The “best gifts this holiday season” lists are about to descend in your favorite publications. As a shopper, you’ve probably purchased something (either right away or eventually) from one of those lists in the past. As a brand marketer, you’d likely be absolutely thrilled to see your products in the spotlight, with all the awareness and revenue that comes with it.

That spotlight doesn’t shine on brands by accident; it’s provided by affiliate marketing content partners, who tell a brand’s story through several different promotional methods such as articles, listicles, roundups, reviews, gift guides, and many more. They take these brand (or product) stories and, for an agreed-upon form of compensation from the brand, promote them to their audience in the hopes of gaining brand exposure and ultimately incremental conversions. The initiative can look something like this:

Looks like a pretty great placement for the right kind of product, no? It all comes down to affiliate content partnerships.

In this post, I’ll walk you through an introduction to affiliate content partners (also called publishers): how they work, how to measure their impact, how to find and recruit the best partners for your brand, and missteps to avoid along the way.

Let’s get started!

How do content partners contribute to the success of affiliate marketing campaigns?

Content partners are instrumental in campaign success. They are often labeled as “top of funnel” partners because they do an excellent job at getting consumers introduced to a particular brand or product. They generally reach the customer at the beginning of their purchase path, but in many cases the customer follows an introduction to the brand or product with a quick, direct conversion.

The best content partners create material that tells your brand’s story and attracts new-to-file customers. They typically have large, loyal audiences and can promote brands through other mediums such as their social media channels. They are also very creative and are able to run out-of-the-box campaigns that a lot of brands crave. Furthermore, they know how to run SEO campaigns effectively, which means your placements have lasting impact.

How should you measure the success of your content partner campaigns?

The impact of content partner campaigns goes far beyond conversions; there’s a whole purchasing journey involved, and these campaigns are effective at engaging users at all stages. I recommend looking at how these partners are getting eyes (impressions) on the content and driving clicks to the brand’s site. Using technology (we like Rockerbox) that allows marketers to analyze the path to purchase is important because we can then see how our efforts are ultimately working to drive conversions, with varying degrees of latency. If you can get data from your content partners like impressions, that’s a nice bonus; partner networks can generally only give you data on impressions by creative.

How should brands identify potential content partners?

It’s important to keep in mind – and because DMi considers both brands and publishers integral to the success of our efforts, we’re always operating in the best interests of each – that not every content partner is going to be a good fit for every brand. Sometimes brands get excited about a specific partner because they are well-known, but it doesn’t mean the pairing will be a productive one. It’s about the partner’s audience and what brands/products will resonate well.

Let’s look at a huge, in-demand publisher: Buzzfeed. Their customers look for deals and products with lower price points. If a brand with higher prices wanted to work with them, a Buzzfeed campaign probably wouldn’t perform. A misalignment like this would do no good for the brand or the publisher and actually can turn off the publisher’s audience.

Brands should also consider the promotional methods of each partner. How do they want their story to be told: In an article? In a review? Some content partners have several ways to optimize content while others are more limited. There are several other factors to consider such as cost, duration of campaigns, SEO value, etc. The overarching objective of DMi’s partnership team is to take the brand’s goals and find the best fit(s) based on the relationships that our team has established.

How should brand approach the partners on their wish lists?

You probably knew this was coming: a great way to approach content partners is by leveraging an agency like DMi. Our team has spent years creating and cultivating positive and long-lasting relationships with content partners. Our team thoughtfully and strategically crafts pitches that are catered to each partner based on what is important to them; this, in turn, gets the partner excited about the brand.

Above all, remember: the more information you can provide about your brand, the better. Content partners get inundated with pitches and brands that want to work with them. You need to give them a reason to choose a specific brand for organic consideration over the others. It’s not as simple as pitching them a brand description, which is ultimately just self-serving; partners crave insights about hot products, trends, social data, and information on how that brand can relate to their audience. This isn’t a one-and-done project, either – our most impactful partnerships are those that regularly share insights that benefit both parties.

Missteps to avoid in affiliate content partnerships

Even if the brand/publisher alignment is solid, both parties need to agree on goals for partner campaigns. Brands who don’t give the publisher clear direction on what they’d like to accomplish are leaving performance to chance.

Another misstep that can happen is that brands forget that nobody knows the publisher’s audience better than the publisher. For that reason, brands who don’t listen devoutly to partner feedback and recommendations for keeping their audience engaged (especially when they have data to back those recommendations up) are missing a chance to optimize the placement. Worse, those brands may just prove to be more trouble than they’re worth for in-demand publishers who can easily move to the next option.

Last, inconsistency can lead to a short relationship. Consistent communication and cooperation, especially if the brand is new to the partner’s audience, is key to establishing meaningful and impactful content campaigns for the long haul.

Ultimately, the best content partnerships are those that focus on the people involved. Whether on the partner or brand side, everyone has a job to do that the other party can make easier and more enjoyable. Cooperative, long-term partnerships that work to everyone’s benefit are the ones we strive to establish at DMi; they’re the key to building partner relationships that will continue to pay off for current and future clients.