Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers. Listen up as I explore the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends and give you the inside the scoop on what's occurring in affiliate marketing. Join us as we explore affiliate strategies, host expert interviews with leading affiliates and tech entrepreneurs, and discuss the latest affiliates and digital marketing trends. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, you're in the right place. Join me for this week's episode and let's get started.
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SPEAKER_02Welcome back to Affiliate Insider's Affiliate Marketing Podcast. Today I'm absolutely thrilled to have somebody really special join me on the podcast, Perul Bagava. Hi, Perul. Hi Elianne. Nice to have you here with us. And we're talking about affiliate marketing around the globe in this series of our podcast. And today we're going to be exploring India and the Asian market, which is where Perul is based and what she is an expert in. So, Perul, as the CEO of one of India's fastest growing affiliate networks, can you share with our listeners a little bit of your backstory in your career in affiliate marketing and how you landed up running V Commission?
SPEAKER_04Thank you for having me on the show. It's an exciting series, and I would love to, you know, know more about what the world is experiencing, especially in the last 18 months. About myself, I've been in the affiliate industry for about 14 years now. V Commission, when we started it in 2008, was the first affiliate program our country had. And over the last decade and almost a decade and a half, I've seen how the affiliate industry has evolved from educating advertisers and a few affiliates about what performance marketing is all about and how it can add value to now receiving about four to five inbound advertiser queries a day. It's been an exciting journey. And how we started vacommission actually is a little bit off-beat and exciting. We did really intend to start an affiliate network, but back in those days, I'm talking about early 2000s. Indians unfortunately did not get approvals into a lot of affiliate networks. And my background is affiliate marketing. I started off as a content writer. So me and my partner, we used to work as affiliates for big international networks. And we saw that having Indian nationality did not bring that kind of credibility that it should. And we were very young that time, in our early 20s. So that time we thought that setting up a company would definitely give us more credibility, it will get us accepted to affiliate networks and advertiser programs. And that's how we started vCommission. The intent was that by the time we were two years into the business by 2010, we realized that India as a market was very naive and the country needed advertisers to be aware of what affiliate marketing is. At that point in time, a surge of e-commerce marketplaces, online games like reverse auction and stuff like that. So at that point in time, going out and explaining brands about what affiliate marketing is and what it can do for their business was a very different dopamine rush in itself. So that's how basically we started V Commission and how we shifted our focus to India. And then by 2012, we were the largest in the country. Then we started many networks. I see many networks coming up in the country. I'm proud that we are the only homegrown network. We are the first homegrown network to go global.
SPEAKER_02I think that's amazing. That's such an amazing story. And anybody that hasn't been in affiliate marketing kind of as long as what we have, back then in 2008, affiliate marketing was kind of non-existent in India. Okay, there was a couple of Indian people that were working in other industries that to see what you have built with the Commission is really something special. So I think I just want to let our audience know just the journey that you've been on and what you've seen and why I'm so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you. So you've spoken a lot about India being a massive opportunity and a huge emerging market for brands to engage. And you also mentioned that you're getting a lot more inquiries. Are those inquiries coming from brands abroad who want to get into the India? Are they still local homegrown like e-commerce companies that are coming into the network as well? Just to set the scene a little bit before we get into the nuts and bolts of the show.
SPEAKER_04Well, 70% of that is homegrown upcoming brands, and 30% of that is local and global brands. So it's not that we only get inquiries from local companies. We are a global company now. So we definitely sometimes get inbound queries that excite us beyond imagination as well.
SPEAKER_02Perfect. Okay, so that's good. So emerging market growing, lots of external interest as well. But where do you see the role of affiliate marketing taking prominence over other digital channels in your region? Because we know here in Europe it's a little bit more established, affiliate marketing is a little bit more established, and we'll have a couple of guests on our podcast talking about different regions. But in India per se, how do brands work effectively with partners to drive consistent sales? And is it the same as how more mature markets work, or is there still some difference?
