Panainte Stefania Corina 0551976 Management [605280]

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FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thes is is written as a completion of the Master of Management at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
The aim of the progra mme is to prepare the students for different management positions , having
in mind cultural understanding , as well as international focus and developing an analytical
thinking. The subject of the thesis approaches the business side of management, analyzing the
first stages of development of a new online company, and more specific, the advertising part. I
have chosen to study this s ide of online marketing because as technology is advancing, more and
more people prefer the online world, including online shopping.
I have been researching about e -commerce and online advertisin g since August 2018 , but since
December 2018 I started to focus more on my topic and go in depth with my knowledge ab out
it. It was a valuable period in which as I learned more, I realized how little I actually knew at first
and how this helped me develop more in this direction. I would like to thank my professors for
expanding my horizons this year , but more important I want to thank my promoter, Professor
Leo Van Hove, for his help and guidance in completing the thesis.

Stefania -Corina Panainte Brussels, June 2019

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tables and Figures ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 5
Abstract ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 6
Chapter 1 – Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 7
1. Problem Statement ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 7
2. Research Question ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 7
3. Motivation ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. . 7
4. Methodology ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 8
5. Previous Findings in the Area ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. … 8
6. Scope ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 8
7. Target Group ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………….. 9
8. Structure of the Thesis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 9
Chapter 2 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………. 11
1. Ads – One Method to be Used ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 12
2. Affiliate Marketing – Involving Another Person ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. .. 16
3. Model and Hypotheses ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……….. 21
4. Which is the right option? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 25
Chapter 3 – Research Design ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 26
1. Research Method ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 26
2. Sampling Strategy and Data Collection ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 27
3. Data Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 27
Chapter 4 – Results and Interpretation of Findings ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 28
1. Who Are the Respondents? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. … 28
2. Most Popular Search Engine ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. .. 31
3. Ads on the First Page of the Search Engine ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 33
4. Ads on Social Media Platforms ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 35
5. How Are Blogs Seen? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………….. 36
6. What Makes Visitors B ecome Followers of Blogs? ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 37
7. Social Media Usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 38
8. What About Influencers? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 40
9. What Makes People Trust Influencers? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………. 41
10. What Is the Most Effective Way? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………….. 42
Chapter 5 – Conclusion ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 43
1. Answer to the Problem Statement and Implications ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 43
2. Limitations and Future Research ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 45
List of References ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 46

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TABLE S AND FIGURES
Figure 1 – Google AdWords Experiment ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………………… 13
Figure 2 – Customer Approach Model ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 22
Table 1 – Age statistics about the respondents ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 28
Table 2 – The frequency of the respondents’ age in table form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 29
Figure 3 – The frequency of the respondents’ age in chart form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 29
Table 3 – Gender o f the respondents in table form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 30
Figure 4 – Gender of the respondents in chart form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 30
Table 4 – Location of the respondents ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 30
Table 5 – Level of education in table form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 31
Figure 5 – Level of education in chart form ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 31
Table 6 – Frequency of search engine usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 32
Tabl e 7 – Google usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 32
Table 8 – Gender of respondents who said yes to using search engines ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 32
Table 9 – Educational level of respondents who said yes to using search engines ………………………….. ………………….. 33
Table 10 – Correlation between age and search engine usage ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 33
Table 11 – How likely are people to access websites highlighted as ads? ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 33
Table 12 – Buying from online stores when searching for a specific product or service ………………………….. …………… 34
Table 13 – Buying from online stores when not searching for a specific product or service ………………………….. …….. 34
Table 14 – Accessing ads from social media ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 35
Table 15 – Buying from online stores after being redirected from a social media ad ………………………….. …………….. 35
Table 16 – Blog usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 36
Table 17 – Gender of respondents who follow blogs ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ….. 36
Table 18 – Correlation between gender and blogs ’ usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………… 36
Table 19 – Buying from an online store recommended by a known blog ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 37
Figure 6 – Factors that influence the trust in a new blog ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 38
Table 20 – Buying from an online store recommended by a new blog ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 38
Table 21 – Social media usage ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 39
Figure 7 – The most popular social media platforms ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 39
Table 22 – Influencer following ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 40
Table 23 – Correlation between age and influencers following ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 40
Table 24 – Buying a product or service as a recommendation from an influencer ………………………….. ………………….. 41
Figure 8 – Reasons to trust a new influencer ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 41
Table 25 – Buying a product or service that a new influencer recommends ………………………….. ………………………….. . 42
Figure 9 – Variables when trusting a blog ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………… 44
Figure 10 – Variables when trusting an influencer ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 44

