Blockchain and the future of affiliate marketing: Interview

The attention surrounding blockchain has erupted in the past year. Governments and companies across the world have seen great potential in this new technology to improve their offering. Most recently it has attracted the attention of investors thanks to its transparency, tamper-proof record and decentralized nature, with many other industries poised to adopt this new technology in one form or another.

For one business, Admitad, an affiliate marketing company, blockchain appears to be perfect partner for affiliate marketing. To get a better understanding of what the future holds for the pair, we spoke with Alexander Bachmann, CEO & Founder of Admitad Group.

1.A recent article discussed the impact Blockchain can have on affiliate marketing. How do you think blockchain can be used in affiliate marketing?

The concepts of “bitcoin” and “cryptocurrency” have become everyday words. In this regard, any marketer will ask: how can this affect online marketing in the long term? Affiliate marketing is no exception. At the moment, there are two main points in this story. The first is the impact of blockchain on the underlying technologies used in affiliate marketing, and the second is affiliate marketing in the blockchain niche with the use of cryptocurrencies. This technology can be used to simplify affiliate marketing and reduce costs when working in it.

It is obvious that bitcoin could be used as a payment instead of fiat currencies, which would clearly simplify the verification process and make withdrawal easier. However, the biggest problems of online marketing is tracking and detection of fraud, where the power of blockchain would be useful. This information would be available to both the advertiser and the publisher, without giving a chance to the machinations of both sides.The process of monitoring and storing of information about each transaction would be significantly simplified.

Besides,  blockchain and cryptocurrency can be products themselves.

2. Can you give an example of a company or case study that has really benefited from Admitad’s services?

We work with dozens of the ecom leaders and this is really hard to highlight just a single company. Some partners and their cases are highlighted on our web-site. All of them use our services for many years and obviously they benefit from working with us and have significant profits from using our platform. Apart from large companies, small and medium-sized businesses work with us and it’s always very intriguing to watch them grow and develop into steadily progressing companies with the help of our services too.

3. Who do you consider to be your main competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?

There are a lot of criteria in determining the rating, such as: the quantity and quality of traffic, the amount of webmasters, the total amount of offers, the efficiency in solving the necessary tasks, the speed of offers’ integration and launch, functionality and versatility, the quality of technical support, the information content and the speed of reporting – all of this determines the overall platform quality and customer satisfaction. And according to all criteria, today we occupy the leading position in the region. And being the first by all standards – that’s what differentiates us from our colleagues.

4. What was the main motivator to solve this problem, for example, did it arise from a personal experience or something you recognized others having issues with?

The market is quite mature and all the problems are well-known. Of course, we know about our colleagues’ experience and solved the problems taking into account their mistakes, and some problems we faced personally and solved them by trial and error. The main motivator is always the same – to be useful for our customers and to make the service as user-friendly as possible.

5. What do you consider Admitad’s greatest achievement within the past 6 months?

The whole of 2017 was a very important year in Admitad’s development. First of all our advertisers’ turnover increased by 2.5 times over, we moved to the new office which is recognized as one of the most stylish in the region, the number of our employees has increased, not to mention the number of offers.

Then, one of the most significant markers for us is Admitad Academy development. In 2017, we held a number of learning courses hosted by the Academy to train both the publishers and their digital managers. There was a high demand for these training sessions, as the people are eager to improve their knowledge and gain additional expertise in the field of digital marketing, and our instruments and materials will be of great help to them in this regard.

Also, Admitad Invest fund devoted the whole of 2017 to searching for new projects. The following startups from Admitad Invest’s portfolio became the stars of 2017: Blinger.io, EPICSTARS, Push.World, Meds.ru, and Appspress.ru. Furthermore, The Firrma, a media outlet for startups and investments, rated admitad Invest among the top five seed funds last year.

6. What is the main focus for Admitad’s over the next 6 months?

We plan further extensive global growth. The Academy plans include the launch of international learning courses: for India, UAE, China and other regions, the creation of the global content hub with cases from different countries.

In 2018, admitad Invest is going to continue searching for and investing in different projects. Now admitad Invest is working on about 10 startups, and the amount of financing is expected to increase significantly, as the fund’s plans include searching for interesting and promising projects both in Europe and in other regions.

7. Have you had any constructive feedback from customers, and if so what are they interested in seeing?

Yes, we always keep in touch with our customers and take feedback from them. First of all we aim to improve the usability of our platform, to increase the quantity and quality of the traffic, to automate the accounting system and improve the quality of customer service.