SPEAKER_04There is a lot of difference. In India, I would say the most exciting part. Some people may call it unfortunate as well, but I would say at this point in time, the most exciting part is the rules of the game are still being written. You know, we might not have regulatory bodies, but that just adds a lot of beauty to it. Some people also might say that we are a decade behind what more evolved markets are, but that adds to the beauty of the market because number one, the size of the population. Uh, you know, we are a huge country, and when we run a large-scale campaign and just to see the ticker running by uh, you know, thousands and tens of thousands by each refresh is pretty exciting, is a different rush in itself. That I think is very, very exciting and unique about the market. Um, however, having said that, in the past 18 months specifically, although in other regions as well, but mostly in India also, I've seen uh a big inclination towards D2C, a big inclination towards online gaming. Yeah, and especially in these past 18 uh, you know, months since the COVID and lockdown hit us, I've seen a lot of international brands trying to enter India as a region, especially in the gaming and iGaming section, which is very, very exciting because the world is seeing us as a country where they would like to put their next bet on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, let's talk a little bit about that infrastructure because whilst you have volume of customers, it's pretty mobile-centric. Like you've kind of skipped the desktop, you know, affiliation space and gone straight into apps and mobile. And it's really, really vast in the Asian market as well. But what are some of the best initiatives that you've seen recently where brands are making the most of affiliate marketing to boost their performance? Can you share some insights around any creative marketing that you're seeing in India right now from brands that are really kind of nailing the performance marketing channel?
SPEAKER_04I think Indian brands have evolved beyond the conventional coupon and cashback. And when I talk to you know different brands myself, I see they are more excited to do things beyond coupon, cashback deals, and comparison, which was essentially very naive form, what very initial form of affiliate marketing. At this point in time, we are talking a lot about influencers, we are talking a lot about mark marketing, we are talking a lot about media buying, which is very exciting for me because essentially that is you know the most exciting part of being an affiliate where you can advocate for you know a brand and you don't even need to own any you know media of your own per se. So I think when I see native push pop grow in affiliate marketing, that excites me more. And if you ask me, I feel that's the core essence of affiliate marketing for me right now, and I would love to see that grow further. The most exciting part is brands and advertisers are ready to accept it, they are ready to have an extended marketing team in affiliates, and there is no pressure on us that we need to stick to display affiliates or websites. And I think that's the most interesting part of evolving as a country, uh, you know, as I see.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there with the influencer space and the fact that you don't even need to own your channel anymore. You know, like 10 years ago, 20 years ago, when we got into affiliate marketing, it was all about the website. It was about making sure that your website was your shopfront. And now we've got influencers and ambassadors that are pushing programs and products and making sales, and they don't even own the channel that they're publishing their content to. So I think India, with its volumes and with everybody that's got a mobile phone, I think brands need to really consider that marketplace more as an influencer channel than even just performance. Performance is just the way that we're paying the end user for promoting the brand. But thinking about that strategy of how content is pushed through into that customer base is probably more important in terms of the strategy of the program than who you partner with, even. Because I think if you start to forget about affiliates in the traditional sense and look at what the Indian marketplace can actually provide you and the volume of sales that can naturally occur there, I think that's the exciting thing for me is just looking at how do you actually push that content and partner up with lots of different multi-channel content creators, basically, because everybody right now can be a publisher, can be an affiliate. And it's educating the mass populace about creating work for themselves, because essentially anybody can be an affiliate and anybody can earn revenue. Now, talking about the infrastructure, I mean, what is the payments situation like for affiliates? I mean, because obviously it's one thing to get affiliates into the program, but another thing, and this is obviously where you guys come in as a network to support that, what's the payment infrastructure like in order to pay affiliates? Are payments quite advanced like they are here in Europe, or is that what really what the network function is kind of taking care of for brands who want to enter the space?
SPEAKER_04Like you rightly said, payment is a little bit being facilitated by networks. But having said that, even in spite of that, we are not as fast or as prompt in most industries, you know, as it is in more evolved markets. So we definitely are not talking about daily and weekly payment structures at all. Okay. But the fastest that most networks can do is about net seven and it goes up to net 60 for different industries. But I would still say that it is much better than what it was, you know, about a decade and a half back when I got started. And I'm actually very happy, you know, to also tell you that B Commission was the first network in the industry to commit to pay affiliates on a net payment terms that did not depend on the payments that we were receiving. Yeah. So we were absolutely clear on the fundamental that as a network, when I take a cut, it definitely does not have to depend on whether the advertiser is paying me. If I am guaranteeing a net 60 or a net, I pay that irrespective of whether I receive payments or not. And that's my part to handle and not the affiliates.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's huge because if there are any European affiliates listening to this podcast, because we do speak to both affiliate managers and affiliates as well, that might be something that you want to consider as an affiliate entering that market. If you've got traffic in Asia and you want to work through a network, that is really a big key point, is if you're going to promote Indian brands, you can have that security of working through a network as well. Now, you and I recently spoke at the Indian Affiliate Summit together. And the hot topic on the table there was understanding when to begin to work with affiliates. And maybe we could talk about when to begin working with affiliates in India. So if we're talking to a maybe a European brand that might be listening to this podcast today, we're seeing lots of brands into the space to create performance marketing programs and who want to get into that um space and talk to that consumer populace, but few have the in-house expertise to actually go local. So, how would you advise new brands wanting to start to promote to Indian customers? Like where can they actually begin their journey? Obviously, through your network, but what are some of the top tips that you can give brands who want to enter this space?