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ABSTRACT

When a n ew online business launches, there are several steps that the owners need to take care
of. First of all, there is the aspect of the website, the quality of the services and products that
they offer to customers. But since the business is at the beginning o f its journey, in order to have
customers in the first place, the owners need to advertise it, to make the business known. In the
online world, and especially due to the fact that people cannot test the actual products or
services because of the absence of a physical store, this step might be hard.
In this thesis, I have approached and explained two ways that an online business can advertise
itself, through ads or through affiliate marketing. The latter can be found in two forms on the
internet, as blogs o r as social media influencers. In the end, what interests the online business is
which of these methods is the most efficient, because this first investment is everything and how
people see each of them is crucial in creating the first impression.
To conc lude the master research, I had help from past studies on the topic, but I also conducted
a survey on the internet, asking people what they think about the methods mentioned. The
results showed that ads were not very successful, but affiliate marketing was and to be more
precise, influencers. People tend to trust them more, but this trust comes with other conditions
as well, like how authentic or credible the influencer is, how many followers he or she has, or
how si milar he or she is to the user of the social media platform. Blogs come second after the
influencers, but still with several conditions from the follower: the ir content needs to be of good
quality, the website needs to be easy to use and the author needs to be willing to help.
The results can b e expanded to all segments of population and can have a better geographic
diversity, as for now, due to the convenience sampling, only one segment could be analyzed:
young adults, having a high educational level, mostly from Europe.

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CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCT ION
1. PROBLEM STATEMENT
When a new company starts growing their business, the first step is to make themselves known.
The same story works for new stores, and more specifically, online stores. The online world can
be easily compared to the offline one when i t comes to commerce. Except for the work that the
store itself needs to do in order to grow its sales, it will also need more and more people talking
about it – advertising. There are several ways to help the new store grow, such as: affiliate
marketing, p aid ads or brand ambassadors. The help, however, is not free. Each way comes with
costs and the credibility impose d in order to attract more customers , but most important, how
people perceive either the affiliate marketers or the paid ads .
2. RESEARCH QUESTI ON
This thesis analyze s what is the most effective way of marketing for a new online store, which
offers products or services to its online customers. Of course, there are many ways to do it, but
this dissertation compare s the paid ads and t he affiliate marketers, the second one mentioned
being analyzed in two forms: blogs and influencers /brand ambassadors .
3. MOTIVATION
I was motivated to work on this topic because I am running a review based website and the focus
on the online customer is high. I am, therefore, one of the ways through which new stores can
increase their sales and credibility – the affiliate marketer. The othe r two ways mentioned,
however, would be similar in terms of advertising or gaining the trust of the customer , but slightly
different when it comes to the price that the online shops need to pay. The online buying process
is a hard one, especially when the store its products are new and no one had contact with them
before. My study include s how likely it is for customers to buy the new products when they had
contact only with the advertising mentioned and how pricey is for the online shops.

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4. METHODOLOGY
As methodology, this thesis uses a survey that will test how often people interact with reviews
of products, how much they trust them, how often they click on ads or how likely is for them to
buy a product that a brand ambassador will advertise . To help the s tudy, the thesis analyzes
existing academic literature on online customer trust and the influence of independent
characters that can promote one’s business.
5. PREVIOUS FINDINGS IN THE AREA
Studies regarding how to gain the online customer s’ trust have been conducted, along with how
to make them loyal and analyze their satisfaction. The online customer behavior is evaluated in
the article Comfort your online customer: quality, trust and loyalty on the internet , where Ribbink,
van Riel , Liljander and Streukens (2004) claim that “e -trust cannot be influenced d irectly by the
online merchant” , so the reader would need an external factor that would convince him or her
about a product. The way that an affiliate marketer increases the number of rea ders is also
significant and is analyzed in the case study by Dennis L. Duffy (2005) entitled Affiliate marketing
and its impact on e -commerce . There are several ways to grow the customers of an online shop,
for example using ads to promote the business an d stand out of the crowd in Google searches,
or using just search engine optimization (SEO) but having “sufficiently interesting content to get
an ade quate number of natural hits”, as Duffy (2005) explains . Groeger and Buttle (2014) state
in Word -of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: Evidence from case
study research that s ome markets, on the other hand, “ create opinion leaders to serve as “brand
ambassadors” who spread the word about their products. These products may be comple tely
new -to-market” .
6. SCOPE
The scope of the research is to create a clear vision about the advertising of new online shops,
and how effective the ways of promoting throug h an independent figure can be , in order to give
us an idea about how people perceive online advertising .

