Our partnership with the YieldKit GmbH team dates back to 2016, and it has quickly turned into a success story thanks to their dedication and professionalism.So we’re very happy that the YieldKit team earned first place in our “Spring is Coming” affiliate contest, becoming the “King of Avangate” and winning a $1,000 Amazon eVoucher. They achieved a 53% increase in sales volumes compared with the previous non-promo period, making them the affiliate with the highest sales volumes during the contest period.On behalf of the whole YieldKit team, Britta Adrians was kind enough to share with us some insights into YieldKit’s affiliate journey. Find out how the company is handling the current industry changes and much more.
1. How long have you been working in the affiliate marketing industry and what’s your main role at yieldkit.com?
My name is Britta Adrians and I am a Marketing & PR Executive at YieldKit GmbH. I am fairly new to the affiliate marketing industry. I started working for YieldKit six months ago.Coming from the travel industry, this was a completely new chapter for me and I am very happy to be part of the YieldKit team and the affiliate industry. My main role at YieldKit is running the marketing department, with all its duties and responsibilities. This includes planning our trade shows, staff travel, social media channels and employer branding (together with our HR department).
2. What’s your biggest affiliate marketing challenge right now and why?
Our challenges are pretty much the same the whole industry is facing. Coming from a cookie-based tracking environment on desktop and desktop being the main sales channel, we’re seeing user behavior changing drastically with mobile usage and across different channels (eg, mobile app, mobile browser, desktop browser).On top of that, Apple’s launch of ITP 2.1 limits the ability for cookies to track sales over the long term. Third-party cookies won’t be tracked, and first-party cookies are limited to 7 days. For comparison, the affiliate industry has been accustomed to a cookie lifetime of about 30 days.Another challenge we faced in the past was the changing allocation of the marketing budget from the affiliate department to mobile and influencer marketing. Those new channels are becoming more and more important for our clients on the advertiser side.As a result, we developed our very own solutions: YieldMobile and performance-based influencer marketing. Both our advertisers and publishers love our new solutions and we anticipate huge growth for YieldKit with these two additions to the YieldKit family.
3. Name the most successful affiliate project you’ve worked on. What do you think made it successful?
One of the most successful affiliate projects we worked on recently was a major cooperation with one of Germany’s biggest banking providers. In cooperation with our premium publisher, IDG, we developed an editorial campaign where the banking provider was introduced by the editorial department of IDG. The article was monetized through our affiliate partnerships. It was a win-win-win situation for the advertisers (great content), for our publisher (monetization and interesting new content for its users) and us (making all clients happy).In general, we see a lot of demand for content and editorial campaigns. Our solutions YieldConnect and YieldEditorial serve exactly these needs. With YieldConnect, we create our own “keyword“ campaigns using our publishers’ content (in text). We usually work with keyword lists that we receive from our advertisers (they typically know best from other channels what keywords convert). With YieldEditorial, we present our top clients (advertisers) to our publishers and if they are interested, they create content about them (all performance-based, with special conditions though).
4. Can you tell us three digital marketing trends every company should prepare for in the next two years?
Two big trends we are experiencing right now are a shift towards more mobile solutions and the integration of influencer campaigns. More and more purchases are made through recommendations of peers/influencers and not through advertising alone. Additionally, sales are often made through mobile website or apps, so it is an important priority to further develop our existing mobile and influencer solutions. Besides that, every marketer should keep an eye on developments in tracking technologies.
5. How do you think our network helps yieldkit.com achieve its goals as an affiliate?
Avangate is a great partner in the software and digital goods industry. Their rapport with the industry’s top merchants helps us give our clients a wide choice for their respective target groups.
6. Any advice for affiliate newcomers who are promoting software and digital goods?
Our advice would be to focus on the software and goods you have a lot of knowledge and passion about. When affiliates are highly knowledgeable, they can give better recommendations, create quality content, be more trustworthy and give a higher added value to their readership/customers. That will also give them the opportunity to get higher commissions and unique assignments. If you want to be one of our success stories too, join Avangate Affiliate Network and make it happen!
