How do businesses manage the continual influx of information? Various internal and external communication methods are vital to the success of an enterprise company.

Although the stages that consumers and employees go through may vary, a key goal of the communication process is to deliver the right messages and ensure all audiences understand them.

However, without effective communication, businesses can fall apart. Identifying barriers to successful business communication or devising efficient strategies can help improve corporate and brand communication.

To connect with employees and their target audiences, companies must effectively manage information flow and streamline workflows to ensure no communication is missed.

Let’s delve into why communication is crucial for business growth and how you can utilise dynamic communication tools and software to ensure effective interaction with your organisation’s stakeholders.

What Is Business Communication?

From a business perspective, companies use communication to process and deliver information to employees, clients, investors, partners, or the media.

Through business communication, companies can:

1. Disseminate information across various digital channels
2. Send information to multiple departments
3. Manage internal and external communications
4. Close business deals
5. Oversee organisational marketing tasks

Today, business communication extends beyond phone calls and paperwork. Technology has transformed how consumers, employees, and businesses interact. Now, information flows through various channels, including:

• Mobile devices
• Email
• Messaging programs
• IVR systems
• Chatbots

The diversity of businesses in the market results in various communication approaches, and the types and objectives of communication can differ from one company to another.

Here are some common communication outcomes companies aim for:

• Keeping Employees Informed: Providing essential information about the company’s offerings and training employees to communicate the company’s main benefits to customers and other audiences.
• Leveraging Leadership Communication: Leaders must maintain staff morale during meetings, team-building events, and daily interactions.
• Practicing Clarity: Clear communication is essential for high employee engagement and productivity levels. Clear communication on best practices motivates employees to meet KPIs and leverage current trends.
• Automating Marketing Processes: Approximately 58% of marketers highlight that timely communication is a key benefit of automation. Brands can enhance internal and external communication by accessing audience insights, personalising the customer journey, providing high-quality customer support, and pinpointing successful touchpoints.

As business communication is largely goal-oriented, brands often need to communicate specific rules, company policies, and regulations to employees, clients, and external stakeholders. While business communication can be complex, it is a foundational element for decision-making and a critical success factor for any company.

What Is the Role of Communication?

Every business has its own norms, rules, and regulations, many of which centre around internal communication. For example, improving how meetings are conducted can greatly improve team communication and collaboration.

Let’s explore how communication affects different areas of a business.

Fostering Everyday Decision-Making

Decision-making is a fundamental aspect of any business. Communication allows companies to connect with consumers and employees, share ideas and marketing solutions, discuss plans for product enhancement, and inspire ongoing learning among employees.

Running Effective Meetings

Meetings are a common practice for addressing daily work issues. The standards for these meetings depend on the specific team and organisation, but they are crucial for fostering strong internal relationships. One of the core functions of brainstorming sessions and team meetings is to tackle specific issues or solutions while company executives or team leaders ensure clarity in employee communication.

Connecting With Consumers

Direct contact has not been the sole method of attracting customers for some time. However, poor communication or bad timing can reduce conversion and retention rates. Effective marketing communication strategies depend on accurate audience segmentation and targeted messaging. Access to demographics and psychographics can enhance marketing efforts, narrow focus, and deliver relevant information to the right audiences.

Improving Employee Retention

Employees usually want to keep jobs they genuinely enjoy, but poor communication and lack of empathy can lead to higher turnover. Effective communication can either decrease or increase employee turnover. A supportive work environment and engaging employees in innovation meetings can help retain top talent.

The Principal Goal of Business Communication

The primary goal of business communication is to ensure clarity and understanding. Whether the receiver is a customer or an employee, they are on the receiving end of the communication process. Each receiver has specific feelings and ideas that influence their response. As a communicator, it’s important to be aware of these feelings and ideas, consider them, and craft messages that elicit the desired actions and reactions.

Business Communication Types

Historically, people have used a mix of verbal and nonverbal communication, even during phone calls. In business, message clarity also depends on visual and written communication. Delivering information in multiple forms simultaneously can be beneficial in face-to-face or virtual meetings, though it may not be practical for customer support interactions.

Internal Communication

Internal communication can be upward or downward, depending on the organisational hierarchy. Information from a subordinate to a manager is conveyed upwards, such as through surveys, sales reports, feedback forms, requests, or disputes. Downward communication occurs when superiors pass instructions to staff through managers, including job instructions, specific procedures, performance feedback, or onboarding documentation.

External Communication

External communication functions similarly. When a company needs to send essential data, such as annual reports, to stakeholders or business partners, it uses external upward communication. External downward communication happens when an external party, such as a stakeholder, initiates the communication process, including requests regarding sales indicators, product training, or joint marketing plans.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Business Communications

Assessing how effectively employees communicate is closely tied to measuring their level of engagement. These evaluations provide valuable insights into staff commitment, work ethics, and communication abilities. Active listening and effective communication are indispensable for employees across all business sectors. Without rapport and mutual understanding among coworkers, companies struggle to maintain high productivity and efficiency.

Employee Productivity

Evaluating employees’ communication skills and productivity is crucial for customer-facing companies in sectors like insurance, home services, or financial services.

Employing a marketing automation solution such as Call Logic, Phonexa’s call intelligence platform for call tracking and distribution, can enhance verbal communication processes. Call Logic enables businesses to track calls, utilise call data, address funnel leaks, and devise effective outbound call strategies.

Employee Engagement

Monitoring employee engagement levels is essential for every company. Key metrics may vary, but many organisations focus on open rates and click-through rates for internal communications.

Employee engagement surveys and feedback forms can provide data-driven insights into engagement levels. Establishing a benchmark can serve as a reference for future efforts. Additionally, short pulse surveys can gauge the emotional aspect of internal communications.

Based on feedback, HR departments or company executives can launch programmes or activities to support work-life balance and established workflows. These activities might include training programmes, sports events, or themed meetings to foster company spirit. Creating a supportive work environment allows staff to share feedback and suggest improvements.

Business Communication Trends

Progress in business communication continues unabated. Here are some current trends that businesses should follow to maintain thriving workspaces and drive growth.

Digital Workspaces

Modern workspaces are increasingly fluid, with collaboration occurring both digitally and in the office. One trend is the use of collaborative digital workspaces that enable staff to share ideas, co-edit documents, delegate tasks, and communicate in real-time.

Marketing Automation

Automation solutions help companies reduce hardware costs, improve customer relationship management, streamline workflows, share data across departments, and maintain a consistent business identity regardless of employees’ locations. From a communication perspective, marketing automation provides brands with critical customer data, allowing them to adjust marketing messages and maintain accuracy.

Messaging Services

Employees need direct communication with team members in addition to video calls and email threads. Messaging platforms like Slack enable staff to share information across teams effortlessly and can be easily integrated into digital workplaces.

The Pivotal Role of Business Communication

A brand’s success depends on effective information sharing within the business. Whether communication is verbal, nonverbal, visual, or written, learning to communicate effectively is vital for a company’s success.

Though complex, effective business communication can improve customer satisfaction, the company’s image, employee productivity, and engagement levels.

Book a demo and take an interactive product tour to learn how Phonexa enables companies to optimise their internal and external business communication and maximise efficiency and productivity.

Entrepreneurship centres on tackling business challenges, setting clear goals, and developing tailored solutions. Entrepreneurs naturally strive to excel in a highly competitive market by ensuring top-notch service quality, providing swift client responses, and achieving rapid results.

This is especially true for those in the SaaS industry, who aim to deliver value to users and become indispensable to their clients. One effective way to achieve this is through white-label solutions.

The Benefits of White Label Solutions

White-label marketing has been around for a while, but the demand for these solutions has surged recently. Marketing agencies, in particular, are seeking white-label marketing automation tools that cover a variety of practices and strategies. The primary purpose of a white-label tool is to simplify labour-intensive tasks specific to different channels, such as campaign tracking, data analytics interpretation, and detailed report creation.

Digital agencies aim to maximise each channel’s potential, focusing their efforts and marketing budgets on those capable of generating high-quality leads, improving conversion rates, and increasing ROI. Accountability is crucial to their effectiveness and long-term success. White-label tools empower brands to meet this need. Brands can resell and reuse SaaS products while leveraging their reporting and data-capturing capabilities.

Ultimately, white labelling can help agencies boost productivity and maintain revenue. However, agencies may miss potential call conversions and the significant data generated by call campaigns. Without tracking calls or analysing call data, they lack insights into their overall marketing efforts. Implementing white-label call tracking can resolve this issue.

White Label Call Tracking for Agencies

Every business must identify which adverts, channels, campaigns, or keywords deliver a return. With white-label call tracking solutions, businesses can adopt more efficient marketing practices without the need for restrictive software installations.

Utilise Comprehensive Marketing Tools

Agencies often rely on a specific set of marketing tools to perform their tasks and deliver quick results to their clients.

White-label partnerships offer effective tools that save time, effort, and money. For instance, if you need an advanced call tracking solution for your clients, developing one from scratch would involve creating a user-friendly dashboard, establishing a data-driven call routing system, providing detailed attribution data, and more.

