Breaking Barriers: Tech Partnerships are Redefining Affiliate Marketing

One of our most praised sessions at PI LIVE Miami discussed emerging tech partnerships in affiliate marketing, and how they can drive growth in multiple areas of a business. On the panel sat four industry experts: Vikki Danielson, Director, Growth & Partnerships at tvScientific; Chris Johnson, COO at intent.ly; Lauryn Vaughn, CEO at ReUpp; and moderator Tomas Saulsbury-Hunter, Vice President, Client Development at CJ.

Their combined knowledge covers a wide range of tech partners: BNPL (or, Buy Now, Sell Later) with Vaughn; CTV with Danielson; and onsite conversion rate optimisation with Johnson. We’ve brought you the session’s key takeaways, with all you need to know about the world of tech partnerships, and the cross-channel opportunities they provide.

What are tech partnerships?

As we cruised around Affiliate Huddle last month, asking attendees what they were most excited about in the affiliate space, the answer that came up the most was ‘diversification of publisher models’. Throughout the years, affiliate marketing has welcomed an array of new publisher models into the space, including tech partners that work on the cutting edge of their field; BNPL, browser extensions, onsite overlays, CTV. Many of these solutions don’t follow the ‘traditional’ publisher model insofar as they do not always drive traffic to a brand’s website, but instead can focus on CRO (conversion rate optimisation), or AOV (average order value), amongst other metrics. Johnson describes the current wave of non-traditional publishers as “partners who haven’t quite found their niche yet.” But if there are two qualities uniting these varied partners, Danielson adds, it is their use of the CPA model, and the ability to amplify results from other channels.

Why is the affiliate space the natural home for these partnerships?