Even though affiliate marketing has been around for years, it attracts more and more people every day. Being worth $12 billion (yes, billion), it gives the opportunity for affiliates to earn their stable income and for brands to expand and become even bigger. According to statistics, affiliate marketing generates around 16% of all global ecommerce sales which makes it one of the most lucrative advertising channels for many brands. 

The affiliate marketing industry is constantly changing and evolving. We are always keeping up with the market changes and by working with our clients (and going online for some more research) we managed to compile this short list of the main trends we’ve observed that are definitely staying in 2023. Bear in mind that we at Adpump mostly work with white-hat verticals: e-commerce, travel, finance, food, education, internet solutions etc. So all of the following trends are only applicable to these verticals and probably won’t be suitable for  gray/black-hat offers (such as gambling, adult, sweepstakes etc.).

Micro and nano blogs

While once the number of followers has been a big determinant for brands to start working with a blogger or content creator, it’s now shifted towards how engaged and loyal these followers are. Even if you have 500 or a thousand followers, you might still attract the attention of bigger brands wanting a collaboration with you. Now we all observe the tendency that smaller content creators (be it content blogs or review websites) have a potential of bringing more sales than the bigger ones.

 The key here is to make sure you know your audience and what they need and are able to appeal to them through your platform. The more convincing and authentic the content is, the better chances you have of selling your product. So make sure to invest time and energy into building your personal brand and credibility, as it would greatly impact the type of advertisers you can work with in the future.  

Video Content 

While reading posts and articles can be entertaining and informative, we can definitely say that video formats are now preferred to many other types of content. They are fun and entertaining and will definitely appeal to the audience through visuals. The more the same products are seen in different videos, the more people will want to buy them. With trends like “TikTok/Instagram/Youtube made me buy this” or “Unpack … with me” you can always count  on getting more exposure and thus more sales.

Almost all social media platforms allow posting short videos and have specific algorithms to promote them. But keep in mind that different audiences require different approaches and even different platforms. TikToks are everywhere and are mostly overtaken by a younger generation - primarily Gen Z. Older generation can be reached through Instagram reels or Youtube videos.

Coupon/cashback websites

With prices going up every so often for almost every category of goods, people are always looking for ways to save money on things they need to buy (and on those they don’t really need but really want to have). Especially now, with inflation being at record point, people are more likely than ever to do their research and find the best deals possible. And if you still don’t work with coupon or cashback sites, this should be a sign for you to implement it in your marketing strategy.

The more deals and discounts you can offer to your customers, the more people you can actually draw to your brand. Coupon and cashback sites play two roles here: one is raising brand awareness and making your brand more enticing, the second - attracting real customers and driving sales.

While coupon and cashback websites are driving lots of valid sales, we still see that many advertisers are not very keen to share coupon codes or allow cashback on their program. Before starting working with campaigns, make sure that this type of traffic is welcome and that the advertiser has shared some specific voucher code or an interesting deal.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is nothing new in affiliate marketing as it has been around for a while. Most platforms operate based on some kind of AI system/tool that helps optimize your traffic according to the results you get from your campaigns.  But last year the media frenzy that we saw over it showed how big it’s getting and how it’s not now limited to traffic optimization. 

For some the idea that AI can perform the same creative tasks as you humans might sound frightening, for affiliates it can become a great way to save money and energy. Just imagine that all the promo materials you need for a campaign can be finished in a matter of seconds: and you had very little to do with it!

ChatGPT can write posts and even articles for you that you can publish as reviews of a brand or a product. Yes, you might need to spend a bit of time on improving the texts, but otherwise the program does the most difficult work for you: organizing ideas and finding the words that would fit. You can even go as far as making AI generate creatives for much lower prices than you would pay a designer (albeit they might look a bit strange).

Summary

If you’ve ever wondered how you can improve your marketing performance, the trends mentioned above can be a great start. Since it’s still the beginning of 2023 you have almost the whole year ahead of you to experiment, try if these ideas can be a good fit.  At Adpump we’re always open to new ideas and can help you with finding what works best for you.