Affiliate marketing is a fairly straightforward concept: Brands use other people to promote their products by offering financial incentives for leads or sales.

Despite its conceptual simplicity, affiliate marketing as a whole is still misunderstood — just 22 percent of CMOs feel as if they’ve mastered it [although strictly, affiliate marketing is only relevant for transactional ecommerce]. Part of the disconnect has to do with how brands approach their affiliate partnerships. Many affiliate program managers reach out to affiliates with consumer-focused messaging (e.g., XYZ Company has really great products that you should promote!). This approach rarely resonates because the affiliates aren’t the audience you should be trying to sell your products and services to; it’s their audience you want to reach. You have to look at affiliates as an indirect sales force and then approach them as such.

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Econsultancy and Harvard Business Review are amongst the most popular

Last month we asked our members and readers what sites they use to keep their marketing knowledge up to date. Respondents were worldwide, many from the UK, US, Canada and Poland, but also extending into the APAC and EMEA areas too. It's no surprise that our own blog outweighed others in popularity - as voters were coming through our blog content to vote. However, the second and third most popular marketing blogs to read were Econsultancy and Harvard Business Review. The blogs provide all levels of marketers, from CEO's to Executives, marketing knowledge and updates in all industries. We also wanted to know any other sites that we didn't feature that are also great sources of knowledge. 'Other' examples include: Zest.is - A Google Chrome extension that collects suggested content from…

How to use emojis for social and email marketing success

With more than 60 million emojis sent each day and 2,666 emojis in the Unicode Standard to choose from it's hard not to notice the popularity of these small icons. Emojis are no longer limited to text messages. Emojis are everywhere in movies, marketing campaigns, clothing, emails and even as bank passwords. But before you start packing emojis into your campaigns, we consider the best ways to incorporate emojis into your marketing strategy.

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Who uses emojis?

Emojis are not for everyone, you need to fully understand your target audience before you start including emojis in your content. According to Sproat Social, 60% of women use emojis frequently compared to 41% of men. They also reported that 75%…

How to get enhance your content marketing for higher engagement rates

As the tools and channels that make up the digital advertising ecosystem continue to evolve and grow more diverse, it seems many brand marketers and agencies are feeling left behind. A recent study by The Boston Consulting Group found that advertisers gave their own digital capabilities a 57 out of 100 on average. For context, that average score is exactly the same as in 2015. So what’s going on? Some advertisers who participated in the study blamed inadequate marketing technology platforms for their lack of results. Some pointed to the prioritization of other programs within their organizations as an obstacle. But there was one area where the majority of marketers felt especially lacking: their abilities to map consumer journeys and tailor content to match the various touchpoints along those journeys. That’s a problem. Above all else, the success of your digital strategy depends on…

Content creation ideas to boost your audience engagement

After all, that’s precisely why your brand should be investing in content marketing. Ask yourself and your wider organization -  is this why we’ve decided to embark on a content journey? It should be, it’s to build your own subscribed audience by researching, listening and creating or indeed curating content in whatever form that may take (blog article, graphics, video, presentation, slide deck) that answers the challenges to your particular audience.

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Something where perhaps your brand can differentiate, reinvent and create a new opportunity in a crowded marketplace. In fact, content marketing continues to gather pace and a recent article by the CMI suggested that: "Content Marketing will continue its epic rise as one of the most preferred options for both B2C and…

Case studies showcasing the positive affects of PWAs

PWA technology isn’t exactly new, but it isn’t completely old either. However, as more and more internet users spend more and more time (as well as more and more money) via mobile applications, and because of the high and increasing level of mobile penetration globally, it comes as no surprise that the meteoric rise in popularity of mobile internet usage has led to more companies both big and small incorporating PWAs as part of their digital marketing strategy. Two questions still remain, though: what exactly are Progressive Web Apps? And why have they suddenly become so popular? To be able to better understand how things have gotten to where they are now, we should take a step back to look at some web development history.

History and background

The past decade or so…

Create a successful funnel to encourage your audience to buy

Product tours aren’t for everyone. No, you see, they’re for your ideal buyer — the customer you’ve identified through your marketing data is most likely to convert and make a purchase. A great product tour will keep your sales team in productive conversations with quality prospects that are more likely to convert, shorten the sales cycle by providing relevant information upfront, and increase conversions through a main call to action. Focus your energy on building a compelling product tour rather than wasting resources funneling the wrong folks through the marketing and sales pipeline. It begins with a relevant and engaging demonstration of how your product benefits users.

Funneling to Success

Consumers move fast on the internet, scouring pages of content and looking for even quicker solutions to their problems. With 96 percent of your website visitors seeking valuable content to lead them through the buyer’s…

What is referral marketing?

Essentially, referral marketing is about enabling and incentivizing your existing customer base to encourage their friends and family to try your product for the first time. It represents a significant opportunity for most online businesses to boost their customer acquisition. There are some well-documented examples of businesses that have acquired a huge percentage of their customers via referral. It is reported that for Dropbox it represents 35% of new customers and daily bookings tripled for Airbnb when they introduced a referral programme. Whilst these figures might seem unattainable for established online businesses, our experience suggests that targeting 10-25% of new customer growth from referrals is realistic. Figures not to be sniffed at. After all, there aren’t many other marketing channels that you could switch on and deliver that kind of an increase in acquisition.

The hidden benefits of referral

Whilst the main benefit of referral is the number of new customers that…

A round-up of our time at TFM 2017

This week the Smart Insights team were in London for Technology for Marketing 2017. A two-day conference dedicated to martech.  If you didn’t make it to TFM, here is a recap of Dave's talk and panel discussion, as well answers to the most common questions we were asked at our stand. Download the 10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy booklet All visitors to the stand were given a new 10 reasons why you need a digital strategy mini-booklet which gives recommendations on what a strategy should include - you can download it here [pdf] if you want to take a look.

How to measure and improve your return on MarTech, Dave Chaffey

Dave spoke…

Don't limit your SaaS brand - the do's and don'ts of international SEO

We live in a world of nearly 200 countries and thousands of different languages, so why should your SaaS company limit itself just to English speakers or a North American audience? Asking this question, many SaaS companies will embark on a journey to expand their international visibility, only to realize that international SEO can be a strange beast. “If you build it, they will come,” does not apply if no one can find what you have built. 

Brands can find greater success within international markets if they understand how search engines, like Google index, retrieve websites for international audiences. With this understanding, your SaaS company can build a strategic approach to capturing international traffic by following international SEO best practices.

So, start studying abroad — no passport needed!…