Getting Social Publishers to work for youChris Brown & Laura Middleton

Introduction

• Looking at the new phenomenon that are social media publishers

• Looking at• Who they are

• What they do

• How they do it

• How to work with them

• Challenges & Future

Who am I? - Chris

• Chris Brown, Director and founder of Clockwork Affiliates

• Almost 12 years working in affiliate marketing

• Started in March 2005

• Managed a variety of programs over the years

• Currently working with 3 or 4 brands that have seen the impact of social media publishers over the last 12-18 months

Who am I? - Laura

• Founder of Social Publisher The Office Rocks

• Finalist for 'Best Newcomer' at the Performance Marketing Awards 2016

• Grown from dining room table business to a team of 9 within 16 months

• Generating over 2million clicks per month to a variety of retailers

Stats – The phenomena of the social publishers

• Very little traffic & revenue in 2014

• Huge increase in 2015 with traffic increasing by over 2000%

• Revenue by 1600%

• 2016 to date has seen a 45% increase in traffic and 42% increase in revenue

• We still have Q4 to go

2014

2015

2016

Social Publishers Performance

Revenue Clicks

*Stats are based on access to performance of a few programs active within the social publishers** 2016 is Jan to Sept 30th 2016

Who are these Social publishers

• Bump, Baby & Youhttps://www.facebook.com/bumpbabyandyou/

• Ashleigh Money Saverhttps://www.facebook.com/AshleighMoneySaver/

• Bargain Hub https://www.facebook.com/CheapKidsDeals/

• Moneysaving mummyhttps://www.facebook.com/MoneySavingMummy0

• Breaks in the lakeshttps://www.facebook.com/lakedistrict.offers/

• 10 ways https://www.facebook.com/10ways/

• Your Wedding Hubhttps://www.facebook.com/yourweddinghubUK/

• Extreme Couponing https://www.facebook.com/couponmumuk/

• Bargain Buys 4 Busy Mums (group) https://www.facebook.com/BargainBuysForBusyMums/

What do they do?

• Grow large, niche social media audiences

• High volume promotional posts 7 days a week

• Promote relevant products & services directly via posts onto social networks

• Mainly seen on Facebook via pages & groups but also on Twitter & Pinterest

• Posts are a mixture of specific products and general retailer promotions

• Traffic is sent directly to the retailer and is largely mobile

Promotional Posts

Promotional Post

Promotional Post

Promotional Post

Promotional Post

How to work with Social Publishers

• Do some research

• Listen to the publisher

• Don’t expect them to just push your offer

• Be open to promotional opportunities available with tenancy spend

• Trust the publisher to know their audience

• Communicate relevant offers, deals and any changes

• Understand their peaks and spikes in traffic

Challenges & Future

• Getting advertisers, networks & agencies to understand the benefits of working with Social Publishers

• Understanding the value of the large traffic volumes

• Tracking & Reporting Issues• Conversion rates low compared to average

• Sales not often tracked due to cookie dropping issues on mobile• Sales that are tracked are often declined or rejected for not being last referrer

• Challenge to understand the value of the social publisher in the sale journey – attribution modelling

• Challenge for networks to improve tracking and integration with retailer 3rd

party tracking• Facebook Algorithms