Matt Swan

Making the most of mobile over the holiday period

With mobile commerce continuing to gather pace through the performance channel, it has been interesting to look back across the past few weeks to analyse the role mobile played over the Easter bank holiday.

With our March stats indicating that traffic through mobile devices reached 21.1% while sales were at 14.2%, it was interesting to see the impact of a long weekend on mobile usage.

We have traditionally seen that consumers turn to mobile devices at weekends. This is not particularly surprising when we consider that office workers step away from their desktops and instead use mobile devices to access the internet.

by Matt Swan 17 April 2013 13:59pm 1 comment

How mobile-optimised sites drive conversion rates and AOVs

Over the past two years we have witnessed traffic through mobile devices increase from 2% to 19% of total network clicks.

If we exclude tablet devices from this equation, traffic through mobile handsets has grown from 1.8% to 11%.

With consumers increasingly using mobile devices to access the internet, it becomes of paramount importance to ensure that the mobile user journey is optimised for this experience.

by Matt Swan 01 March 2013 10:44am 3 comments

Post-Christmas sales and device trends: stats round up

With the festive break all but a distant memory, we have taken the opportunity to look back at our stats across the network for the run up to Christmas as well as the post Christmas sales.

As a company running affiliate campaigns for around half of the UK’s largest retailers as well as over 1,000 SMEs, we are able to interrogate our data to provide some insights into general retail trends over the Christmas and New Year period.

There were a number of predictions and subsequently reports of the largest online shopping days and in this post we are able to look across our advertiser base to identify the peak trading periods.

With consumer behavior shifting and mobile commerce playing a more prominent role, we also look at the device trends during this time.

by Matt Swan 14 January 2013 10:09am 0 comments

Android conversion rates higher than iPhone: stats

There is no escaping the fact that mobile commerce has been experiencing considerable growth. Recent research from Deloitte suggested that mobile devices would influence £3.5bn of retail sales this Christmas.

As well as understanding the anticipated growth of m-commerce, it is also important to recognise the devices that are fuelling this growth.

With targeting capabilities evolving, it is possible to segment audiences based on the device they are visiting through and advertisers are able to capitalise on this through targeted promotions.

by Matt Swan 20 December 2012 15:13pm 1 comment

Mobile sites and affiliate tracking: the stats

With consumer behaviour and shopping habits continually evolving, coupled with the increase in smartphone penetration, more and more consumers are accessing the internet through mobile devices.

This is something that we have been monitoring closely at Affiliate Window for the past 18 months. Back in December 2010 we saw traffic through mobile devices account for 2.4% of all network traffic and 1.7% of all sales.

Fast forward to March 2012 and these figures have grown considerably with 10% of traffic and 6.6% of sales coming through mobile devices.

by Matt Swan 25 April 2012 11:23am 6 comments

Christmas 2011 stats: the affiliate perspective

As the dust settles from the frantic Christmas and New Year sales trading season I’m now able to provide a definitive account of how our advertisers’ affiliate campaigns performed throughout December.

Having previously looked at the impact of Cyber and Manic Monday on the affiliate channel we can trace December’s performance, compare it with 2010’s and also split out mobile data to see how it compared with traditional desktop transactions.

Stats from Hitwise indicated that Boxing Day was the biggest online shopping day in terms of traffic so it is also possible to see if that was reflected across the affiliate channel.

by Matt Swan 16 January 2012 12:50pm 0 comments

Affiliate categorisation is outdated

As the affiliate channel continues to become more sophisticated, it is becoming increasingly difficult to categorise affiliates based on their promotional type.

With boundaries becoming blurred, affiliates should be assessed on their individual merits rather than grouped by their traditional category.

by Matt Swan 22 September 2011 09:16am 1 comment

Finding the value of your top 10 affiliates

Advertisers will have a set of key metrics which they measure the success of their campaign against. Typical metrics include but are not exclusive to: new vs. existing customer %, average basket values and lifetime value of customers.

These metrics will vary from advertiser to advertiser to be in line with their core strategic objectives.

by Matt Swan 23 September 2011 10:24am 2 comments

How to reward affiliates based on value

In her recent post on Econsultancy, Helen Southgate, the chair of the IAB Affiliate Marketing Council discussed the myths associated with attribution within the affiliate channel.

She rightly pointed out that the affiliate market is not looking for an alternative to the last click model.

by Matt Swan 15 August 2011 09:52am 5 comments

The rise of mobile in affiliate marketing

With 51% of mobile users in the UK having already interacted with m-commerce, there is significant opportunity for advertisers who embrace the channel.

Previously, I investigated the development of mobile commerce through the affiliate channel, analysing the data for the first quarter of 2011.

As we enter the third quarter, it provides an opportunity to study the growth trends demonstrated throughout the second quarter.

by Matt Swan 14 July 2011 12:01pm 8 comments