As the excitement builds for PI LIVE Europe, I’ve been catching up with some of the key players helping to shape this year’s event and the affiliate marketing landscape.
I sat down with Richard Draper, Head of Business Development at Network Digital Marketing, to learn more about the company’s work with key worker groups, their special approach to discounts, and what they have planned for the future.
From offering bespoke deals to teachers, healthcare professionals, and charity workers, to exploring the growing intersection between affiliate marketing and retail media, Richard shares valuable insights into how the company is driving positive change through affiliate marketing.
You can read our conversation below or scroll all the way to the bootm to watch it as a video.
Sol Wilkinson: Thanks for joining me today. First of all, could you tell us a bit more about Network Digital Marketing and what you do?
Richard Draper: Yeah, definitely. So, people probably know us for the four schemes that we run. We offer discounts for teachers, health service workers, carers, and charity workers.
There are four schemes, very specifically for people employed in certain key worker industries. We've been running for quite a long time now. We launched back in 2001 and obviously quite a lot changed over that time, and a lot in the last sort of half dozen years or so.
We operated as health service discounts for quite a long time, and then we launched the teachers, the carers, the charity worker schemes back in 2018.
I think obviously, as covid happened, we were in quite a unique position, a lot of people might have been (marketing to) traditional key worker industries, but we were really able to help expand that out. I think anybody who may have done any homeschooling had a bit of a new appreciation for teachers, especially.
We've been able to grow quite a lot over the last few years. But the core of our business has very much stayed the same, and it's about helping those who help others.
We take our audience base of key workers and our brand partners and bring them together to provide discounts and deals, offer incentives to our members, and then work with our brand partners to help them achieve their goals, their KPIs, their commercial targets as they may be, through incentivising those key workers.
SW: Amazing. It seems that affiliate is quite a good channel for actually driving ‘good’ in the world in this way. Do you think that is the case, and why do you think that is?
RD: Yeah, I mean, that's it. We've always taken that view that we work with brands to give back to key workers. We know how tough it's been for key workers – forever, it seems. But, certainly the last 15-20 years, a lot of talk about pay rises, or lack of pay rises, and people really struggling in these industries. They do it for the love of what they do.
We obviously can't help affected pay rises, but through the savings our members can make it's over £2200 an average a year. So it really does help drive genuine financial support for our members. I think affiliate is a really nice way to be able to do that.
I think the dynamic of what we do means our members are only going to save money and benefit if they're making purchases, which means, in turn, that our partners are benefiting because they're going to make commercial returns off the back of it.
So, we see it as either it's either benefiting everybody within that ecosystem or nobody within that ecosystem, and it is that dynamic of affiliate that allows it.
And then, talking more generally, I think I've noticed that (over) the last few years a lot more focus on sustainability and sustainable partners getting into the affiliate space.
Also, with affiliate networks, you get the likes of Awin Access and Tradedoubler’s Grow, which can really help SMEs because it's a fairly risk-free model within affiliate.
We know how vital those kinds of businesses are to obviously, the economy, but a lot of them will focus on very specific products, or in areas that bigger corporations are really getting involved with, because affiliate has that risk free model. It's a really great platform for them to get involved and grow and benefit as well. So, yeah, we really see that as well, and it massively benefits us and what we do in helping key workers.
SW: Yeah, 100%. I love what you said about the idea of rewards and savings. I would imagine that for the brands who are involved, it's probably very good for them because people are seeing them offer these awesome discounts. That's going to build a deeper trust and loyalty between the customer and the brand at the same time, isn't it?
RD: Yeah, that's it. The idea of giving a discount to get a new customer isn't new, and you can't really click on a retailer's website without getting ‘10% off signing up to a newsletter.’
I think where we come in as a closed user group is a little bit of an addition to that. We fit that middle gap, saying you're getting this discount specifically for being a part of discounts for teachers or health service workers, and you're getting off this brand because of that.
So, it drives more of an affinity, I think, through doing this because you're a nurse, a teacher, a doctor, a social care worker. It leads to more of a customer loyalty piece.
There's a huge amount of acquisition, initially with new customers, but it's continuing to reward these people means that they will continue to come back to that same brand rather than: “Great, well, I've signed up to their newsletter. Once I've got that discount, I'll now go to a competitor to get a discount.”
It's driving the repeat purchase of the customer loyalty as well.
SW: I'm curious about how you actually collaborate with advertisers to offer deals to your audience. Are the discounts always bespoke, tailored specifically towards your users?
RD: Yeah, I think bespoke is the keyword. Every partnership that we set up is different; different kinds of categories that we work in, different sectors, different verticals. They're all going to have different margins. So whenever we look to set up some offer or discount with the brand, it's done in collaboration with them.
Obviously, we work in affiliate. We're working on a commercial model of a commission, so we've got to factor that in. How much can we give to our members and still retain what we can to help grow our schemes, acquire new members and promote the marketing?
