Overcoming Affiliate Marketing Challenges in 2023
Affiliate marketing is a popular and lucrative way to earn money online by promoting other people’s products or services. However, it is also a competitive and dynamic field that requires constant adaptation and innovation. Here are some of the trends that you should be aware of if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing in 2023:
More influencer partnerships
Influencers have a large and loyal following on social media or other platforms and can influence their audience’s opinions and behaviours. Influencers can be a valuable asset for affiliate marketers, as they can generate trust, awareness and conversions for the products or services they promote. However, not all influencers are equal, and some may have more relevance and impact than others depending on your niche and target market.
More nano and micro-influencers
Nano-influencers have less than 10,000 followers, while micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. These types of influencers may have smaller audiences, but they often have higher engagement rates, more authentic relationships and more niche expertise than macro-influencers (those with more than 100,000 followers) or mega-influencers (those with more than 1 million followers). Therefore, more brands will tap into nano and micro-influencers for their affiliate marketing campaigns, as they can offer more cost-effective and targeted results.
Living in a post-cookie apocalypse world
Cookies are small data that websites store on users’ browsers to track their online behaviour and preferences. Affiliate marketers widely use cookies to track referrals, conversions and commissions. However, cookies also face increasing challenges from privacy regulations, browser restrictions and consumer preferences. For example, Google plans to phase out third-party cookies on its Chrome browser, affecting how affiliate marketers measure and optimise their campaigns. Therefore, affiliate marketers must find alternative ways to track and attribute their performance, such as using first-party data, unique coupon codes, device fingerprinting or blockchain technology.
Cross-device tracking will be prioritised
Cross-device tracking is the ability to identify and link users across multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and smart TVs. Cross-device tracking is essential for affiliate marketers because it can help them understand the customer journey better, attribute conversions more accurately and optimise their campaigns more effectively. However, cross-device tracking is also challenging due to the fragmentation of devices, platforms and channels and users’ privacy concerns. Therefore, affiliate marketers must use advanced tools and methods to track users across devices, such as email addresses, device IDs or probabilistic matching.
In-app monitoring for improved consumer insights
In-app monitoring collects and analyses data from mobile applications to understand user behaviour, preferences and feedback. In-app monitoring can help affiliate marketers gain valuable insights into how users interact with their products or services, what features they like or dislike, what problems they encounter and what suggestions they have. In-app monitoring can also help affiliate marketers improve their user experience, retention and loyalty and identify new opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.
Voice search SEO will continue to rise
Voice search uses voice commands to search for information or perform actions on devices such as smartphones or smart speakers. Voice search is becoming more popular among users due to its convenience, speed and accessibility. Voice search differs from text-based search regarding keywords, queries and results. Therefore, affiliate marketers must optimise their websites and content for voice search SEO (search engine optimisation), which involves using natural language processing (NLP), long-tail keywords, conversational tone and structured data.
Blog link-building approaches will be diversified
Blog link-building is acquiring links from other blogs or websites to your own blog or website. Blog link building can help affiliate marketers improve their website authority, ranking and traffic and generate more referrals and conversions. However, blog link building is also becoming more difficult due to the saturation of content, the competition of keywords and the scrutiny of search engines. Therefore, affiliate marketers will need to diversify their blog link-building approaches by using different types of content (such as videos, podcasts or infographics), different types of links (such as dofollow or nofollow) and different types of sources (such as guest posts, social media or forums).
These are some of the trends that will shape the affiliate marketing industry in 2023. Of course, there may be other factors and developments that will influence the market as well, so, affiliate marketers must stay updated and adaptable to the changing environment and consumer needs.
So, that.
Recent Comments
18
Some very helpful points here. Although I think getting back links are still quite easy if you approach it in the right way.
There are various communities looking for backlinks and I have even done a couple with people here.
The broken link method is a great way to acquire back links as who would refuse someone being helpful. Me hahaha. Lol only joking.
Thanks
Stephen
Your post is incredibly informing. Things are changing in the online business world. Physical businesses were forced to change and adjust over the last two centuries with work force regulations, manufacturing and product safety standards, price regulation etc, etc. The online business world will adjust, but unless we address the things that you have outlined here, we may be left behind. Thanks.
Jim
Yes. What concerns me the most is the cookie changes. On one hand, me as a consumer I don't mind, because I clear my cookies daily anyway. On the other hand, most of the affiliate links work that way, so if cookies disappear then affiliate links will only work if they are immediately used. There will be no 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days cookie life to earn with.
I don't know if WA's link is like that. I thought it regards the last affiliate ID before sign up. For example someone reads my blog and click on my link but won't sign up. Then keeps browsing and reads your blog and clicks your link and then signs up, you get the commission. And only if the prospect acts right from clicking your link. If they go away, and just type in wealthyaffiliate.com and signs up, you will get nothing. As far as I know WA doesn't download any cookies for the affiliate ID. I might be wrong though.
I know for sure that Amazon uses cookies that expire in 24 hours. So as long as the potential buyer returns to your linked page with your ID within 24 hours, you get paid. For now. Chrome will kill that as well and the affiliate link will only work if the shopper buys right after clicking your link.
I am pretty sure that an affiliate link does "leave" a cookie. If a person does download someone else's link, they would get the commission. But, if someone clicks on my link and then goes back and clicks a month later, it is still mine. I am not quite sure what happens if they just type in wealthyaffiliate .com
Jim
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Thanks for sharing this. I just need to clarify a few points here.
First, basically 50% of the search engines already block 3rd party cookies. That's why most affiliate networks resolved that issue years ago. If you are working with a Tier 1 affiliate network, you basically have nothing to worry about; if you are working with an in-house program or a tiny network, then you need to worry.
Second, cross device tracking has been around for many years already. The first presentation I gave on it was back in 2016. As a network, we are well prepared to deal with all varieties of devices, so rest assured that transactions on our platform are tracked from phone to tablet to laptop to desktop! Last year I believe we paid our an additional $7MM in commissions as a result of cross device tracking.
Thank you for that.