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PI Live Europe 2024 

This year’s PI Live was a major success arguably the best to date. Suzanne and Dave headed down from Yorkshire on the 22nd October, attending the full throttled two-day performance marketing event. With industry leaders sharing their knowledge and expertise across the stages and many meetings of minds, planning both Q4 activity and 2025 partnerships, the two days was always going to busy. 

The Highly Anticipated Panel Talk  

How about squeezing in a panel talk too! Thanks to an impromptu discussion earlier on in the year with the marketing team at Rakuten Advertising, Dave also was offered the opportunity to discuss with Charlotte from Superdrug and Karla from Lyst how the economy had impacted on the digital landscape and the future trends all eCommerce retailers and brands should be considering as we head into 2025 
 
After a couple of virtual meet ups, the team made it to Old Billingsgate in good time, being one of the first panels on Rakuten Advertising’s main stage. Everyone was delighted that the talk was early on day one! Nick Fletcher, Senior Vice President from Rakuten Advertiser was the moderator, holding no prisoners as he posed the tough questions that the 100+ crowd waited with bated breath to hear the answers too! 
 
The panel commenced with the first question … 
As we all know, today’s economy is very different from that of 2021 and prior. In 2023-2024, the world settled into a period of high interest rates, inflated prices, and decreased consumer spending. How has this impacted your business, and how have you adapted to the new state of things? 
 
Charlotte reflected on Superdrug's shift from aggressive digital spend pre-pandemic to a stronger focus on profitability, working closely with Finance to track ROI and margins. Karla similarly discussed how they had worked closely with Finance teams at Lyst, focusing on closer collaboration with Partners to better understand their needs and had noticed growth from mid-market contemporary brands. 
 
Having worked across multiple sectors, Dave acknowledged that there have been winners including more needs / essentials sectors such as health and beauty and losers such as apparel, however like Charlotte and Karla discussed, profitability has been a focus for all since Covid. Consumers are more price sensitive than ever which has caused challenges with their pricing strategy. This dynamic has also benefitted the affiliate channel, especially cashback, discount, loyalty and CSS publishers. He adds that having a view and optimizing the lifetime value of their customers is essential to plan for the long term as well as the short term 
10 minutes in and we swiftly moved to question 2 … 
 
With recent Bank of England and FED interest rate cuts, along with inflation coming down closer to target levels, we’re seeing some positive signs of recovery. Has this influenced the way you approach your 2025 planning, strategy, and budgets? 
 
Karla discussed how shoppers continue to engage but expect a better experience and support. They are influenced and often look for inspiration. Charlotte emphasised that loyalty and client retention remain a focus, and that it's too early to see a full recovery. She also reiterated that business remains very performance focused, and their approaches have evolved to drive conversion across channels. 
Dave also mirrored Charlotte’s comments, discussing that it may be too early to see signs of an uptick, with most clients maintaining careful, measured approaches. The performance volatility everyone is seeing from week to week has made it a real challenge to carry out long term planning for 2025, with multiple plans required. He noted that the role of affiliates has changed, becoming more full-funnel, possibly due to post-COVID pressures, for example reducing spend on Above the Line activities such as TV and Out of Home Advertising. Brands owned channels have also become increasingly important, working on fostering increase in loyalty beyond discount offering real value and experiences to maintain engagement via channels such as email, SMS and communities 
 
Time for a bonus question? There sure was as Nick posed how do you plan when there are key external events that you can capitalise on ... 
 
The panellists reflected that there is a day for pretty much anything these days. Dave mentioned his experience of brands trying to include too many. It’s a real challenge to keep up with them and know which one’s brands should take part in. Singles Day is great if you have an APAC audience or objectives to grow this market however some brands question whether they should take part, especially with the timing (Remembrance Day). Rationalising is important to ensure that you’re not unnecessarily bombarding and confusing the audience as well as not diluting your marketing spend. 
 
Before it was time for the audience to ask their questions, Nick managed to squeeze one crystal ball gazing question. 
 
AI and digital disruption: How has AI impacted your business and the industry around you? What does this mean for your short- and long-term thinking towards digital marketing? 
 
Karla discussed that AI is being used for specific tasks like personalization and image-based search, with some promising results. Charlotte agrees that AI is being used for specific tasks and notes that it has been in play for years. She also points out that AI still lacks the human touch for many applications but is starting to be trusted for important uses like health apps. Increased trust will likely lead to increased usage. She also reference the important stance Dove’s recent ban of AI generated content has brought to the industry. 
 
While acknowledging the value of AI for research tasks and campaign ideation, as well as how our agency leverages AI to streamline day-to-day operations, Dave cautioned against getting caught up in the AI buzz. He emphasized the continued importance of brand-to-brand partnerships, which, through a mix of direct relationships and tech partners like Tyviso, remain key to driving both awareness and acquisition growth. Dave highlighted the growing need for strong synergy between affiliate and PR teams to maximize editorial coverage through monetization—an increasingly vital strategy for all clients. He also pointed to solutions like Linkby, allowing brands to gain guaranteed coverage across both general and sector specific publications on a CPC basis, has been a game changer. Finally, Dave feels that there will be a real boom in the influencers, with influencers realising the opportunity to monetise their activity. Supported by affiliate networks like Rakuten , which now offer easier sign-ups and advanced performance tracking through features like Linkless Tracking, influencers of any scale can now partner with brands more seamlessly than ever. 

Time To Reflect 

With two minutes left of the session, there was time for a couple of audience questions. In a flash the timer reached zero and the session was over! 
 
Speaking after the talk, Dave said, “Whilst slightly nervous at the thought of the panel talk prior to the event, on reflection Dave enjoyed the experience and would encourage everyone who has strong opinions and advice to be shared to speak at events like PI Live. I am looking forward to more opportunities to represent Customer First Digital, as we head into 2025” 
 
What Dave shared at PI Live was only the tip of the iceberg. If you’d love to dive deeper into any of the topics covered including planning for 2025, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Dave and the team of partnership marketing specialists. get in touch
 
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