The only line that we would draw in the sand is to say that we need to give our members something stronger than the general public, because there's been a lot of growth within closed user groups over the last few years. The days of true exclusives have gone, so we're very much about offer parity; if a brand's working with closed user groups, operating that same discount across the board, looking at what we could do once we are live.
We run lots of campaigns that are tailored towards the industries that our members come from. So we'll do a big push every July for the NHS birthday. Can a brand do something that's increased for that? How can we look to maybe strengthen the offer or make it available on more products across their website?
It's not just becoming a stagnant, constant offer. It is dynamic, but it's always done in conjunction with the brand, so it always remains commercially viable for them as well.
SW: Yeah, definitely. And like we were saying, from a brand image and a customer point of view, it's great if brands offer those bigger discounts to these specific groups.
RD: Yeah, it's a big thing for us, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) piece.
I feel like we still talk about Covid quite a lot in our business. But we saw off the back of that, it's a good position for brands to say, ‘I am giving back to people that work in NHS or people that work in social care or education.’
It helps to drive that piece of, ‘Oh, actually, they are doing something specifically for us. This is for me, because I am a teacher, or because I am a nurse.’ And it's obviously a great look for the brands, as well as genuinely doing something good.
SW: Talking about you and PI LIVE this year. What motivated your decision to sponsor PI LIVE Europe this year?
RD: We’ve been to PI LIVE probably the last five years in a row. We started off with the smallest stand size. Went a little bit bigger last year, and then bigger again; and what we found is that every time we've gone bigger with it, the better it's been.
We can book in more meetings with partners, setting up new partnerships, strengthening the ones that we've already got. We really just wanted to keep that going and get more of a good thing.
So, we’ve got a really good location on the floor. It helps us build far more brand awareness of the schemes that we run. And we just wanted to keep that momentum going.
SW: And is there anything this year that you're really looking forward to?
RD: I think the big thing for me: I head up the business development team, so it's always setting up new partnerships. We've got a good number of meetings lined up already. So much of the good stuff comes from just the impromptu meetings that you get from walking around, people that you bump into, people that move roles in affiliate.
It’s that really closed industry where people tend not to stray away. So it's always good catching up from and just seeing what happens on the day.
SW: Yeah, affiliate is global, but it's also quite a small industry. When you have big events like PI LIVE, it's funny because you talk to some people who you've probably never met in real life, because they're all over the world, and then all of a sudden, you're in one space altogether.
RD: And nobody ever looks like you think they would do having talked to them on a Teams call or just over email. But yeah, it's good for that.
It's a nice world to work in. People do tend to stay within the industry.
SW: Back to Network Digtal Marketing and your plans for the future. The past year has seen a lot of buzz around the idea of converging affiliate marketing and retail media.
Obviously, retail media is just skyrocketing right now, and the idea is that affiliate could be taking a slice of the pie, but mainly closed user group affiliates like Network Digital Marketing.
Do you see retail media as a growth area, and does the business have any plans to expand into that space?
RD: Yeah, it's a really interesting one for us. As you say, as a closed user group, we've got that discount element that always underpins what we do. It ties in well with that, especially just in an e-commerce space, having the notices on advertisers’ websites to say we do a key worker discount if you work in the NHS massively plays into that goodwill and CSR piece we've been talking about.
We've seen that brands that we do that with obviously get more people clicking on the sites initially, it increases conversion rates, as many people would expect it to do. The really interesting one for me is that it massively increases average order value as well, so people will spend more knowing that they can get a discount being part of the NHS or teachers.
It's an area that we're looking to focus on more and more going into 2025 working with our brand partners to do that, making sure we're doing it strategically. We don't want to turn into a margin erosion piece of having just discounted the sales that a customer was already going to be making.
It's about making sure that incrementality is continuing. We'll never stray too far away from our core of the marketplace that we run, the websites that we operate, and making that a real first port of call for key workers. But doing it in such a way so that when our members are already on a brands websites, they are more likely to convert it and spend more money.
There's a lot more that we're going to be doing moving into next year for that.
SW: What else does Network Digital Marketing have planned for 2025?
RD: The last few years have been very data focused. We've been making sure we know who our members are, how they like to shop and spend, how they like to operate.
2025 is taking all those learnings that we've made and putting them into use through a number of different tech implementations that we're doing.
We've got app launches coming for all four of the schemes, so that's going to be massive. That's going to open up new channels of communications to different demographics who we know are not quite as engaged with email as others.
Obviously, this allows our brands to reach through to new members in our schemes. There is a lot of implementation, as I say, around that data from recommendation, being able to optimise the website and obviously then the app so that they are far more personalised for the members, just allowing us to get far more strategic with advertising.
As I say, driving all that through with new tech, and just doing what we do better.
With Network Digital Marketing continuing to innovate in the affiliate space it’s clear the future is bright for both key workers and the brands that support them. Be sure to catch up with Richard and the team at PI LIVE Europe to discover how your brand can get involved. Don’t miss the chance to explore new partnership opportunities and hear more about the exciting plans for 2025.
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