Big Data is basically a group of remarkably large and complex data sets that can be effectively analyzed to unveil certain patterns, associations and even discernible trends regarding human interactions, needs, and regular behaviors.
This technological turning point describes an information strategy in management, integrating diverse types of data management and data along with the traditional data.
It’s important to understand the impact that Big Data and Automation will have in affiliate marketing, and how it’s already being used by affiliate networks to provide bigger amounts of analytical data with the aim of allowing affiliates to become more independent.
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What Happened Before Big Data?
Before Big Data became a reality and a technology where companies could invest time and resources, there was the need to somehow aggregate statistically significant data.
The first endeavors to quantify the specific growth rate in the so-called volume of data occurred 73 years ago.
Over the years, there have been remarkable watershed moments that have led to a sort of informational boom which allows businesses to use Big Data to leverage more revenues.
When it came to affiliate marketing, though, it was virtually impossible to successfully know which channels could be leveraged for sales, duly compensate certain partners based on their specific contribution to the actual sales increase, understand the performance of each individual affiliate accurately, or even ascertain which factors effectively contributed to the end-goal: the sale.
New Opportunities with Big Data
Big Data has certainly been a powerful tech revolution.
Traditional businesses, such as banking, have changed.
Indeed, in the 1990s, Capital One – a bank holding company – started using a new statistical model to understand the spending patterns of its clients.
The new model was based on both demographic data and public credit, and it provided clients with products which were customized and tailored to them, based on data.
This innovation landmark was something truly special and, as a result, the bank experienced an increase in 32% in net revenue from the year 1994 to 2003.
This use of data was remarkable, especially if you take into account the fact that – 20 years ago – most banks used a uniform-pricing model, which means they would charge every single client the same exact price, regardless of demographic data.
In a case study created by Capgemini, it’s duly noted that Capital One has successfully managed to create a whole new business solely based on data it has collected and analyzed over the years.
In fact, Capital One is always conducting thousands of complex data experiments, making sure its clients can choose from a selection of credit cards with diverse incentives and interest rates.
The use of Big Data has ultimately meant that Capital One could steadily increase its customer base, offering customized products which clients can’t wait to use.
Nowadays, the effects of this milestone are strongly felt.
In fact, a lot of banks have now become more focused on analyzing Big Data.
Big Data’s influence doesn’t stop in banking, though.
Indeed, Big Data is now an industry in and of itself.
For instance, companies such as ITA Software have learned to use Big Data to great advantage.
The company aggregates the prices of thousands of flights from the majority of the biggest airline carriers.
That must have been why the business was purchased by none other than Google, the tech giant, for a modest price of 700 million USD.
The reason for this investment is simple: the software created by ITA clearly manages to process remarkable amounts of data, which means the company can now give clients accurate predictions for shopping prices, hotel rates, flight rates, etc.
This overwhelming success has helped skyrocket the number of Big Data companies.
Big Data and Affiliate Marketing
Now that you’ve read about some of the pragmatic – and financially successful – applications of Big Data, I will remind you of a previously mentioned fact.
Remember that, when it came to affiliate marketing, it was almost impossible to utilize Big Data in a competent way?
That difficulty has been managed throughout the years.
Nowadays, technology and data automation have reached a whole new level of sophistication, which means this mass data aggregation now allows marketers to evaluate their efforts and programs to make sure there can be additional growth.
In fact, marketers that focus on analyzing Big Data consistently can obviously increase their ROI, since affiliate marketers can simply credit each conversion and understand the customer more thoroughly than ever before.
Moreover, all affiliate marketers should be able to use Big Data to understand what are the best audiences for a specific product or which traffic sources can yield better results.
In addition, this technology and sheer volume of information make sure affiliates can also stop wasting time digging for behavioral clues: it’s all analyzed, quantified, data-driven, and ready to be explored.
Last but not least, the ability to analyze the performance of all partners ensures affiliate platforms can compensate actions that reward achievable and measurable results.
This makes affiliate programs more appealing to a larger, undiscovered audience since they can finally compensate achievements which can be efficiently measured and rewarded.
Big Data and Automation
This increase in automation and technological power can also help affiliate programs dive into untapped potential.
