Expanding Reach:
How Affiliates and Social Drive Together
Brandon Myers
Affiliate Director
Aceable
Dave Stewart
Chief Technology Officer
CAKE

Brandon Myers
Affiliate Director
Aceable
Dave Stewart
Chief Technology Officer
CAKE
About

Affiliate and Social Working Together
 Affiliates marketing via social
platforms
 Affiliates contribute to the Customer
Journey through other channels
outside of direct media buying

Affiliate and Social: 7 Ways to Expand Reach
1. Build a brand through social media
2. Gain followers
3. Provide valuable and authentic content
4. Leverage brand and sales messaging
5. Measure your success
6. Use the power of your data
7. Trust your Instincts

Build a Brand Through Social Media

The Role Affiliates Play in The Social Ecosystem
 Powerful voice: affiliates have the power to say what
brands can’t always say
 Create buzz: affiliates add buzz and act as enablers from a
branding perspective
 Take action: neutrality of publisher sites/emails/handles
can push peoples emotions to the point of following or
the point of sale

Social and The Greater Multi-channel Story
 Invest in social: social is the way people “hear”
about your brand
 Understand the Customer Journey: SEO, PPC, Organic,
are often the touchpoints taken immediately after social
as the consumer goes through the exploration process
 Track everything: technology bridges the gap between
all channels
 Optimize: experiment with different targeting and
budgets methodically to measure lift

Gain Followers

Social Engagement
 Social media as an active voice
 Social is a platform to ACTIVELY interact with users as their
interest and needs are piqued
 Social media is the place for your voice to be consistent
 Brand gains personality with just a few accounts

Build your Following
 Select social media strongholds
 Social media tool should be primary application(s) of your audience
 Many audiences still use multiple networks
 Automate mundane tasks while maintaining strong content and brand voice
 FollowLiker (Bot) and reasons it works/doesn’t work
 Real follower dilemma
 Leverage reciprocity as a social rule in a social media setting

Who to Target
 Don’t be afraid to target very granularly for
your ideal demographic
 Track organic vs. paid separately
 Leverage re-targeting opportunities to stay
in front of your customers
 Investment in good viral content leads to
cost-effective engagement opportunities

Not all social is alike
 Instagram
 Twitter
 Facebook
 Snapchat

Provide Valuable and
Authentic Content

What Works Best for Publishers
⦿ Collaboration
⦿ Filling a need in a confusing marketplace
⦿ Becoming an expert on this need and expanding from there
⦿ Trial and error

Leverage Brand and
Sales Messaging

Brand Messaging vs. Sales Messaging
 What is the difference?
 What does your brand or website stand for?
 What emotions and value should people draw from
your brand or website?
 How do you talk to your customers and prospects?
 How do your customers want to be talked to?

Best Practices: Sales Messaging
 Differentiate: sales messaging from brand messaging
 Less focus on building trust
 More focus on customer acquisition
 Identify the problem: customer base experiencing
issues
 Present the solution: know how to enhance or
alleviate a pain point in your audience’s life
 Demonstrate value: show your customer a reason
they can’t miss out on what ultimately will enhance
their life

Best Practices: Sales Messaging
 Provide a clear CTA: pose the problem - present a solution -
provide the reason why
 Equip advertisers: offer a clear CTA and solution for the
audience to solve their problem
 Customize Messaging: make it fit your audience

Measure Your Success

Measuring Success
 Brand building metrics:
 Follows or shares
 Comments
 Sharing through pictures
 Acquisition metrics:
 Clicks/Click through rate (CTR)
 Transactions/Conversion rate
 Customer lifetime value (CLTV)
 Time to conversion

Implement a Feedback Loop
 Build a transparent relationship with your affiliates
 Measure campaigns with as much detail as possible
 Optimize Campaigns
 Tweak design
 Change content
 Leverage Anecdotal Feedback
 Affiliate insight
 Reward Performance
 Increase payout for quality traffic

Use the Power of Your Data

Leverage Data Effectively
 Use additional data obtained from social platforms to augment
your (potential) customer profiles
 Analyze all touchpoints to understand how complex engagements
are occurring
 Avoid first/last touch attribution
 Use algorithmic/data-driven attribution if possible
 Use linear if not
 Tie ultimate customer lifetime value back to all
marketing campaign touchpoints (close the loop)

Know Your Audience
 Regularly visit sites your target demographic frequents
 Analyze interaction patterns before purchase decisions
 No two verticals/businesses equal
 Gather as much customer feedback as possible

Trust your Instincts

Go with your Gut
 DISCLAIMER
 Analytics
 There is no substitute for testing, analytics,
and actionable data
 Proper research ensures top ROI
 But gut…
 Sometimes we don’t have time to test
 Go with your gut
 LEARN from what you choose

 Create transparency with affiliates
 Leverage effective messaging
 Consider the entire customer journey at all times
 Track and measure everything
 Experiment, rinse and repeat
Key Takeaways

Thank You!