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7. TARGET GROUP
The target audience of this thesis are people looking to learn more about this topic , as the
advertising methods are explained, but the new businesses or influencers too. The results of my
study would benefit new online businesses that may want to know the most efficient way for
them to grow. Influencers can also take advantage from my study, as they will learn more about
what the merchants are looking for when searching for someone to promote a business or about
how they are perceived by their followers .
8. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
The thesis has five chapte rs. In the first chapter, the Introduction , I have presented the problem
statement, research question, my personal motivation and methodology, along with previous
findings in the area, the scope of the research and the target group.
In the second chapter, the Literature R eview and Theoretical Bac kground , I will elaborate more
about previous research on the topic, explaining at the same time the key theoretical concepts
used further as:
 what affiliate marketing is and the two subcategories that I will analyze, influencers and
blogs and
 what ads are and how to create them.
In the same chapter, I have developed the model on how to approach customers and I have
formulated hypotheses and conclusions that I have tested further in chapter four using a survey .
Research Design , the third chapter, emphasi zes the methods that I ha ve used to conduct my
research.
In chapter four , Results and Interpretation of Finding s, the data collected was structured and
analyzed and t he results were interpreted, according to each category described before.

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The last chapter, the Conclusion , is about answering the research question, but also about the
limitations that I had while answering it and what other research can be done further on the
same topic.

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CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW
AND THEORETICAL BACKGR OUND
This chapter discusses the literature that will be useful in my further research, as well as the
theoretical background needed to understand what I am referring to when I mention the
methods of promoting an online business, those methods also referred as third party, that will
be analyzed.
As was discussed in the introduction of this thesis, when a new online business begins its journey
towards success, where success means getting known and selling in the online world, there are
several steps that it n eeds to take .
First, it is necessary to set up their website properly, having no errors in their backend operations,
an appealing look and also be simple yet elegant in their own niche. Choosing a good niche is
very important here because there are thousands of them on the internet, each having even
more products or services. Each niche can have different values, and when I say values, I am not
just referring to the prices of what it offers , but also the quality. But that is left for the new online
store to decide how go od they would like to be. In this master thesis, I will approach the
advertising part only.
The second step to success would be to attract customers, as they are the ones that give the
business the real value. But how can the online business make itself kn own, as long as it does not
have a physical store, nor anyone that tested the products or services it offers? People may be
more skeptical to buying from a website that was just launched and does not have any kind of
reviews from other customers, who are the most honest when it comes to analyzing a product.
Thus, as the web store is new, the next step in its online journey is the advertising part, a step
that is crucial if the business owners want to gain profit in the future.
There are several ways of online marketing that the business could approach in order to make
themselves known. In this master thesis, I will analyze the way that they can do this through a

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third party, as mentioned in the introduction. The third party would put them in a good li ght,
promoting them and attracting new customers. Now, what is important is how effective this
promotion would be, when taking into consideration the costs of hiring a new party and how
many buyers it will attract.
The advertising methods that will be stu died are the online ads that appear in the results of an
online search engine or on random websites on the internet. Another method is the use of
affiliate marketers, which review the company and what they offer, in the form of blogs or social
media influe ncers. It is meaningful to study how the people exposed to the new information
react, but also how the parties are doing their job, convincing their followers about the
information they promote.
When it comes to comparing the two methods mentioned above t o life outside of the internet,
the online ads would be the flyers that people receive when walking on the street, no matter
where they are going, to work, to grocery shopping or just taking a walk, but which make them
curious about the information written on the little piece of paper that they have received. The
other method mentioned, affiliate marketing, can be easily compared to two people in the same
circle of friends that share common interests, one telling the other about a new item he or she
may hav e discovered and recommending it.
The study is made in order to help the new businesses grow in the most efficient way, considering
that they have to take into account the fact that, being at the start of their journey, how they
invest right now is decisiv e for their future and that first impression is indeed, everything.
1. ADS – ONE METHOD TO BE USED
The most popular social media platforms nowadays are Facebook and Instagram, along with the
most popular search engine , Google. A new online store could use any of them to run an ads
campaign in order to advertise its business. One step of the analysis will be to study the necessary
costs of running such a campaign on each of the platforms mentioned.

