The extensive use of video in affiliate marketing has been the next big thing almost as long as mobile internet. We’ve seen things like the Prezzybox video units, Firebox have done them too as have Play & Game. Last year OLD reported that Buy.at got on the video case with some interactive adverts from Littlewoods.
The next stage of this slightly stuttered evolution comes once again from Buy.at and there partners Coull. They’ve devised The Coull Affiliator (cool name), a nifty gadget that allows you to add your affiliate links to any video that allowed embedding. But, is it any good? And how easy is it to do?
The good news is that it’s actually quite simple to do. Find “Coull Video” under “Content & Creative” in the Buy.at CMS and then select the “Your Video” tab. You’re asked to enter your name and company details before being allowed to get on to the affiliator.
You’re then asked about the location of your video. It could be from Youtube, uploaded from your PC or from your own source. Purely for testing purposes I’ve chosen the O2 Ducks Advert. The Affiliator requires you to enter the url, and then asks for a base link. This means that if at any time a viewer clicks on the video they’ll go to the location/product you’ve set up. Click on the advert below to see a relevant item!
You can also add product links that appear throughout the video. In my example I’ve added the iPhone from O2 and the link will appear on screen for the first part of the advert. You can add more and you can also move the location of the “announcement”. The second part of the example below sees another product but in a different location.
Once you’re happy adding links, you simply “save” and “publish” your video. This generates a code which you then add to your site.
The end result should be a video with affiliate links in…
Don’t forget to click anywhere on the video above to see the base product link.
Creating an affiliate linked video is a fairly straightforward walk through process, although not without some frustrations. The main one being finding products that you want to add (it looks like O2 bought up all the giant ducks as no Buy.at merchant has any). You pretty much need to know what you’re after to narrow down the choices. You also can’t use a direct link to a merchant. For example I wanted to add a link to the free O2 sim site, but can’t as there’s no product in the feed.
Editing and adding product links is a bit of a challenge to say the least. At best it’s faffy and at worst it will lead you to drink. Setting the start and end points of the product links may result in a lot of expletives. It needs to be made easier!
There are additions I’d also like to see in the future, and I’ve already mentioned these to Buy.at during beta testing. For example it’d be nice to change the colour of the product button and at the end of the video a user could be given a list of links used during the clip.
So will it be a success?
One of the problems with video adverts is that they rely on merchants to put them together, and whilst some have taken a step in this direction, many have given up. Perhaps due to low affiliate take up or lack of resources? The Affiliator puts the affiliate in control of video content and now we have access to a boatload of videos to use too.
For example, Marks and Spencer may put out an advert – and quite quickly and easily an affiliate can include links within a clip, provided (1) the clip is available and (2) the product feed is up to date without relying on an agency, network or merchant sorting it out. Even better the affiliate can resize the clip to fit the space on their site, something not always possible with vidiboxes.
That’s the good part!
There are concerns though in terms of what is fair use of video published on Youtube. Is it right for affiliates to say take the excellent advert from Cadbury and add links to a chocolate experience day or Thorntons for want of an example?
How will Joe Bloggs demonstrating his brand new skateboard feel once he finds out someone is showing his clip and trying to earn commission by putting links over it? Perhaps it won’t be an issue, but you never ever know?
The final hurdle comes in the form of the quality of product feeds. It’s absolutely no use to anyone having this kind of cool technology if the content within feeds is second rate. Broken images, poor images, poor product descriptions, new products not in, old products not out etc. need to be a thing of the past.
The Coull Affiliator though is pretty cool, and if it becomes accessible across Awin merchants as well as Buy.at ones as part of their merger then this could be a very very useful tool for content and conversion.
