Singapore – Marketing and advertising solutions Rakuten Advertising has launched Accelerate, a fully-managed, affiliate marketing program led by experienced analysts leveraging unique data insights, competitive intelligence, custom campaign modelling, and publisher matchmaking to optimise performance marketing spend with unprecedented speed.

The new affiliate program assumes the financial risk of testing new publishers, meaning advertisers are guaranteed to only pay for performance. By tapping into the company’s network of 150,000 publishers in North America, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM, Accelerate makes it simple and profitable for brands to expand into new markets and drive incremental sales.

The solution offers guaranteed performance-based costs, which allow brands to pay exclusively for performance via a fixed percentage of revenue, while Rakuten Advertising takes on the risks of up-front publisher investments. It also provides first-party data and insights, where the program taps into Rakuten Advertising’s data network.

Moreover, the solution has real-time analysis and optimisation, where all campaigns have a dedicated analyst who draws on data from Rakuten Advertising’s network to constantly improve performance by recommending new publishers, optimising commission payments, identifying paid-placement opportunities, and customising offers and performance incentives.

It also provides publisher matchmaking, where data-led AI matchmaking identifies the best partners from Rakuten Advertising’s network of global publishers to drive optimal growth for each campaign. And lastly, it also offers a fully managed program, allowing Rakuten Advertising’s analysts and account teams to manage every aspect of a campaign, from publisher recruitment and communication to IO execution and paid placement negotiations.

Jeff Wender, Rakuten Advertising’s chief revenue officer, shared that Accelerate allows advertisers to enjoy the benefits of affiliate marketing in a way that only a network of their scale and experience can deliver.

“We’re committed to helping brands capitalise on this period of economic recovery. Accelerate is a valuable addition to our suite of solutions that create innovative, more customised ways for advertisers to interact with consumers, so they can scale quickly and recover their positions while reducing the risk of their digital advertising investment,” said Wender. 

Rakuten Advertising said that Accelerate can be tailored for brands with a range of goals – whether it’s international expansion, launching a new business or product, enhancing an existing affiliate program, or re-focusing in-house talent. By leveraging Rakuten Advertising’s dynamic commissioning rules, Accelerate account teams reward publishers for delivering targeted brand goals, and personalise campaigns to align with consumer interests and publisher content to create a more positive ad experience.