Cutting Through the Q4 Clutter

With Q4 madness right around the corner, it's important to find a way to make your brand—and your holiday promotions—stand out. As an advertiser, you're probably extremely busy planning upcoming promotions, managing budgets, forecasting profits, and more. It's easy to lose sight of the fact your publishers are extremely busy too: sifting through newsletters and links to find the best deals to promote.

As an advertiser in this B2B channel of affiliate marketing, the best way to influence customers is to influence publishers. By recognizing your strengths and communicating them with your publisher base, the better chance that your publishers—and your customers—will take notice.

Five Tips to Cut through Q4 Clutter and Get Noticed:

• 1. Use messaging that resonates

  Which looks better, "Save 10%" or "Save $200"? For each link you create, you have a choice in how you want to position your product, so make sure to carefully construct links so they jump out to publishers and consumers alike. If you're not sure what to write, get feedback from those who know what works best on each site: your publishers. They have the competitive insight you require to make informed decisions. Take advantage of the relationships that you work so hard to develop and ask what messaging is most likely to convert.

• 2. Remind publishers why they should promote you—no matter the reason

  You may not have the strongest offer, but your commission rates could be points higher than your competitors. Make sure to remind publishers how much more money they could make by driving your products over another's. On the flip side, your commission rate might be low due to margins and budget, but your pricing could be much better than other advertisers in your category. If your pricing is better, customers are more likely to bite. Stress to your publishers that commission rates don't mean much when clicks aren't turning into sales: with a higher conversion rate, their chance at a payday is likely to be higher, too.

• 3. Don't shy away from a challenge

  No coupon codes? No problem! In the affiliate space, it's not just about coupons anymore. Loyalty and cash-back programs—on top of any promotions you have running—will often trump the appeal of coupons in the space. Also don't forget, coupon sites aren't just for coupons anymore. Communicate to coupon partners the discounts you have running and ask that they advertise those alongside those coupons. A sale is a sale is a sale!

• 4. Highlight free shipping

  Advertisers often forget that free shipping is a deal in itself. Post free shipping deals on all your store pages within publisher sites and drive home the value of the offer. If a TV costs $10 less on a competitor's site than on your site, but it costs $30 to ship it whereas it's free to ship from your site, you actually have the better deal. Make sure that publishers recognize those savings and advertise them as such.

• 5. Remember: You know your customers, but your publishers do too

  Each site is different, so ask your publishers what works with their readers. Do site-wide offers convert more often than product-specific ones? Do certain categories perform better than others? Once you have that information, you can send more personalized messages to your publishers, highlighting what you both know will resonate best with customers.

With all the discounts floating around during this peak shopping period, as an advertiser, it is important to know your strengths. By knowing what works for your brand, you'll capture the attention of your publishers and, ultimately, close the deal with your customers too.

Use the comments section below to tell us what offers make you stand out above the rest!