Affiliate Marketing Trends in 2020 To Watch Out For
From startups to large corporates, affiliate marketing has become an integral part of the 360-degree digital marketing plan of many businesses. It has become the most important source of revenue generation and customer acquisition for them.
According to a study conducted by Rakuten: 83% of the marketers use affiliate marketing to boost brand awareness and 79% of them use it to engage existing customers.
As we step into the new decade, there’s one question that everyone wants an answer to –
What is the future of affiliate marketing?
Tata Strategic Management Group’s white paper on Affiliate Marketing in India The Next Frontier, the affiliate marketing industry in India is expected to touch USD 835 million by 2025.
Affiliate marketing has undergone countless changes over the past few years. New products and technologies are being introduced in the market and Google keeps pushing out updates to its PageRank algorithm.
You need to keep an eye on these trends and implement them to stay ahead of your competitors in the affiliate marketing game.
1. Third-Party Cookies
More and more platforms & browsers are expected to block third-party cookies. The traditional affiliate tracking template followed by affiliate networks and their publishers will no longer work.
While the smart cookie-blocking technology has also been rolled out by Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) and Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP). Third-party cookies are now being blocked by these two browsers. Within two years, Google Chrome will also block third-party cookies in its web browsers.
That’s why, it is imperative for publishers to have a conversation with their affiliate networks and discuss alternative tracking methods like flash cookies, first-party cookies, ETags, Fingerprinting, parameter-based tracking and database tracking.
2. Alternative Traffic Sources
In 2020, affiliate marketers are going to have to start taking alternative traffic sources seriously. As the year that has gone by has shown us, it is becoming more and more difficult to rank organically on Google.
No matter how good your content or SEO strategy is, you don’t know how the next Google algorithm update will affect your search engine rankings.
That’s why it is advisable to start exploring alternative traffic sources like social media platforms, video platforms, image sharing platforms, podcasts, etc.
3. Voice search
The use of voice search will increase in 2020. Given the fact that the number of smart devices available in the market is constantly increasing, more and more customers are using voice search to make enquiries, find local businesses, make buying decisions and more.
According to ComScore, more than half of all smartphone users will start using the voice search technology in 2020.
This will result in voice search optimization playing a more important role in search engine rankings. Consequently, your keyword research strategy needs to be more focused on intent and long-tail keyword phrases.
The best way to do this is to structure your content into paragraphs that address specific topics and questions. The most commonly used trigger words for voice search queries are why, how, what, when, where and when.
4. Zero-click Searches
The rise of zero-click searches on Google will have a huge impact on affiliate marketers. A Zero-click search is a search on SERP that shows the answers to a user’s question at the top of the Google search result.
Instead of sending users to third party pages, Google satisfies the user’s intent without actually having to click on any search result links.
According to the Search Engine Journal, 34.4% of all desktop searches result in no clicks. This number is even higher for mobile searches, with 62.5% users never clicking on search result links.
The increase in zero-clicks will bring about a decline in organic traffic for affiliate marketers. This will have a big impact on their bottom line.
5. Native Advertising
The traditional advertising method will no longer work in 2020. More and more affiliate marketers will turn to native advertising to drive more traffic and conversions for brands.
According to eMarketer.com, by the end of 2020, advertisers will dedicate approximately two-thirds of the total display budget to native ads.
Unlike display ads or banner ads, native ads are non-disruptive and don’t really look like ads. They look like they are a part of the editorial flow of the page.
Native ads can be in-feed ads that appear in your Facebook & Twitter feed, search & promoted listings that appear at the top of google search results or in the sidebar and content recommendations that appear below the article you just read.
Final Thoughts
2020 will be a crucial year for the affiliate marketing industry. Affiliates will focus on streamlining their affiliate marketing strategies with a focus on improving consumer experiences. To do so, they will be relying on affiliate networks for their guidance and expertise.
