Contester is Live on impact.com Partner Integration Hub
May 30, 2025Contester is Live on impact.com Partner Integration Hub
Seamless social selling and enhanced shopping journeys for impact.com brands and publishers.
Contester and impact.com have reached a new milestone by becoming fully integrated. Contester is now available on the impact.com Partner Integration Hub. This advancement follows Contester’s previously announced strategic partnership with Impact.com, the world's leading partnership management platform.
Brands on Impact.com can now activate Contester via the Impact.com Partner Integration Hub and instantly leverage Contester’s powerful video commerce capabilities, enhancing their partnerships with influencers, content publishers, and app partners, while empowering their in-house marketing teams.
Activating Contester within the Impact.com Partner Integration Hub allows brands to easily explore and test Contester’s solutions without any upfront commitments or limitations. While our agency partners are free to utilize Contester’s full suite of solutions, providing them with the flexibility to experiment and adapt their affiliate strategies effectively.
"Being available directly through Impact.com’s Partner Integration Hub marks a significant step forward for us. Brands and agencies can now use our video commerce solutions, driving deeper engagement and higher conversions across their affiliate partnerships." Hadi Alavi, CEO
Contester team looks forward to our continued collaboration with Impact.com, further enriching the affiliate ecosystem and offering brands unparalleled ease of use and technological accessibility.
Contester is the pioneering video commerce platform tailored for affiliate marketing, available for over 50k brands worldwide via Awin and impact.com tag integration, providing enhanced shopping journeys via affiliate links for influencer partnerships, content publishers, and brand in-house teams.
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Contester News
May 30, 2025
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April 7, 2025
Contester Launches $500 Million Credit Line to Fast-Track Live Commerce Adoption in the Affiliate Ecosystem
May 30, 2025Contester Launches $500 Million Credit Line to Fast-Track Live Commerce Adoption in the Affiliate Ecosystem
Contester is announcing a landmark initiative, a $500 million transaction credit line dedicated to accelerating the adoption of live commerce within the global affiliate marketing industry.
Affiliate marketing is a dynamic industry driving close to 20% of all online transactions globally, but a major part of the ecosystem is missing out on the interactive potential of live and video-driven commerce that consumers increasingly favor. Recognizing this gap, Contester plugs into existing affiliate networks (Awin, impact.com, Partnerize, Rakuten, TD, and Webgains), enabling social selling across social and content publisher platforms, enhancing partnerships through omnichannel video shopping journeys.
The initial credit line is set to be consumed by Contester affiliate network partners, subnetwork partners, and leading certified agencies. The aim is to catalyze a significant industry shift, transforming the affiliate marketing space into a vibrant, video-driven commerce ecosystem.
"With this initiative, we are eliminating financial constraints, enabling our partners to swiftly adopt live commerce without thinking of commercials. And the ecosystem already responded; major networks, subnetworks, and agencies are involved in this initiative." Hadi Alavi, CEO
Alongside this credit line, a new wave of collaborative features is designed to complement and enhance platform accessibility. Partners can now launch campaigns rapidly, using Contester’s whitelabel solution, ensuring a seamless product-led growth and immediate market impact.
As consumer behavior is rapidly shifting toward interactive shopping experiences, affiliate marketers who adopt live commerce early will set a new industry benchmark. Contester's vision is to make live commerce inevitable for every affiliate marketer. "We’re committed to supporting our partners every step of the way, ensuring they are equipped to lead the next generation of affiliate marketing." Kostas Cibulskas, CTO
Contester is the pioneering video commerce platform tailored for affiliate marketing, available for over 50k brands worldwide via Awin and impact.com tag integration, providing enhanced shopping journeys via affiliate links for influencer partnerships, content publishers, and brand in-house teams.
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April 7, 2025
TikTok shop or Contester? Choose the right platform for your affiliate channel
April 7, 2025TikTok shop or Contester? Choose the right platform for your affiliate channel
A deep dive into the reality of live commerce for affiliate marketers
Live shopping and shoppable videos have proven to be highly engaging and high-performing, with global sales through this medium nearing $1 trillion annually, an opportunity brand marketers cannot afford to overlook. However, it is important to get this right as there are many ways to use Live commerce and only a few ways to use it within the affiliate channels.
When it comes to using Liveshopping in the affiliate channel, we should see this as a multi-stakeholder process: 1- Brands, 2- Influencers, 3- live streaming technology 4-affiliate network
A Brand collaborates with its preferred influencer publisher, using live streaming technology, and the sales are tracked and commissioned via the affiliate network
Until a few years ago, it wasn’t possible to properly execute a liveshopping via an affiliate channel. But it has been changed, and now affiliate marketers have two options to choose from:
⚪ TikTok Shop officially launched in September 2023 with e.l.f. Cosmetics.