In case your analysis allows you to understand that there has been an increase in customer activity in a specific country, you can explore that particular market, counting with large bulks of accessible data that can be used to come up with the right conclusions, change company strategies, and adjust your overall perspective of the industry’s possibilities.
How is Big Data Being Used in Affiliate Marketing?
At the moment, there are only a bunch of Affiliate Networks that have been able to successfully create platforms that take Big Data’s full power into account.
These companies yearn for multidimensional insights in real-time, making sure the data ultimately results in smarter decisions regarding campaigns, offers, and customer strategy.
They understand the importance of tracking the particular source of each visit, click, sale, lead, and point of contact that is such a crucial part of leveraging Big Data to reap as much value as possible.
Even so, not all the companies that have been surfing this wave have the ability to know that you don’t only need the data.
In fact, most of them have failed to understand that this valuable data must be paired with highly-technical tools which innovate beyond expectations, allowing affiliates to search for the precise information they need to find in the ocean of reliable data that’s now accessible.
This is the moment in which Big Data analytics becomes a reality, and it’s also the time when SaaS technology allows companies to provide actionable amounts of analytical data that can be accessible to each and every affiliate.
This is where Mobidea: a mobile affiliate network with years of experience and with over 100.000 affiliates – has been able to excel.
Mobidea is considered one of the Top 20 CPA Networks by mThink and also one of the Top Affiliates Networks in 2017 by Mobyaffiliates.
The affiliate network has always invested in data analysis and automation, and it has taken this resolution a step further with a brand-new platform that can boast about having Integrated Affiliate Tracking Platform Capabilities.
Mobidea is now able to provide users with the technology they need to understand which campaigns are yielding the best results.
In fact, Mobidea allows affiliates to get reports that are easy to navigate, and all users have the ability to get invaluable information regarding campaign performance in over 23 dimensions – which includes the segmentation of data per IP.
Mobidea’s brand-new Tracker Capabilities are an example of something done right on leveraging the power of data to bring more independence to marketers.
In fact, affiliates are able to deep-dive and optimize, since they can see the operators of any country inside each OS, for example.
They can successfully create as many combinations as they see fit among Smartlink, Offer, Lander, Rotation, Website, Traffic Source, Placement, Operator, Country, OS, OS Version, Browser, Browser Version, Browser Language, Device Type, Brand, Model, Adjustment, Referral, Hour of the Day, and Day of the Week.
Affiliates can go deeper. Indeed, they can filter per OS, Device Type, Operator, Country and Browser and they can also combine and analyze data in three different levels, which helps affiliates find opportunities from a high volume of data.
This means 23 dimensions combined manage to return a unique range of more than 1700 possible unique reports the user can analyze.
More data also means UI has to step up and provide wider options for users to analyze that data.
This is why users can select the “Tree” view, perceiving the information in different levels (each of the levels representing a specific variable), and also why they can opt for the “Table” view, becoming able to analyze data seeing one unique segment per line.
To top up Mobidea’s intention of making data useful, their new platform also allows affiliates to perform A/B Testing using rotation settings inside campaigns.
This translates into letting users split traffic, test, and use the top-performing CPA Offers or the Smartlink, the network’s famous algorithm which gives Mobidea the ability to segment traffic, later providing the very best offers for a particular segment.
With this example, it seems obvious that – when it comes to the specific theme of Big Data – Mobidea’s focus on data and automation is the proof that the company is going in the right direction.
Conclusion
Big Data is still a complex subject since it demands companies to require the services of a competent, highly-proactive, and knowledgeable group of technical professionals.
Even so, there are examples of how Big Data is being leveraged in affiliate marketing platforms.
This investment is of the utmost importance since it brings Big Data from out of academic circles and finds a practical application which makes analyzing and profiting from the bulk of data a definite reality.
It is important for affiliate marketing groups to continue investing on Big Data, allowing affiliates from all over the world to have free access to analytical statistics which help users make decisions, optimize much more rapidly, and become financially independent through affiliate marketing.
Examples like the one above from Mobidea are where the industry needs to be evolving to, giving consequently more autonomy to its members and feeding at the same time the innovation machine with more data driven opportunities.