SPEAKER_04So, brands looking to enter the Indian space if they require an offline leg, like for example, e-commerce companies or companies that are actually shipping physical products. I think the strategy for them would be different, and completely digital brands, it would be a different strategy. I think the strategy for them would be different, and completely digital brands, it would be a different strategy. So with completely uh digital brands, it just depends on the acceptance of the product. They need to do a little bit more research because India is still a very price-sensitive market. Okay. So whenever a completely digital brand is trying to launch in the Indian space, they need to make sure that if there is competition, then their pricing range and the product needs to be in sync to the competition if there exists in India. However, it's a little bit more complicated if the brand has an offline leg, because in India, still e-commerce and offline shopping is governed by cash on delivery, and there is a huge amount of return directly proportional to the time of delivery. So the more time you take to deliver the product, the more chances there are that product delivery might get cancelled or the consumer might not want to receive the product anymore. So I think with physical delivery, the brand needs to do a lot more research. However, with some cases, I've seen that the volume makes up to the profit margin because the CPAs, when the brand is trying to advertise, is comparatively lower than Western countries. So if we take the entire metric into consideration, it still makes you know profitability and it definitely increases the number of orders because of the size of the market. However, there are different factors like COD having personalized call center with capability of local languages. You know, these are the different touches that still need to be added in the Indian market to make sure that whatever product they're launching in the country is success.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's in the nail on the head because a lot of people forget about the customer service. They want to be able to ship the product to India or connect with the customer in India, but then the after-sale service is also very important. And obviously, India's got lots of different languages, different customs, different cultural differences in between different regions. So that's something that is similar to Africa as well. You know, it's it's even though it's one country, there's lots of different things that need to be considered in terms of really localizing and connecting with that audience. Are there any kind of like typical pitfalls that brands are encountering when working with affiliates in India? What's the kind of fraud stages? Because obviously that's the first thing that any affiliate manager thinks about is if I'm going to go into an emerging market, am I going to meet up with partners who are going to send us spam traffic or fraud clients or whatever the case may be? So what's your kind of take on where things are at in India at the moment in that respect?
SPEAKER_04I think the biggest bitfall is not choosing the right affiliates, but having uh a proper website local to the Indian region. Most advertisers or brands, what they do not consider is number one, the correct conversion of currency, and second, having local payment methods, even if it's digital payments, but having payment methods that are localized to the country and more widely accepted in the Indian region. I think if these two things are taken care of on the advertiser's Indian website and on the landing pages, then everything else can be taken care of. And it's, you know, plain T-shade affiliate marketing that the advertiser would run anywhere else in the world. Because for the quality of traffic, the quality of affiliates, I feel it's all a part of the churning process where initially we have to try everything and then refine to the mode that is giving us the best metric according to the expectation. For some, it could be CR, for some, it could be CTA, for some, bounce rate could matter a lot as well. So I think everything else can be taken care of by trial and error. And anyone entering the Indian market should definitely enter with an Indianized, you know, a version of their matrix. But the first and foremost thing that they should take care of is the right currency being displayed. Because if no matter what brand enters into the India region, if I see a dollar or a euro, you know, displayed on the website, I will not be sure of the currency charges or the forex charges that it might cost me, even if there are none. Then the second thing is ease of payment. So can I use my local debit card to pay? Can I use my local net banking account to pay apart from my credit card? So that I have more uh ways to pay, and then the chances of conversion rate going higher are much more. And then after having all these facilities for the affiliates as well as the consumer, then we should judge whether the conversion rates are right, whether the traffic is of the right quality, um, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so that all makes sense. It's pretty straight up standard affiliate marketing strategy, like getting the basics right, basically. And I'm a big believer there's no bad affiliate, there's only bad affiliate management. So doing your due diligence with partners, doing your checks and balances, making sure that your program can actually support those partners, pay them properly, give them the right terms and conditions to operate. And it's pretty standard across the world. I mean, this is one thing that I'm quite interested in is that even if you are awake in an emerging market, the same basic principles of good affiliate marketing apply. So, in addition to that, just as a kind of as we close all down, um very interesting chat that we've had today, what advice can you give to international brands to build successful affiliate marketing programs? So, what one of the top things that you would, in your expertise and being local, say are the three things that you need to get right if you want to launch a successful affiliate program in India?
