The basic elements of a commerce content program are clear: affiliation, traffic, and—of course—the content itself. After putting those foundational pieces in place, performance optimization can help to establish commerce content as a cornerstone of your monetization strategy.

The final stage in the commerce content journey is focused on advanced approaches that will take your commerce content to the next level.

5 next-level ideas for commerce content

As a commerce content publisher, there are countless steps you can take to enhance your program —things like improving content quality, optimizing merchant selection, and A/B testing various content elements. 

But when you’re ready to take it up a notch, you may want to consider some innovative approaches to content — many of which are being embraced by top commerce publishers. These advanced commerce implementations can help to improve reader engagement, build greater audience trust, and increase clicks, conversions, and revenue. 

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Curated storefronts and “Buy Now” buttons  
   Creating a curated shopping experience gives you the opportunity to promote affiliated products and offers readers an easy way to buy those products without the hassle and expense of running an online store. Curated storefronts can neatly separate editorial content from buying opportunities for publishers who want to maintain that distinction. Readers who simply want information can consume your content without a sales pitch, while those who want to shop can visit your “store” to explore buying opportunities. Common elements to enhance your curated storefront include “Buy Now” buttons, product metadata, images and descriptions, product reviews, and more. 

2. Shopping galleries
   What if you could create a unique shopping experience that drives revenue and delivers value to your readers, all in a matter of minutes? With Commerce Shopping Galleries, you can easily build a personalized shopping carousel that allows your audience to shop for a variety of products, all in one place. Showcase a range of products from a single merchant or curate products from a variety of merchants, organized by theme or product type. The more products you offer, the better the opportunity to increase both dwell time and revenue.

3. Price comparisons
   People love the convenience of online shopping, but it’s not always easy to find the best deal. Price comparison tools — like Commerce Comparisons — let you simplify the comparison shopping process for your audience and help them find the best available price without leaving your site. And because Google’s recent commerce algorithm update gives favor to content with multiple purchase options, on-site price comparisons are even more attractive for publishers. Our price comparison solution lets you automatically display pricing for multiple retailers selling the same product, update availability and price data in real time, and replace out-of-stock products with alternate offers. (Watch our recent webinar on Sovrn Commerce Shopping Galleries and Price Comparisons)

4. Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) integrations
   Incorporating buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) into your commerce strategy can turn your content into a product discovery engine. This powerful technology gives your audience access to a vast number of merchants — as well as trending deals, discounts, and coupons — to create a frictionless shopping experience and drive more affiliate revenue.  
   
5. Branded merchandise
   Some publishers are taking commerce in an innovative direction by offering branded merchandise and proprietary products, including mugs, T-shirts, and more. Rather than sending buyers to a third party for fulfillment, larger publishers are building out commerce infrastructure to complete purchase transactions on-site. 

Congratulations! You’ve Made It

That’s the end of our tour through the stages of commerce, and we hope it helped inspire the next step, or even the first step in your commerce journey. At Sovrn we believe in the power of commerce content’s singular nature as a reader-service revenue stream, and wherever you are with your commerce strategy, we’d love to partner with you.

Missed our previous Commerce Content Journey blogs?

• Introduction
• Link Creation & Affiliation
• Content Creation
• Driving Traffic
• Optimization

Ready to start driving more affiliate revenue?

Ready to start optimizing your affiliate marketing program? If you’re not already earning with Sovrn Commerce, sign up now! It only takes a few minutes, and once you’re approved you can start earning right away. Here’s a handy checklist on how to get started.

If you’re currently a Sovrn Commerce affiliate partner, feel free to reach out with questions. Our support team is standing by to help you reach your audience — and your revenue goals.

The post Commerce Content Journey: Next Level appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

A couple of reasons for this explosive growth is that, unlike programmatic advertising, affiliate marketing is easy to understand and simple to implement. And, consumers today are accustomed to looking online for considered purchases, inspiration, and reviews before they buy. Publishers are well-positioned to provide this information through a commerce strategy.

That said, it can be a little intimidating when you’re just starting out, and the best practices for affiliate marketing aren’t always intuitive. To help you avoid missteps as you launch your affiliate program, we’ve compiled this list of practical tips.

1. Create high-quality content

Readers are more likely to visit your site — and come back often — if they find unique content that isn’t available anywhere else. So take time to understand what resonates with your audience, including brands they have shopped at and products they’ve purchased, and build your strategy around original, engaging content that draws them in. Optimizing your content for search engines (SEO) will also help to bring more visitors to your site.