Having a white-label partner allows you to maximise the use of these tools and service features while conserving your resources.

Expand Your Knowledge Base

You don’t need to steepen your learning curve or stray from your core business unless you choose to. Instead, you can use your time and budget to enhance your primary products while letting white labelling manage all your call tracking tasks.

Take Advantage of Product Line Extension

While focusing on your expertise is crucial, white labelling allows agencies to diversify their product offerings and increase their revenue. This approach helps you avoid production costs and the risks associated with product failures.

Strengthen Brand Authority

Expanding your product range doesn’t automatically lead to higher revenue or a stronger brand identity. White labelling is an excellent strategy for agencies of all sizes looking to solidify their market position and help their clients fully capitalise on every lead generated.

Enhance Client Retention

It’s well-known that call tracking helps brands retain clients and maximise every lead. For digital agencies, generating high-quality leads and delivering quick results to clients is vital. This is why businesses engage agencies’ services.

Using call tracking as a white-label solution can facilitate more informed decisions and help businesses allocate more resources to the most effective channels.

Gain Insights Into Every Lead

Call intelligence platforms like Phonexa’s Call Logic are typically equipped with tracking and analytics features that allow brands to link customer digital journeys to incoming calls. This can be achieved by using call tracking numbers provided by white-label solutions, which can draw more attention and target audience segments in specific regions.

If you want to reap the benefits of white labelling, book a demo or take a product tour today.

For those who recall watching television in the early 1990s and 2000s, the mention of 1-800-COLLECT will undoubtedly evoke memories of iconic TV adverts featuring Phil Hartman, Ed O’Neill, and Mr. T. Although mobile phones have made the service largely obsolete, it still operates today, albeit not as cost-effective as it once was – evidenced by a report of a man who incurred over $42 for a 6-minute call.

1-800-COLLECT is a prime example of a vanity number – a memorable and effective phone number for businesses. As mentioned, using collect calls in 2022 is about as practical as giving someone the pager number for your typewriter business. However, vanity numbers remain incredibly valuable for marketers. Companies like 1-800-FLOWERS have leveraged vanity numbers to generate significant revenue.

It’s beneficial to delve deeper into what vanity numbers are and why they hold such value.

What Is a Vanity Telephone Number?

A vanity number is a telephone number customised to spell out something specific. Examples include 1-877-Kars4Kids or 1-800-DENTIST. These numbers are designed to be easy to remember and stick in consumers’ minds.

Typically, a toll-free number will start with the number “8,” such as 800 or 855, indicating that callers will not be charged for the call. In addition to signalling a toll-free call, an 800 number is generally easier to recall.

Benefits of Using Vanity Phone Numbers

There are many reasons why these numbers are advantageous for marketers. Due to the long-standing recognition of 1-800 numbers, a vanity number can lend a sense of legitimacy to small businesses. For example, our number at Phonexa is 844-PHONEXA. It’s simple to remember and helps with branding.

Primarily, vanity numbers are highly valued for their memorability. A straightforward vanity number, repeated frequently or paired with a catchy jingle, is far more likely to be remembered than a random string of numbers associated with a company name. It’s widely known that numbers are harder to remember than words. You probably remember the names of your childhood friends more easily than their phone numbers or home addresses.

A vanity number that spells out a word gives businesses a distinct advantage. If you’re comparing two landscaping companies, one with the number 888-555-0124 and the other with 1-888-CUT-LAWN, which one are you more likely to remember a day later? Or even at the end of this paragraph?

These numbers are particularly useful because they can be tracked and linked to specific marketing campaigns. Vanity numbers can also be tailored to local area codes, enabling you to reserve a number familiar to a specific market. Local tracking numbers are a tremendous asset for anyone running campaigns in different media markets. The campaign will target each local market and provide data back to marketers. Having this information is crucial for those seeking a clear picture of their return on investment.

Vanity numbers enable companies to stand out significantly and integrate seamlessly with your call tracking platform. They help raise brand awareness and enhance the professional image of companies. Most importantly, vanity numbers ensure your company’s number is easily remembered by consumers.

If vanity numbers from outdated 1990s collect calling companies can remain in the public’s memory, a vanity number can certainly help your business stay on today’s consumers’ minds.

Phonexa offers thousands of affordable toll-free and vanity numbers for your marketing campaigns.

Get Insights Into Your Calls with Phonexa

Our Call Logic platform features advanced call tracking, analytics, and other marketing tools that provide insights into your calls and marketing campaigns. These tools help you make smarter optimisations and boost your ROI.

Ready to streamline your marketing campaigns, increase call volumes, and boost conversion rates?

Book a demo or take an interactive product tour to learn more about Phonexa.

Frequently Asked Questions

Digital partnerships play a crucial role in achieving rapid business growth. From a business development standpoint, strategic alliances can help any brand attract more attention, drive growth, increase sales, and generate affiliate leads.

It’s well-known that lead generation is a proven promotional method for any service, product, or content. However, lead generation through affiliate marketing is where brands often discover the power of underestimated and overlooked tactics.

Let’s delve into how brands can harness the potential of lead generation affiliate marketing and utilise innovative technology solutions to achieve impressive results.

Brands & Affiliate Partnerships

When discussing affiliate marketing, it often brings to mind publishers seeking to monetise their websites through popular programmes like AdSense.

Here’s a brief but entirely accurate history of the affiliate marketing industry:

A decade ago, many businesses and marketers did not take cost-per-action or pay-per-lead affiliate programmes seriously. This is understandable, as the industry had a poor reputation at the time and wasn’t widely integrated into the marketing strategies of Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart or Amazon.

Despite this, numerous affiliate niches have grown over the years, making it evident that many brands have missed out on high-quality affiliate leads and exceptional marketing opportunities.

In 2010, affiliate marketing spending in the U.S. alone totalled $1.6 billion. By 2022, this spending was estimated to reach $8.2 billion.

Over the past 12 years, marketing plans have undergone a significant transformation, as have standard MarTech stacks and technology solutions. Consequently, the way marketing experts serve ads and generate affiliate leads has also changed considerably.

Contrary to popular belief, affiliate marketing’s real strength lies in its lead generation potential. Identifying high-quality affiliate marketing leads remains a challenging task, which is why brands typically rely on essential lead generation components and technology solutions.

The Lead Generation Affiliate Marketing Process: Key Components

The leads generated through affiliate marketing are crucial to the lead generation process. Pay-per-lead affiliate programmes, for example, help brands acquire a greater number of paying clients. However, it’s not enough to simply capture these leads; they must be carefully evaluated and qualified by brands. So, how can businesses ensure this?

Let’s explore some essential technology solutions and components of the process:

• Lead Channels and Sources: If you are new to the industry, remember this golden rule: never limit yourself to one or two channels. The most effective approach is to test all available channels and identify the best-performing ones. Once identified, focus on generating a consistent stream of leads from those sources.
• Click Tracking Software: Utilising click tracking software is fundamental in lead generation and affiliate marketing. Without it, tracking offers, traffic, conversions, and clicks is impossible. Phonexa’s click tracking software, Lynx, collects all the essential data about visitors and performs real-time performance analysis.

• Marketing Database: This is arguably the most important element of the lead generation process. Even the most appealing campaign won’t be effective without a robust marketing database. Affiliate marketing can greatly assist in this regard, as it remains one of the most reliable ways to enrich your lead generation database.
• Lead Management System: Optimised strategies are at the heart of the lead management process. Every marketer needs access to detailed lead information to make informed decisions and successfully optimise active campaigns. Implementing an effective lead management system, such as Phonexa’s LMS Sync, will optimise your efforts and enhance your revenue.

Why Use Affiliate Marketing To Generate Leads

Capturing leads involves gathering user data and gaining insights into your audience. However, this information must be used effectively to enhance your engagement and nurturing strategies; otherwise, it holds little value. By employing affiliate marketing techniques, brands can significantly boost the effectiveness of their lead generation campaigns.

Here’s an illustrative example to understand how marketing experts leverage lead generation affiliate marketing:

Suppose your brand creates an offer, such as a service discount. Here’s how it works:

1. The goal of the offer is to gather specific user information. Users receive a discount in return for providing their personal data. It’s crucial to target the right audience and avoid wasting resources.
2. Your company designs a landing page detailing this offer. At this stage, it’s important to accurately showcase your brand, its features, and its benefits.
3. Affiliates then drive traffic to this landing page, bringing in targeted leads. The payment can be based on visits, leads, conversions, etc.
4. Finally, your company collects the user information, evaluates the leads, nurtures them, and converts them into customers.

When running cost-per-action or pay-per-lead affiliate programmes, it’s essential for brands to focus on strategy, authenticity, reliability, and proper execution. When done correctly, affiliate marketing channels become highly effective sources of leads and new clients.

Final Considerations

Affiliate marketing and lead generation are no longer seen as separate entities. Today, all marketing strategies are interconnected and complementary, making the distinction between them largely academic.

