MAM
Advertiser turnover from online blogs, forums in India increased by 7 times in H1 2019
MUMBAI: In a move which underlines how lucrative new traffic channels can be for advertisers, Admitad India has recently analysed online orders and sales data that its partner advertisers in India have received in the first half of 2019. As per the research, sales through the platform brought by new affiliate traffic channels such as blogs, chat-based messengers, social media groups, and Instagram/YouTube accounts in India exceeded $2.5 million during the reporting period – marking a 63 per cent increase over the corresponding data in H2 2018.
More importantly, there is a massive growth opportunity that new traffic channels represent for brands and advertisers. Online blogs, forums, and other traffic platforms affiliated with Admitad India registered a 7x increase in the advertiser turnover driven through them. With advertiser turnover from messengers also exceeding $10,000 in India in the first six months of 2019, the research also underlined the potential of chat-based messengers as an impactful affiliate marketing channel.
It also identified a growing shift amongst new-age publishers toward affiliate partnerships to amplify their revenue streams. The total number of publishers (new traffic channels) working as affiliates on the Admitad platform increased by over 24.22 per cent between H2 2018 and H1 2019. Blogs, online forums, and other channels registered a healthy growth of around 27.74 per cent in the number of publishers, while YouTube publishers working as affiliates grew by 14.63 per cent. Most remarkable was the growth of affiliates on newer channels such as chat-based messengers, which registered an exponential growth of 125 per cent during the reporting period.
With the introduction of browser extensions like Admitad Lite, this rapid growth trajectory is expected to only accelerate in the near future. Such tools help publishers overcome the entry barriers into the affiliate marketing space and make it simpler for them to seamlessly explore advertiser programs and create affiliate links to advertisers’ websites. Admitad Lite significantly speeds up and simplifies the work of publishers, who often have to deal with a large number of links and compare offers from different advertisers.
Standard tools for monetising traffic are often inconvenient for content creators due to restrictions or service rules. Admitad Lite, on the contrary, caters to this need-gap by drastically reducing the time taken by publishers to register and launch affiliate campaigns. This, in turn, increases clickthrough ratios and bolster sales for advertisers while also augmenting affiliate revenues for publishers – thus maximising the value that online traffic creates for stakeholders across the value chain.
The easy registration process facilitated by Admitad Lite connects publishers with more than 60,000 affiliate programs and 30,000 advertisers around the globe with just one click. It also does away with the need for moderation of publisher websites and enables access to offers and programs that were previously unavailable. This makes it the perfect tool for novice bloggers, micro/macro-influencers, and owners of groups and communities on social networks who are looking to enter the world of CPA marketing, as well as veteran affiliates looking to amplify their incomes.
Speaking on the insights and recent product developments, Admitad India CEO Neha Kulwal said, “In the last couple of years, microbloggers and influencers have become an integral part of the digital marketing value chain. Today’s digital-first audiences trust their opinions and recommendations more than they trust traditional advertising formats. This paradigm shift is one of the biggest reasons why we have witnessed sales numbers through new traffic channels grow at such a robust pace. With the number of bloggers looking to work with affiliate networks also registering healthy growth, we are committed to developing more innovative monetisation tools that can amplify the profitability and operational scale of our partner affiliates. The update of Admitad Extension and launch of Admitad Lite is a testament to this commitment.”
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