2. Build relevant links

Affiliate marketing is all about capitalizing on authentic purchase intent, so your affiliate links should always be closely tied to your fundamental content. For example, if readers come to your blog for astronomy expertise, help them find the best telescopes for viewing an upcoming celestial event. Avoid adding spammy links just to get clicks, as this will damage audience trust and limit your long-term success.

3. Drive traffic organically

Your affiliate earnings depend on people visiting your site. The more traffic you generate, the more revenue opportunities you create. That said, affiliate merchants are looking for high-quality, engaged visitors — not just volume — so direct and organic traffic sources should be your focus. Our recent blog post offers practical tips to drive more organic traffic.

4. Start simple

While we recommend diversifying and optimizing your merchant list over time, it’s suggested to keep things simple at first. Start with brands consumers know and trust — names like Amazon and Wal-Mart. Commission rates may be lower to start, but visitors are more likely to make a purchase if they recognize the merchant. And keep in mind, commissions are often based on total order value — not just the featured product. Sending visitors to a department store or general retailer gives them more opportunities to add merchandise to their shopping cart.

5. Look beyond commission rate

It seems logical to choose merchants that offer the highest commission rate, but that’s only one piece of the earnings puzzle. You’ll also want to consider factors like pricing model (including CPC), average conversion rate, average order value, earnings per click (EPC), and more. Our Approved Merchants and publisher reporting dashboards provide all the information you need to make smart merchant selections.

6. Keep your options open

Some commerce platforms offer exclusive contracts for publishers, which may seem like an effortless way to streamline your affiliate program. But keep in mind, locking yourself into a single affiliate platform means giving up the opportunity to try out other options that may be a better fit for your strategy.

7. Set realistic expectations

Affiliate marketing is a long-term endeavor that requires continued, proactive strategy that incorporates many components and time to get to a desired outcome. Once you’ve mapped out your affiliate strategy and put the initial pieces in place, give it time to succeed. After all, affiliate marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Many successful publishers take five years or more to see a meaningful return on their affiliate efforts.

Ready to start earning with Sovrn?

Sovrn Commerce is the fastest, most flexible and sustainable way to build and manage your affiliate marketing program. To get started, you’ll need to complete our approval process, which is designed to ensure your affiliate program meets merchant standards for quality and transparency. Once you’re approved, you’ll have immediate access to thousands of merchants in our network, without a separate application process.

The Sovrn Commerce platform offers a wide variety of innovative tools and capabilities to enhance your affiliate program, including:

• Shopping Galleries: Create a customized carousel to highlight products from one or more merchants. The more products you offer, the better the opportunity to increase dwell time and revenue.
• Comparisons: Deliver a great shopping experience for your audience by displaying ‘real-time’ product prices and removing out-of-stock products, meet Google’s algorithm updates, and drive up to 200% higher click-through rates by automatically identifying and displaying alternative retailers selling the same product. 
• New features: Our most recent innovations include an approved merchant dashboard, UTM parameters for affiliate links, and enhanced reporting — and we’re always adding more!
• Content support: Partner with us to jumpstart, supplement, or diversify your monetized editorial lifestyle content.

If you’re ready to start earning with Sovrn Commerce, sign up for a free account. It only takes a few minutes. And once you’re approved, you can get started right away!

The post 7 Tips for Launching an Affiliate Strategy appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

What if you could give visitors the chance to shop for anything and everything, all in one place? And what if you could build it in minutes, not hours?

Now you can with Commerce Shopping Galleries. This new tool lets editors build a personalized carousel of merchant products organized by theme or product type, or showcase a range of products from one or more merchants.

First things first: What is a shopping gallery?

A shopping gallery is an ecommerce tool that lets you highlight a variety of products from one or more merchants, creating a better shopping experience for your readers. The more products you offer, the better the opportunity to increase both dwell time and revenue. Why? Because adding editorially curated products in an engaging and visually appealing way offers readers the chance to explore — and likely purchase — more products from you, a source they trust.

In most cases, this is easier said than done. You do have your (ahem) day job to consider —  crafting relevant reader content. So spending hours sourcing, building, and delivering thoughtful merchant content can often fall to the bottom of the list. Commerce Shopping Galleries can help.

Sovrn makes shopping galleries easy

Commerce Shopping Galleries is a flexible solution to create commerce-focused content that resonates with your readers. Just select from our wide array of products and merchants, pick those that best fit — lowest price, highest commissions, or that most resonate with your audience — and easily add them to your custom shopping gallery. 