If you’re a marketer aiming to generate higher-quality leads and build optimised marketing strategies, consider exploring lead generation through affiliate marketing. This approach allows you to extract insights and value from every lead.

Did you know phone calls are equally popular among all age groups? Around 29% of millennials, 31% of Generation Z, and 32% of baby boomers contact companies via phone, a great income source to tap into if you are an affiliate marketer.

Indeed, pay-per-call affiliate marketing – generating and selling calls as an affiliate or buying and converting calls as an advertiser – is a goldmine for those who know how to acquire phone calls at scale while optimizing the journey of every client.

via GIPHY

And I’m going to lead you through this journey, starting with the basics of pay-per-call marketing and expanding into how you can maximise your phone lead acquisition and conversion potential.

Pay-Per-Call Affiliate Marketing Explained

Pay-per-call marketing – buying or selling phone calls – isn’t different from buying or selling web leads: advertisers run an affiliate program while affiliates generate phone calls within these programs. More often than not, the partnership between affiliates and advertisers is mediated by an affiliate network that creates a market for both sides, connecting the former with the latter.

Likewise, an affiliate network may provide software that attributes the referred clients to their affiliates, collects real-time and strategic insights on the traffic, and helps connect the right caller to the right live operator. Alternatively, you can get this software from a pay-per-call service provider like Phonexa.

Here are some of the best pay-per-call niches:

Pay-per-call marketing is omnipresent, covering hundreds of industries and niches. For the mentioned niches, though, selling and buying call traffic is especially profitable.

How Pay-Per-Call Affiliate Marketing Works

With pay-per-call affiliate marketing, you can set up the acquisition process once and reap its benefits for a long time, especially if you partner with an affiliate network or several networks to ensure the traffic you need is always there.

Moreover, in most cases, you can buy phone calls AND web leads within the same affiliate network and route the most profitable callers to your best-performance sales reps while factoring in the caller’s location, language, and other demographic factors.

The same goes for affiliates. You can sell your traffic to relevant advertisers within your affiliate network while ensuring the clients you generate are routed to a matching business.

Now, let’s explore how affiliate marketing works in detail.

Phase 1 – Affiliate Marketers Join an Affiliate Network

Advertisers and affiliates can partner directly, but it’s much easier to join an affiliate network that provides hundreds of potential partners and thousands of leads. For example, Amazon Associates unites over 900,000 affiliates, ShareASale – 700,000, and Awin – 225,000.

Source: Statista

Smaller pay-per-call companies can also win their places under the sun, especially when it comes to pay-per-call local lead generation. They can provide advanced tracking technologies, lower fees, high-quality traffic, high conversion rates, etc.

Phase 2 – Advertisers and Affiliates Set Their Goals

For advertisers, setting goals boils down to writing an affiliate program that lists all the terms & conditions for the traffic they want to get: the payment model – pay per click, pay per sale, pay per lead, etc. – the commission structure, the payment terms, and possible limitations like only accepting calls from specific states.

Affiliates can choose the products they want to promote based on their niche, commission size, and other nuances. Likewise, pay-per-call networks usually provide customisable creative materials – banners, landing pages, call guides, scripts, etc. – and call tracking numbers.

Phase 3 – The Choice of Call Tracking Numbers

There are numerous ways to initiate a call, from click-to-call ads on social media, blogs, and search results to traditional advertising channels like TV, but it’s also important that the generated call is attributed to you. For that, call tracking numbers are used.

➥   Call tracking numbers are unique numbers issued by advertisers in order to attribute incoming traffic to the right affiliate and gain insights into this traffic.

Here are the main types of call tracking numbers:

Сall tracking numbers can be static and dynamic. Static numbers are the same for every caller, while dynamic numbers change depending on the caller’s location, source, or other details.

The technology used in dynamic call tracking numbers is called dynamic number insertion (DNI), allowing advertisers to segment inbound calls while routing them to the best-fitting agent. On the caller’s side, nothing happens: the same smooth call experience.

Phase 4 – Affiliates Generate Call Traffic

After receiving call tracking numbers, affiliates can promote them to their audience, albeit with possible limitations. Depending on the affiliate program, advertisers may only accept calls from specific traffic sources, demographics, etc.

Pay-per-call networks unite hundreds of advertisers, so affiliates can sell calls of different origins, qualities, and intents. At the same time, traffic with a lower expected conversion rate is usually cheaper than calls likelier to convert.

Phase 5 – Qualified Calls Connect to Advertisers

An important part of pay-per-call affiliate marketing is that all incoming calls are vetted before being delivered to the advertisers. Next, a vetted call goes directly to a live operator or an IVR system for qualification.

Speaking of an IVR system, it can be of tremendous help in the context of call routing, especially if you’ve designed a call distribution tree that takes into account all essential details of your campaigns: caller location, language, gender, etc. as well as the availability, expertise, and performance of your agents.

Phase 6 – Affiliates Receive Their Share of the Profits

Phone calls that match the advertiser’s parameters are sold to the advertiser. However, not all calls that came through count as a conversion; for example, an advertiser may only pay for the calls that lasted 30 or 60 seconds, not counting shorter calls as conversions.

Is Pay-Per-Call Better Than Pay-Per-Lead and Pay-Per-Click?

Phone calls are not inherently better than web leads or clicks. Phone calls have higher conversion rates, but they are also more difficult to generate and are more expensive. So it’s more about how well you can convert what you buy: calls, leads, or clicks.

Buying phone calls is an easier choice when you need high-intent leads. Callers are usually purchase-prone buyers who might only need a final nudge. For the same reason, phone calls show better results in high-value sales.

The Advantages of Pay-Per-Call Affiliate Marketing

Buying phone calls may be more expensive than web leads or clicks, but it’ll surely pay off if you have strong sales agents, call tracking software, and an IVR system that qualifies callers and collects marketable caller insights before the call.

Here are some core advantages of pay-per-call affiliate marketing:

Many pay-per-call affiliate programs provide extra benefits to affiliates: high commissions, tiered affiliate structures, two-way incentives (when the referred clients also get a bonus), customisable creative materials, call tracking software, and more.

The commission size varies from 1% to 50% per sale and more. However, I wouldn’t recommend judging a program by its commission size only – make sure the other conditions allow you to consistently generate and sell high-quality traffic.

Here are some obstacles you might have to overcome to generate pay-per-call traffic:

The good news is that most disadvantages of generating or buying calls can be mitigated by choosing the right pay-per-call numbers and affiliate software.

Unleashing Your Pay-Per-Call Potential in 3 Steps

1.  Choose a Profitable Niche You’re Strong At

Affiliate marketing spans hundreds of niches, but not all have the same revenue potential. Niches like insurance, finance, home services, and solar are incredible for affiliate marketing – for example, the finance industry is growing by around 11% per year – whereas low-cost retail products might not be a good fit.

If you don’t have any preferences, choose a broader niche with high commercial value and low competition. Besides, make sure you have at least some interest in the niche.

2.  Choose the Right Pay-Per-Call Affiliate Program

I’ve already touched on a few of the factors to consider when choosing your affiliate program:

• Commissions and expected conversion rates
• Background, reputation, and trust
• Features like tiered rewards and two-way incentives
• Creative materials and call tracking software

One item deserving special attention is software.

Call Logic Software for Affiliates and Advertisers

Phonexa’s underlying product for phone calls, Call Logic, includes everything you need to acquire and convert more calls: IVR, call tracking, analytics, predictive modelling, and more.

No less important, Call Logic includes call recording software for pay-per-call campaigns, so you can access every call for reevaluation. Likewise, you can choose what calls or parts you want to record; for example, calls from specific locations or when a keyword is mentioned.

The Call Logic product is only a small part of Phonexa’s bigger affiliate & performance marketing software suite, but it already has enough to take your phone calls to the next level. For more dedicated marketers, you might also need a Cloud PBX phone system.

Cloud PBX Software for Affiliates and Advertisers

Phonexa’s VoIP-driven virtual Cloud PBX is a fully-fledged private phone system that will help you unroll a cloud call centre at a fraction of the price of installing a traditional landline phone system.

Having set up Cloud PBX once – without additional installation costs – you can process dozens and hundreds of inbound and outbound calls simultaneously while giving your agents a head start in the conversation and synergising call insights with seven other products.

Ping Post Call 2.0 Software for Affiliate Networks

To beat the competition, pay-per-call affiliate networks implement advanced lead distribution technologies like ping tree, which allows advertisers to receive a part of the caller’s information before they buy the call.

Here’s how ping tree marketplaces work:

One of the major problems with older systems is that affiliates don’t get much info about advertisers, which significantly reduces their profits. Phonexa’s Ping Post Calls 2.0 solves this problem by unlocking four crucial pieces of information for affiliates: bidding structure, pricing method, the buyer’s phone number, and how long the call should last to count as a sale (call duration to sell).

3.  Make Sure the Most Suitable Live Operator Takes the Call

As the call volume grows, you need an IVR system to pre-qualify callers and independently solve smaller requests like subscription renewal or payment confirmation.

