The Inevitable Rise of Affiliate Marketing

For many brands and businesses, affiliate marketing is a successful and lucrative strategy for driving sales and generating online revenue – essential to the marketing mix. For those that are yet to adopt the strategy, there is perhaps no better time than now. With the current economic climate taking its toll on consumer confidence and forcing a more savings-focused mindset, employing new and creative marketing strategies could help brands reach new customers in their time of need.

With close to 60 million e-commerce users in the UK, people have become accustomed to the idea and practise of shopping online for essential and non-essential goods and services and it’s no surprise that consumers are also becoming savvier in their approach to buying online. Both the expectation and experience of bagging a bargain or taking advantage of a deal can be powerful drivers for both single and repeat purchases. Couple this change in consumer behaviour with the current cost-of-living crisis and the e-commerce industry faces a big shift in consumer buying power, a shift that businesses and their marketing teams need to plan and prepare for.

According to an Opinions and Lifestyle Survey by The Office of National Statistics, rising prices have already led to changes in consumer behaviour with 62% of adults saying they have reduced spending on non-essential items as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. Although the pandemic resulted in the growth of online shopping, with seasonally adjusted internet sales accounting for 26.6% of all official retail sales in May 2022, almost 7% more than in February 2020, online spending has dropped in recent months.

With inflation rising and a national crisis afoot, the impact is likely to be felt across all sectors in the UK and retail brands should be looking to exploit opportunities to offer promotions and discounts to customers to counteract the impact of inflation. As Marco Farnararo, Co-Founder and CEO at Bravo Savings Network explains, “Affiliate marketing can be a powerful strategy in these uncertain and unpredictable times as it offers brands the opportunity to grow awareness and market their products at relatively low costs and with minimal risk.”

For those that are still sceptical or concerned about the technical demands of affiliate marketing, the process is quite straightforward. As a publisher, “you can sign up to an affiliate network in a matter of minutes and, once accepted by the network, you are connected with its customer portfolio and can request partnerships with hundreds of brands,” explains Farnararo. For brands, it is just as easy, “the brand chooses whether or not to enter the partnership and can negotiate which discount codes will work best for them and their goals.”

Founded in 2015, Bravo Savings Network has seen first-hand the rise of affiliate marketing in Europe and beyond, having grown rapidly to achieve leading international couponing company status with a presence in 13 markets worldwide. The company’s local brand, BravoVoucher, has announced recent partnerships with ASOS, YouGarden and Shein, which strengthen the current network led by giants lastminute.com, Aliexpress, The North Face and JD Sports – the aim always being “to provide our customers with a more varied offering in their local markets and boost interest in online consumer savings in the process” says Farnararo.

For brands that are looking to expand into new markets and build loyalty and trust with their audiences, an affiliate network’s well-established and far-reaching connections are extremely valuable. At a time when consumers’ purchase decisions are increasingly impacted by their need to cut costs, loyalty becomes all the more important. Consumers’ loyalty to publishers, evident in the “high numbers of returning traffic to voucher sites,” according to Farnararo, is something that partnering brands stand to share the benefit from.