When reading up about the latest trends in affiliate marketing, you may realize that many speak of the death of affiliate marketing, and this trend started several years ago (see here, here and even one from us in 2015). How could this be, despite paying affiliates for the leads and sales they bring? Can affiliate marketing really die?

When we look at the market, we observe that it is neither shrinking nor disappearing. Nevertheless, due to fraud that had come with affiliates in the past, it has received a bad reputation as a strategy. The question remains: is affiliate marketing dead?

Goodby affiliates, hello partners 

Let’s have a look at the terminology first: nowadays the term “affiliate” is not frequently used anymore. Instead, many have swapped out the term for “partner”. This has three very important effects:

More potential

Affiliates have evolved from bloggers to cashback sites and top publications. With the change in structure (from a one-man activity to established companies with large turnover), the business relationship matured as well. Therefore, the industry needed a change of name to reflect the market change. After all, by seeing your affiliates as partners, not only do you start to see them as synergistic and strategic to your business, you also tend to work with them on a long-term basis. 

Internal reorganization

It was a mistake from the start to manage affiliates solely under the marketing team and the marketing budget, as they are more like an outsourced sales team. When you understand their immense potential, there is a need for a separate partnership strategy for growth. Therefore, some organizations have started having a partnerships team separate from the marketing team.

Technological evolution

The market is evolving along with this. Tech players have developed their tracking technology to strengthen partnerships through stronger communication tools, preventing ad fraud, as well as more customizable commission models. Their solutions have slowly shifted to become more customer-focused for better understanding of the entire customer journey and how partners play a role in the long-term.

Ingenious is partner-centric 

At Ingenious, we have always been partner-focused. Our Partner Management Platform (PMP) is built on these four pillars of strength supports long-term partnerships in the following way: 

  1. Management

Connect with your strategic partners directly, empower them with full transparency, and incentivise them with individualized commission models to boost their performance.

  1. Tracking

Measure your partners’ performance accurately through first-party tracking and offer them SEO-friendly tracking links, voucher tracking and basket freeze options depending on their tracking needs.

  1. Analytics

Offer your partners transparency through individualized dashboards, while you monitor the role they play in your customer journeys.

  1. Finance

Manage your partner billing and invoicing processes efficiently, so you can strengthen and maintain trust in your partnerships.

We even go one step further. We see partners with the potential to drive extraordinary growth, and we want to ensure that our clients work smarter and not necessarily harder. That’s why our PMP has been redesigned for partnership automation. This way we can help businesses manage and automate any form of partnerships for growth – be it strategic brand advocates, resellers, product bundling partners, or marketplaces!

Interested in maximizing the potential of your partnerships? Contact us now!