In addition to having an IVR system, you also need a call routing system that ensures optimal call distribution for your business. A lot of factors should be taken into account, so you’ll have to configure your call routing tree individually while factoring in all your campaigns.

Your Best Software Suite for Generating and Converting Phone Calls at Phonexa

Phonexa offers an eight-in-one performance marketing software suite that covers your affiliate and traditional marketing campaigns from top to bottom. Whether you are an affiliate, advertiser, or affiliate network representative, you can grow immensely from eight well-coordinated solutions around web leads and phone calls.

Here’s more about Phonexa:

Here are the eight proprietary solutions you will get for your pay-per-call and traditional marketing campaigns, all at a single price starting at £100 per month (price calculator):

Take a product tour to learn more about Phonexa, or build your plan now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Many of our neighbours are installing new HVAC systems and solutions. It’s not just them, though; people worldwide are increasingly concerned about indoor temperature and air quality.

This trend has made HVAC marketing a priority for numerous savvy business owners. For those in the advertising sector, the goal remains the same: win the hearts of your prospects and leads to convert them into paying customers. While this seems straightforward, the ever-growing competition and rapidly evolving technologies make it challenging. However, challenging doesn’t mean impossible.

Here are five effective marketing strategies for HVAC companies to stay ahead of the competition.

1. Create a Comprehensive HVAC Marketing Plan

Regardless of your chosen advertising methods — whether it’s word-of-mouth, social media, email marketing, affiliate management platforms, or a combination — you cannot launch an HVAC marketing campaign without a well-thought-out plan. This plan should detail how, where, and to whom you will advertise.

Here’s how you can create your HVAC marketing plan:

1. Identify Your Advertising Channels: Depending on your business and market, you might opt for traditional HVAC marketing strategies (printed media, postcards, direct mail, etc.), digital marketing (website, SEO, email, social media, affiliate networks, etc.), or a combination of both. To choose the most effective advertising methods for your HVAC business, you need to research and quantify the potential reach of each marketing tool you plan to use.
2. Consider Industry Specifics: Marketing for HVAC companies shares similarities with marketing for other industries, but it cannot be copied blindly. HVAC marketing is subject to seasonality, so heating and cooling marketing efforts will vary throughout the year. Winter might be more effective for heating advertisements, while summer could be the best time to promote air conditioning solutions.
3. Determine Your Budget: Whether you allocate your budget by season, marketing channel, or target audience, you need realistic figures to set achievable goals. This ensures you have sufficient funds to capitalise on your HVAC business opportunities.

A well-defined HVAC marketing plan will revitalise your marketing efforts, maximise the return on investment, and ensure the best customer journey for your clients.

2. Begin with an Engaging HVAC Website

Did you know that 96% of your website visitors aren’t ready to purchase? Even those who show interest need an extra nudge.

Here’s your on-site HVAC marketing strategy to convert more prospects into customers:

• Emphasise Value: With ever-shortening attention spans, you have about eight seconds to capture your prospects’ interest before they move on. Deliver your message promptly without lengthy introductions or irrelevant content. Keep it concise, engaging, and conversational.
• Use Effective Calls to Action: Make it clear to your visitors where they can find what they need. Short, descriptive, well-placed CTAs surrounded by valuable content will boost your sales. For example, a concise, inviting CTA can significantly increase engagement.

Source: ABS Heating and Air Conditioning

• Incorporate Persuasive Hooks: Since 95% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously, psychological triggers can be highly effective. Here are some techniques to convince prospects that you are their best choice:
  • Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): The idea of missing out on a beneficial product drives people to make a purchase. Limited offers, countdown timers, and other FOMO elements can help increase conversions.
  • Loss Aversion: People dislike losing what they already have more than they enjoy acquiring new things. To leverage this, offer a free trial or monthly subscription and then transition to a paid service.
  • Simplified Choices: Surprisingly, offering fewer options can increase your conversion rate by preventing decision paralysis. Limiting your offerings to a few relevant choices can help avoid overwhelming your prospects.
• Reciprocity: By offering something valuable, you can encourage your customers to reciprocate by subscribing, sharing, providing feedback, or making a purchase.
• Customise Your Content: HVAC is often considered a necessary but unwelcome expense, so your content must be precise. Tailor your content to fit the specific needs of your segmented audience. Ensure your website has sections for all target buyers to avoid generalisation.

Remember, your website is your primary conversion tool and the centre of your business operations.

Source: Brody Pennell Heating & Air Conditioning

3. Enhance Your Website’s SEO and Improve Local Search Visibility

Many HVAC customers begin their search journey on Google, making search engine optimisation, particularly local SEO, essential. Here are your key on-site SEO tools:

• Clear Website Structure: A well-organised XML sitemap, along with title tags and meta descriptions, will make your website more appealing to search engine crawlers, likely improving your rankings across various keywords.
• Optimised Google Business Profile: A thoroughly completed Google My Business page allows for direct communication with customers and is a guaranteed way to boost your local search rankings and gain insights into how customers discover you.
• Effective Geofencing: By using geofencing targeting, you can concentrate on high-intent local customers by restricting ad displays to specific GPS radii and radio frequencies. For instance, during the summer heat, you can target every lead within a 20-mile radius to promote limited-time offers on cooling systems.
• Relevant Transactional Keywords: Your keywords should not only be SEO-optimised but also pertinent to local searches. For example, if you are based in Florida, keywords like “affordable HVAC systems in Florida” are more likely to attract customers than “HVAC systems in the US.” Additionally, always consider the competition level when determining which keywords to promote.

Just as with email marketing, each SEO strategy should enhance the value of your content. You may be able to trick Google’s algorithms, but you cannot deceive your prospects and leads.

4. Cultivate Your Email Subscribers

Since the first emails were sent in the 1970s, email marketing has evolved into a $10-billion industry with immense potential. With 306 billion emails being exchanged daily, capturing even a small fraction can lead to success.

Three key aspects of effective HVAC email marketing are:

However, the basics may not suffice. You might need something extra to stand out in the crowded inbox. Consider using AMP-powered emails, for example.

• AMP technology allows for in-email purchases and real-time content updates, enabling recipients to get precise information at every open (e.g., the number of seats left on a flight) and make purchases without leaving the email.

Additionally, you can differentiate yourself with engaging subject lines, compelling CTAs, and interactive content such as quizzes, calculators, and infographics. Regardless of the tools used,  you should stay focused on the relevance and quality of your content, as these are the primary drivers of sales.

5. Harness the Potential of Social Media

With over 82% of Americans maintaining at least one social media profile and the user base growing by approximately 2% annually, you can’t afford to overlook more than three-quarters of your audience.

Here’s how you can enhance your HVAC social media marketing:

• Create a Business Profile for Each Social Account: Business profiles on social media offer more features to help convert your followers. Fortunately, managing a social media profile isn’t more complex than running a website: prioritise quality over quantity, be consistent, and uphold your brand image.
• Utilise Paid Social Ads to Gain More Customers: Slideshows, carousels, images, and paid ads can attract more prospects with minimal commitment and no risk. There’s no minimum price for paid ads; you can pause the campaign whenever you wish.
• Generate Buzz: Shareable visuals, provocative ideas, thought-provoking facts, interviews with influencers, pre-launch contests, giveaways — there are countless ways to engage your followers.

HVAC-related content might be less engaging than food, fashion, or pets, but that doesn’t mean you should remain silent. Engaging HVAC social media posts can boost brand awareness, gather valuable customer data, and convert some of your followers.

6. Accumulate as Many Online Reviews as Possible

Online reviews are a readily accessible promotional tool for HVAC businesses. When people shop, they seek out reviews, recommendations, and the experiences of other buyers with the product.

• Online research precedes 87% of buying decisions
• Prospects read approximately 10 reviews before making a purchase decision
• 88% of customers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations

To incorporate social proof into your HVAC marketing, include case studies, testimonials, reviews, awards, integrations, feedback from customers and influencers, and user-generated content. Websites like Google allow you to request reviews — do so unobtrusively, encouraging your customers to reciprocate rather than feeling pressured. Here are a few strategies to garner more reviews for your HVAC company:

• Activate All Major HVAC Review Websites: Register and maintain your presence on as many review sites as possible, such as Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, and Home Advisor. Respond to both positive and negative reviews.
• Provide Incentives: Bonuses are an effective advertising tool for HVAC businesses. Nothing motivates customers more than a discount on an air conditioner during a heatwave. Many of your customers will gladly leave feedback in exchange for saving a few hundred dollars.
• Ask for Reviews After the Service: Add a review link to your invoices and receipts as a gentle reminder for customers to leave feedback.

7. Participate in SaaS Affiliate Marketing 

The U.S. spent $8.2 billion on affiliate marketing in 2022, making affiliate networks one of the top marketing strategies for HVAC companies. And why not? An affiliate network opens up thousands of high-intent leads and allows you to manage affiliate links and track affiliate sales to ensure you receive the expected returns. Whether you’re buying or selling HVAC leads, affiliate software automates the process while considering your preferences: the number of leads to buy or sell, the price per lead, and the lead’s profile (such as demographics and exclusivity).

