With many digital marketers, choosing the right marketing methods is not always easy. SEM and CPC are very good in terms of instant results but they would cost a lot of money. SEO usually produces a high ROI but for sure it will take time and we must be very patient. Email Marketing is a very strong tool with high conversion rate, but you have to build your subscriber database first. So with which channel we can get transactions done in a short time with a low cost of investment? I think it is Affiliate Marketing and I want to dig into this topic with insights from Yuya Naka – CEO of Interspace Thailand, a top affiliate marketing firm from Japan.
What are the most relevant categories for Affiliate Marketing and why?
Of course eCommerce is one of those. Because when people buy something on the web, people don’t trust advertising but what people say. Affiliate marketing is the only way to coexist both reviews and advertising. Financial and game-online are also fit affiliate marketing. Based on our experience, Affiliate Marketing is really effective in those categories.
The most critical thing for an eCommerce company is increasing sales. Currently the popular channels and methods are SEO/SEM, social media, email marketing. So how can Affiliate Marketing can help them?
If one eCommerce company wants to take care all the keywords in SEO, it’s impossible. But they can do it with Affiliate Marketing. Some of the Facebook pages can be affiliate partners. Email is also what affiliate marketers can do. In another word Affiliate Marketing platform is kind of top sales representative for eCommerce. [quote]It means the companies don’t have to pay salary for this sales representative until they get leads. And marketers can choose whichever websites suit to their target customers. The cost is worth every penny.[/quote]
Your background before relocating to work in Thailand?
I was in the retail & restaurant industry before joining Interspace. When I was in retail industry, I worked as a digital marketer. I created e-commerce website & managed it. My business was not a big company, so we were not able to do mass marketing. SEM was just born at that time in Japan and I really absorbed it. In order to work in the digital marketing field deeply, I left the company and joined Interspace.
Then I’ve been in charge of taking care digital agencies & their clients. But responsibility of our team was not only sales & optimization. I worked with some of the biggest agencies. So their clients were mostly big brands. Their marketing knowledge is very advanced and they always demanded high performance. In order to fill their requirements, we sometimes had to create new solution. That’s why our team created new solution based on our affiliate network.
Can you introduce something about Interspace Thailand?
[quote]You can see no local affiliate services in Thailand. There are only two kinds of affiliate platform, belonging to e-commerce website or foreign platform. Experienced affiliate marketers join foreign platform and create their website in English and promote in the English speaking world. Beginners create website in Thai and promote to Thai people. [/quote] We are the first affiliate marketing platform that all the affiliate marketers can promote various Thailand products. Affiliate Marketing will help all the kinds of online media and advertisers. Of course small website can also monetize with affiliate platform.
We’ve just started partner registration via Internet. We are now getting 30 partners per day. There are a lot of affiliate marketers in Thailand and some of them are now coming to join. We must help all the Thailand online media with our affiliate platform.
[quote]Premium website can monetize more with affiliate marketing. If they use affiliate marketing in their inside pages and right position and right advertising, they could monetize more. Affiliate marketing can co-exist with CPM & CPC in the premium sites.[/quote]
What is the competitive advantage of Interspace Thailand as an affiliate firm?
We are the first and only Affiliate Marketing platform specialized in Thailand market. And we have 12 years of experience in affiliate marketing in Japan. Our experience has spread various categories of industry eg: Financial, eCommerce, Game Online, Mobile Contents, Travel, Human Resource etc…
How can Interspace’s Affiliate Marketing platform ACCESSTRADE help eCommerce companies, publishers, and bloggers specifically?
We have experience in generating leads. And we’ve been helping e-commerce companies to to it. I believe that Affiliate Marketing as communicating straight to the customers via relevant websites will help growing up Thai e-commerce market. With ACCESSTRADE the eCommerce companies don’t have to pay money in advance to acquire customers. They can select the websites related to what their customers want from our network. Then they can choose to pay by purchase (CPA) , click (CPC) or even CPM. So this is a flexible method and can be useful to either the small firms or the big ones. And the content sites can also earn more money from their content with ACCESSTRADE.
In Japan, most of transactions can be probably measured via online or mobile payment. Here in Thailand, many of transactions are via bank transfer or cash on delivery. So how can Interspace deal with this issue to handle CPA (Cost per Action)?
[quote]Transactions by credit card are more than 60% in Japan in this few years. But 5 or 6 years ago, it was 40 something. Transactions in Tarad.com, 40% transactions are made by credit card. I think that this matter is not serious. Time will tell.[/quote]
You’ve got achievement about creating new affiliate category and new content for smartphonewhile you had worked in Japan. Thailand is also a mobile-addicted country. What do you think about Affiliate Marketing in mobile here?
Mobile tends to go to technology, of course technology is very important. But mobile devices have small display screen, so advertising is not welcoming by users as long as ad technology has been advanced. I think Content Marketing is very important. If you’d like to know more details, please visit our office.
What do you think about working in Thailand? What do you like best? Do you hate anything here?
Thailand’s Internet industry is now rapidly growing up. It’s the biggest opportunity for me. That’s the very interesting thing that I like best. [quote]I love almost everything in Thailand, such as: nice foods, friendly people, good for nightlife 555…[/quote]
I have a one thing to hate in Thailand. Some people in Internet industry say that Thai people don’t want to buy things online or people tend to make call before use Internet when they make a reservation. I think its kinds of right opinion. But eCommerce spending is growing up in Thailand and a lot of companies and people in Internet industry have tried to change people’s behavior. I’d like to ask them to have strong will to change people’s behavior and come up with solution to change it.
The biggest difference of working culture in Japan and Thailand?
I think that it’s not so different from the two countries.
Note: I think he answered in a very Japanese style. All expats in Thailand must know the Thai’s motto “Sabai, sabai!”
Finally, what is Interspace’s plan for 2014?
Our mission for this year is creating ecosystem in affiliate platform. Affiliate platform should be kinds of ecosystem, partners earn and advertisers get conversions.
And you, what do you think about Affiliate Marketing? Is Interspace the first Affiliate Marketing platform in Thailand?