Fashion companies fighting over affiliates? SimilarWeb & Admitad Report

In times of crisis, businesses start paying extra attention to their spendings. As paying for clicks gives way to solutions that sustain ROI, the role of affiliate marketing keeps growing. Did it perform well for the apparel during the challenging 2020? What publishers were of particular use? Admitad Affiliate and SimilarWeb are here to report.

2020 Key Takeaways

Traffic across the top 500 global Fashion & Apparel eCommerce sites grew by 33% between Q1 2021 and Q1 2020. Australia has seen almost twice the growth — 64%. Most of these impressions have been brought by Social Media (Youtube, Facebook) and Coupon websites. Paid traffic remains one of the most important channels, as well as display advertising and affiliate marketing.

Check out the full Inside AdTech report for more details.

More Than Fashion

In 2021, we expect to see further growth in influencer and social media traffic as well as sales across multiple industries, not just clothes and shoes. 2020 has been quite a gap, so there is a lot of catching up to do. The affiliate will play an important part, so we expect to see more publishers prefer percentage-based rewards. Multiple streaming platforms are starting to implement affiliate tools for their streamers in order to increase their revenue and discover new audiences.

As of the advertisers, we believe even more industries will start turning to performance marketing, since even cars and apartments can now be bought online. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) will seek their growth too, and find it with affiliate networks that develop businesses of any scale.

Frequent Mistakes and Recommendations 

There are many pitfalls for newcomers to performance marketing, but the most common among them is expecting immediate results. Even if your affiliate provider is kind enough to provide you with a responsible account manager, it still takes time to promote your program among publishers, to adjust the reward rates, etc. These things take time, so the key to success is understanding that you’re playing a long, long game — an insight any business has to grow up to.

The powers are slowly shifting though: as more SME’s are ready to handle campaigns on their own, they will also be able to take advantage of the channel. Yet another problem they will have to face is that promo campaigns require preparation — and take more effort than they realize.

Other tips? Choose your affiliate network wisely, set clear goals to your manager, and test new features as soon as the opportunity arises.

Discovering brands and publishers

Admitad has been a customer of SimilarWeb for over 5 years. It’s a tool we use daily for publisher recruitment and advertisers onboarding. You can see both outgoing and incoming traffic, and zoom in to assess any brand’s performance. Youtube traffic? Social media ads? In clever hands, SimilarWeb helps to conjure up extremely tempting business offers.

However, onboarding new clients is never a sure way to retain them. This requires educating them, providing them with tools and expertise. As long as SimilarWeb provides information about specific markets, Admitad Affiliate’s Academy provides you with a better understanding of how to manage traffic sources, and any other affiliate-related channels.

Want to know more and get extra value from your affiliate channel? Take a look at our blog and contact us if you need any specific insights. We’re always ready to share!