Consumer shopping behaviour continues to evolve, a summary of what we are seeing in the world of Affiliate marketing, upcoming webinars from the team at Genie Goals and a local Cambridge musician’s epic version of the Disney classic’s ‘Let it go’.
“Previously we have spoken about the ‘lipstick effect’, where we are seeing an increase in sales of small luxuries to replace activities that we currently are not able to do, such as Mindful Chef seeing +425% of new customers to replace going out to eat as well as keeping healthy. We are now seeing data that shows that mindsets for long term activities or purchasers such as buying a car are moving in a recessionary mindset.
Google trend data is showing an increase in the term ‘bargain(s)’ and Instagram is seeing an increase of interactions with posts related to great value. 73% of adults in the UK are looking for flexible payments and 42% are waiting for an offer. Unsurprisingly this indicates that when consumers are in the market, they are looking for value.
Understandably not all brands will want to run a sale or discount stock, especially when you are in the luxury retail vertical, but could there be another way you can add value?
With a heightened awareness of safety during this time, the data is showing that going shopping whether it’s for essentials or non-essentials, it is no longer through impulse. 42% of adults in Germany consider changing to a different shop if it is less crowded. With this trend we are seeing an increase in the use of bots; for instance, Lidl is utilising the bot feature on Whatsapp so people can check in real-time how busy the store is. On The List, in China has been allowed to re-open recently, they are allowing people to book a 2 hour slot to visit the store as well as running various flash sales. Flash sales do not work for every brand, but what I like about both of these examples is that there is both a personal and VIP element to add value.”
Rachel Milner, Head of Paid Social
“There have been mixed approaches in the affiliate channel in reaction to the Covid-19 crisis. Some brands have been stopping their affiliate programmes entirely, others have slashed or even exhausted their budgets whilst the most unfortunate have been hampered by fulfilment issues. Our view is that there has never been a better time to grow your affiliate programme with investment in both standard CPA opportunities and in CPC opportunities that have a strong shopping focus. Consumers are spending more time online and affiliate traffic is up as a result. The time spent building stronger partnerships, investing in content & leveraging shopping platforms will undoubtedly help reach a broader audience than ever before. CSS affiliate Stylight predicts that turning off your marketing activities could cause more harm than good; losing sales to competitors and resellers, missing the opportunity to counteract the loss of revenue from brick and mortar sales and reducing brand visibility. Speaking to a similar comparison site in the furniture vertical, they’re seeing an increase in time spent on site (on average 3x longer than ‘pre pandemic’) as well as spending more, reporting on a huge increase in AOV. The rush to create affiliate sites has been prevalent too with affiliate network Awin reporting double the volume of affiliate applications since lockdown began (albeit some of that is sparked by Amazon’s decimation of earning potential in their affiliate programme.) Many people are starting new ventures with their new-found time and the successful few have turned their side project of affiliate marketing into their primary focus. As a team we’ve seen an influx of partners seeking collaborations which speaks to the increased appetite for creating & monetising content. With people spending more time online than ever and content waiting to be written, take advantage of the full funnel approach the affiliate channel provides.”
Bethan Callely, Digital Marketing Account Manager
“The PPC team have been getting a lot of use out of the Google Rising Retail Categories Tool, which enables us to see which queries are trending across retail across different time periods in 5 different markets. This is great to check each week and find categories relevant to our clients which we can be taking advantage of, and also gives insight into consumer behaviour. Last week, for example, the British public were making the most of the weather with garden furniture, parasols, hot weather snacks, air con systems, pool equipment, hot weather apparel etc all rising, and we could see rising trends in easily socially-distanced sports such as golf, tennis, fishing, and watersports. “
Imogen Collins, Head of PPC
“2 months ago, and shortly after lockdown measures were implemented in many countries across the globe, Google announced that they will give away $800+ million to support small businesses and crisis response. Part of the package consists in $340 million in Google Ads credits available to all SMBs that have had an active Google Ads account in the past year. The credits will be made available into a merchant’s account at some point next quarter and will be valid up until the end of this year. There are no further steps required by merchants to receive Ads Credit; we don’t know who will be selected and how much each merchant will receive in Ads credit so watch out for the notification popping up in your Google Ads account. We certainly will!”
Jérémy Courty, Account Director
Incremental PPC revenue, and profits with Microsoft Advertising – Wednesday 3rd June 9:30am – 10:15am
We have teamed up with our friends at Microsoft on June 3rd for a 45 minute webinar where we will be covering:
Impactful and usable PPC channel top tips to improve and optimise your performance.
Valuable advertiser customer data insights.
An insight into the simplicity and powerful functionality of the Microsoft digital marketing tools and platforms which are at YOUR disposal.
You won’t want to miss out on the special giveaway on the day from Genie Goals and Microsoft!
Sign up here to register and hopefully we’ll see you there!
“Last week Genie Goals hosted a Happy Hour with local Cambridge musician Matt Stratford. In the absence of seeing everyone face to face, it was so much fun enjoying an hour of great live music and banter through the chat feature whether you were in front of your desk, cooking for the family or sat in the sunshine. Taking real time requests, a personal highlight in my household was Matt playing my 3 year old daughter’s request for Frozen’s ‘Let it go’ (and a great job he did too!) We’ll be sure to keep you posted on future Happy Hour events so hopefully you can join us at the next one.”
Emily Long, Head of Client Services