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I will first describe how Google ads work, as this is the sear ch engine most people go to. Google
has a dedicated platform for creating advertising, called Google AdWords, where users can
customize their preferences of how they want to display the ads. For research purposes, I have
created an account to see exactly w hat those settings are and how much each of them costs, if
there is a cost.

Figure 1 – Google AdWords Experiment
After the first step of editing the name and the description of the ad, the user will be redirected
to edit more important settings like the following:
 What is the goal of the ad? It depends on what the company wants, Google offering goals
like sales , leads or traffic .
 How will the ad be displayed? Options include just showing the ad in a search on the
engine, taking into account relevant keywords or showing the ad on relevant websites or
applications as the audience is browsing the internet.
 Where will the ad be displayed? This setting helps the users select the geographic area
that they want t o target. It is also called geotargeting. In order to make a better decision,
the user can see an approximate number of the people living or interested in the selected
area. To ease the final costs, there is an option that allows the creator of the ad to e xclude
all the other people that could be reached by the ad, living outside of the selected areas.

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 In which language will the ad be displayed? It is important that the new business knows
if they want to promote itself locally, in which case the language wi ll be the one used in
country of the business, or if they want to go international and set their language as
English.
 What is the user’ s budget? The user has the ability to set a daily budget.
 On which devices will the ad appear? Google will optimize the u ser’s ads in order to be
shown on all devices, but there is also the option to specify exactly how to split the budget
of the ad between the most popular devices: computers, phones or tablets.
 What is the desired audience? The search engine has an enormous database about its
users and will help the new business set the target audiences extremely specific, having
the opportunity to set the people’s marital status, if they are parents, the level of
education, if they own a house or not and their interests whe n surfing the internet.
The main idea is that Google will optimize the ads in order to be displayed as many times as
possible within the set budget, meaning that, the bigger the budget, the bigger the audience and
therefore the better the chance to create sales. Of course, if a website appears in the search
results organically, the credibility increases. It means that it does not need any kind of ad but just
its keywords and traffic and is perceived by the searcher as important. Any business could get
there , but it takes time to gain the trust and the desired traffic.
Studies on online ads have examined how much they affect online sales, as well as offline sales.
Lewis and Reiley (2014) find in their study named Online ads and offline sales: Measuring the
effects of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on Yahoo! that their “primary result is that
this advertising was profitable for the retailer”. They observe “positive, sizable, and persistent
effects of online retail advertising on sales. The effec ts appear to persist for several weeks after
the last ad was shown. In total, we estimate that the retailer’s incremental revenues were more
than seven times the cost of the ads”. Their experiment included 1.6 million customers, bringing
major importance t o the online advertising, as they find that “ advertising profitably increases
purchases by 5 % ” and that “ 78% of the increase derives from consumers who never click the
ads”. Their large sample was due to the fact that they “ matched the retailer’s customer database

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against Yahoo!’s user database ”, comparing both online and offline sales , the experiment taking
place in the United States . The results of their study states that online advertising mostly impacts
offline sales and not online, as some people may say.
But the ads, especially those that are featured on Google’s partners’ websites, will have to be
attractive enough for the traffic of those sites to be transformed into leads for the online store
and therefore, into cust omers. A model developed by Rodgers and Thorson (2000), called the
Interactive Advertising Model, implies that “for advertising websites, in addition to the traditional
ad features affecting responses, interactivity variables will have great impact.” The m odel has
different components like: “consumer -controlled aspects, such as Internet uses and information
processes; advertiser -controlled aspects, like ad structures; and, finally, the array of responses
that result from the encounter of a functioning, info rmation processing individual with the
structures of Internet advertising” , described by Rodgers and Thorson (2000).
The other two popular social media platforms that were mentioned, Facebook and Instagram,
also have special tools that help their users cre ate ads. In order to do that, the user’s account
needs to be a business one, which is free to create and the merchandiser’s website needs to be
linked with these accounts. I will discuss both of them, as the method of creating ads on each of
them is simila r to the one Google has and a user can even link the ads created on one of them to
the other one if both platforms are connected to each other through the same e -mail account or
phone number.
Even though Facebook does not have the same options as Google, it does have the possibility of
creating more interactive ads, which is a good feature according to what Rogers and Thorson
(2000) state in their study. First, the user needs to create a dedica ted page for their website and
edit it in order to attract the desired audience. The options would be limited to choosing the
gender, age, location and interests, matching their social media activity, as well as setting a daily
budget. Compared to the previous search engine evaluated, the ad campaigns are more user
friendly, which implies that a visitor would find them easier to interact with. The editor of the ad,
the merchant, has the possibility to set them as a photo, a slideshow, a video or a carousel, which
is a multitude of pictures a visitor can scroll through.