⚪ Contester officially launched in November 2023 with Nike and Awin.
In this article, you will gain a better understanding of each solution, with a bias toward why Contester may be an obvious choice for your brand.
What Did TikTok Change?
TikTok transformed social media with its short video format and endless scrolling. This time, it combines live shopping tech and an affiliate network to make TikTok Shop happen. Essentially, TikTok developed its affiliate network and fulfillment process to make TikTok posts shoppable with a seamless experience and payouts to the TikTok creators.
TikTok Shop, combining live shopping and Affiliate Network
What Did Contester Change?
Contester plugs into existing affiliate networks to make live shopping and shoppable videos happen within the affiliate channel. Encrypting a video campaign to an affiliate tracking link, video shopping journeys are displayed for the Influencers' followers, essentially bridging between social media and the brand's website.
Contester enabling live commerce on the major of affiliate networks
Can you use both? Yes. But there are a few things to know before you proceed:
1- Data reconciliation
TikTok Shop operates as a separate affiliate network
TikTok Shop operates as a separate affiliate network
As a separate network, the data coming from TikTok Shop wouldn’t reconcile with the data you have on your main affiliate network, tracking discrepancies may arise, and the customer touchpoints are limited to the TikTok data.
With Contester, all sales and customer journeys remain visible within your existing affiliate network, keeping all data consolidated in one place. Additionally, Contester provides first-party data on user behavior from your website, enhancing transparency in partnerships.
2- Advanced affiliate tools and features
TikTok Shop affiliate is optimized for social media
TikTok Shop affiliate is optimized for social media
While TikTok Shop functions as an affiliate network, it lacks the necessary tools found in dedicated affiliate platforms. When you have a program on a legitimate affiliate network, such as Awin, impact.com, Partnerize, Rakuten, Webgains, CJ or Tradedoubler, you have access to many features that have been built over decades to ensure you see the clear customer journeys and touchpoints, tiered commissioning, product level tracking, and many more tools and technologies that are essential for a longterm successful affiliate program.
Using Contester, you continue using all the available tools and technologies on your legitimate affiliate network, while we leverage our relationship with your networks to ensure the best practices and most innovative tools in the affiliate marketing.
3- Price and ROAS
TikTok Shop CPA is high and unpredictable
TikTok Shop CPA is high and unpredictable
TikTok Shop cost is relatively high and more importantly, unpredictable. Initially set at 5%, the CPA changed to 7%, and now fluctuates between 5% and 12%, depending on the product category, regardless of the CPA you agree with TikTok creators. This variability might stem from TikTok’s ad-driven business model.
With Contester, you pay your affiliate network and influencer partners as usual, with a fixed 3% CPA for technology, services, and strategy. The difference is significant to achieve a 2-4x higher ROAS. For many affiliate marketers and brands, every $ counts, the return on investment, and whether that could become an incremental channel where they pay less over time as a reliable sales channel.
4- Strategy
TikTok Shop enforces a single-channel strategy
TikTok Shop enforces a single-channel strategy
TikTok Shop is exclusive to TikTok, meaning it isn’t available on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. That pushes you to follow a single channel strategy, while brand marketers learned over the years to go the opposite way and diversify the audience with an omnichannel approach. It simply means your efforts should pay off across channels with minimum risks. The same influencer might have buyers on her Instagram audience or their YouTube channel. This is about losing a huge potential and putting your longterm in the risk.
Contester omnichannel shopping journeys amplify your strategy to diverse channels and audiences to maximize the reach and performance, with promotional posts and livestream multicast across influencers' social channels, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.
5- Brand match
TikTok shop is suitable for some brands, but not all
TikTok shop is suitable for some brands, but not all
TikTok Shop experience is well-suited for flash sales and certain products. You open up the affiliate for a channel where influencers sell all sorts of products with minimum accountability or an approval process. So if you are a brand or retailer that approves every single bit of your influencer marketing, or if you have high-value products that a one-click sale is not adding value to your customer journey, TikTok Shop might bring more harm to your brand than benefit.
Contester allows brands to tap into the power of social selling, including on TikTok, while maintaining full control over brand messaging. Contester shopping journeys are designed to bring a better narrative to your influencer marketing while bringing robust results and maximum transparency, suitable for a wide range of high-growth brands and retailers.
6- Shopping experience
Is TikTok Shop’s one-click purchase an ideal experience?
Is TikTok Shop’s one-click purchase an ideal experience?