SPEAKER_04The first one, which I've already given, is having uh personalized website, landing pages for the country and proper comfortable payment methods for the Indian consumer to pay. I think that's the most important one. The second one is pivoting uh their matrix to the country. I talk to a lot of brands that see maybe 40% lead to sales conversions, especially in the eye gaming sector. And when they enter India, they expect the same. If that's not how it can work in India, especially for a new brand, and when they don't even have the right payment modes in place. So I think resetting or pivoting the matrix of expectations when they are coming to India. I think when any international brand is entering India, they should use the first three months only to identify and experiment what their matrix should be. Either they can do it through the affiliate channel or they can use any other paid channel like Google or Facebook, whatever they feel is the best for their industry, and make a funnel which is customized to India and not try to replicate what they see in their home country to the Indian region because I think that's the biggest pitfall. And the third one I would say is start small but monitor and hand pick what you like and what you don't like without making a first-hand impression of whether affiliate marketing is working for you or not. Just random ballpark. If a brand is doing 10,000 conversions with an ex international network and they want to target the same with an Indian network, they should start small, maybe with 2000 or 2.500, break it down into what media is coming, and then hand pick that okay, in India this is working better, this is not. So let us try to scale this up to 10,000. Start small but with proper monitoring, and then evolve the affiliate program within the country. So if we try to do this, I can guarantee that brands may get a lot of success in the Indian subcontinent.
SPEAKER_02So you hear it here first, guys. Don't try and catch all and be all and go large. You need to start small and actually build your way depending on what's working for your. brand and really that's sound affiliate advice in any market. So it's it's really just the using your common sense as a strategist and getting in there and testing lots of different things. So my last question for you if I may is what's the one thing you think brands should be doing now to feature proof their affiliate marketing strategies, irrespective of where they are in the world? What is your take on affiliate marketing from your location? And what do you think brands should be doing to feature proof their strategies and continue to grow their partnerships and programs?
SPEAKER_04Well honestly being an entrepreneur myself and in diverse industries so my experience now is not limited to affiliate alone. I feel in our careers we tried to proofread our business plans for different circumstances but what we did not do is make our businesses COVID proof. And the past 18 to 20 months have been tough for a lot of businesses. So I feel at this point in time if I look at different brands if I look at my business what I would like to do is have a good mix of complete offline or complete online brands that we work with or channels that we work with and make it more hybrid. So that if any situation that causes the world or our country to halt we still have options to generate revenues and we don't fall into the pitfall of zero revenues or negative balance sheets. So I think that's the biggest learning that I myself have had in the last 18 uh you know months. I like to call it you know making your business COVID through absolutely I mean you know I think that's just sound advice.
SPEAKER_02It's sound business advice one entrepreneur speaking to another we were quite lucky because we were COVID proof like my business is set up as a remote working business and we have representatives all over the world. But I think that's the one beauty of working in affiliate marketing is that every single business owner that I speak to was able to pivot very quickly during this very trying time for businesses and affiliates in particular they were able to pivot their strategies, pivot their content, still earn revenue when they were maybe heavily invested in markets that shut down like the sports industry for example and for three months there was just absolutely no sports whatsoever. And even in e-commerce when companies couldn't ship when they couldn't get product out. And I think that is the beauty of working in the space is that it's constantly changing. We are constantly evolving. There's so much innovation around us from the affiliates that we work with and to the brands that partner with those relationships. So I think for me affiliate marketing is an exceptionally exciting industry to work in and I'm very excited to see how businesses like yours are going to you know expand and come in more into Europe even and leverage that expertise that you've got in India which is an incredibly exciting market to be looking at. So thank you so much for being on this podcast and sharing some of the insights that you shared with our audience today. It's been absolutely incredible to have you as an guest.
SPEAKER_03Thank you Leon the pleasure is mine performance next year and join us for our affiliate insider summit. Taking place on the 17th to 18th of January this free to register event will bring together a host of industry experts, brands and publishers from all sectors to discuss the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends. Or you can elect to join one of our paid for masterclasses and learn with industry experts how to master a variety of digital marketing skills. Amplify your performance at the Affiliate Insider Summit and register now at affiliateinsider.com and then click on Affiliate Insider Summit And that's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast. If you're loving what we're putting down in this series head on over to Apple iTunes and give us a five star rating and subscribe to our podcast channel so you never miss another insightful episode. Tune in next week for more digital marketing insights and traffic driving tips, tricks and strategies to keep your digital marketing fresh and your affiliate program driving consistent sales