Here’s how you can find a suitable affiliate programme:

• Check the programme feedback. To avoid low-quality programmes and scams, research the programme’s background and reputation before diving into the technicalities.
• Assess the Technical Aspects:

1. Consider the revenue model. Choose from various payment models like Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale, Pay Per Impression, and Pay Per Lead that align with your goals and budget.
2. Estimate conversion rates. While exact conversion rates are unpredictable, even approximate figures can guide you in deciding whether the programme is worthwhile.
3. Evaluate the Toolkit. Review the programme’s lead generation tools and affiliate tracking systems to ensure they meet your requirements.

• Review the Agreement: Read through the programme’s terms and conditions thoroughly.

The advantage is that you can always join a free trial affiliate programme to test if this type of HVAC business marketing suits you, making informed decisions once you’ve weighed the risks and potential benefits.

Maximising Your Affiliate Income with an Affiliate Tracking System

Tracking your affiliates is essential as it allows you to compare the performance of different traffic sources — both in terms of quality and quantity — enabling smarter marketing decisions. This approach enhances your ROI and establishes you as a trustworthy affiliate partner.

• Any automated affiliate tracking programme will import all affiliate data into an affiliate marketing dashboard, enabling real-time assessment and adjustment of your strategies.

Affiliate tracking programmes have elevated HVAC marketing to a new level, where advertisers and publishers can rely on data rather than guesswork.

Automate Your HVAC Marketing with Phonexa

Automation reigns supreme in today’s marketing landscape, and HVAC businesses are no exception.

• More than half of all businesses utilise automation to enhance their marketing efforts
• Automation software generates four times more qualified leads
• 77% of marketers achieve higher conversion rates using marketing software

Whether your HVAC company operates locally or internationally, scaling is only possible through automation of tasks that can be streamlined. Among its range of products, Phonexa’s software suite includes:

• LMS Sync for lead tracking, distribution, and analytics. Depend on consistent leads to sustain your business, utilising lead data to identify top-performing HVAC marketing channels and measure conversion rates. LMS Sync maximises lead potential and opens avenues for new revenue streams.
  • Begin by tracking leads to identify successful marketing channels.
  • Next, distribute captured leads to the most suitable sales representative, ensuring a seamless customer journey.
  • Finally, refine ongoing campaigns and develop new ones with analytics tools such as real-time reporting.

• Call Logic for call tracking, distribution, and analytics. Whether leads are captured through pay-per-click campaigns, offline HVAC marketing, or social media, trace every caller’s journey to you. Real-time reports enable trend-spotting, resource allocation optimisation, customer journey enhancement, and strategy identification for generating more call leads.

• E-Delivery for email and SMS HVAC marketing. Simplify email and SMS outreach with E-Delivery, assessing campaign results across recipient groups. Seamlessly integrate with your Email Service Provider (EPS) to gather data, compile reports, and evaluate deliverability metrics.

Book a demo to discover how Phonexa can assist in marketing your HVAC business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Entrepreneurs, online enterprises, and marketers constantly seek low-risk ways to promote their offerings. Oftentimes, a performance-based strategy is the most effective, making affiliate marketing a crucial component of a company’s approach.

Brands have leveraged this advertising model and various affiliate marketing tools for years to drive high-quality traffic and secure leads. Amazon, notably, brought this practise into the mainstream with its now well-known affiliate marketing programme.

The reason affiliate marketing is so popular is simple—it guarantees high ROI and relatively fast business growth. In 2021, the global affiliate marketing platform market reached $157 million. Since then, it has been projected to grow at 9.89% CAGR and reach $277 million by 2027.

It’s logical for businesses to be willing to tap into the potential of affiliate marketing, given that brands that employ affiliate marketing tools are equipped to significantly improve the positioning of their services and products on the market.

But understanding how to apply affiliate marketing techniques is one thing; utilising the right affiliate marketing tools is another.

Here are some effective resources utilised by today’s top affiliate marketers:

• Banners for affiliate marketing
• GIF and HTML5 banners
• Affiliate images
• Text links
• Engaging video content
• Virtual chatbots
• Affiliate campaign tracking
• Affiliate campaign analytics

Let’s delve into how top affiliate marketing tools can assist businesses in crafting attractive and essential ad creatives, accurately tracking their performance, and achieving their marketing objectives.

Banners for Affiliate Marketing

Banner ads remain among the most popular ad creative types in the affiliate marketing industry. Despite issues like banner blindness and the prevalence of ad blockers, the use of banner ads is rising. This trend is largely driven by consumers’ increasing appetite for image-based content and their ability to process visual information more quickly.

Launching and managing banner ad campaigns on various ad networks allows businesses to advertise their brand across both their own websites and external platforms. A single glance at a banner can convey all the essential information to visitors at that moment.

Here are sample lead generation and remarketing banner ads.

With the right tools, affiliate marketers and dedicated teams can produce both static and dynamic banner ads design. However, alongside high-quality design, it is essential to have excellent content to support it.

Branding elements help businesses establish identity, maintain consistency, and foster trust. Therefore, when designing any creative ad, it is important to incorporate a logo, brand name, colour palette, typography, slogans, and other brand elements.

GIF and HTML5 Banners

The more frequently prospects and customers encounter your company logo or marketing offers in advertisements, the more they will recognise your brand by its colour scheme or slogan.

GIFs and HTML5 banners tend to attract more attention and have higher conversion rates due to their interactivity.

Affiliate marketing tools like Canva and Google Web Designer are useful for meeting current design needs, whether you want to create dynamic or static banners.

Affiliate Images

It’s undeniable that images are a proven method for capturing your audience’s attention.

Basic stock photos can boost the effectiveness of blogs, social media posts, and landing pages. In some instances, affiliate images are used in teaser ads, with or without text, to pique the target audience’s interest and generate buzz around the brand.

However, do not rely solely on stock graphics. Instead, consider using photo editors like Pixlr or Photoshop to adjust or create more complex layouts.

Text Links

Text links are extensively used in content such as reviews, how-to guides, or listicles created by third parties or affiliates.

More than 80% of marketing experts claim that the number of affiliate link clicks is one of the most commonly tracked metric.s Brands and affiliate partners utilise links to advertise specific offers in email marketing campaigns, blogs, social media, and other marketing avenues.

Phonexa’s Lynx can assist in measuring impressions, tracking digital sales, and acquiring the leads your advertisers require. Link tracking is a crucial affiliate marketing tool that enables users to pinpoint the best-performing links and analyse real-time data on their web traffic.

Videos for Affiliate Content

Given that videos significantly influence purchasing behaviour and decisions, marketers use video’s power to create:

• Product reviews
• Webinars
• Ads
• Guides
• Captivating content

Incorporating webinars and video reviews into affiliate marketing campaigns can significantly enhance brand awareness, foster business growth, and generate affiliate leads. For those aiming to produce marketing videos for YouTube or social media platforms, Renderforest offers the tools needed to create captivating and unforgettable content.

Chatbots for Affiliate Marketing

Today’s consumers favour multiple communication options, including live chatbots, which enable businesses to interact with clients through various channels such as messaging apps, SMS, and websites.

Some of the advantages chatbots offer include:

• High-Quality Support
• Affiliate Campaign Performance
• Improved Lead Generation

By using affiliate marketing tools like Landbot or OmniChat, brands can quickly develop chatbots and integrate them across different messaging platforms via API connections.

Campaign Tracking

Managing and optimising campaigns can be challenging without access to real-time data. With tools like Voluum or Phonexa’s affiliate software, your business can access all the resources needed to create more profitable campaigns and drive business growth.

Campaign Analytics

Comprehensive reports and analytics tools allow businesses to evaluate the success of each affiliate campaign. Whether the goal is to increase traffic or boost sales, campaign analytics can help pinpoint purchasing trends, resolve funnel inefficiencies, and maximise ROI.

Have you been working hard behind the scenes preparing to navigate a world free of third-party cookies? As the CMO of performance marketing software company Phonexa, I sure was! Well … not so fast!

Google just pumped the brakes on advertisers and affiliates bracing for a cookieless future.

Google announced on July 22 that it has reversed course on its long-discussed plans to discontinue third-party cookies in its Chrome browser after repeated delays stemming from a four-year stalemate with regulators and digital advertising companies.

In its new approach, Google Chrome will keep cookies, but users will be presented with a prompt to select whether to opt in or out. This move is intended to give users more control over their privacy while allowing advertisers to continue using cookies for tracking and targeting. This dual approach reflects Google’s efforts to balance privacy concerns with the practical needs of advertisers and publishers who rely heavily on cookies for their operations.

This decision marks a significant shift in Google’s privacy strategy, which has been under scrutiny by regulators, advertisers, and publishers since it was first introduced.

For advertisers and affiliates, it’s crucial to understand what this means for the affiliate marketing industry and how to adapt to this new reality.

