CJ Affiliate is Going Mobile!

I have a confession: I'm a huge "Back to the Future" fan, especially Part II. Yet, for all the futuristic gadgets and life-changing new products the human race would supposedly be enjoying by 2015 (hoverboards, flying cars, food hydrators, and of course Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise Casino & Hotel), mobile phones seem non-existent. In fact, Marty McFly uses payphones and while video conferencing is prominent, one can only assume (at least in the world of Doc Brown and Marty McFly) mobile technology peaks in 1989.

The reality is, mobile devices have changed the way we communicate, navigate, and now the way we shop online. In fact many experts feel the total value of the global mobile marketing and advertising market will see a 37 percent increase from 2010 to 2016. As we all know, the affiliate marketing channel mirrors the overall trends of e-commerce/mobile commerce and also reflect changes in consumer behavior and their online decision journey.

With all of this new information, CJ Affiliate is focused on major improvements and affiliate marketing mobile product enhancements to better serve both our mobile publishers and advertisers. We have also improved our communication process across the CJ Affiliate Network to better educate our teams and partners of the new revenue opportunities available today when creating mobile partnerships within our network.

We have over 100 advertisers currently tracking mobile commerce activity either through an added action (Mobile Certified) or a tested and confirmed current action, with a pipeline of new advertisers awaiting confirmation.

 

Last September during CJU12, I had the privilege of hosting three mobile commerce affiliate marketing publisher experts in a panel discussing effective mobile affiliate marketing partnerships. The three major points discussed during the panel, included:

• Opportunity: What concepts are currently producing activity for our advertisers

• CJ Affiliate mobile commerce initiative: project m. ("Project Mdot")

• How to establish mobile affiliate partnerships today: steps to create mobile partnerships within our network

In addition to the panel discussion, I reviewed how CJ Affiliate's "Project Mdot" initiative will improve mobile communication, and how to ultimately track mobile affiliate marketing activity more efficiently. Mobile commerce has been a "chicken or the egg debate" for a long time in affiliate marketing, but now publishers and advertisers have finally laid out the capital and effort to properly launch mobile optimized websites and apps. Because of this, CJ Affiliate is focused on providing the necessary mobile tracking services for our clients—because reliable tracking is key for affiliate marketers.

Advertiser benefits of affiliate marketing mobile tracking:

• More publishers will promote advertisers via their mobile websites/apps

• Reduces lost tracking & lost revenue

• Promotes publisher investment in the mobile commerce channel

• Creates a diverse and channel optimized portfolio

The CJ Affiliate Emerging Media team has, and will continue to, spend a large amount of recruitment activity locating and launching the highest quality mobile publisher concepts within our network in 2013. Our Publisher Development teams will continue to communicate CJ Affiliate's mobile commerce position to its portfolio and ensure that each respective concept is "mobile ready," tracks successfully, and provides the highest quality consumer experience.

So what's next?

Not only are we focusing our efforts on increased mobile commerce distribution, our product teams are also spending time on the ever changing mobile space. On the 2013 roadmap, app tracking will allow advertisers to pay affiliate marketers on app downloads, app-to-app sales and even ongoing in-app sales, while User Agent Reporting will help advertisers and publishers identify what different devices are getting their clicks / sales from and help them report on mobile commerce platform usage.

Mobile commerce can no longer be categorized as the "future." It is part of our digital environment and has to be treated as such.

The time to act is now!