Content Commerce has been on a steady rise in recent years. It’s not surprising that a more genuine method of reaching audiences should step up as we enter a cookieless world and witness the inevitable decline of advertising. But for marketers, brands, and customers alike, content commerce is providing many solutions. Furthermore, commerce content generates significantly more money per visitor than advertisements do.
But the ability to work with brands to increase affiliate commissions based on performance makes it a desirable choice for all parties involved.
Let us understand how content commerce marketing works, look at its workings, and content commerce benefits, and learn how you can get started with content commerce for your brand.
What is Content Commerce?
The most straightforward definition of content commerce is when a business publishes and distributes content to promote product sales through digital channels like an online store.
But simply providing content is insufficient. To give customers the best possible shopping experience, content-driven commerce necessitates the thoughtful integration of content into the purchasing process.
From the initial concept, through product selection and purchase, to the use of the product after purchase, content should support the entire digital customer journey. Customers must have access to the content they require at any time and through any digital channel.
Why is content commerce becoming increasingly important?
It may sound obvious, but more and more consumers are shopping online as significant portions of customer journeys shift to digital channels.
This pattern has been accelerated by the local stores closing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Manufacturers and retailers need to offer their customers a similar shopping experience online as in brick-and-mortar stores — without personal sales staff and without customers being able to touch and try out products.
Without a personal salesperson and without the ability for customers to touch and try out products, manufacturers and retailers must provide their customers with an online shopping experience that is comparable to one in physical stores.
Online stores that are just simple product catalogs with a checkout process are insufficient for this. High-quality customer experiences can only be “recreated” using content, which includes texts, images, videos, and interactive elements.
For instance, there is a high demand for advice on fashion, travel, and technical products. The majority of the time, customers are uncertain about their choices and have a lot of questions. These questions may be answered by just content.
Customers also increasingly want more than just information when they shop, such as entertainment and inspiration. In terms of offering and performance, it’s nearly impossible to compete with eCommerce behemoths like Amazon or major brands.
There are many interchangeable products. However, original content gives one the chance to stand out from the competition and draw clients to their own brand.
How Does Content Commerce Work?
The most common way commerce content is monetized is through affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is the most typical method of monetizing commercial content. The majority of the time, every piece of commercial content that mentions a product also includes a link to that product’s page on the brand’s website.
Brands are able to track which publisher referred the customer who ultimately made a purchase by using an affiliate link.
Check out our blog on How You Can Earn More as an Affiliate Marketer.
In addition to owning traffic channels like email, Twitter, and Instagram, publishers also use buyer-intent keywords to drive traffic to their websites. For brands to work with publishers, commerce content is a particularly appealing model. This is due to the fact that the publisher’s compensation is primarily based on performance.
With the intention of generating their entire income from affiliate commissions, some publishers may create free commercial content about a brand’s products. Because of this, partner marketing that uses commerce content is especially a low-risk model.
84% of businesses believe that affiliate marketing offers a better ROI than other channels, due to the low risk and minimal effort required to get started.
In order to cover their costs and efforts in producing the content, larger and more reputable publishers might still demand upfront payment. Publishers are frequently sent free product samples so they can write a real, in-depth review.
Additionally, brands setting up affiliate marketing programs will need some fundamentals, such as tracking software to keep track of referrals. But after it goes live and tracking is set up, the content will keep generating leads and sales for years to come.
Brands and publishers may eventually establish a long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnership in which they work together on particular marketing initiatives and share sales goals.
How to Get Started with Content Commerce?
- Audience research
Start by asking your audience for their preferred brands and products, or even consider using an audience research tool.
- Build lasting relationships with brands
Use well-known affiliate networks to connect with your audience once you know which brands they are already familiar with.
- Make your objectives and success criteria clear.
Determine what an ROI-positive result looks like and how long you’re willing to wait to see results before you start writing your first piece of content.
- Establish appropriate tracking and attribution
Before you publish, set up your site on a platform like Trackier so you can track how your content performed and identify the strategies that resulted in conversions.
- Create and share your commercial content.
Stick to your normal editorial workflow, but don’t forget to add a few extra steps like testing your affiliate links and creating the page so that it has a high click-through rate.
- Keep track of your KPIs
Follow important KPIs for affiliate publishers, such as clicks and earnings per click (EPC), after publishing.
Do you really need Commerce Content Marketing for your Brand?
Commerce content is more difficult to master than purely informational content that is monetized through display ads.
But it’s also a content monetization method that’s slated to make it through the changing privacy landscape relatively unscathed. There is no safer bet for a media publisher than having the ability to email-push time-sensitive commerce content to your audience.
Three things you need to keep in mind:
- Diversify your revenue streams.
- Invest in long-term partnerships.
- Take a data-driven approach to your content.
This will guarantee that your media business has a stable and scalable revenue stream.
Learn more about affiliate marketing attribution and boost your ROI with Trackier’s attribution and affiliate management solutions, which provide real-time analytics for your affiliate campaigns, all in a single dashboard.
