The PMA Spring Connect Conference
Recently we had the pleasure of hearing from over 20 leading speakers in the affiliate marketing industry. The event was the Spring Conference "Connect" organized by the PMA - the Performance Marketing Association.
Leading Speakers
Keynote speakers the headed the two days, Carolyn Tang Kmet of Loyola University, on Data & Truth; and our own Chris Tradgett on day two on Global Affiliate Perspectives.
Other speakers included many other members and friends of the PMA sharing their expertise and knowledge. The varied topics covered included several sessions looking at trends in affiliate marketing from varying perspectives. Some of the more specific sessions were:
- An Amazon deep dive by Brook Schaaf
- Privacy and Compliance sessions
- Managing Influencers in affiliate
- Convergence of In-house teams and channels
- Working with coupons & deals sites
- Simplifying your affiliate workload
- Industry growth, innovation and developments
The panel session from the PMA Compliance Council tackled issues in affiliate compliance across nexus tax, GDPR, CPPA and FTC regulations among others in wide ranging discussions. Our favourite quote was that "compliance is a many headed beast".
They also talked about how CanSpam has evolved in the email industry but now the rules are pretty much settled globally.
This is definitely one that you should revisit to listen to again.
General Trends
Across most of the speakers there was a consensus on the covid effect. The affiliate industry had benefited from the huge shift in digital marketing as budgets were shifted towards performance activity.
Maura Smith of Partnerize shared some very valuable data from their recent report. She told of a year of growth in most areas. The graph illustrates the huge increase they experienced in applications from new partners during 2020.
Influencer Partnerships
One of the key panel sessions looked at 'Managing the Influencer Lifecycle'. Jeannine Crooks, Karen Garcia and Anne Paris talked through the different mindset affiliate managers need to adopt dealing with influencers.
As Jeannine said, "you're not just paying for the photos of their pet eating your product - you're paying for their craft and their years' building their audience. It's that which makes it all resonate - and drive sales". So $$ need to be spend to make these relationships work.
Newer influencer entrants do still work for product but increasingly they are aware of the value of their role in the conversion funnel.
"An Inflection Point"
Michael McNerney gave a powerful session examining the steady move of private finance into the affiliate market place. That's been seen in all areas; from network/SaaS and tech, agencies, and publishers.
The big money being pumped into Partnerize, Impact and others is driving innovation. The funds fuelling acquisitions of technologies like Brand Verity, Affluent and others, to strengthen the overall tech offerings
He concludes that the money coming into the affiliate market is a good thing. It enables innovation and further development. The agency sector, as we saw in our 2021 predictions article, also saw significant M&As driven by private investment. Investment into Gen3 fuelled acquisitions in N America and Europe.
Watch the Presentations:
You can access the replays of the presentation for a small fee on the PMA website - simply go to:
https://pma-summit-spring-2021.heysummit.com/replays/
Partner Marketing - a Global Perspective
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