Initial Plans to Deprecate Third-Party Cookies

Google initially announced its plan to phase out third-party cookies in 2020, aiming to enhance user privacy by eliminating a key tracking mechanism widely used in the digital advertising industry.
This move was part of Google’s broader Privacy Sandbox initiative, designed to create a more private and secure web experience. However, the plan faced numerous challenges, including resistance from regulators concerned about antitrust implications, as well as pushback from advertisers and publishers who rely on cookies for targeted advertising and performance measurement.

Google’s Decision To Reverse Course

Google’s decision was influenced by the lack of viable alternatives that could satisfy the needs of all stakeholders involved. Google’s attempts to develop replacement technologies, such as Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) and its subsequent Topics API, did not gain the necessary traction or acceptance from the industry and regulators. Google also previously cited UK regulations as the reason for the delay.

What This Means for Advertisers & Affiliates

For advertisers and affiliates, Google’s decision to maintain third-party cookies brings both relief and new challenges.

The continuation of third-party cookies provides much-needed stability in the short term. Advertisers and affiliates can continue to leverage existing tracking and targeting mechanisms without immediate disruption. This continuity is essential for maintaining campaign performance and ROI.

However, despite the reprieve, privacy concerns remain at the forefront. Regulatory bodies are continuously tightening their grip on data practices in response to consumer concerns regarding data privacy issues. It’s essential to remain vigilant and compliant with evolving privacy laws, such as GDPR and CCPA.

While third-party cookies are here to stay for the time being, professionals in the affiliate marketing ecosystem can’t get complacent. The need for innovative solutions that balance privacy and performance is more critical than ever. Advertisers and affiliates should explore first-party data strategies, contextual advertising, and other privacy-focused technologies to future-proof their operations.

Ultimately, the digital advertising community must continue to engage with regulators and tech providers to shape the future of privacy standards. Collaborative efforts will be key to developing sustainable solutions that benefit all parties while safeguarding user privacy.

Preparing for the Road Ahead

To remain competitive, it’s essential to stay informed and be proactive.

The first crucial step is keeping up with new details as they emerge. Regularly monitoring industry news and updates from Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative and understanding the latest developments will help you anticipate changes and adjust your strategies accordingly.

From there, you can focus on strengthening your first-party data collection efforts. Building direct relationships with your audience through loyalty programs, newsletters, and personalized content can provide valuable insights and enhance targeting capabilities.

Another key step is ensuring your team is well-versed in privacy regulations and the implications of Google’s policy shift. Training and knowledge-sharing can empower your organization to make informed decisions and stay compliant.

Perhaps the most important step to consider is experimenting with and integrating new solutions that ensure full compliance with industry regulations. Keep an eye on emerging technologies that preserve user privacy and be open to testing new solutions. Experimenting with different approaches can help you find the best fit for your business needs.

Final Thoughts

Google’s decision to retain third-party cookies is a significant development for the digital advertising industry. While it offers temporary relief, it also underscores the importance of ongoing innovation and adaptation. By staying informed, investing in first-party data, and exploring new technologies, advertisers and affiliates can work toward remaining resilient.

Prepare for the future of leadgen by tuning into Phonexa’s Amplify webinar, Lead Generation, Affiliate Marketing, and the Biggest Lessons from Building a Media Company, featuring Affiverse Founder Lee-Ann Johnstone.

AI is revolutionising the digital marketing landscape, emerging as a transformative force with great potential for the lead generation industry.

More and more leadgen professionals are exploring AI’s advanced capabilities to gauge how it can be leveraged to automate repetitive tasks, provide personalised interactions, and drive more effective strategies.

In our latest Amplify webinar, Arvell Craig, the AI Evangelist for VAgents, joined Phonexa’s Chief Marketing Officer, Talar Malakian, to explore the integration of AI in voice, chat, SMS, and email.

Together, they shared insights into the future of AI-driven lead generation and offered actionable techniques to enhance marketing and sales efforts.

Watch the Webinar

Here’s a recap of the fascinating discussion as Craig and Malakian uncover the future of AI in lead generation.

The Current State of Conversational Channels

Malakian: What are some of the gaps in conversational channels that you’ve identified throughout your career?

Craig: If you’re looking at conversational AI on the various channels — voice, text, SMS, email, social; those are the main channels — every platform is going to have its limitations. When you deal with voice, you have the extra layer of regulations and things like that to deal with. There are privacy laws, there are legal and compliance situations that can challenge businesses. You always want to communicate properly in the context

There’s a gap depending on what your background is. I was building chatbots in 2016, 2017, and 2018, so I knew conversational marketing and how to do that at scale even when there wasn’t AI. So there’s a bit of a learning curve if you don’t know how to communicate properly in the channel because you want to set expectations right. You want to not confuse the customer — is it AI, is it a person? In leadgen, the goal is to get them to the next stage. It’s a balance between how friendly are you, how human are you, but also how do you stay focused and legally compliant.

Also, the last thing is the technology — how good can it be, how much do I delegate to the AI, do I need to give it a simple prompt [and] let it run wild, or do I script every single solitary exchange which I have more control [of]. But that’s just a basic, logical kind of sequence flow that doesn’t allow the more human intuitive response; there’s a balance between that as well. So there’s some skill, there’s some technology, there’s some compliance, and then there’s understanding the user. Those four different components [will determine] what’s going to work best for your business.

Advancements in AI and its Impact on Lead Generation

Malakian: What do you foresee impacting lead generation the most in the next three to five years?

Craig: The biggest opportunity is going to be the highest volume of activity with the most human involvement. There’s a [significant] human component, [which] is one of the biggest opportunities to reduce versus if it’s just media buying because media buying, technically, the intelligence that manages and optimises [Facebook and Google] campaigns is AI. That’s machine learning, deep learning that’s been around for five to 10 years. So [those platforms] using AI is not new, and the way it will scale or change will be minor. Yes, Google and Facebook will do more to aid the media buyer with what they’re doing, but I don’t think that’s going to be as disruptive as highly human-involved systems, strategies, and platforms which are going to be call centres. Companies have chosen to go overseas to cut costs because that human touch is very valuable, but if the work is very routine, that part is definitely going to be impacted by AI because it doesn’t [require] a lot of intelligence.

Whether you’re outsourcing something or even in-house, your resources are going to be consolidated because all the technology and platforms — your design, your Canva, your Photoshop — are starting to [integrate] AI. If it’s a low-skill activity, I think 50 to 60 to 75% [of costs] could be cut and reduced with AI. If it’s a high-skilled activity, I think you’re looking at more of a 20 to 30% possible reduction in cost and efficiency. Those are some general ballpark [figures] I think will be helpful for people to understand what to expect…other than that, [there’s] a lot of unknown factors.

AI & Personalisation

Malakian: In terms of personalisation on the contact centre side, how do you think AI is going to create more personalised leadgen experiences across some of the other channels? How do you see that looking for email or voice or chatbots?

Craig: When I think about personalisation, it’s about the speed; it’s about allowing the user to do things on their own terms. So, as we’ve seen more multichannel and omnichannel platforms, as those things continue to evolve, the context of personalisation is giving people what they want, when they want it. Then, with the AI aspect, you can make sure that the conversation is seamless. It’s not just a live chat here, a phone call here.

You can’t quickly learn and feed and read everything…so the fact that this AI can allow the person to talk where they want to talk and then dynamically curate or customise the conversation specifically toward them — it makes them feel heard, it makes them feel understood. There have been studies on doctors talking to [patients] over chat versus AI talking to [patients] over chat [that showed] the AI was more empathetic. There’s a false assumption that because it’s more human, it’s better or more empathetic…there’s real data showing that AI can be empathetic; it can give a good experience and feel personalised because it’s listening. It’s going to see everything you’re doing, and if you can use that data to change the way the AI talks back to the person, [customers] will feel heard.

Industry-Specific Applications

Malakian: Are there particular industries where leadgen, or even in the contact centre space as an extension of that, is more effective or has more potential? What are some of the industries where you see more adoption or openness and stronger use cases?

Craig: Most people have assumptions about whether AI is going to work or not work for their audience or customer base. One of the things that was holding a lot of companies back was they wanted the AI to sound human. Typically, when you listen to the types of AI voices, some of them sound really good with long latency…it may sound good, but that sound [increases] the cost to send that voice over channels and the telephone system. Some business owners want [AI] to sound so real that [customers] don’t know because they make the assumption that people don’t trust it or they won’t respond. Some leads or prospects who deal with older demographics assume that because it may not sound too human, [customers] may not trust them.

So the people that have come to us — whether it’s time, comfort, or seeing more and more companies using [AI] — will be willing to experiment. The type of companies we’re talking to now typically have a call centre for retention on e-commerce; we’re helping them use AI to do basic retention questions. We’ve got home service companies coming to us where they’re willing to try out AI for their use cases…we’ve had more and more insurance companies coming to us to try us out. Those are three examples right now where we are running AI. If they’re using an offshore call centre, our AI can perform just as good as an offshore call agent except there are no disposition times and no breaks, so the efficiency is automatically 30% better because there are no gaps to anything that it does. Those are three industries that I think are pretty warm and bright for using a technology like ours.

