CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - Jul 18, 2012) - As marketing and e-commerce leaders continue to look for effective, cost-efficient ways to spread the word about their products and services, affiliate marketing, a performance-based strategy rewarding organizations and individuals for directing users to retailers' online and physical storefronts, has surfaced as a viable consumer engagement tool. According to a survey conducted by EPiServer, an innovator in multichannel digital marketing and e-commerce software, 47 percent of respondents selected Amazon as the coolest mobile or social affiliate program they have seen to date followed by eBay at 20 percent, and Shopkick and Wrapp each with five percent. When it comes to leveraging the partner relationships businesses require to thrive in today's socially-enabled e-commerce landscape, Amazon surpasses eBay, Shopkick and Wrapp in popularity among industry leaders.
Despite the buzz surrounding mobile and social as the next frontiers in e-commerce, when asked in what platform they anticipate making the greatest investment in the next three to five years, 59 percent of respondents chose their website, 35 percent selected a mobile application and 22 percent chose social networks.
"While e-commerce leaders appear to be making a greater investment in mobile and social platforms as a means for engaging with consumers and starting them on their way down the conversion funnel, the survey's results demonstrate that e-commerce leaders continue to look to their website as a principal platform for completing the sale and achieving ROI," said Bob Egner, Vice President of Product Management and Global Marketing at EPiServer. "Our survey results show Amazon as the clear choice for mobile commerce and Facebook in social."
Egner continued, "Consumer confidence plays a critical role in strengthening the social and mobile commerce pipeline, but developing a contextual social and mobile commerce strategy to extend the reach of sales and delivery of services to new customers and retain brand loyalty with existing ones is important as well."
EPiServer conducted a survey of CEOs, Vice Presidents, Directors and e-commerce Managers at more than 94 organizations including retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers, catalogers, web-only merchants and local retailers.
About EPiServer
EPiServer is the leading supplier of solutions that enable true Web engagement and drive business results for end customers. 4,700 customers worldwide use EPiServer's technology platform that combines content, community, commerce, and communications with a configurable metrics dashboard. EPiServer CMS is the foundation for more than 20,000 websites and is used by more than 130,000 web editors daily. The EPiServer platform is delivered through an extensive network of over 590 partner companies in 30 countries.
EPiServer combines the stability and support of a commercial product with EPiServer World, a thriving developer community of more than 15,000 developers. EPiServer is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with an AAA-ranking by Dun & Bradstreet since 2000. The company was founded in 1994 and has offices in the United States, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom. EPiServer is controlled by the IK2007 Fund. IK Investment Partners is a European private equity firm with Nordic roots, managing EUR 5.7 billion in fund commitments.
To learn more visit: http://www.episerver.com