The perfect partnership ... Why Rakuten Advertising are our preferred affiliate network

Many people will have heard of Rakuten and most likely seen them pop up on their TV, mobile and computer screens! Rakuten is one of the world’s leading Internet service companies providing many solutions such as, their video on demand streaming service, Rakuten TV, Kobo (online reading), cashback/shopping sites and Viber, which is an online chat. 

 

Although we can use all the above solutions at home, we also utilise one of their technologies in the office for many of our partners, Rakuten Advertising, an affiliate marketing service provider (also known as an affiliate network). 

We believe an affiliate programme is important for an online brand, as it provides great potential to grow brand awareness and sales, reaching a large audience and generate income from a different source. 

 

All our experience working with Rakuten Advertising has been positive with very little issues and when they have arisen they are dealt with and rectified as efficiently as possible. 

 

They provide many tiers of support, helping to accommodate all brands whether they are well known or a new brand wanting to grow. 

 

The platform is very easy to navigate, allowing the setup of offers and commissions to be straight forward and quick. The reporting tools are very popular with us, as there are multiple metrics we can download and receive insight from. We particularly like the fact we can see how many customers that have purchased are new versus existing and the dynamic commissioning allows us to reward the affiliate with a higher rate for new customers, encouraging the affiliate to promote the brand more. 

 

Most importantly the team are amazing! All account managers who we have met are really friendly and so helpful. Whenever my main contacts are out of office, we’ve always had another member of the team assigned to me to ensure we always have a point of contact. 

As an agency we are in touch with members of the team in all aspects of the company. 

 

For example: 

 

Once we have been approached by a brand who is interested in affiliate marketing, we would have the initial introduction and then request additional feedback from Rakuten Advertising, to validate the opportunity and understand whether an affiliate program would be suitable for the brand. 

 

There would then be a call set up for the brand to meet the Rakuten Advertising team and learn more about what they can offer and how the processes work. 

 

Once the brand has decided to go ahead with an affiliate programme, we have calls with the tech team to ensure all the product feeds and data is connected up with the brands technology and test purchases are carried out. This process is seamless, with regular updates between each step, either via call or email. 

 

Our closest relationship is with the account managers. We have regular calls to catch up on new affiliates, any affiliates which are performing well for similar verticals, new product updates and a general conversation about each partner, to check we are getting the most out of the affiliate programme. 

 

The team support us with setting up hot desking at their headquarters, which allows us to speak directly with affiliates for any opportunities, plus the annual Dealmakers in London are always a hit (although very busy), speaking with lots of affiliates in relation to our partners. 

 

All the above is exactly why we are a preferred agency, as we believe they can aid all aspects of affiliate marketing with our partners, and they are always evolving adding more helpful tools such as linkless code tracking to support being rewarded for sales they generate and coupon commissioning, to boost relevant affiliates performance. Being a preferred agency also has additional perks such as having access to useful HIPPO reports, benchmarking reports, publisher media kits, monthly agency newsletters and global trend reports. All these reports aid us with the optimisations and growth of our partners programmes.