Meet the publishers: affiliate marketing with review websites
A common question for advertisers thinking about starting an affiliate marketing program with us is: who are your affiliates? It’s a good question, as affiliates (also known as Publishers) come in all shapes and sizes, and there are new ones getting started each week in New Zealand.
To help answer the question and give Kiwi businesses a better understanding of the shopper journey via affiliates, we’ll be adding Meet the publishers stories profiling some of the publishers and common publisher types that work with Linkshop to promote local ecommerce stores.
Affiliate marketing with review websites
The first publisher type that we recommend merchants become familiar with are review websites. These are editorial websites that provide comprehensive buying guides for a range of niche products, and generally rank well in Google on search terms aimed at shoppers who are in the consideration phase of their online buying journey.
Review publishers can be side hustles run by people who have an interest in a particular topic, mid-sized sites with small teams writing stories every day, or premium publishing brands that include reviews and shopping guides as part of their editorial mix. The former two are the most commonly found in New Zealand, while the latter scenario is very popular overseas.
Sometimes review content will contain expert opinions, and technical ratings, like this Apple Watch review by David Court, founder of New Zealand tech authority theBit. David is an experienced publisher having led the editorial teams at Expert Reviews and Alphr as they widened their offer from display advertising to highly relevant commerce focused content.
David worked for global publishers based in London, then settled with his Kiwi partner in New Zealand where they started a family. He therefore has a unique perspective and experience on this topic and has been a champion for helping to grow the affiliate channel for Kiwi brands.
We talked to David about the state of affiliate marketing in New Zealand, from the perspective of review websites and niche brands:
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How important is the credibility of your publishing brand when writing technology reviews?
The topic of online credibility is a question people have been asking ever since the 2016 US election. “Fake news” is a real thing, ironically. And it’s pretty easy to do.
Affiliates are a little different, though, as shoppers can return online orders if they’ve made a lousy purchase based on the recommendation of a shoddy affiliate publisher.
This is why credibility is the most important thing to get right as a publisher looking to earn income from affiliate advertising. People are only reading content on your site for one reason: to research a buying decision.
That makes things pretty simple - be credible.
If you’re recommending a product to readers, it’s your reputation that’s on the line, not the retailers.
The good news is that this is also where the opportunity is for publishers too. Users don’t trust retailers’ on-site reviews because they’re only there to do one thing, convert sales. Creating quality content that helps a user make the correct buying decision for their needs is the ballgame.
How do you establish and maintain that credibility?
Content is king.
Publishers need to ensure that what they’re serving to readers - in the hope to make revenue from affiliates - is accurate, well researched, and easy-to-digest.
Affiliate content is not something that can be achieved with half-baked attempts, nor can it be bolted-on as an afterthought.
It’s a type of content that lives in its own space and needs to be approached with the end-user in mind from the very start.
What are the big differences you see in NZ versus the UK when it comes to affiliate marketing?
I’m still amazed at how far behind New Zealand is compared to the UK. The concept of “guaranteed advertising”, where you only pay publishers for successful referrals, seems to be something that a lot of Kiwi businesses don’t yet understand.
I think the fact that New Zealand businesses don’t have to compete with Amazon is a big part of why that is. A lack of competition, in general, is a factor.
There’s also a culture here where shoppers drive to big shopping malls to do their shopping and spending. It’s a miserable experience and doesn’t make sense to me. Thankfully, it’s starting to change a bit with Covid and lockdowns having acted as a catalyst.
Kiwi shoppers are realising that next-day delivery is pretty good. And not having to drive 20-30 minutes to get to a mall - then fight for a parking space to buy their electronics, kitchenware, stationery, groceries, or whatever - is a pretty good experience too.
New Zealand has several big digital brands that could drive huge volumes of sales to retailers. But it’s a chicken-and-egg situation, where publishers aren’t willing to pay writers to create content until the retailers offer a path to profitability for them. Likewise, retailers are hesitant to do the work to offer affiliate programs until they see publishers creating quality content.
It’s a crazy situation, as there are literally millions of examples of how this industry is a game-changer in other English-speaking markets.
What’s the best way for online retailers to work with review publishers?
Create an affiliate program! It’s that simple. Retailers only pay publishers for their successful leads, and the retailers choose what percentage to pay for referrals.
Stop paying Facebook and Google for ads that disappear as soon as your budget runs out. Instead, invest in partnerships with local content creators, who will put in the time and effort to build audiences and literally sell your products for you.
These relationships are key. If you’re expecting a publisher to write about your product(s), you need to make it easy for them to become experts (or knowledgable, at least) in that category. Arranging for review samples and product demos/briefings to be sent out to content creators is an excellent way to drive sales of specific products.
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Not all review websites provide specific product reviews though, many are more like simple guides that answer common questions for people that are in the market to buy a particular thing. These websites often do very well in search engines as these buyers guides are created based on seo research around common pre-purchase questions.
