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Some people create. Others promote. Somewhere in the middle – or is it more of a Venn diagram situation? – lay the affiliates. Affiliate marketing is a business triangle of sorts, with advertisers, publishers, and consumers all playing equally important parts.
It's a symbiotic relationship, but somewhere along the line the rules of the game changed, and that change seems to run parallel with the rise of mobile marketing.
From apps to SMS and several platforms in between, mobile marketing has altered the way affiliates utilize collateral from the advertiser and showcase it to consumers. In order to convert, you have to adapt.
Quality Over Quantity
Overloading your site with memory-draining features is one of the biggest mobile marketing mistakes you can make. When you're framing out a website for desktop viewing you have a pretty generous slab of real estate to work with. Not so on your typical smartphone or tablet. Sure, there are some larger screens in play, but for the most part, consumers aren't packing a 15-inch monitor in their coat pocket, so you have to be strategic and remove unnecessary bulk from your site's layout.
● Ditch heavy flash, slideshows that require repeated reloads to read all the content, and anything else that will make a page lag.
● Make sure pop-up ads fit within a smartphone screen with a “no thanks” button clearly visible
● No tiny link targets, please – not everyone's fingers are accurate down to just a character or two
The majority of consumers surveyed will wait less than 10 seconds for a page to load before they'll navigate away; lose them and you've lost your potential affiliate fee, too.
Enable Geolocation
As much as we've migrated online, there is still plenty of real world business to be done and cashing in on that market requires geolocation and GPS-enabled device. Some geolocation plug-ins or add-ons work by recording users' IP addresses when they sign up for a newsletter, course, website account or other service.
Later, that location can be used to tailor offers to give consumers increasingly relevant affiliate ads, and in the case of mobile geolocation (used with SMS-enabled phones and in conjunction with text subscriptions) those tailored offers can change almost in real time as the targeted user moves around town or even the world.
Trust in M-Commerce
When the internet became a thing, naysayers said traditional consumers would never transition to online shopping; with the growth of the mobile devices came some of the same gloom-and-doom forecasts, but shoppers are, in fact, shopping via their smartphones and tablets in droves.
Mobile commerce already accounts for 30 percent of all e-commerce in the United States, and that piece of the pie grows bigger every year. As mobile encryption has grown stronger so has trust in mobile-based purchases; consumers are confident they can complete the entire research-shop-buy cycle from their smartphone and still keep their personal information safe.
For affiliate marketers, consumers' increasing trust in m-commerce means they're less likely to walk away from the affiliate site and reapproach a purchase using a desktop computer – the transaction is saved, and along with it the affiliate's commission.
Broaden Your Horizons
With new technology comes new opportunities, and that's true of mobile marketing. Smartphone users now spend about 86 percent of their device time in mobile apps, and the majority of free apps provide plenty of opportunities for enterprising affiliates to advertise – or you could make an app of your own that serves as a sort of clearing house for affiliate offers.
Twenty percent of internet users in the United States and the United Kingdom are already mobile-only, meaning they only go online through their mobile devices. It's a trend that some experts expect to continue, meaning it's only a matter of time before mobile-friendly affiliate marketing is not just an asset but a requirement for ongoing success. Act now, or forever give up your piece.
Don't Forget Social Media
Social media is the driving force behind millions of dollars of affiliate sales. But how do you capture your fair share of the market without spending an arm and leg on advertisement. Take your compelling mobile friendly landing page from the first step above and reach out to every social media influencer that like to share your type of service. If done correctly, you can watch your sales skyrocket.
What's Next?
What do you think of what I've covered so far? Will you adopt mobile as your tool for marketing? I would love to read your comments below.
This was a guest post by author Sophorn Chhay.
Sophorn is the marketing guy at Trumpia, the most complete SMS software with mass text messaging, smart targeting and automation.
Follow Sophorn on Twitter(@Trumpia), LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+
● Jumpstart your business by grabbing your free copy of his powerful Mobile Marketing Success Kit.
● Watch Trumpia's 5-Minute Demo on how to execute an effective mobile marketing strategy.
