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Why Influencers Are the New Platforms for Affiliate Wave The influencer marketing industry globally will be a $5-10 billion market by 2020

By Neha Kulwal

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The arrival of influencers on the digital marketing landscape was eyed with much vehemence by veteran affiliate marketers. However the same veterans have started to foster major campaigns with influencers, marrying their own affiliate marketing technique in order to reap better benefits. Influencers have become the new conduits for the latest wave in the world of affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Network Marketing

Affiliate network marketing has proven to be lucrative to both advertisers and promoters. It is performance based profit setup which spells out as a win – win situation for all the parties involved: the customer gets his desired product, the advertisers gets his sale and the publisher gets his commission.

Traditionally, affiliate marketers have on boarded the services of "publishers'. These publishers are individuals with their own websites or business entities. They are responsible for promoting the advertiser's products by referring sales, leads and pushing traffic towards the advertiser's site. They have been doing so by placing the ads in form of links and banners on their own platforms.

However, traditional publishers lack that "singular' touch. These publishers do bring in sales but they aren't drivers of organic traffic anymore. Neither do they help the advertisers in creating original content regularly. This is where the incoming of influencers has proven beneficial to affiliate networks as well.

Modern Influencers

This is the age of Influencers who are creating impact on consumers minds. How an Influencer earn huge? Like traditional publishers, influencers can also earn a good commission through various affiliate networks. Influencers can also get benefited in affiliate networks who provide many tools, statistics, a platform, payment methods, and other resources that is beneficial for both them. Additionally it is time and money saving as well as you have to make the payment only on the basis of the result, hence making it result oriented.

On the other hand for affiliates and their brands, influencers in the prospect of digital marketing are the internet's version of word-of-mouth. For various advertisers these influencers bring the coveted organic traffic as well as efficiency in product placement.

Advantages

Moreover, associating with these influencers is helping to increase the visibility of their brands. This is because of two reasons: first, people of today are turning their focus towards individuals who are experts of the said field, where opinions matters. If an influencer follows a brand and uses their products, there is a high chance that his followers will follow suit. The second reason is that, if a company associates itself with a well known influencer through an affiliate network, the chances of their collaboration being documented by the media increases. This further increase the awareness of the brand amongst the people. Additionally, influencers help in content creation which is another driver of organic web traffic, something affiliate networks are always on the look-out for. Celebrity Influence, Mainstream Journalists, Micro-Influencers and bloggers are some of the categories of influencers and launching themselves as new affiliate wave.

Expansion Of The Market

Essentially, affiliate networks are leveraging the purchasing and reviewing power of social media stars by on boarding influencer as publishers. For savvy affiliates, influencer marketing is bringing them referral promotion which is driving traffic and sales. The introduction of this social-first and content-driven strategy is booming their businesses and widening their audiences. The influencer marketing industry global be a 5 - 10 billion dollar market by 2020. Talking about the scene in India , a study found that 61% of Indian marketers planned to increase influencer marketing budgets by 2015 and the percentage to increase more in the coming years. This was a significantly greater percentage than in Europe, where 20% of respondents expected increases.

Leaders in affiliate marketing, consider Influencer Marketing as one of the hottest trend in the industry in terms of revenue generation for the brands and assist with more targeted results as the publishers. For influencers the affiliate niche has become another way to increase their profits and for affiliates, on boarding influencers as publishers is a great way to increase brand awareness, attract more people and boost sales. It is another win – win situation for all the parties involved!

Neha Kulwal

Country Manager, Admitad India

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