In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, staying ahead of the curve is a must, and one event that consistently delivers actionable insights, trends, and strategies is Affiliate World.
The keyword here is ACTIONABLE.
While the networking event was mainly around high-risk affiliate industries, the speakers themselves had way more to offer.
For those unacquainted with the affiliate marketing juggernaut, Affiliate World is a premier global conference that brings together affiliate marketers and e-commerce marketing.
Since I didn’t run any high-risk affiliates and wanted to focus on the e-commerce marketing aspects, I stayed on the main stage where the talks were happening.
These were the speakers at the event:
All the talks were enriching.
However, my favorite ones were by Marisha Lakhiani, Roman Khan, Carl Weische, and Zachary Murray (he’s not in the screenshot above).
That said, let’s get into the key takeaways:
Table of Contents
Takeaway #1: Conversion Rate is directly proportional to how painful the problem you’re solving is!
We often talk about CRO in terms of split-testing landing pages.
While this is great, the most important thing is how painful the problem is.
And how well are you solving it.
You can also approach the problem from various angles and find what the pain points are.
Here are some of the tools you can use:
I personally use Reddit for this, as it’s an absolute goldmine.
Often hailed as the “front page of the internet,” Reddit is not just a platform for memes and discussions—it’s a treasure trove of insights waiting to be discovered by savvy marketers.
Here’s a practical three-step process to harness the power of Reddit in identifying and understanding customer pain points:
- Immerse Yourself in Relevant Subreddits. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, subreddits like r/fitness or r/loseit could be goldmines for understanding people’s struggles in their fitness journeys.
- Once you’ve found relevant subreddits, resist jumping in with a sales pitch. Instead, take on the role of a silent observer. Read through the posts and comments, paying close attention to recurring themes, complaints, and questions. Look for language that indicates frustration, challenges, or unmet needs. This phase is all about immersing yourself in the community’s discussions to gain a genuine understanding of what troubles its members.
- After identifying key pain points, it’s time to engage thoughtfully. Respond to posts with genuine advice, empathy, or helpful resources. Be cautious not to come across as promotional; instead, focus on building relationships and trust.
I’ve used this process for years, and it always works, no matter your industry.
There’s a subreddit for everything!
Takeaway #2: Calculating True ROAS for Influencer Partnerships to measure the return on your influencer marketing campaigns
As I mentioned earlier, this conference has a lot of specific and actionable tips.
And this one was useful as we run multiple influencer campaigns at Mapplinks.
The idea is to not just track the voucher / coupon revenue but use the channel multiplier to get a more accurate and indicate ROAS number.
Takeaway #3: Run multiple pricing experiments to find your ideal price point, and don’t think the lower ones will work the best
This comes from MindValley case study.
For them, $299 price point worked better than $199 and $99 when you look at the full funnel.
This is why it’s essential to look at the complete funnel (including LTV and Refunds etc) and not just the initial conversion rates.
I use the A3R3 funnel to analyse the full marketing funnel.
Learn more about the A3R3 funnel here.
Takeaway #4: Dropshipping opportunity in India
Dropshipping opportunities with COD (cash on delivery) are BIG in India right now.
This talk suggested ways to find winner products for the Indian market.
They also shared some winner products:
And a product research tool if you’re looking to start dropshipping in India:
India is certainly a great market to focus on now.
The middle class keeps increasing, and people are moving to the upper middle class.
The new generations spend way more on consumption in all categories.
Takeaway #5: Tips & Insights on Ads and Landing Pages
There were multiple talks on Google Ads and Landing pages on the second day.
Let’s start with the proven landing page elements:
Everything shared was based on case studies and actual business data.
There were also some design elements explained:
In terms of ad funnels and creatives, I loved the idea of getting UGC content from Fivver and then editing it like a news channel.
This builds trust and improves CTRs:
Another mind-blowing case study was based on testing 150 creatives per week on TikTok!
One tip I will implement for Google Ads is to use Google Ads history as a documentation of finding early signals.
The key takeaway was that we, as marketers or advertisers, supply these signals to Google to tell the algorithm what’s working for us and what’s not.
This could be by increasing or decreasing budgets or just turning ads on and off.
Looking back into the history, it’s way more understandable, but we can learn from this for future campaigns so we supply the right signals to Google.
All in all, the event was great, with some fantastic speakers.
While I didn’t find the exhibitors very relevant, but I’m sure affiliate marketers would find value there as well.
Hope these takeaways are helpful for those who weren’t about to attend.
If you are looking for more insights and actionable tips and takeaways, I share more detailed summary on my community GrowthGrad.