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Specialist affiliate marketing company finds campaign integration expertise lacking

Specialist affiliate marketing company finds campaign integration expertise lacking

 

Affilinet has revealed new figures that reveal many digital marketers still require education about key areas relating to the online marketing mix.

 

The research reveals gaps in knowledge regarding channels outside of marketers own specialisms, and also around potential changes to the use of cookies in profiling customers, due to come into effect next year.

 

The findings, which were taken from a poll of 100 online marketers at this year’s ad:tech event, revealed affiliate marketing and mobile marketing as the least understood channels by delegates, with only 38% and 56% of professionals respectively claiming to fully understand them. In contrast the most widely grasped marketing channel was email marketing, understood by 81% of delegates. This was followed by direct marketing and search marketing, which were both understood by 75% of the marketers surveyed.

 

The research also showed that, while many in the digital marketing industry felt it would be more difficult to target consumers without the use of cookies, nearly three quarters of respondents were unaware of new European legislation restricting their usage due to come into effect in May 2011. A further 79% of delegates said that that it wouldn’t be possible to target consumers as successfully without cookies. Slightly less (72%), however, said that they were unaware of changes to EU’s Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications that demands that websites get every visitor's prior consent before setting cookies on their PC.

 

Lack of multichannel campaign integration

 

The results also pointed to the fact many respondents are not integrating online and offline marketing campaigns. Over a third (39%) of those surveyed said that their online and offline activity was only partially integrated, with 28% revealing that the two divisions are completely separate.

 

Peter Rowe, affilinet UK managing director, commented: “It is surprising that many professionals in the industry do not have full visibility of external factors relating to the marketing activities taking place on the brands they work for. In particular, there clearly needs to be more communication and education around potential changes to the use of cookies in the industry, an issue which has largely gone unnoticed so far. Specialist consultants, such as networks in the affiliate marketing industry, will be able to keep brand marketers up to speed on any changes to the industry and recommend tactics on how to best integrate specialist knowledge with other parts of the marketing mix to generate maximum return on investment.”