Coronavirus pandemic has been messing up all the world for three months already, terribly influencing life quality and extremely ruining the global economy. People are turned to self-isolation, companies shifted to remote work, the healthcare industry is fully involved in life-saving activities…
Reasons for suspensions
Almost all the world switched over to online life. Businesses move to Digital. And the Digital Marketing industry is getting ambiguous results from this. There are sudden spikes and extreme increases on the one hand, and suspensions, cancellations, cut-offs on the other hand. The current events create a drastic instability for Affiliate Marketing and put the industry in jeopardy. The content about the virus outbreak is in the foreground today, but running advertisements on such content is banned, as a result, Publishers are taking a hit at the revenue side (more detailed information on Affiliate Marketing during coronavirus is here). Furthermore, the recent news about the suspension of Affiliate Programs from several brands has dramatized the current situation.
Through Affiliate Programs, Influencers and Publishers generate their revenue by gaining a commission from sales via links provided by the platform offering the Program. It commonly includes from five to twenty percent of a sale. Various circumstances can influence this percentage. For a number of digital creators, participation in such Programs provided by the world’s giants has been bringing significant income.
In March Affiliate Marketing experienced a spike, and most platforms saw a high increase in sales. There is no clear explanation of this, some Marketers suppose that due to pandemic, some Influencers had turned to Affiliate Marketing, as companies stopped Influencer Campaigns. Straight after this spike, retailers started to pause Affiliate Programs.
There is uncertainty about the exact reasons for such suspensions. Some Marketers link them directly with the pandemic and cutting down expenses, while some retailers deny this presumption. Some Marketers are trying to relate this measure to recent Affiliate revenue growth and Influencers’ shift to Affiliate Campaigns. The tendency is becoming a widespread measure among a number of brands.
We’ve made a brief overview of Affiliate Program suspensions; read further in order to maintain awareness and take necessary actions.
Currently paused Programs
Last week Walmart stopped deals with MagicLinks, Skimlinks, and Rakuten. Walmart doesn’t explain the reason, just outlines that the measure is temporary, however, its duration remains undefined. Additionally, the retailer paused its deals with BuzzFeed and Vox Media.
Earlier in March, the Digital giant Amazon stopped the deal with one of the Affiliate Marketing leaders, Skimlinks. This suspension was confirmed by the e-commerce platform.
There is a rational explanation of such halts in the travel vertical. Due to quarantine, the whole industry has become dead, and there is no sense in proceeding with Programs over the next several weeks. Thus, hotel aggregators and ticket platforms halted their Affiliate Programs:
- at the end of March KAYAK stopped Program with Skimlinks for an indefinite period;
- traffic generated by HotelsCombined’s Affiliates will be unpayable;
- AirHelp halted its Affiliate Program until summer;
- TourRadar paused its promo campaigns, however, traffic driven by Affiliates is still paid.
There is a number of brands that have already stopped their deals with Skimlinks, among them such retailers as Patagonia, Victoria’s Secret, air companies like Qatar Airways and Air France. However, the Affiliate Marketing leader didn’t confirm this list, underlining that they had added more than 300 new merchants since the end of March. But still, they didn’t deny the interruption of Programs with Amazon and Walmart.
Another Affiliate Network, rewardStyle is experiencing Program suspensions too. About ten retailers have already stopped their deals with this platform, and this list is quite similar: Patagonia, Victoria’s Secret, etc.
The situation with Affiliate Program stops still remains unclear. Nobody can say for sure whether it’s a reaction to coronavirus events or not, as well as nobody can predict the exact results and consequences of this tendency. Let’s keep our eyes on the ball!
Read in source: di-engine.com