Actionable Insights for International Targeting

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Expanding your reach to other countries can seem intimidating, but new insights from a study by Rakuten LinkShare and Forrester Consulting suggest that the opportunity outweighs the risk when it comes to affiliate marketers’ international potential.

Think about it: Limiting your exposure leaves an entire market of would-be customers untapped. Isn’t it about time you tap into that?

Of course, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. You can’t expect to find the same success internationally without carefully tailoring your campaigns for each country. Aside from the obvious campaign changes you’ll have to make—like adjusting the time zone for dayparting settings and changing the language for your CTAs—you’ll need an understanding of the local markets you’re targeting.

The study surveys more than 2,500 online shoppers from eight different countries about their online shopping habits, plus includes quotes from a variety of advertisers and publishers who have firsthand experience with international affiliate marketing. All in all, it’s an effective primer for targeting new geos.



Here’s a rundown of some interesting highlights from the study:

• An advertiser may have substantial brand recognition in one country, but entering a new country can mean building your brand from scratch.

• Customizing payment and shipping methods is essential. A Marketing Manager in the study says, “It’s common in Brazil for buyers to pay in installments. That’s very different from how people pay in the US.”

• Nearly 85% of Canadian shoppers have bought something online from a company outside of their home country in the past 12 months.

• American affiliate shoppers spend more online than the average American shopper, especially shoppers who frequent travel sites and financial services sites.

• Consumers in Japan are fickle, but persuadable. Nearly half of Japanese consumers polled have been shopping online for more than seven years, making them more apt to cash in on deals and use comparison shopping sites.

• Shoppers in nearly every country cited shipping time and costs, as well as duties and taxes, as top barriers to importing.

• Shoppers in new and emerging markets place more value on products made outside their home countries than on locally made products. A Director of Online Marketing at a multichannel retailer was quoted, “Australia is turning out to be a much bigger market than any of us expected. The fashion (in the stores) there is behind the times and the consumer there has much disposable income to spend, because the global recession affected them less.”

Why cross borders with affiliate marketing?


Still on the fence about expanding your targets internationally? This list of advantages just might change your mind:

• One-up the competition. International marketing presents an invaluable opportunity to gain a competitive edge, especially if your competitors only advertise within your home country. As you fine-tune your global campaigns, your ever-increasing ROI can help fund your local marketing, blowing your biggest local competitors out of the water.

• Increase demand for what you’re selling. According to the Forrester study, 68% of online shoppers across the eight countries surveyed have bought something online from a company outside of their home country in the past 12 months, and three times as many plan to increase their percentage of e-commerce imports next year than plan to decrease it (see graph above). That’s a lot of consumers who want what you’ve got.

• Grow your brand exposure. International brand recognition earns a corporation major brownie points in the reputation department, putting them in a prime position for new marketing partnerships with other big name brands.

• Gain invaluable knowledge and experience in international marketing. The more you test and optimize your international marketing campaigns, the better equipped you’ll be to tackle new territory. And with most successful businesses marketing to countries around the world, gaining experience with international marketing is a must in any industry.

Ready to step up your your global footprint?

We at 50onRed provide international traffic for all of our solutions. Drop us a line to find out how we can help you score quality traffic anywhere in the world!