For example, if someone is in the market to purchase a water blaster , they may not necessarily be looking for ratings, but for basic information about what type of water blaster would suit their particular needs. This type of publisher will usually remain neutral on a product’s perceived quality but focus more on the pros and cons of different features offered and help people decide which type is most suitable for their needs.
This water blaster example is one of many buyer’s guide articles that can be found on Best Review, a leading review website founded by Bobby S Rawat from Tauranga. We chatted with Bobby about running a successful review site and the importance of supporting local stores:
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You’re based in Tauranga, and you're very focused on promoting New Zealand based retailers rather than big overseas retailers like Amazon. Why is that?
I want to support local retailers rather than the overseas retailers and we now cover several industries in retail. I have a great understanding of helping Kiwis in their online buying process.
However, there are not many online buying guides available on Search engines in New Zealand, despite the fact that Kiwis use mostly Google and Bing for product searches.
Sometimes the features and functions of the product are difficult to understand for searchers and they are unable to make a decision to buy the product online. Thus the buying guide helps customers make decisions to purchase the right product for their needs.
It also helps online stores, because buying guides drive traffic to relevant retailer websites and help to connect them with customer needs. Basically, the buying guides are a bridge to connect consumers and online retailers at highly relevant moments. There is a big gap in the New Zealand online market, and I am trying to help fill that gap.
You have been seeing strong growth since working with Linkshop. What kind of year on year traffic growth have you seen in the last 12 months?
I have seen huge potential in the New Zealand Market since working with Linkshop. Our traffic is growing by 80% and I am expecting huge growth in the next couple of years and the growth would reach 5x to10x more in the volume of sales we deliver to retailers over the coming years.
How important is research in creating credible buyer’s guides, and what’s your process?
Research is always an essential part of creating any buying guide and another important thing to understand is the intent of the user before creating any buying guide. For example, if a shopper is looking for a Storage Box. Here we need to understand what kind of box the user is looking for? Such as an outdoor storage box, small-item storage box, or an indoor box-like ottoman. We always work to understand the intent and then create the buying guide around those products.
Given the option of linking to different online stores, what makes you decide which store to link to? I.e. How can advertisers make their affiliate program attractive?
Currently, I am promoting Trade Tested, TheMarket and other large online stores with a wide range of products and more options for customers in one place. That way it is easy for me to promote more options of the same products.
An affiliate program is a better way to promote any good quality product. Affiliate programs make higher conversions in sales as compared to PPC (pay per click, e.g. Google ads) especially for high value products because customers usually go through the AIDA Model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action model) and affiliate programs help in the AIDA process. A good buying guide will help clear the users’ doubts and if they have any questions they email us and we assist them by replying to their queries.
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In summary, while review and buying guide websites are an effective channel for connecting online stores with prospective shoppers, the channel is still under-utilised in New Zealand. As an affiliate network connecting online stores with publishers we see this first hand, and have some additional views on other factors that may also have contributed to this:
1. Lack of scale.
Firstly, compared with most international markets where affiliate marketing thrives, the population of online shoppers in New Zealand is still relatively small. Publishers are more reluctant to invest heavily in affiliate marketing ventures as the road to profitability is slow, especially for review websites where new content needs to be indexed in search engines.
The channel is seeing positive momentum though. For the last two years the monthly value of sales through our New Zealand affiliate network continues to grow consistently, a trend supported by greater uptake of online shopping (sparked by covid lockdowns) and an increase in the number of online retailers and publishers that have started to add affiliate marketing into their mix.
2. Lower participation.
While the last two years has seen a strong uptick in the number of participants, overall market penetration is still low. Two years ago we wrote this story which included the stats that 70 of the top 100 Australian retailers had active affiliate programs. That number is likely to be higher now, yet will still be lower than the UK/US markets. In New Zealand, to my knowledge less than 10 of the top 100 retailers have active affiliate programs, despite the total NZ spend on search (Google) marketing surpassing $1 billion.
Right now for example, review publishers like the sites operated by David and Bobby are seeking more retailers in the homewares and technology markets, yet none of the big retailers in those categories have active affiliate programs, aside from perhaps Mighty Ape and to some extent TheMarket, however as generalist both of those retailers carry limited lines in most tech products.
3. Publisher gaps.
As referenced earlier, while niche review websites are active and growing in New Zealand there is a noticeable gap in mainstream publishers, for example large news websites and small special interest magazine websites, that use affiliate links at meaningful scale. Possible reasons for this include lack of resources and a preference to focus on “sponsored content” stories which usually command a high up front price and therefore de-risk things for them. In overseas markets however mainstream publishing brands have been very successful at building the affiliate channel into a profitable recurring revenue stream.
In summary
In summary, you can see that while buying guides and review websites are growing in popularity, there are both challenges and opportunities for them in the New Zealand market. Given the positive results online stores are seeing from working with review websites we are confident this trend will continue, and more large retailers will diversify their performance marketing budgets to include affiliates alongside their traditional Google and Facebook spend.