The beauty of Partner Marketing is that Brands can incorporate any digital publishing channel into their marketing mix. Subnetworks help you integrate various Publishers and publishing channels into your partner program without having to manage all of them separately. They can be actual multipliers for your performance, providing additional traffic and sales and thanks to our updated collaboration standard you can build your subnetwork partnerships on extended data enabling you to identify the traffic source of every single transaction.
In this article, we present the details of our updated collaboration standard and dive into the world of subnetworks, explaining what subnetworks are, how they work, and how they drive traffic and sales for your Brand.
What are subnetworks, and how do they work?
Subnetworks are Publishers that manage their own groups of ‘Sub-Publishers’—which often include content sites, influencers, and bloggers. Once they join a program, they act as a bridge between the Brand and these Sub-Publishers, making collaborations easier. In short, adding a subnetwork to your partner program means gaining access to thousands of new websites and millions of extra touchpoints.
Subnetworks can be multipliers for your business, enabling you to scale your sales without significant upfront investment, which makes them a powerful publishing partner. In the US, subnetworks drive 12% of commissions, making them the fourth largest traffic source for Brands (Martech Record, 2023).
"Subnetworks are content specialists, running and optimizing content sites, advertorial vertical sites, influencers, or bloggers. Once accepted on a program, subnetworks act as an intermediary, deploying dynamic contextual links across a wide range of compliant partners in an instant. It is imperative that these partners, like Skimlinks, meeting the highest quality standards so we can create meaningful performance relationships”, explains James Maley, Head of International Partner Development & Network at Tradedoubler.
How do subnetworks drive traffic and sales?
As the name already implies, subnetworks unify many advantages that partner networks offer, including partner recruitment and management, allowing you to scale your business while saving resources.
The main benefits for Brands working with subnetworks are:
High ROI: You only need to onboard one partner to be promoted by hundreds of other partners and get additional sales. You save time, money, and energy on recruiting partners for your program but still get additional performance, which makes subnetworks a cost-efficient publishing channel.
Additional reach: Subnetworks unify many Publishers from different channels, enabling you to address new audiences and increase your reach. Sub-Publishers can vary from micro-influencers to large, international media houses like Condé Nast and Hearst.
One-stop shop service: Subnetworks facilitate Publisher management for their Brands. They recruit new Publishers, forward promotional materials, and provide reports on their Publishers’ performance. In addition, they are the single point of contact for their Brands, which eases communication.
How do you benefit from our updated collaboration standard?
Our updated collaboration standard makes partnership management between Brands and subnetworks easier, more streamlined, and more transparent. It is built on technical alterations in our network and introduces important data requirements. We now ask all our subnetwork partners to provide the name or ID of their Sub-Publishers and the last referral URL in every tracking link and their sales reports. This additional data is crucial as it allows you to identify every single traffic source. With this information, you always know which Publishers drive your traffic and sales, allowing you to manage your subnetwork partners accordingly.
“The additional reporting data lifts subnetwork partnerships to a new level where Brands have 100% clarity about all Sub-Publishers promoting their partner programs. With our simplified standard, we can offer our Brands a selection of highly recommended subnetworks, such as Yieldkit, Skimlinks, Flex Offers, and many others. Contact your TD account manager to get an overview of top-performing subnetworks in your relevant market”, says Tom Sams, Network Quality & Compliance Manager at Tradedoubler.
“TD has been a long-standing partner of Skimlinks in the global Affiliate industry. By working collaboratively and leveraging complete transparency, our goal has always been to enable TD clients to focus their efforts on growing partnerships and achieving sustainable growth”, states Gaurav Aurora, Director of Global Partnerships at Skimlinks.
The update is a simplified extension of what our Network Quality Team already did in the past. As a Brand, you can already see the ID of every Sub-Publisher that generated sales in the transaction report in your interface. In addition, our Network Quality Team closely monitors all subnetwork activities and keeps you updated about your traffic sources.
Best practices for a successful collaboration
For a rewarding partnership, it is worth investing some time upfront in researching the subnetwork partners that meet your expectations and can fulfill your marketing goals. Reach out to your Tradedoubler account managers – we are happy to help you find the right partners, based on our updated collaboration standard and our 25 years of expertise.
Here are our key takeaways for a rewarding collaboration:
Find a good fit: Before you onboard one or several subnetwork partners, it is essential to find the ones that best fit your Brand and advertising goals. Each subnetwork is different and has a unique mix of Sub-Publishers. To figure out which subnetwork is the best partner for you, we recommend exchanging with your TD account manager and potential subnetwork partners. Share what you want to achieve, which traffic you would like to get, and which Publisher types are allowed to promote your Brand.
Close collaboration: Only work with subnetworks that can share with you which Sub-Publishers drive traffic to your partner program. This way, all your traffic sources are 100% identifiable, and you can closely monitor your partners’ performance. For further details, contact your Tradedoubler account manager. We are happy to share a tailored selection of highly collaborative subnetworks with you.
Communication is key: Once you have found the right subnetwork partner(s), ensure you keep them informed about your partner program – share your promotional plans, updated creatives, and other information that helps your partners promote your Brand in the best possible way.
If you have any questions about your partnership opportunities with subnetwork Publishers, please reach out to your Tradedoubler contact or get back to us via our contact form.
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