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As the Facebook family includes its dedicated messaging system, Messenger, along with
Instagram, when users set the placement of an ad, they do have the possibility of running the ad
on all of these members, letting the social media platform decide the most efficient way of doing
it, or choosing manually each of them.
But if the users want to only have an Instagram promotion, they can easily do that, exclusively
on Instagram, with i ts ads tool, which happens to have the same options as the previous one
mentioned.
2. AFFILIATE MARKETING – INVOLVING ANOTHER PERSON
The second way that a new online store can grow its business, meaning getting itself known and
thus , improving the profit, is through affiliate marketing. Fox and Wareham (2010) state in their
study Governance Mechanisms in Internet -Based A ffiliate Marketing Programs in S pain that
“internet -based affiliate marketing programs have emerged as one of the fastest -growing
methods for online retailers to acquire customers and increase sales by tapping into the power
of independent web sites to reach a large, diverse audience of potential customers”. They made
an “ exploratory analysis of governance mechanisms (formal contracts, partner s election,
incentives and monitoring) in one -to-many affiliate programs in Spain “. Also, according to and
Gallaugher , Auger and Bar Nir (2001), “affiliate programs remain one of the most cost -effective
mechanisms for sales generation for retailers”. Their pa per, Revenue streams and digital content
providers: an empirical investigation , “provides an empirical exploration of various revenue
streams and relates them to manager assessment of the performance of the firm’s online
efforts ”.
A good way of explaining this concept can be found in the paper by Duffy (2015) entitled Affiliate
marketing and its impact on e‐commerce , where he considers an affiliate as a “potential
marketing partn er” for the business. This part ner is required to “pay for its own marketing efforts
aimed at generating orders” for the products of the online store. “The role the affiliate offers to
play involves marketing – nothing else. The affiliate wants one thing in return: a commission on

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each sale”. The findings in his case study state that “ the key to successful affiliate marketing lies
in the construction of a win -win relationship between the advertiser and the affiliate ”.
As “affiliate marketing is becoming an important source of customer acq uisition”, according to
Libai , Biyalogorsky and Gerstner (2003) in their paper entitled Setting Referral Fees in Affiliate
Marketing , there are other ways that a store can pay an affiliate to promote the business. In their
study, they list two important way s on how to set referral fees for the marketers, being the
following:
 pay-per-conversion;
 pay-per-lead.
The differences between the two ways are either favorable for the merchant or for the affiliate.
To explain these two ways, Libai et al. (2003) affirm that with pay-for-performance or pay -per-
conversion, the affiliate is paid only when the visitor is turned into a buyer, no matter how many
people access the online retailer’s website. But the performance of the new store should also be
taken into conside ration because when visitors see the targeted website and are not impressed,
they can leave and the efforts of the affiliate were in vain. On the other hand, pay -for-lead means
paying the affiliate only when they redirect their traffic to the business webs ite, without a sale
being made. Therefore, with this type of payment, the affiliate’s marketing efforts will be
rewarded, no matter the online store’s quality.
From the merchant’s perspective, the study points out two models that can be adopted when
making a contract with an affiliate:
 one-to-one;
 one-to-many.
Each has its benefits and drawbacks for both the affiliate and the merchant, but the most
important di scussion about the two models is how they help the online store. As Libai et al. (2003)
describe, t he first model consists of a unique collaboration between the business and the affiliate
and the second model is the relationship between a business and more affiliates. However , the

