC announced a busy Black Friday weekend 2022, processing 360,571 deals for publishers, of which 40,668 were coupons according to their recent newsletter.

Brook is of the opinion that 2023 may well be the breakout year for seller (aka shadow) networks. These platforms track sales on marketplaces, most notably Amazon’s. The affiliate sends traffic to, for example, an Amazon seller page, and gets a commission from the seller that’s higher than what the marketplace (e.g. Amazon Associates) offers.

FMTC have been the source of news on what to expect in 2023 themselves with their Google partnership. Keeping an eye on marketplaces is a great steer for the coming year.

Lee-Ann Johnstone

Lee-Ann sees four main trends to watch. The growth in video content is an ongoing trend. Tik-Tok The video-sharing platform now stands as one of the main rivals to long-standing, established social media channels. We can expect to see this trend continue into 2023, short-form video content will certainly become more popular and could become one of the primary digital marketing formats.

The metaverse will act as a fully immersive virtual representation of the internet that users can enter where content is king. It is a truly revolutionary idea that may well change the digital landscape forever. It is unlikely we will see it fully rolled out next year, instead we can expect to see it introduced incrementally, with the system estimated to add $5 trillion to the global economy by 2030. 

Recently we’ve seen a rise in the use of micro-influencers, content creators with far smaller followings than the major ‘influencers’ and names. Brands can work with micro-influencers to access smaller and more knowledgeable communities that hold a greater deal of trust for the influencer in question.

Augmented Reality is the fourth area – the new and younger sibling of VR. Clothing and beauty brands, in particular, have been at the forefront of AR technology, using it to offer customers virtual try-on options. In the UK, Marks & Spencer are committed to this area acquiring the AR business Thread recently to accelerate personalisation plans.

You can read more about her views at AffiliateInsider.

Stephen Brown

One certainty is that the complications increasingly present within affiliate tracking implementations resulting from advertisers increasingly being compliant with consent legislation are going to be more evident in 2023 and thereafter.

There will also be more awareness that third party tracking (usually on network redirects) is masking first party tracking issues. This will be coupled by the realisation that Google’s deprecation of third party cookies will shine a light on this matter in 2024.

Our prediction is more publishers and advertisers will be aware of the significance of the interrelationship of consent implementations and cookie deprecation on lowering the measured performance of sub-optimal tracking with conversation rates and generally the attractiveness of such advertisers’ programs and campaigns being reduced.

Overall, we believe there will be a positive outcome, as there will be more dialogue between all parties using the affiliate model around tracking with the result that keeping tracking working is a partnership between all the players, and not just the networks’ responsibility, will be accepted as the norm.

Christen Evans

Christen has highlighted three main trends for 2023 based on her experience at LaRue and as Chairman of the Performance Marketing Association.

Performance PR, inclusive of influencer relationships, will continue to gain steam as brands look to correlate brand awareness to revenue. Being able to track performance from the storytelling all the way through to conversions will help brands be able to make data-driven decisions on partnerships.

As economic volatility continues, brands will be looking to make efficient use of their marketing spend and leaning into ROAS as a key driver. The affiliate channel always sees a boom during these economic moments. Agencies, networks and thought leaders have an opportunity to lean into best practices and true affiliate education to ensure longevity for these brands.

What has become known as ‘cookieless’ tracking continues to dominate with more and more OS developments, reinvigorating not only more influencer-focused partnerships but opening up increased opportunities for truly omnichannel experiences. With QR codes, branded exclusives and more, brands will be able to build out unique moments of engagement to entice and inspire new customers.