Affiliate Marketing In India - CAKE

Affiliate Marketing inIndia Building Successful Performance Campaigns in a Rapidly Evolving, Mobile First Market www.getCAKE.com

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA I ndia will have a whopping 730 million Internet users by 2020, catching up with (and possibly even surpassing) China as the largest and fastest growing user base in the world. And here’s another estimate that’s sure to be of interest to affiliate marketers looking to reach these users: more than 700 million of them will be accessing the Internet using mobile phones.¹ Unlike more established digital markets, India’s “Internet Revolution” is primarily mobile-driven, with many first-time users bypassing the PC and relying on smart phones as their primary conduit to the Internet. A recent story in Mashable reports that significantly more Indians are using their phones to access the Internet than PCs, and that a large portion of these populations are using their phones to shop. In fact, the NASSCOM/Akamai report also predicts that mobile phones will emerge as the preferred device for online shopping in India by 2020, accounting for 70 percent of total e-Commerce shopping transactions. By 2020, India will have a whopping 730 million Internet users more than 700 million of them will be accessing it using mobile phones. 1. August 2016 report from the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and Akamai Technologies 2

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA It means organizations need to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities presented by increasing numbers of digital consumers. Today, the door is wide open for smart providers to make inroads and show what affiliate marketing can do to drive e-commerce conversions and sales. This white paper will look at best practices for affiliate marketing in the context of India’s mobile-first, rapidly evolving digital landscape. What does all this mean for affiliate marketing companies operating in India? Affiliate Marketing is Powered by Performance Tracking Technology F or advertisers looking to engage with digital users in quickly growing markets, launching an affiliate program is an attractive option: by enlisting publishing partners (i.e., affiliates) to market on their behalf, they can quickly extend the reach of their campaigns with minimal upfront risk. This is because, in the affiliate world, advertisers only pay for verifiable impressions or conversions, not for ads that are ineffective or ignored. Digital Marketing Spending 15% “Affiliate marketing in India accounts for less than 10% of digital marketing spending, against 15% in some matured markets.”² less than 10% India Mature Markets 2. Internet and Mobile Association of India in conjunction with Tata Strategic Management Group 3

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA The key word here is “verifiable.” Ad fraud Affiliate marketers and affiliate networks succeed based on their ability to drive high-quality traffic on behalf of their advertiser clients. Clients will quickly jump ship if all they are getting is junk. Determining the quality of ad traffic requires technology that tracks actions such as click-throughs, app downloads and conversions. But as campaigns generate larger and larger volumes of data, and cross multiple “touch-points,” this is easier said than done. Challenges for Affiliate Marketers in India Limited domestic inventory Limited technology budgets ads channels and offers high quality traffic “How many clicks are we getting?” is no longer enough for advertisers who want more than just basic stats. They want to understand key insights including: allocation of digital spend How variables like the specific type of mobile device used and the geographic area that consumers live in correlates to campaign performance. Which publishers are bringing them the highest quality traffic. Digital Marketing Insights geographic area mobile device type In the early days of affiliate marketing, only limited data points were available, and a simple spreadsheet could get the job done. But as the number of Internet users, mobile-connected devices and online marketing channels have exploded, more robust and scalable solutions are needed to track large volumes of data, rapidly, at a very granular level. Which ads, offers and channels are driving the most profitable results. How to more successfully allocate their digital spend. 4

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA CAKE Customer Profile ProfiliAd specializes in web and mobile performance marketing in India. The provider needed a tracking platform that was accurate, transparent and that would scale with its business. With CAKE, ProfiliAd has the ability to track CPA campaigns within mobile apps and grow its business in the mobile channel. To make matters even more complicated, affiliate marketing providers need to be able to capture this insight for multiple advertisers across multiple campaigns and multiple affiliates. The bottom line is that advanced performance tracking technology is a must for providers of affiliate marketing services, especially in swiftly evolving, price sensitive and competitive markets like India. What are the options for businesses that want to take the next step with performance tracking? And how do you determine the best approach? Taking the Leap with Advanced Tracking Technology: Things to Consider W hen it comes to deploying advanced tracking technology, affiliate marketing providers have two options: build or buy. While homegrown solutions can be 100 percent customized to meet a business’ unique and specific needs, they also require an investment in in-house IT resources, data science expertise, and ongoing administration and maintenance. Now that the state-of-the-art in tracking technology has advanced far beyond spreadsheets and counting clicks, “buy” is a very attractive – and in many cases, a more accurate and robust alternative. SaaS solutions give networks the ability to simply and easily deploy advanced tracking technology, manage multiple clients, affiliate partners and campaigns, and scale tracking capabilities across channels and customers as their business grows. For providers who do choose to buy, there are a number of factors to consider. Following are some of the most important: 5

