Offers365: Affiliate Publishers in Conversation

CJ catches up with Offers365's Director of Business Development, Seun Olabisi. Here, Seun talks on the challenges and opportunities within performance marketing over the past few years, overcoming obstacles for client success, and why transparency and brand purpose are differentiators right now.

Given a magic wand, what would you change about affiliate marketing?

Transparency. Affiliate marketing lacks transparency. The good and the bad are all in the same pot. It’s hard for brands to take them apart because they all promise the same, but deliver very different results. We want to be part of the change. All the success we have had with CJ is based on these shared values of transparency. Transparency across all affiliate activities, on the publishers driving the traffic, on the channels, on the results.

What will performance marketing look like in ten years time?

If the next ten years show us anything close to the innovation levels we had in the past ten, then we are in for a treat. All players in the market want to grab customers’ attention, get them to make the next purchase, subscription, get them on their side. The competition levels are as high as they have ever been and that will only drive brands, agencies, networks, publishers and everyone else involved in only one direction: non stop innovation. New channels will be created, new ways of interacting with the current ones will be introduced, but one thing we know, all that innovation will happen in the digital sphere and will be digital marketing the driving force behind it..

What has been the biggest change for you as a publisher since covid?

When covid started we quickly saw some of our main clients reducing marketing budgets drastically. We had a bit of a panic moment when that happened, but we quickly understood that we had to refocus and point our efforts in other directions. We moved from predominantly CPL verticals like surveys or sweepstakes to areas that were growing fast when the pandemic started such as gambling or streaming subscriptions. After six months, 80% of our revenue was coming from new clients acquired because of our refocus as a network and as a company.

What’s the biggest positive outcome you’ve seen over the last two years?

The pandemic turned us into a more robust, forward thinking company, capable of quickly adapting to whatever situation we are presented with. We are not afraid to take risks and we have learned more about ourselves in the past two years than in the past 15.

Why is a brand purpose such a big deal right now?

Do brands need purpose? Absolutely. They need it now more than ever. Companies need a purpose, a reason to exist besides the obvious one, to be profitable. At Offers365 we also believe that our purpose is not static, it changes, it mutates and it’s something we try to revisit frequently. The number of conscientious consumers is rising and they are looking to connect with companies at a personal and emotional level and that makes having a purpose such a big deal for all companies at the moment.

Tell us about a campaign you've run recently that you're proud of.

One of CJs most recent clients is ALLBLK tv. This is a streaming subscription service that targets the African American community in the US and Canada markets. Due to data protection laws, it was not possible to directly target the audience the client was after.

At Offers365 we love challenges and we were keen on being part of this project and helping the client achieve their goals. Our approach: the client wanted us to focus on targeting the African American community. This is not something easily done through the usual channels and methods so we had to think outside the box. The best way we found to reach the desired audience was to target US and Canadian websites that we believed were highly relevant to the African American community. We selected a huge range of very relevant websites from local news to lifestyle and entertainment. The next step was to create a Google ads display campaign and start driving traffic to the client’s sign-up page. The client supplied our team with generic and show specific banners which really helped with the conversion rate as well.

The campaign has been a success and after three months of running it we’ve managed to generate on average over 2,000 new subscribers per month to ALLBLK tv, with a conversion rate of over 10%.

What makes Offers365 unique?

Honesty and transparency. Clients know what we can do for them, how we do it and what results they can expect. We don’t sell the dream to our clients, we don’t offer false promises, we don’t deceive or hide. Every time a client approaches us with a challenge, we are honest, we are transparent and we manage expectations. We don’t aim to solve all problems, we don’t aim to have all clients in the world, but if the client agrees we are a good fit and if we believe we can add value, then we form a partnership very hard to break.