Click here to join the Amplify Community and learn more about upcoming webinars.

At a time when TikTok faces potential bans in the U.S. and Instagram shifts toward a pay-to-play model, the importance of future-proofing your brand through robust email marketing strategies has never been more imperative.

But how do you create a cohesive and resilient future-proof email marketing strategy amidst a rapidly evolving digital landscape?

These questions took centre stage in the latest instalment of Phonexa’s Amplify webinar series, as Carlos Gil, GetResponse’s U.S. Brand Evangelist and author of “The End of Marketing,” joined Phonexa’s Director of Email Marketing, Alexander Cartigan, to explore innovative approaches marketers can use to enhance their email outreach efforts.

As the U.S. Brand Evangelist for GetResponse — an all-in-one online marketing platform that provides tools for email marketing, marketing automation, landing pages, and webinars designed to help businesses grow their email lists, engage with subscribers, and increase sales — Gil leverages his expertise in brand building, digital marketing, and growth strategies to spearhead tactical initiatives to boost brand visibility and foster partnerships in the states.

The webinar offered valuable insights into enhancing email marketing efforts, including how to integrate email marketing with social media, safeguarding your brand against potential disruptions, optimising engagement, and leveraging AI to make campaigns more efficient and impactful.

Here are some of the key takeaways and insights from this enlightening discussion.

Watch the Webinar

The Current State of the Email Marketing Ecosystem

Cartigan: Can you start by sharing your perspective on the current state of email marketing, especially with the new era of artificial intelligence?

Gil: If you’re going to talk about the state of email marketing, you need to address digital marketing as a whole…I look at the Internet as a noisy digital ocean. What I mean by that is you have noise that’s being created at a rapid rate every millisecond of every day at every hour. There’s no shortage of noise; however, there is digital overload from today’s consumers — they’re receiving tweets, emails, and Instagram messages everywhere they turn. So today’s consumers are having a hard time keeping up with all this information being fed to them.

I put up there along with social media marketing — even though it’s a different medium to reach your audience, the actual methodology by which you’re using email is really no different. I’ll break this down here; I’ll [also be] at MailCon on July 28 in New York explaining this in my talk on humanising your brand. In order for you to be able to break through the noise, you need to be more human and more relatable…what today’s consumer doesn’t want is sales rhetoric. People don’t want to be sold; they want to be engaged. I believe AI can help brands and marketers be much more effective in that [regard].

Email continues to be one channel marketers need to invest their time, money, and efforts for no other reason than social media in itself is broken right now. You’ve got algorithms that control what gets shown to whom, you have platforms like Instagram and Facebook/Meta forcing you to pay to get reach, then you have platforms like TikTok that might go away over the next year. With that being said, as a marketer, you have to take a step back and analyse in the short term where can [you] get the biggest ROI in terms of reach. But long-term, [determine if you’re going] to hedge your bets on building a following on social media, which is very much rented land, or start moving those followers over to owned media, which is email.

Strategies To Optimise Engagement and Drive Conversions

Cartigan: How should brands pivot their strategies to ensure email marketing remains essential to their digital strategy?

Gil: My recommendation is don’t eliminate TikTok or social media altogether — you still need those mediums to exist. You need to have an omnichannel strategy. Think of it like a funnel…the content that you post on social media is very much your top-of-the-funnel or brand awareness content. It’s where you provide value, whether it’s education, inspiration, motivation to your audience…the hook is to drive those followers to click on the one link in your bio and take action to opt into your email newsletter or email list. A lot of brands have found this balance where inevitably [consumers] can only interact with a brand so much on social [media], but [they] have to go back to [your] website to shop.

Whatever business that you’re in, you need to find ways to give your followers upfront value so in return they visit your website and take action. The first primary action needs to be the sign-up — whether it’s a loyalty programme or an email newsletter, you need to capture their email address.

Social networks make it really easy for you to convert your followers into email subscribers…let’s take Instagram, for example. Instagram allows you to put up to five links in your bio on your profile. The very first link you put in your bio [should] point to your website and specifically to your email newsletter opt-in. The reason you’re going to do this is when someone lands on your bio you want them to click on that link…you need to focus on getting as many email addresses as you possibly can in order to truly see the value of email marketing. [Also] engage with your audience [through] Instagram Storeys. When you’re posting your content on Storeys, let your audience know to go on [your] website and sign up for the newsletter if [they] want to see more content. Create experiences, create challenges, offer exclusive content that [they] can only get through email.

The other tactic that I’d recommend is for anyone [who’s] commenting on your post, send a private message with that link inviting your followers to sign up for your email newsletter.

Building and Nurturing Relationships

Cartigan: How do brands leverage email marketing to build long-lasting relationships?

Gil: Relationships come in all different forms and levels. For example, I am very active on the speaking circuit — I go to around a dozen conferences a year. And when I go to these conferences, I network — whether it’s a happy hour or after my keynote, I’m always talking to someone. If I go to a conference for three days, the entire time I’m there (with the exception of sleeping) I’m speaking to someone. Throughout those interactions, people will normally ask for a business card. I tell them I don’t have a business card, but I have Instagram…I’ll ask that person if they’re on Instagram, and we usually connect right there on the spot. Follow for follow…now we’re connected. Organically, that’s how I’ve grown a following on Instagram over the years.

LinkedIn is a little trickier because on LinkedIn I don’t necessarily connect with everyone. What I do is, if I’m at a conference having a conversation with someone and I see myself potentially doing business with this person or being able to facilitate an introduction in my professional network, then I’ll connect with them on LinkedIn at that point. It used to be in reverse…my connections are right at 30,000, which is the limit that LinkedIn caps your account. So, I’m constantly having to go in and unfollow individuals just to free up some space…it’s almost like you have to prequalify the person you’re talking to, but what you absolutely need to do is get their information or get them to follow you somehow.

Now, how do you expand that into email? Well, it’s simple. You let that person know, “I have a newsletter, this is what I do — a weekly newsletter sending out marketing tips. I’d love for you to opt-in.” That person I guarantee you is not going to say no, especially if you’re vibing and building rapport. Give them your website, ask them to opt-in right there and then.

Tips for Enhancing Your Email Marketing

Cartigan: What are three actionable insights you would give to brands to elevate their email marketing efforts?

Gil: Engage first, sell last. I think a lot of brands lose sight of the fact that today’s consumer doesn’t want to be sold to; they want to be engaged. As soon as you go into your email inbox and see the word ‘sale’ or ‘offer’ or ‘limited time,’ these are all cringey buzzwords that associate your content with being an ad. So, stop selling! I know that’s tough because we’re all in business to make money and sell, but you have to nurture your social media followers and email subscribers no different than you nurture any other relationship. People are already conditioned to tune out whenever they see content that’s salesy.

The second [tip] as a follow up is to use AI as a tool to bounce ideas off of a platform like ChatGPT. For example, if you have a sale coming up, use ChatGPT and ask, “How do I make this content more personable? How do I make this content less salesy?” That’s where you’re going to get value from AI and you’re going to be able to move a lot faster.

The third actionable tip for email is to create segmented audiences. Don’t just email the same list all the time. Use a tool like GetResponse to create segments of your most engaged subscribers, the people who are consistently opening up your emails…if you want to go one step further, create a segment for those who actually click within your emails and then create customised content or emails specifically for them.

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From creating a media empire to conquering affiliate marketing, this is not some small feat, but rather one of the many amazing things pointing to the brilliant career of Lee-Ann Johnstone.

At the helm of Affiverse – the award-winning performance and affiliate marketing agency and media outlet – Johnstone drives the agency in its mission to connect and grow the businesses of publishers, suppliers, networks, agencies, and affiliate programme marketers.

Affiverse supports the people within the affiliate marketing ecosystem in learning how to thrive through agency services, content marketing, events, and training programmes.

For Johnstone, however, the road to being hailed as a trailblazer in affiliate marketing did not happen overnight. She was bestowed with an excellent reputation and more than two decades of experience within e-commerce, retail, FinTech, and iGaming industries.

Johnstone joined Phonexa Chief Marketing Officer Talar Malakian on the latest episode of the Amplify webinar series and gave some incredibly valuable insights and practical advice to all budding entrepreneurs and marketers.

Now, let’s get to the most prominent points – key takeaways and insights from this engaging talk.

View the webinar by clicking here.

Providing Assistance and Empowerment to Affiliate Managers

Johnstone kicked off her conversation by relating her experience of building an agency and media company to support advertisers, affiliates, and networks in their affiliate marketing.

“Very early on, I realised that people wanted the knowledge or for us to do the [work] for them, but that wasn’t ever really our focus,” said Johnstone. “So the agency is there for me to be in the weeds, actually understand what’s changing, and have that interface with publishers working in multiple industries.”

The mission of Affiverse is to help affiliate managers become more effective at their jobs. According to Johnstone, though the role of affiliate management has traditionally been about selling or customer support, it is really a skill because most affiliate managers are dealing with different channels and platforms; thus, they must know how to engage with their partners and support them to deliver amazing results with the end goal of driving growth.

