Existem Affiliate Management

Affiliate Marketing and the B2B Proposition

This post has been a long time in the coming as I’ve finally had time to sit down and hopefully join up a string of thoughts, chats and meetings that I’ve had over the past year in and around merchants who are looking to the “affiliate” model to promote their goods and services.

My historic knee-jerk reaction is that for “B2B” merchants affiliate marketing in the UK as it currently stands is not a recipe for success, however this is by no means universal. Most electrical retailers (such as E-Buyer and Microwarehouse in particular) deal with a huge amount of SME Business and have appropriate internal channels to cater to their specific invoicing and tax needs. This is because for certain products and services the needs of the consumer and the search / decision / procurement process is no different from the B2C pathway and affiliate marketing therefore works well.

Not all B2B clients have such an obvious crossover in sales channel and require a more bespoke sales approach - for example a credit card application for an individual in a mainstay of financial affiliate marketing, however an application for 100 corporate cards may be too bespoke for an online only application procedure. Likewise a telecommunications product, business software (beyond the simple operating systems) and high end professional equipment may be deemed as too difficult to sell online with the required degree of customer satisfaction and sales consultation.

An obvious response to my skepticism is that affiliate marketing can deliver leads and enquiries as well as sales, and as such can deliver them for a B2B client. However affiliates tend to favour the lowest common denominator and the shortest possible form (in order to maximise response and payment) - which conflicts with the need for a B2B proposition to get the most qualified leads possible in order to maximise their conversions.

I believe there is a way forward and that involves a serious attempt by affiliates to embrace the B2B search market in the same way as they have come to understand and harness it for B2C merchants. Secondly I know of an organisation that is making inroads into the UK that is offering performance related lead generation for businesses (using on and offline methods).

I would be very interested personally and professionally to hear from anyone who sees B2B as key to the expansion of our industry or anyone who has a B2B product or service that may be considering (or have considered) affiliate marketing as an avenue.

Please excuse the size of this post and thank you for sticking with it!!