Your eCommerce Partnerships Can Be Better. Here’s How.

Building strategic partnerships with affiliates is an effective, low-cost way for eCommerce companies to expand their customer base, and increase revenue. There’s a reason why it’s rated the best channel for customer acquisition by marketers — even above organic and paid search.¹

Having a strong, supportive relationship with partners is the foundation of success in affiliate marketing. But traditional affiliate marketing strategies can limit an advertiser’s ability to create meaningful, profitable eCommerce partnerships.

In this post, we’ll discuss how integrating Uniqodo’s advanced promotion engine with your existing tech stack acts as a simple, straightforward way to improve your affiliate partnerships, and maximise the success of your campaigns. 

Suggested reading: Our downloadable guide “Do You Need a Promotion Engine?” can help you assess software options to boost your promotional campaigns.

What creates friction in affiliate partnerships?

Managing multiple affiliate partners is complex, and the relationship between brands and affiliates can break down, resulting in low conversions, and a disappointing return on investment. Here are some ways friction can arise: 

In a bid to incentivise purchases, many eCommerce businesses rely too much on discounting strategies. This can be effective in driving short-term sales spikes, but lead to reduced profit margins in the long run. Discount offers may only attract price-sensitive customers, who lack loyalty beyond any discounted price point. 

2. Code leakage

Discount codes can get shared on unintended channels, and leak out to people who don’t follow the affiliate partner. This can harm revenue streams, since advertisers still have to pay influencers or affiliates for every sale made via that code. This can create distrust and weaken the relationship between a brand and affiliate partner.

3. Use of cookie-based tracking

A cornerstone of affiliate marketing attribution for many years, tracking cookies are placed on a user’s browser, and, when they click an affiliate link, subsequent purchases are attributed to the respective affiliate. 

However, cookies get deleted, or expire, resulting in lost attribution for affiliate-led conversions. Plus, the rise of privacy regulations will soon lead to a third-party cookies phase out — making them redundant as a tracking method. A lack of proper attribution leads to affiliate dissatisfaction and de-motivates affiliate partners. 

How to get affiliate partnerships back on track: 

• Move away from just transactions: To help strengthen your relationship with affiliates, move away from purely transactional discounts, and offer affiliates other opportunities, for example the option to participate in sponsored posts, or other creator content.
• Control your codes: To streamline affiliate processes, it’s essential to ensure your affiliate promotions are controlled by unique, single-use codes. This stops codes leaking to databases, and other sites. By integrating Uniqodo into your current systems you’ll ensure your codes only run on only the networks they’re designed to.
• Move to a cookie-free tracking solution: Most traditional affiliate eCommerce solutions use cookies to track conversions. Uniqodo doesn’t use cookies to track promotions, and the software can track data across a customer’s entire promotional journey, and accurately measure the success of every promotion. 

This not only ensures proper attribution but also gives brands actionable insights that can be used to make informed decisions about their promotional strategies going forward. 

Case Study: Uniqodo Travelodge case study: code misuse and lost revenue

• The problem: Travelodge's extensive use of voucher codes led to losses from code misuse and created tracking difficulties for voucher campaign performances.
• Solution: Uniqodo introduced a system for tracking every code, and creating exclusive offers. This improved process tracking, customer behaviour analytics, and user experience, by providing feedback on code eligibility.
• Results: The solution provided Travelodge with better campaign management, reduced manual reporting, and enhanced their ability to gain insights into customer engagement. It resulted in more sign-ups for email marketing, and stronger affiliate relationships, tailored to different customer segments.

The untapped potential of promotion engines

While the software stack you currently use can help you manage affiliate campaigns, it may lack key attributes that are central to maximising the potential of your valuable eCommerce partnerships. 

Uniqodo’s Promotion Experience Platform helps you unleash the full potential of your existing tech. Whether you currently use a promotion engine, affiliate platform, or cross-marketing software, Uniqodo can integrate with your current systems, to help you streamline, and strengthen your eCommerce partnerships. 

Why is a Promotion Experience Engine so valuable for affiliate marketing?

Uniqodo’s Promotion Experience Platform can play an integral role in helping you develop better affiliate marketing strategies. Our software can help you create more personalised, and engaging, affiliate promotional marketing campaigns.

The option to generate unique, single-use codes gives you the opportunity to significantly reduce coupon misuse, boost eCommerce partnerships with affiliates, and generate greater levels of customer engagement. 

Case Study: Uniqodo BT case study: BT single-use voucher codes enable exclusive customer acquisition offers 

• The problem: In a competitive telecom sector, BT wanted to attract new customers via affiliate offers, without affecting other sales channels. They were struggling to maintain the exclusivity of offers, or control widespread sharing of codes.
• Solution: BT, together with Uniqodo and Awin, launched secure, single-use codes for affiliates like Groupon, Wowcher, and Living Social. This strategy kept offers exclusive, and controlled sharing.
• Results: A Groupon campaign kicked off with 2,500 sales in two weeks, leading to more successful campaigns. BT then expanded its affiliate offerings, boosting customer acquisition further.

Uniqodo: Changing the game for affiliate marketing

Single-use codes: Uniqodo can administer promotions with affiliate networks to target specific demographics, whilst ensuring codes are secure, and won’t leak onto third-party sites. 

Integration capabilities: Uniqodo complements, rather than replaces leading eCommerce platforms and solutions. By being able to integrate with eCommerce platforms like Awin, DotDigital, and Vitality, you can maximise their potential, and boost your affiliate marketing efforts. This means you can deliver a more personalised shopping experience, without having to make significant changes to your current setup. 

Upgraded promotional experiences: Uniqodo is the only platform on the market that combines a promo engine, with online experiences. The onsite experience software can deliver promotions at critical points in the customer journey, for example at targeted conversion points such as product page visits, or basket additions. This guarantees each customer journey is optimised for engagement and conversion.

There’s also the option to make real-time adjustments to campaigns, to ensure promotions run smoothly.

Boost engagement and loyalty: Uniqodo’s promotion engine software can craft visually and emotionally appealing promotions that encourage not just one-off purchases, but foster long-term relationships, with both customers and your affiliates.

A Promotion Experience Platform that enhances rather than replaces

In order to unlock the full potential of your eCommerce business partnerships, from tech solutions to affiliates, you need a solution that enhances their capabilities - rather than replaces them. 

Common eCommerce software, like Awin, DotDigital, and Vitality, are highly valuable, but perform even better when paired with Uniqodo’s best-in-class software. With Uniqodo on board, you can enhance your current tech features, and fill any gaps they currently have.

By being able to deliver more sophisticated, data-driven promotions across all your marketing channels at scale, you can enhance the effectiveness of your affiliate marketing efforts, without disrupting existing processes or systems.

You already know the value of having a robust affiliate marketing strategy. With the help of Uniqodo, you can improve your eCommerce relationships, and ensure that the wider business can see the true potential of this marketing strategy, too.

If you want to know more about Uniqodo and how we can help you build fruitful eCommerce partnerships please get in touch with us today. 

1. ECommerce Brands Need Certainty of Outcomes - Affiliate Marketing Improves the Chances