Rob Berrisford.com

Owain Wilson is the affilate manager at MediaCom, a huge full service agency. Owain has been in the industry for several years now and has seen things from a couple of different perspectives which I always thing is invaluable (though i probably would wouldn’t I).

First off, do you want to take me through your carrier in affiliate marketing up to now?

I started in affiliate marketing straight from university when I joined Commission Junction as a Sales Executive in July 2004. With the traditional hard slog of cold calls, presentations, contract negotiations and setting up programmes, that comes with a sales job in affiliate marketing, I found my knowledge and enthusiasm for the affiliate channel grow very quickly.

In 2006, I took a slight change of direction and became Agency Business Development Manager at Commission Junction. Large agencies running affiliate marketing successfully were still in their infancy and the opportunity to educate and build up relationships with the top agencies was a very challenging role.
This is how I came about accepting a role at MediaCom in January 2007, as Affiliate Manager, to develop MediaCom’s affiliate channel solution for a wide suite of clients, including Hillarys Blinds, Nokia, Emirates and the RBS

How many people work on the affiliate team at Media Com? and where does it fit with your clients? is it high on their radar?

There’s currently 3 people in the affiliates team at present - Lee Boden (Head of Search & Affiliates), Seema Kapadia (Affiliate Executive) and myself. However, the search and affiliate channel does not operate as a separate channel but instead is fully integrated with Direct MediaCom, our DM arm.

This means overall responsibility for clients spend in the channel sits with the DM media managers, who decide where to spend clients budgets in-conjunction with all offline/online channels. Functioning this way means the affiliate team can concentrate on optimising the affiliate programme to ensure that the spend is as efficient as possible. Budget then becomes fluid, so if spend looks like it is going to be short/over for a month we are in a position to move it in or out of the most efficient/inefficient channels. I believe that this makes MediaCom’s affiliate solution unique in the current marketplace.

In terms of MediaCom’s client base most are aware of the affiliate channel, but all use it slightly differently depending on how you define the channel. E.g. FMCG’s tend not to have traditional affiliate marketing programmes, however, they are starting to spend more money on a CPA model.

One pattern we are noticing though is that there is an increasing level of affiliate briefs coming through from our clients and this is leading to the affiliate channel growing in both importance and volume across our client range.

How do you think Affiliate Marketing will work with FMCG’s? In the states there is some good work being done with offline vouchers, do you think that will work in the UK? Or do you think coupons are a cultural thing that the British are less likely to use?

I think their is a lot of potential for FMCG’s to be buying on a performance basis and with the rise of incentive sites in the UK, such as Quidco and vouchercodes.com, the UK affiliate channel looks to be a good fit. I think FMCG’s will work in 2 ways with affiliate marketing. Firstly, there will be lead generation, like the automotive sector currently buys, where brands are collecting users data so that they can be re-targeted. Secondly, the coupon sector.

I believe there is a large opportunity here for online coupons to be printed and redeemed instore. This is something we have run recently with Pedigree and their Better by Nature product.

The key to all of these is tracking. A lot of the above is generated through incentivised traffic and their is a need to ensure that the traffic is being converted in-line with other routes to market.

You have recently put out a RFP for Hillary’s Blinds (well a while ago now), how does the review process work? What do you look for when selecting affiliates to work more closely with? If you could give a tip for affiliates to be more successful with these RFPs what would it be?

To be honest, this did go out a while a go and has still not been concluded due to a few external factors popping up. In my opinion, every client has a different situation within the search environment and the idea of having select affiliates in a closed group is almost as much a defensive as offensive strategy.

In terms of what type of affiliate we would be looking for, key is that we can trust the affiliate to collaborate as much as possible with the clients own PPC activity and have a thorough understanding of search’s place in the entire marketing mix. The affiliate therefore becomes less of a traditional affiliate and more of an additional search agency, albeit in most cases on a different remuneration model and different rules.

This ensures that the client is receiving best practice methods across search marketing and builds up long-term sustainable partnerships. In terms of tips for affiliates going through an RFP process, the best proposals we receive are always the ones that are presented in the most
professional manner and it is clear that the company has put considerable time and effort into these. As mentioned above, I see most top PPC affiliates as search agencies so the more the proposal comes across as such the more likely it is to be successful.

How do you see affiliate marketing changing over the next couple of years? Which parties do you think will have the most influence over this?

The eternal question. I think the answer that most people agree on is that there will be consolidation in the marketplace of affiliate networks, as there are large number at the moment offering very similar services. It was only announced recently that Commission Monster, from the Australian market, are entering the UK affiliate industry.

Essentially, affiliate marketing is similar to search in that it is a vehicle for converting traffic as opposed to creating and driving brand awareness. The affiliate channel is an amalgamation of a number of existing channels - such as PPC, SEO, email, aggregators and content, and therefore each affiliate sub-channel needs to be treated as such. From a clients point of view the key is to optimise all of these channels individually and then measure their performance against all online/offline channels to ensure that budget is being spent in the most efficient manner - a holistic DM marketing approach.

A number of the before-mentioned affiliate channels have recognised this and now work directly with clients/agencies as it is an opportunity for them to maximise their slice of the available budget and grow in importance with the client. I can see this trend continuing.

Affiliate networks will continue to thrive but I feel will move into operating more like traditional ad networks, where they will represent a number of sites and buy inventory off those sites on a CPA basis. A few of the networks are starting to offer this type of service. E.g. Affiliate Window providing the feed for the Sun Shop.

If anyone has any questions or comments for Owain please dont hesitate to add below.

More interviews coming soon

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