Affiliate Marketing

It involves using the Affilate Window (awin.com) website to gather information which is why it is called a Computer Exercise.

You then write up your findings as per the question – the question is in the Module Guide and pasted below.

Affiliate Marketing
Your work should include:
Introduction [approx. 130 words]

As a general question, why do advertisers/brands use affiliate marketing? [approx. 300 words]

For 3. and 4. visit https://www.awin.com/gb/publishers/advertiser-directory. Look up the following.

Hughes – https://www.hughes.co.uk
Vision Direct – https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/
Myvitamins UK – https://www.myvitamins.com/
Aviva Car Insurance – https://www.aviva.co.uk/insurance/motor/car-insurance/

What do you think the reasoning is behind the specific commission payments that are offered by the advertisers/brands listed above? [approx. 500 words].

You can add a table which describes the commissions paid, which does not count in the Word Count. It should just describe, e.g. it could include a column Commissions for new customers, and another column one Commissions for existing customers, with rows for the advertisers etc. I would expect it to be in part 3 (preferable) or an Appendix.

How are the specific affiliates for these advertisers/brands being controlled? [approx. 250 words]

Conclusion – this is for the overall piece of work [approx. 130 words]

NB: For this work first of all please refer to the lecture notes and the references in the module guide. After those have been consulted find other supporting references from academic, e.g. journals, and business/news sources, e.g. Statista, Mintel, press releases, annual reports, IBISWorld etc.

The main thing to do is to use evidence to support what you are arguing.

Deadline: 12 midday online submission only, 23 Feb
Word count: 1,200 words plus 10% so absolute maximum is 1,320 words. The Academic Regulations state what is included in the word limit.
I give you an indication of how to use the word limit above: you can vary this a little. The above has been tweaked to make it 1,310 so there are 10 spare words in the above.

Notes

First of all you need to understand what affiliates are. Listen to the first lecture which gives the example of a motoring affiliate.

They are intermediaries who generate traffic (visitors) to websites. They are paid on the basis of performance, typically cost per sale. So, when a sale is made a commission is paid to the affiliate.

Lecture 2 will give more information on affiliates in the last part of the lecture. Lecture 3 then continues, at the start, to look at affiliates. Seminar 3 will look at affiliates in depth. The initial reading is under Lecture 2 (week 14). After this you can read around the topic in more detail.

Affiliate Marketing
Your work should include:
Introduction [approx. 130 words].
Briefly explain what affiliate marketing is and the methods of payment that are used.

As a general question, why do advertisers/brands use affiliate marketing? [approx. 300 words].

The lectures give you starting ideas here, and use module reading and your own reading to probe the topic in general. You should look to lay out some main themes here. You cannot cover everything so focus on less in more depth.
Module guide reading
Sharp, E. (2019) Affiliate Marketing Advertiser Guide 2019: Everything You Need To Know. Available at https://www.awin.com/gb/affiliate-marketing/advertiser-guide
Dwivedi, Y.K., Rana, N.P. and Alryalat, M.A.A. (2017). Affiliate marketing: An overview and analysis of emerging literature. The Marketing Review, 17(1), 33-50.
Duffy, D.L. (2005). Affiliate marketing and its impact on e-commerce. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 22(3), 161-163.
https://hstalks.com/bm/4425/ – this explains how affiliate marketing works. Select
“login via your organisation”
Use a mixture of academic and credible business sources as your references.

For 3. and 4. visit https://www.awin.com/gb/publishers/advertiser-directory. Look up the following.

Hughes – https://www.hughes.co.uk
Vision Direct – https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/
Myvitamins UK – https://www.myvitamins.com/
Aviva Car Insurance – https://www.aviva.co.uk/insurance/motor/car-insurance/

What do you think the reasoning is behind the specific commission payments that are offered by the advertisers/brands listed above? [approx. 500 words].

You need to refer to the 4 examples above and explain each of them. Offer a concise explanation.

For this part I would recommend using the headings in lecture 3 (Week 15) on reasons for payments (but abbreviate them). These are below.

If a product sale is high margin and lucrative then the commission will be higher (reverse is true)
Depends on the market, growth levels and product
If the product leads to recurring revenues, e.g. mobile phone contracts, then the commission will be higher
If the product leads on to other revenues, e.g. complementary product sales, then the commission will be higher
If the brand wants to acquire customers the commission will be higher
These are the main criteria I would recommend to use for the assessment. There are other factors at play as well in setting commissions, for example, how important the affiliate method is to the specific firms compared to other online methods and offline.

Each of the examples above should be mapped against one (or more) of the categories, e.g. high margin. In the seminar in week 3 (15) we will do this for some examples. If you feel more than 1 of them has a similar explanation for the commission than you can combine them in your discussion. Information in the lectures will help you with this.

I would recommend visiting the advertiser websites, i.e. Hughes – https://www.hughes.co.uk, Vision Direct – https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/, Myvitamins UK – https://www.myvitamins.com/, Aviva Car Insurance – https://www.aviva.co.uk/insurance/motor/car-insurance/

and learn about what they offer and how that can help inform your answer. Also look at how they describe themselves on AWIN. Some basic background research on these firms, and/or sectors, can help as well, particularly on the margins, levels of growth, sources of revenue. Some supporting references are useful to support your arguments, e.g. recurring revenues for the firm/sector etc.

How are the specific affiliates for these advertisers/brands being controlled? [approx. 250 words]
For this part, as with 4, give specific examples for the advertisers/brands listed. We will do this in the seminar in Week 3 for other examples.
When you use AWIN here, https://www.awin.com/gb/publishers/advertiser-directory, you need to look at the terms tab and General. You will find some common themes here and these are the points you can extract. With this part you can focus on less areas and try to do some comparison of the brands, for example, what is common and what maybe stands out as different for some of them.

Conclusion – this is for the overall piece of work [approx. 130 words].
Sum up your findings briefly and perhaps what you found most interesting from the work.