CJ's Regional Event Series Takes on San Francisco

CJ Affiliate’s latest regional networking event descended upon San Francisco last week.

On May 9, we welcomed 30+ clients to the South of Market neighborhood, for the second installment of our regional event series. A mix of Advertisers and Publishers mingled, made connections, and learned from an engaging speaking session with Angela Lyda of TripAdvisor and Katie Horgan from Giving Assistant.

Attendees arrived at The Box SF, a former printing factory refashioned as a museum and events venue, and were greeted with drinks and appetizers. Following an hour or more of introductions and conversations, the event’s speaker lineup offered a moderated conversation on “Evolving a Brand to Win New Customers and Customer Loyalty.”

After opening remarks from CJ Affiliate’s Hayley Silver, our speakers shared strategies around how they’ve found success through affiliate marketing:

• Tap into Influencers
  “An extremely effective strategy for growing influencers with TripAdvisor has been to get out and meet new influencers at blogger conferences in order to sell the value of our program—and the affiliate channel overall,” said Lyda.
• Attract New Customers
  To promote its mission of “effortless giving through everyday shopping,” Horgan said that in the past year Giving Assistant has found success “attracting new customers by investing more staff into partner marketing efforts, and also by being sure we’ve aligned our product offering with our branding.”
• Enhance the Customer Experience
  Horgan said a recent “ah-ha” moment for Giving Assistant has been to recognize that one of their best opportunities lay in diversifying their traffic sources. In addition, they’ve more fully leveraged shopper’s attention while on the site by rolling out new content that better served the shopper with coupons and brand promotions.
• Maximize Affiliate Influence on Sales
  Lyda shared how TripAdvisor’s adoption of a new internal, multi-touch attribution model has more fully illuminated affiliate’s influence on their sales and has also supported the growth of new actions and new publishers in their CJ program.
• Try New Things, Test, Learn
  Lyda urged attendees to not be afraid to adopt a “test and learn” approach to their marketing efforts. “It’s the best way to learn what works for you…be open to trying new things and don’t give up if the first five things you try don’t work—the sixth thing could be the one to triple your program.”
• Enhance Relationships with Data
  As Advertisers and Publishers work together to grow sales, Horgan reminded attendees of the value for both parties to be transparent and collaborative in your partnerships. “If you’re not having conversations supported by data, then you’re not able to ask the right questions,” said Horgan.

At CJ Affiliate, we strive to facilitate strategic partnerships and offer innovative technologies that allow for better business decisions and smarter investment into the affiliate channel. We were thrilled to share such a great evening with our partners and look forward to continuing these events in a city near you.

If we missed you in San Francisco, we look forward to hosting you at CJU18! Our annual conference will be held September 12-14 in Santa Barbara, CA.