As the festive season approaches, how can affiliate marketers capitalise on the consumer rush? Owen Hewitson, Client Strategist, Affiliate Window & buy.at offers some tips on the peak days on the ecommerce calendar to prepare for, and which types of affiliates will have the most success this Christmas…
Christmas is a two-stage event
For affiliate marketers Christmas is essentially a game of two halves, their efforts divided between the pre-Christmas rush and the post-Christmas sales.
This means affiliates have to focus on both on the key period in early December, whilst preparing for ongoing post-Christmas sales where retailers are likely to respond to intense competition by varying the start dates of their sales.
For their part, advertisers have to retain enough flexibility in their carefully-planned marketing calendars to take advantage of affiliate opportunities arising at short notice, using them to convert potential customers before they buy elsewhere.
Which days will be biggest?
Last year the import by Amazon of Black Friday, the traditional start of Christmas trading in the US following Thanksgiving, produced a flurry of headlines anticipating an early sales peak. Monday 29th November – ‘Manic Monday’ – was predicted by some to overtake the first Monday in December (the traditional peak) coming right after payday and fuelled by the early discounting of 2009.
Whilst Monday 6th December remained the biggest day on the Affiliate Window network, an early start spurred by Amazon’s Lightening Deals at the end of November looks likely again.
Post-Christmas Day, no clear peak stood out in 2010 due to staggered sale dates. Whilst Boxing Day has historically been the focus, sales through tablet devices may herald an unexpected sales bounce on Christmas Day itself.
Affiliate Window saw sales from the iPad overtake the iPhone for the first time on Christmas Day last year, perhaps because shortly after unwrapping their iPads new owners went online and bought something.
Whilst there is not expected to be a UK pre-Christmas release for the Kindle Fire, iPads 2 and 1 are sure to be popular gifts, and have consistently converted at rates better than the network average. This could fuel a significant sales spike on 25th which affiliate marketers might want to prepare for.
What types of affiliates will do best?
The promotional methods affiliates used to generate the most commissions last Christmas did not differ from what Affiliate Window records at other times. Plotting affiliate commissions over Christmas shows a strong correlation between those that use content and those that use incentives as their dominant promotional method. There were however some interesting anomalies.
Affiliates specialising in email appear to have missed a trick. Whilst peaks and troughs characterise email marketing, their peak was on Monday 13thDecember, with far fewer commissions earned the previous Monday despite this being the top trading day network-wide.
Paid search providers also saw a late peak. Thursday 16th December proved to be their most lucrative day, likely due to stronger calls to action in ad text focused on encroaching last delivery dates.
For their part, comparison affiliates found the post-Christmas period more lucrative. Thanks to the introduction of the VAT increase on 4th January this was by far the highest earning day for comparison sites.
Whilst it has traditionally been thought that price comparison figures earlier on in customers’ purchase paths but loses out as the last referrer, perhaps suddenly finding that their goods cost 2.5% more made consumers less eager to shop around aggregating incentives like cashback and voucher codes to calculate the best price.
When the last order date passes
Consumers have plenty of opportunities to shop online even after the last delivery date passes. Affiliates can switch their efforts at this point to promoting advertisers that offer gift vouchers or downloadable products catering for last minute shoppers unwilling to endure the hassles of the high street. For shoppers still willing to venture outside, retailers such as Debenhams have shown how award-winning campaigns can be conducted using geo-targeted incentives available through affiliates’ apps to drive increase footfall and new customers on the high street.
More broadly, mobile transactions tracked on Affiliate Window have almost quadrupled since last December, and eDigital Research reported that 22% of users reached for their mobiles when doing their Christmas shopping last year.
The broad consensus amongst speakers at the recent a4u Expo that mobile was the trend to watch out for next year is telling: affiliates which can build case studies from their work this Christmas will be advertisers’ first pick in 2012.
Expecting the unexpected
Two one-off events had a significant impact on last Christmas. First, the heavy snowfall from 24th November – 26th December reduced footfall on the high street and, according to estimates by Toluna and Econsultancy, this delayed 26% of deliveries.
Second, January’s VAT increase pushed consumers into buying higher value items sooner. Increases in the home appliances, electronics, computing and furniture sectors saw AOVs on Affiliate Window peak at £122 compared to a £65 average. Perhaps the lesson to take from this is to prepare for the impact of contingent one-off events and retain flexibility in budget, resource and time to react to them.
By Owen Hewitson
Client Strategist
Affiliate Window & buy.at
www.affiliatewindow.com/