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA 1 Mobile capabilities As this paper has already established, most Internet traffic in India is funneled through mobile devices. The mobile channel has leapfrogged the desktop as the Indian consumer’s primary means to consume content and shop online. For affiliate marketing providers operating in this region, mobile tracking capabilities are a must, and should include features designed to deal with the complexities inherent in the mobile environment. Tracking mobile campaigns is more challenging than desktop campaign tracking for a number of reasons, including the fact that many mobile activities, like actions within apps, cannot be tracked using cookies. Mobile advertisers want to reach consumers with ads relevant to their location, language, device type, operating system, screen size and more. The mobile affiliate channel also spans display ads, search, location-based offers and apps. Optimizing affiliate marketing in mobile environments demands tracking at a very granular level, which brings us to our next consideration. 6

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA 2 Granular metrics In the early days of affiliate marketing, payouts to publishing partners were based on impressions and measured by clicks. Now that greater volumes of performance data are available, affiliate marketers can set commission models based on more tangible results. They can offer payouts for actual actions taken by consumers, whether that means filling out a lead generation form, downloading an app, or making a purchase on an ecommerce site. Performance data can also be used to engage in “multi-touch attribution” that measures how various touch points on the path to a conversion contributed to the final result. This is important, because it helps marketers allocate budgets to the strategies and channels that are most effective. To capture a complete, granular picture of affiliate campaign performance, a solution’s ability to track events is critical. Events may include any action that a consumer takes along the path to a conversion, from clicking on a mobile display ad or using a voucher code, to watching a video, “liking” a Facebook page, or saving an item in an e-commerce shopping cart. Post-conversion events such as site logins, app usage and additional purchases are also important, providing marketers with additional insights about the lifetime value of the traffic generated by affiliates. Finally, granular tracking can be used to test various affiliate marketing strategies. Which offers are performing better on which types of devices? Does a coupon get more responses via text message or through a coupon site? Questions such as these can more easily be answered with advanced tracking technology, leading to better campaign decisions. “In India, the majority of attribution continues to be the last point of conversion, which is expected to change in line with global markets, where 20% of advertisers have shifted to multi-channel attribution in recent years.” “CAKE captures and analyzes granular data, and attributes every conversion across multi-channel marketing campaigns. These insights will empower us to make intelligent marketing decisions, value we in turn can pass onto our partners.” IAMAI/Tata Strategic Management Report, Affiliate Marketing – What’s the Big Deal? Hina Mittal Nayar, Co-Founder and CEO of ProfiliAd 7

AFFILIATE MARKETING IN INDIA 3 Real-time performance Now that consumers can buy products anytime and anywhere from all types of devices, affiliate marketers need to be able to respond to opportunities and adapt their activities on-the-fly. The shelf life of digital data is short, and even the most advanced data tracking is useless if information can’t be interpreted and acted on as quickly as possible. Real-time insight about what actions consumers are taking from moment-to-moment (for example, How many are clicking on coupon A vs. coupon B? or What is the percentage of conversions by type of device?) empowers affiliate marketers to adjust and refine program strategies even while they are still in progress, and ultimately deliver the greatest bang for their clients’ buck. There is some debate about how long the time delay can be between data being generated and data being accessible for analysis in order for it to be defined as “real-time.” Realistically, a little lag time is ok (seconds or even minutes) as long as the data is accurate and actionable the moment that it is delivered. CAKE Customer Profile Operating in India and Southeast Asia, Pointific uses CAKE to manage a network of affiliates across multiple channels, partners and clients. CAKE helps Pointific granularly measure performance and manage payouts by CPA, CPM, CPC and revenue sharing. Pointific saw 117 percent revenue growth in its first year of advanced tracking and the size of its network has increased to more than 263 affiliates. 8