Unlike other “white label” widgets, Commerce Shopping Galleries gives you complete control. Simply enter a product page URL or product keywords into the tool, press Search, and a list of products currently offered by all merchants will appear. Click the one you want to display and it’s automatically added to your shopping gallery. Simple.

Get the inside scoop!

Join us for a webinar on Wednesday, April 13, at noon ET/10:00am MT. This 60-minute session, Secrets to Quickly Creating Commerce Content That Drives More Revenue, will give you all the tips and tricks for using Commerce Shopping Galleries, including a deep dive on how to:

• Earn more from merchants with premium placements using the “Sponsored By” button
• Use our flexible gallery design (carousel, table, or product list) to build engaging content
• Feature as many products or merchants as you want
• Automatically update prices throughout the day to reflect real time and remove out-of-stock items
• Feature products in local prices, not just in US$

More to love about Commerce

The new Shopping Galleries tool is just one of many Sovrn Commerce solutions designed to help you grow your affiliate revenue, whether from a commission or a click.

• Comparisons: Deliver a great shopping experience for your audience, meet Google’s algorithm updates, and drive up to 200% higher click-through rates by automatically identifying and displaying alternative retailers selling the same product. 
• Affiliate link monetization: One interface that displays all of the publisher’s affiliate revenue efforts — from link creation to editorial tools — and provides access to over 30,000 merchants.
• Content: Partner with us to jumpstart, supplement, or diversify your monetized editorial lifestyle content.

And check out these new features just added to Commerce, including an approved merchant dashboard, UTM parameters for affiliate links, and enhanced reporting.

Ready to start driving more affiliate revenue?

These are just a few of the many ways Sovrn can help you optimize your affiliate marketing strategy. If you’re a current Sovrn Commerce affiliate partner, feel free to reach out with questions. Our support team is standing by to help you reach your audience and meet your revenue goals. 

If you’re not already earning with Sovrn Commerce, sign up now! It only takes a few clicks to get approved, and you can start earning right away.

The post Make Shopping Easier – and Drive More Revenue – with Shopping Galleries appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..

Sovrn, a publisher technology platform that empowers content creators to remain independent and thrive on the Open Web, today announced the release of the Shopping Galleries tool to its growing Commerce product suite, empowering commerce content creators to easily curate unique shopping experiences. 

With Commerce Shopping Galleries, editors can build a personalized carousel of products by theme or product type or showcase a range of products from one or more merchants, with full control of the products featured. Editors can deliver a better shopping experience to readers and enhance their site in minutes, not hours, with the ability to quickly select from products and merchants in one place, pick the ones with the lowest prices, and easily add them to their site. In addition, the customizable “Sponsored” header gives editors the freedom to highlight a featured merchant or editor’s pick while offering an opportunity to earn more from merchants desiring premium placement. Editorial recommendations like “Best Buys,” “Deals of the Day,” and “We Recommend” can be created with just a few clicks.

“Having ecommerce content on our site has been a growing revenue source for us,” said Philip Brown, Head of Affiliates at Reach plc. “Being able to curate unique, engaging content quickly for our readers will drive more engagement and boost our affiliate revenue. We’re excited to add Shopping Galleries to our commerce content strategy.”

To demonstrate how Sovrn Commerce Shopping Galleries provides a flexible solution for editors and content creators to create rich, customizable content, the company is hosting a webinar on Wednesday, April 13, “Secrets to Quickly Creating Commerce Content That Drives More Revenue,” at noon Eastern Time.

Shopping Galleries is just one of several Sovrn Commerce solutions designed to help publishers grow their affiliate revenue, whether from a commission or a click:

• Content: Publishers can partner with Sovrn and jumpstart, supplement, or diversify their monetized editorial lifestyle content.
• Affiliate link monetization: One interface that displays all of the publisher’s affiliate revenue efforts — from link creation to editorial tools — and provides access to over 30,000 merchants.
• Comparisons: Automatically identify an existing product URL or product keywords and display alternative retailers selling the same product, driving up to a 200% increase in click-through rates. 

“Ecommerce represents a huge opportunity for publishers to drive additional revenue and get closer to their readers,” said Nicola Ghezzi, Sovrn managing director of Commerce solutions. “Shopping Galleries delivers the editorial control for our customers to quickly, easily, and flexibly create quality ecommerce content and deliver a rich customer experience.

The post Sovrn Introduces Shopping Galleries to Commerce Toolset appeared first on Sovrn, Inc..