E-commerce brands need to work on the buyers’ lifetime value LTV, knowing who the first-time buyer is, who the frequent buyer is, when your customer's birthday is, and all sorts of data that reduces the cost of acquisition over time and brings a sustainable and incremental growth. While TikTok Shop facilitates instant purchases, it may not contribute to a long-term customer journey. Purchases occur without interaction on your website, commissions are paid without distinguishing between first-time or repeat buyers, and the rapid buying process can lead to higher return rates.
When using Contester via your legitimate affiliate network, you stay aligned with your customers' data and lifetime value, while you provide a seamless experience that enhances your shopper’s journey with fewer returned items. The strategy with Contester is not to convert all the shoppers during the 40-minute live event, but the journey is designed as a campaign to maximize the reach, traceability, and sales over the campaign period as well as filtering out qualified buyers with an automated subscription model to work on their LTV in the long term.
For example, many brands offer a 10% discount for first-time shoppers. With Contester, influencers can redirect live viewers to a sign-up page before shopping, or guide them to read product details and return policies before purchasing, creating a more thoughtful and informed buyer journey. A modern and sustainable e-commerce is about education, accountability, and facilitating better purchase decisions. Elements that Contester enables but TikTok Shop does not.
Learn more on April 23rd Contester interactive webinar
Contester
Events
TikTok Shop VS Contester
interactive webinar
April 23rd, 2 pm UK time
Start Contester live commerce with a $30k transaction credit line
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Contester News
May 30, 2025
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April 7, 2025
How Contester Brings Transparency to Influencer Partnerships?
March 4, 2025How Contester Brings Transparency to Influencer Partnerships?
Influencer marketing is not easy, when brands face influencer partnerships' low conversion rates, lack of transparency, and reliance on discount-led sales. Influencers often do their best and can’t perform better by sharing brand affiliate links in the ever-growing social media chaos.
By activating Contester, brands allow their influencers to host shoppable videos and live streams on the brand website, uniquely displayed to their social media followers. Influencers continue the journey from social media to the brand website, providing a seamless, educative, authentic, and personalized shopping journey with robust results.
Again, Influencer marketing is not easy but Contester makes it worthwhile to collaborate with influencers and brings transparency to the collaboration like never before.
How Contester Brings Transparency to Influencer Partnerships?
Driving traffic to affiliate links is crucial for influencers, and Contester has developed a streamlined process to do this effectively where influencers turn social viewers into traceable buyers, with an omnichannel strategy and features that are designed to keep the qualified buyers in the loop with maximum transparency:
01- Omnichannel promotion strategy;
Contester campaigns turn momentary content on social with a short lifespan into a cohesive campaign with an omnichannel strategy leading multiple promotional contents into a powerful message with maximum reach that lasts for the full campaign period and beyond.
The omnichannel strategy follows on livestream where the main live shopping is happening on the brand website and being multicasted via Contester on the influencer social channels including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch for maximum reach.
The omnichannel strategy follows on livestream where the main live shopping is happening on the brand website and being multicasted via Contester on the influencer social channels including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch for maximum reach.
02- Subscription model for incrementality;
The new digital users are conscious of their purchase decisions more than ever, and the idea of converting every user in 30 minutes is not a valid problem anymore, especially for high-value products. Using livestream subscriptions, Contester filters out influencers’ qualified buyers to work on their LTV over a year's lifecycle. Each influencer partnership becomes a measurable investment with incremental sales results over time.
03- Turn social viewers into trackable buyers;
Influencers sharing affiliate links attract users who are in the consideration and purchase stage. It means the user doesn’t see a reason to click on the link unless considering purchasing. While influencer's narrative in a Contester omnichannel strategy is to encourage everyone who is interested to watch the main video or livestream on the brand website. Our data shows users click on average 10x on affiliate links to watch VS clicking to shop! Bringing maximum transparency to the influencer partnerships, maximum sales tracking possibilities attributed to the influencer, and even awareness campaigns becoming measurable and actionable.
04- Retarget the influencer partnerships;
It’s impossible to retarget social viewers. But Contester omnichannel campaigns turn social viewers into website visitors, those who are qualified buyers and interested in the content and the products introduced by the influencers. For the brand performance marketing team, it means they are able to retarget their website visitors on social paid ads and make sure the social ads are being spent in the right direction.
How does a Contester livestream campaign look like regardless of sales data?
Here is an example: a Contester Livestream campaign could lead to 10,000 visitors engaged through multiple promotional contents and 1,000 qualified subscribers to the live event.
⚪ Potential tracking for all 10,000 users, and sales in the following 30 days.
