Over the last few years, the number of smartphone users has increased rapidly from 2.5 billion users in 2016 to expected 3.8B users in 2021. The crazy rise of mobile users definitely opens chances in the field of affiliate marketing! Not only the UI & UX of websites and apps have to be adapted for mobile. The way to use affiliate marketing has to be rethought and redesigned as well. A quick summary of who is involved in affiliate marketing:
In general, mobile affiliate marketing works like all other affiliate marketing programs. Mobile affiliate marketing simply targets mobile users specifically. Affiliates put the merchant’s link on their website. When customers click on the ad and convert the affiliates to get a commission. If a potential customer doesn’t convert? Then the affiliate doesn’t get a commission.
How is mobile affiliate marketing different?
Affiliate Marketing can be both: Users can either check ads on mobile devices or on desktop. These two have significant differences for all involved. User Engagement Level The mindset of the user who sits on a smartphone is completely different than a user who sits on a desktop. When someone is on a computer at home, he has time to make decisions. This is critical when it comes to completing a conversion. A user on a smartphone or other mobile device can be everywhere. Inline at a coffee shop, on an airplane, at home, and everywhere else. They click more spontaneously just to have a look. They often don’t have time to complete the purchase. The best time to get traffic is after work and at the weekends. Then people have more time to complete offers and to complete conversions. Screen size It’s not a secret: smartphone screens are smaller than desktops. They show less information and have to be optimized for that to make conversions. Users don’t have the time nor the desire to read the complete website (even if the user sits at home on his smartphone). The user should be able to see the Call To Action quickly. If he has to scroll, the click rate will fall. Network Connection Speed When a user sits on a desktop the chance that he connects to a fast internet connection is very high. If someone uses a smartphone, it can be different. Therefore, when someone hits a landing page or affiliate offers, it should load quickly. No user likes to wait longer than a short moment. Even if users on smartphones are connected to wifi – design your landing page so that they don’t need a long loading time.
Advantages of mobile affiliate marketing
Ways to present the product There is an infinite number of niche products. Each has its own target group. Everyone wants to be marketed differently. Not only are the marketing requirements disproportionately high, but also the marketing possibilities. The times in which advertising could be easily placed via search engines are over. Videos, apps and influencers make it possible to market products in many different ways. The market is constantly growing Mobile affiliate marketing reaches many people. Everyone has a smartphone. The smartphone is always there and everywhere. In 2016, web browsing via smartphone even exceeded desktop browsing for the first time. Not only can advertising be done via smartphones, but also other mobile devices such as smartwatches should not be ignored. The development of further mobile devices suggests that this trend will continue. There is an immense opportunity for targeting Targeted offers perform better than a “one size fits all” solution. Mobile Affiliate Marketing Tools do not only enable targeting via e.g. retargeting. They also access the deeper functionalities of smartphones such as the location function to enable even better targeting. Geofencing is the possibility of sending location-dependent offers to potential customers. A large American supermarket chain uses geofencing to send its customers not only personalized but also location-based advertising as soon as they are near a supermarket. Another supermarket chain has set up Geofences around the locations of their competitors to bring them to their own stores. In-app Traffic Participating in a mobile affiliate marketing program doesn’t have to be offered via a website. There is the possibility of in-app promotion. Apps have the advantage that they usually provide an optimized user experience. They are designed to run on mobile devices.
Challenges in mobile affiliate marketing
Design challenges Unfortunately, there are still a lot of websites and apps on the market that is not properly designed for smartphones and other mobile devices. They don’t provide an optimized user interface and therefore don’t provide an optimal user experience. Nothing kills conversions faster than bad user experience. The right design of apps and websites is therefore essential. Without this, no mobile affiliate marketing should be done. Mobile analysis tools such as UXCam help to analyze mobile apps and improve user experience. Analysis mechanisms such as heatmaps and session replay allow you to view the app from the user’s point of view and to identify and fix frustration patterns. Unoptimized mobile affiliate marketing tools Mobile affiliate marketing is younger and newer than affiliate marketing for desktop PCs. Therefore, there are currently significantly fewer tools for mobile affiliate marketing. Other tools are designed to reach the desktop audience. These tools often cannot be easily transferred to mobile devices with significantly smaller displays. This problem goes in the same direction as the design problem. The user experience is not optimized and users become frustrated. Small display sizes can have a negative impact on the click rate The biggest problem with small displays is that less information can be displayed. This means that fewer search results and fewer advertisements can be shown on the display. Search results listed below are therefore likely to receive fewer clicks (or taps) than the ads listed above. Yes, this is also the case for devices with larger displays. However, it has a much stronger effect on smartphones, where fewer ads are visible without scrolling.
Conclusion
Mobile affiliate marketing differs from traditional affiliate marketing in three crucial respects:
- User Engagement
- Screen Size
- Network Connection Speed
Furthermore, it offers both advantages and risks. The advantages are not to be despised. The risks can be balanced by a clever and above all user-friendly design of the promotion. The user experience should be optimized in each case (and also with desktop Affiliate Marketing) in the best possible way. This makes Mobile Affiliate Marketing at least a marketing strategy worth considering, which can at least be used as a complement to the traditional desktop business. Are you looking for and Affiliate Tracking Software? Then you are in the right place. Start your 30- Days free trial today at Trackier.
