5 Partnership Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore

In the ever-evolving landscape of partnership marketing, staying ahead of the latest trends is essential for businesses looking to stay relevant and competitive in today’s digital age. As we move further into 2023, new trends have emerged, and it’s crucial to understand which ones are worth investing in and which ones can be safely ignored.

Explore the top five partnership marketing trends that are set to make a lasting impact on the industry, and why you can’t afford to overlook them:

1. Voice search enters the chat

While, in all fairness, the concept of voice searching is not a new technology, the voice search market has become too big to ignore at this point. Its features have become incredibly reliable and sophisticated over the last couple of years, and it is those advancements that make up a big reason why 27% of the global population (and over 40% in the U.S.) regularly makes use of voice search capabilities.

With all of that in mind, you should aim to optimize your marketing strategy to tap into such an increasingly large group of prospective consumers. Targeting the voice search niche will help you reach more consumers, generate better leads, and make your content accessible to a wider audience. Tailor your native and partnership content for display on mobile devices, as most voice searches are conducted via smartphones and tablets.

2. Marketers will become increasingly performance-oriented

Like most businesses, your organization is likely re-evaluating its marketing spending habits in response to ongoing economic volatility. Though clamping down on spending is certainly part of the equation, you will also need to explore ways to get more bang for your marketing buck.

Many companies are already going about doing so by demanding more from their marketing partners and incorporating performance-based payout models into their agreements—thus enters partnership marketing. The changing market has made partnership marketing not only a safer option for budget planning, but key for brands looking to cost-effectively boost performance.

By leveraging a marketing channel where brands only pay partners for achieving agreed upon outcomes, affiliate marketing solidifies itself as the smart choice during an uncertain economy.

3. Virtual shopping will break into the mainstream

By “virtual shopping,” we are not referring to standard e-commerce purchases. True modern virtual shopping leverages virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) technologies to provide consumers with a more immersive sales experience. Still, you may wonder what innovations like those have to do with partnership marketing.

The answer is simple: Some visionary brands are incorporating these technologies into their partnership marketing strategies, developing focused partnerships that allow prospective consumers to explore their products and view personalized advertising content.

4. Brands must adapt to a cookieless future

When Google initially announced its plans to sunset third-party cookies in 2020, marketers around the world began scrambling to prepare for a cookieless future. Since then, Google has pushed back its cookie ban several times, with the most recent postponement establishing a deadline of 2024.

Even though Google has delayed it, the end of third-party cookies is inevitable, and in response, brands must have a plan in place to protect their affiliate marketing programs. While third-party cookies are going away, first-party cookies are still very much alive and well. From an affiliate perspective, it’s still possible to track transactions and activities from affiliates using first-party cookies, as opposed to third-party cookies.

It’s important you have an agency partner that can help you be flexible in the way that you track within affiliate marketing. Acceleration Partners is nimble and able to track in a lot of different ways that still meet consumer demand for privacy.

5. Co-branding is the new normal

One of the most exciting partnership marketing trends is the surge in popularity of co-branding. Teaming up with another established brand to generate buzz about a product or service is an excellent way of driving quality traffic to your site.

Co-branding and brand-to-brand partnerships are not just becoming more popular among marketers, either: consumers are taking to the new trend as well. According to recent data, 71% of consumers enjoy collaborations between brands. With that being said, should you decide to leverage co-branding as a winning tactic, it’s important to find a partner brand that operates within your same vertical, as their target audience will have similar interests as your own consumer base.

Acceleration Partners can help you track, review, and optimize your brand-to-brand campaigns to determine the success of your partnership—this allows you to operate on a pay-per-performance model with closely measured success.

Leverage these new trends with Acceleration Partners

If you are interested in applying these new trends to your business and getting more out of your partnership marketing strategies, consider leveraging the expertise of Acceleration Partners (AP). Our team of dedicated partnership marketing pros can help you modernize your strategy, apply optimal best practices, and make a big splash with your target audience.

From optimizing your attribution model to connecting you with carefully vetted partners, AP is a true do-it-all affiliate and partnership marketing firm, so if you are ready to shatter growth barriers and embrace the latest trends of 2023, schedule a consultation with AP today.

Connect with our team to discover how we can help you capitalize on the latest trends and stay ahead of the curve.