We’re living in a golden age of digital marketing. As consumer behaviors shift, the pace of digital transformation has quickened across many sectors – pushing marketers to invest more than ever before in various digital channels and affiliate programs as a way to generate growth. In 2022, affiliate marketing spend in the US alone is expected to reach a record high of $8.2B. Meanwhile, paid search is being forecasted to hit a global market spend of $136B by the end of this year.
By investing in these growing markets, brands expect to generate new sales lease, bolster conversion levels and build meaningful business relationships. Yet as marketing strategies evolve and paid search and affiliate continue to dominate spend, it’s critical that brands understand the fundamentals of these cross-channel activities, the interplay between them and how it has the potential to affect brand safety and integrity.
Affiliate non-compliance and the inevitable crossover this creates through paid search has the power to break even the strongest brands – which in turn creates demand amongst brands for more effective brand safety tools and a need for cross-channel monitoring solutions. We wanted to better understand that evolving demand and the digital tools working to protect brands.
For this reason, ClickZ recently partnered with BrandVerity to conduct an extensive survey exploring marketing practitioners’ experiences with affiliate marketing and paid search, the key areas in which these mediums overlap and how threats to brand integrity could be overcome through dynamic cross-channel monitoring solutions moving forward.
The analysis in this report was compiled using responses to a ClickZ survey of senior marketing professionals conducted during Q4 2021. The survey was carried out by ClickZ in partnership with BrandVerity. The responses to the survey informed research into the effectiveness of affiliate marketing programs and paid search and brand monitoring solutions, as well as what determines a brand’s satisfaction with their affiliate providers. This analysis was further supplemented by the first-hand accounts and experiences of representatives from BrandVerity, Tripadvisor, Fiverr and CoursesOnline.
Key study findings include:
- 78% of respondents plan to increase online spending
- 40% of respondents plan to invest in paid search monitoring
- 35% of respondents cite the need for built-in brand protection
You can learn more about these insights plus much more by downloading the full report right here.