⚪ 1,000-lifetime subscribers get free invitations whenever the influencer goes live on the next collaboration. This number can grow on each campaign until we filter out all the influencer’s qualified buyers.
⚪Enabling brand performance marketing team to retarget 10,000 website visitors independently for optimizing paid social campaigns.
⚪ Potential tracking for all 10,000 users, and sales in the following 30 days.
⚪ 1,000-lifetime subscribers get free invitations whenever the influencer goes live on the next collaboration. This number can grow on each campaign until we filter out all the influencer’s qualified buyers.
⚪Enabling brand performance marketing team to retarget 10,000 website visitors independently for optimizing paid social campaigns.
Partnering with Contester platform is a game-changer that transforms how the brands connect with shoppers. It turns partnerships into a transparent, high-performing process that benefits both brands and influencers. We focus on building long-term partnerships that align expectations between brands and influencers to high-value campaigns with robust performance.
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Contester major analytics updates
May 2, 2024Contester major analytics updates
Comprehensive analytics deep into user behavior and shopper journey
Over the last 2 years, Contester has become more than a video commerce solution. Becoming an affiliate-enabled technology led Contester to become a collaborative platform where brands, agencies, publishers, and influencers can communicate, share assets, do approval processes, and manage campaigns from A to Z.
Talking to our customers it has become clear that Data is the major value we bring to the partnerships. The data generated by Contester are unique first-party data of users' behavior on the brand website that provides a comprehensive insight into the partnership performance.
Contester team is glad to announce that since February 2024, the new analytics dashboard has become available for our partners and clients. This major update gives brands a clear picture of the partnerships beyond the leads and sales numbers.
Here are a few key values that our new analytics brings to the affiliate partnerships:
- The new analytics allows advertisers to access individual campaign data without managing tracking attributions, and it goes as specific as individual publishers, individual links, and individual product page interactions. Enabling brands, their affiliate managers, and agencies to optimize their partnerships with such detailed analytics with no additional setup.
- The new dashboard allows affiliate managers to validate metrics such as Clicks and Conversions with data such as Returning users, Time spent, and Page views over time. This allows brands to oversee their affiliate partnerships beyond leads and sales but a full brand marketing journey with reliable data and no discrepancy.
- The new dashboard also consists of Email Subscription Behaviors such as Open rate and Unique email clicks that give invaluable insights into the ongoing live-streaming campaigns and how the promotions are performing.
If you are an advertiser or agency that is managing affiliate programs get in touch for a demo call Here.
If you are an agency publisher, platform publisher, or subnetwork, you can book a demo call or stay in touch via [email protected]
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Contester partners with Awin to enhance affiliate partnerships
April 24, 2024Contester partners with Awin to enhance affiliate partnerships
Adding human connection and creative narratives to affiliate space with shoppable videos and live-streaming.
Contester is proud to announce the technology partnership with one of the biggest affiliate networks worldwide, Awin. Contester became an affiliate-enabled technology that enhances the partnerships between Awin advertisers, and publishers of different types.
We are committed to bringing innovation into Awin’s ecosystem with our dynamic video experiences platform and live streaming, bridging advertiser websites and publisher channels, and extending the publishers' lifecycle beyond the last click and discount offers.
This partnership is rooted in over one year of close collaboration with the Awin strategic partnership team which helped us tailor the platform in different ways to become compatible with the affiliate space, something beyond the technology partnership, a great relationship and support from their amazing team.
“Contester's technology brings a wave of innovation into the affiliate marketing landscape. This partnership allows Awin to offer brands and creators a unique way to incentivize engagement and boost conversions.”
Roberto Gruetzmacher Jr
Awin strategic partnerships & innovation team
Awin advertisers can now enable Contester via the Mastertag One-Click activation to unlock their website as a sandbox to a volume of chosen publishers to leverage their audience like never before. Enhancing partnerships with a noticeable performance uplift and providing an amplified shopping experience for buyers. We are proud to have clients such as Nike, and Samsung within the Awin network. We have been recognized as the Best Innovator 2023 Award winner of ThinkTank ES, and have been shortlisted as the Partnership Technology of the Year 2024 ThinkTank US.
Multiple stakeholders in the Awin network can benefit from Contester platform; Influencer publishers, marketing agencies, subnetworks, platform publishers, cashback, and traditional publishers.
If you are an Awin advertiser or agency that is managing Awin programs get in touch for a demo call Here.
We recommend you join Awin as our preferred network partner and unlock your business growth with a range of innovative services. You can start Here.
If you are an agency publisher, platform publisher, or subnetwork, you can book a demo call or stay in touch via [email protected]
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