Affiliate Marketing

Used properly and in conjunction with a good search marketing strategy, affiliate marketing is a vital sales channel for any business delivering greater market share and incremental sales. At VCCP Search, we believe a good affiliate marketing strategy requires a good search strategy and vice versa. Our business is focused on anything which relates to a search engine results page and affiliate marketing is an important part of that mix.

When it comes to formulating a digital strategy, affiliate marketing is an established channel for driving efficiency and one that works hand in hand with PPC and SEO. Affiliate-generated sales reached over £3 billion in 2007 alone (e-Consultancy Affiliate Report 2008). It's remarkable, then, that this channel is often under-utilised, managed ineffectively and/or not included in the digital marketing strategy at all.

Advertisers that are trying to generate acquisitions, leads, sales or simply traffic to their site can utilise this channel and pay only for the end result. This makes this channel highly efficient and effective and offers a low-risk solution when compared to other marketing channels.

How does it work?
Affiliates (publishers) are paid a fee or commission by the advertiser (merchant) for every sale, lead or acquisition that is generated from the traffic that is referred from the advertising (banners/text links) on the affiliates site or through other forms of marketing, usually PPC. Networks act as the middlemen who bring together the advertisers and the publishers in one place. These networks usually manage the payment of affiliates on behalf of the advertiser/agency and are paid a fee for managing this process (known as an override) which can be up to 30% of the fee paid to affiliates.

Network partners
We have over 10 years of experience in affiliate marketing and that means we have worked with many affiliate networks in the market, from the major network players to the smaller, more agile networks that offer innovative technologies. As every advertiser has their own unique objectives, we can help select the best affiliate network partner for your business. We are not tied to any one affiliate network and remain network agnostic so that we can select from a wide range of networks in the market.

Affiliate relationships
Building strong relationships with the best performing affiliates is an important part of a successful affiliate program. Being transparent, proactive and creative will give the right incentives to your partners and develop valuable long term relationships with a network of sites which are genuinely adding value, keeping true to your brand and delivering incremental sales.

Everything we do at VCCP Search has technology at its heart and affiliate marketing is no exception. We have the tools to help you accurately and independently measure, track and verify affiliate sales against your own PPC and SEO programs so you are not relying only on the networks' data. We will help you understand how and where your affiliates are generating those sales, ensuring that the program is being effectively policed and that the affiliates are abiding by any brand guidelines or bidding restrictions. After all, it’s the good name of your brand at stake here, and without the right controls in place an affiliate program can become unmanageable.

We offer a wide range of services in affiliate marketing from strategy and consultancy on how to set up and integrate a successful program, to providing tracking and data audits, to a fully managed affiliate marketing program. To find out more on how you can use affiliate marketing for your business, contact Wayne Bickerton on 0207 592 7546 or wayneb@vccpsearch.com.