“With the advent of better data and better technology, affiliate management has become a very skillful role, and many C-level execs don’t understand that yet,” said Johnstone. “They’re not supporting affiliate account managers, so we see a lot of burnout and brain drain … all of that has fed that fast-fuelling growth we’ve had at Affiverse because we’re pretty much a one-stop place where people can get practical advice.”

The Prospects for Lead Generation and Affiliate Marketing

The conversation eventually turned next to a discussion of the future of lead generation and affiliate marketing, particularly to marketers looking ahead toward the deprecation of cookies and the subsequent tracking changes that are going to continue to come over the next three to five years.

Johnstone warns smaller advertisers that they’re going to find themselves lagging behind their competitors at the point where cookies are officially phased out and traffic sources disappear.

“They’re going to need to learn very quickly how to do lead generation for themselves or work with lead generators who buy and sell leads,” said Johnstone.

To prepare for this, independent advertisers and smaller B2B brands will have to understand how to adapt their marketing when all of this takes place. Johnstone explained how lead generation and performance management are usually on opposite ends, but both now need to collide in a way as the landscape of marketing shifts.

“A lot of performance managers who haven’t had to work with lead generators are not going to understand how to incorporate that into their business,” said Johnstone.

Johnstone shared that one of Elevate’s intents — Affiverse’s virtual summit — is to help performance managers navigate through how to live in a world without third-party cookies.

“What we do at Elevate is bring people together to talk about the changes that are on the horizon, their impact, and how they can prepare for them,” said Johnstone.

Prepared for the Implementation of New Consent-Capture Requirements

Another important aspect of the emerging convergence of lead generation and performance management involves new consent capture requirements that regulators worldwide are imposing. Yes, new FCC regulations will apply to U.S. consumers starting in January 2025, but the EU has its own more restrictive regime under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. Companies operating internationally must comply with both sets of regulations, and local businesses targeting American consumers should prepare for the FCC’s enhanced consent requirements.

“We need to educate people on best practices before this comes into play because otherwise, we’re going to have another GDPR fiasco where everybody has a deadline to get up to date,” said Johnstone.

“When we look at the demand based on the changes in the market, you [address] that through transparency, visibility, authentication, validation, and compliance,” said Malakian. “All of those things are going to be really important because there’s going to be a surge in demand in that area but done differently than before.”

Assessing the Types of Partners in Your Affiliate Mix

Johnstone also provided tips for evaluating and auditing affiliate programs when you’re looking to bolster your partner mix, emphasising that success depends on your specific industry.

“Certain industries are reliant on certain types of partners simply because of the way they’re regulated and how they can or can’t promote,” said Johnstone. “What you want to remember is the customer funnel … the start of the customer awareness journey is getting longer before they actually purchase.”

Johnstone emphasised how important reaching your customers was by knowing where they were.

“If you’re not [reaching them] with your direct-to-consumer advertising channels, then that’s where you leverage your performance partners to come in and fill the gaps,” said Johnstone. “You need to have a good understanding of where your customers are coming from and where they’re bouncing off to, and then you can match that back to the types of partners you want in your programme.”

Why Constant Learning Leads to Success

Continuous learning is an inevitable process that helps be updated with the latest trends.

“Because this industry moves so fast – from the Wild West era to the regulatory era to the future trends era – it became apparent to me that there is no one place where people can learn,” said Johnstone. “We have to gather pieces of information all over the place because performance works across multiple channels.”

Johnstone emphasises that an affiliate marketer today has to be a jack of all trades just to keep themselves updated with new developments. Continuous learning remains a key activity for marketers of all experiences.

“I don’t believe anyone can be an expert in marketing since we’re constantly changing and learning as our consumers change and the channels we work in change as well,” said Johnstone. “Look outside of your own industry and what’s happening across multiple verticals because all of those things impact what’s happening in yours.”

Johnstone warns that narrow-minded marketers risk overcomplicating continuous learning beyond necessary.

“I’m a big believer in not only telling people how to do things but showing them too,” said Johnstone.

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It’s essential for enterprise affiliate marketing team leaders to collaborate with other leadership and product marketing functions in order to educate, evangelise, and inform around the medium.

But how do you demonstrate value from the affiliate channel overall, and what tactics can you implement to ensure that the buy-in occurs, and that you continue to demonstrate value?

The answers to these questions were at the forefront of the latest instalment of Phonexa’s Amplify webinar series, as Phonexa CMO Talar Malakian and Jessica Robinson, Founder of Affiliate Marketing Partners, made the case for investing in affiliate marketing when building a programme from scratch.

VIDEO LINK

The informative session thoroughly explored strategies for evaluating opportunities and managing a pay-per-performance budget with a diversified pool of partners based on what makes sense for a buyer’s journey and respective business models.

The Case for Investing in Affiliate Marketing

One of the initial hurdles often faced when establishing an affiliate marketing programme from the ground up is securing the necessary investment and buy-in from leadership or new clients. 

Convincing decision-makers to allocate resources to this marketing channel requires a compelling argument highlighting its potential value and returns.

Since affiliate marketing is, at its core, a pay-per-performance channel, Robinson believes that is a compelling opening argument to present to a marketing leader.

“You’re not paying on impression or a click … you’re paying when the action you want happens, so I look at what competitors are paying out in the space to show [marketing leaders] how they’re building their affiliate programmes around these payouts,” said Robinson. “I like to Google their top keywords … about 80% of the organic and paid listings on a SERP page are affiliate sites … if they’re not talking about your [products], they’re talking about your competitors.”

Robinsons said another key factor to consider is the diversity of the affiliate set. With regard to publishers, this can range from content influencers to technology partners to email or native ad experts. 

“In terms of partner types, the most undervalued partners that aren’t talked about enough are brand-to-brand partnerships,” said Robinson. “It’s definitely one of the more challenging ones to stand out in the affiliate space, but they can be extremely valuable.”

Cheque out a recent episode of Amplify: Essential Insights for Achieving Affiliate Success & Building Lasting Partnerships.

Managing Budgets for Diverse Partners

When heading an affiliate programme, marketing leaders have to assess which partner types make the most sense to sponsor with an upfront fee. Robinson shared that this decision ultimately comes down to what your goal is and what your preferred partnership set looks like.

“For instance, if you’re a finance brand and you want to show up where your competitors are showing up, oftentimes you need to have a sponsored placement there,” said Robinson. “I wouldn’t go out and do a $50,000 ad buy for a coupon deal or loyalty site. There’s value in that for certain promotions but if you’re trying to gain share of voice on sites that are comparing your competitors, that’s a good example where [an upfront fee] is worth it – especially when it results in an evergreen placement.”

Robinson has encountered brands that manage affiliate channels differently from other paid channels.

“[The affiliate channel] is a relationship-based channel and relationships take time to cultivate,” said Robinson. “[My colleague] phrased it really well, ‘Proof of life at three months; proof of growth at six months.’ Just because you launch an affiliate programme doesn’t mean you’re going to start seeing as many convergents as you see through your paid search campaigns right off the bat – having time for launch is a [critical] piece of it.”

Looking to acquire high-intent leads? Our comprehensive guide –“How to Scale ROI Across Publishers & Partners: An Affiliate Network’s Guide” – uncovers the secrets to boosting ROI.

Evaluating Opportunity Size

Controlling outcomes and making them scalable is mission-critical in affiliate marketing. 

Malakian shared that cost stabilisation is a big part of that conversation, as cookie deprecation and other factors make it more difficult for marketers to do the type of targeting they might want to conduct.

Robinson provided an example from her tenure at PayPal.

“One of the slides in my pitch internally at PayPal was comparing our costs to other paid channels to showcase the difference in our CPLs depending on the programme we were talking about,” said Robinson. “Normally, our return on ad spend was second only to branded paid search.”

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistakes can erode confidence among leadership and work against the trust factor in running a channel. Robinson gave an example of a client that committed the cardinal mistake of having their programme on auto-approve before migrating to her platform.

“There are many publishers operating in this space, so when we’re talking about building out a programme, we’re still evaluating these partners and not everyone can get your affiliate link,” said Robinson. “[Auto-approve] can open you up to all sorts of issues like FCC disclosure violations, fraud, and being on sites you don’t want to be associated with.”

Robinson said a common mistake brands make is not being open to testing their way into a B2B partnership.

“There needs to be an upfront investment either to get on these platforms or get sponsored content to stand out and jumpstart a relationship,” said Robinson. “As soon as you pitch someone on a pay-per-performance channel and you bring up [additional expenses], trying to go back on that can be challenging.”

The balance of employing an optimal tech stack and testing in this phase becomes crucial.

“There are definitely times that it makes sense to have the right tech stack for affiliate marketing, but certainly having four affiliate networks that all had different agency management built-in into it, they were just paying four times the cost,” said Robinson. “Make sure that you’re consolidating your tech stack and that it makes sense for your business.”

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