E-commerce content monetization platform, Tipser publishes a new report that explores the current state of content in the world of commerce. Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of e-commerce not just by retail brands but also by social platforms as well. The introduction of Facebook's e-commerce shop along with Tik Tok and Shopify's partnership are just two examples that come to mind. But let's talk a little more about content commerce. What do we really know about it?

Content commerce is in many ways the marketeers’ latest approach to preserving audiences’ connection to content, while facilitating moments of shopping inspiration and prompting purchases  for brands and advertisers. Content commerce goes by other names such as shoppable content and responds to a consumers' demand for convenience and speed to purchase. The report explores how businesses are responding to content commerce and  how content commerce and shoppable content have become central to the point of inspiration for consumers.

When a new term or trend starts circulating in the digital marketing space, it may mean different things to different players, especially early on. The sames goes for content commerce.  As an emerging strategy, the nature of content commerce experiences are still in play across all markets.

Technically speaking, content commerce isn't anything new. Retailers have been publishing content for decades but the strategies behind positioning content have undergone significant changes. The first kind of content commerce experience was through affiliate marketing. That's how bloggers began making income from their blogs They create content around a product and use an affiliate link. The blogger gets paid everytime a user clicked the link.

But that's old news. Things have changed dramatically now. Instead of the affiliate marketing approach of prompting consumers to navigate away from the publisher, shoppable content gives the audience the option of buying an item without ever leaving the page. The result is an experience in which a consumer remains immersed in the publisher’s content but has access to the entire shopper’s journey, from browsing to purchase.

Below is a glossary of the four different environments in which shoppable content can appear.

When these tactics are deployed across social media, the content manages to not only immerse the viewer but also meet them during their point of inspiration and ease the purchase process.

Social commerce is expected to be worth $600 billion in the next seven years and more players are looking to get in on the action.

The rise in prominence of content commerce signifies a change in the approaches marketeers are taking to capitalize on points of inspiration. For years, affiliate marketing has been an established approach to audiences and consumers for brands, advertisers and publishers. 51% of brands and advertisers said they’ve used an affiliate program at some point. 28% are working on an adoption program, part  of a marketing mix intended to supplement what is otherwise a reliance on website and retail channels.

The emergence of content commerce is opening new approaches to matching shoppable moments with contextually aligned audience experiences. Nearly all (93%) of the brand respondents are aware of content commerce, and close to half (44%) are starting to use it.

Only 16% cited below-average revenue outcomes and 8% said finding new customers had been a challenge. Meanwhile, in every category more than half the brand respondents cited better than average outcomes.

Currently the numbers with affiliate marketing aren't looking to great. 62% of publishers said they see low commissions from their programs and they cite other challenges as well.

Which is why publishers are eyeing on the potential of content commerce. 85% of respondents said they are aware of content commerce strategies, 47% are engaging with them now and 26% expect to start a program in the next year. In the future, affiliate marketing programs will continue to exist but its dominance will begin to diminsh as content commerce becomes more widely adopted.

The Future

Even though content commerce has been around for long, it feels prepubesccent in the eyes of advertisers and publishers. Both parties will need to shed legacy thinking habits and learn to innovate in the medium. We can expect to see established partnerships between advertisers and publishers in the future in this medium.