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study proved that for the first model, one -to-one, pay -per-lead would be more beneficial for both
merchants and affiliates than pay -per-conversion. But in order for that model to function well
between the merchant and the affiliat e, a well -established contract needs to be made. For the
second model, one -to-many, pay -per-conversion is preferred.
In order to maximize profits for both the merchant and the affiliate, it is, as mentioned before,
necessary for the business to promote the ir products and services in their specific niche.
Therefore, the affiliate’s followers should be in customer segment desired by the merchant.
A very important aspect of this side of the business is that affiliates should adopt trusting beliefs,
as and Greg ori, Daniele and Altinay (201 3) explain in their study Affiliate Marketing in Tourism:
Determinants of Consumer Trust : “The most frequently adopted trusting beliefs refer to
benevolence, integrity, openness, and competence”. In terms o f openness, Gregori et al. (2011 )
specify that the affiliate should be open about what they are doing, aiming to state clearly that
they receive a small commission from the merchant’s sales. This, however, should go past the
fact that visitors of the affiliate might suppose th at the interest of earning commission can be
bigger than their interests. From this study, we can see that the appearance of the website is also
a decisive factor for both the e -store and the affiliate, as it increases the trust of a customer. In
their pap er, the authors used “a mixed method approach ” in order “to explore both the
consumers’ perspective, via focus -group interviews, and that of tourism affiliate practitioners via
an online questionnaire ”, so both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The questionnaire
approached “ English -speaking affiliate online forums ” and the interviews were conducted in the
United Kingdom.
Another article entitled Comfort your online customer: quality, trust and loyalty on the internet
approaches the importance o f loyalty in an online customer, but that needs to be measured
rather after the visitor has become a buyer of the new online store. What is investigated in the
study and considered important is the “service quality, satisfaction and trust in the e -commerce
context” (Ribbink et al. , 2004). To collect data for their study, the authors invited 350 university
students from Europe to complete an online questionnaire.

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In view of my research question, “what is the most efficient way of advertising a new online
store?”, trust is even more important because, as Ribbink et al. (2004) state in the article, “e –
customers do not deal directly with the company, or its staff”, meaning that a third party’s role
would be to increase the reliability and highlight the quality of the products sold by the business.
In the end, their priorities would be converting traffic into consumers and then making them
loyal.
In some cases, the brand, which is “the marketing practice of creating a name” (Branding, n.d.) ,
is crucial to creati ng a new customer, as a result of building trust . The store is new and as a
consequence, it is in the third party’s hand s to make the brand known .
The affiliate marketer, however , does not necessarily need to be a blog or website, but can also
be an influential person on the internet who can be called a brand ambassador or an influencer.
Even though the contract made by a merchandiser with such a person has the same principles as
the one made with an affiliate marketer, what matters most is how the third party is chosen.
Studies have been conducted about brand ambassadors and how effective they are when
spreading the word about a new product on the market, onli ne as well as offline . In their case
study, Word -of-mouth marketing influence on offline and online communications: Evidence from
case study research , Groeger and Buttle (2014) used online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
e-mails or blogs, and the scope was to il lustrate h ow “Word -of-Mouth” behav es. They show that
there exist several generations of people that can pass the information from one to another. The
first generation, which they call Gen0, is responsible for being the first to spread the information
about the produ ct to Gen1. Then, Gen1 will pass it to Gen2 and so on. They analyzed the
possibility that people belong ing to all generations , except Gen0 , the first one to be in contact
with the information, may receive the message several times, which turned out to be true.
Therefore, the number of people that exist in these categories may not be unique, but Groeger
and Buttle (2014) also explain concepts such as reach -and-frequency. “Reach refers to the
number of a defined target a udience (e.g., people or households) exposed at least once to a firm’s
advertising message in a defined period of time. Frequency is the average number of times a
member of that audience is exposed to the message during the defined period of time”.

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When the n ew store chooses to advertise through a brand ambassador or affiliate marketer, it is
relevant how known that person is and how many people she or he can approach. First, it is
crucial to choose the right person, to analyze their presence on the internet a nd make sure that
it is aligned with the business’ goals and beliefs, because, for example, a person who is focused
on health and sport may not be the right one to advertise new tires for a car. Instead, they could
be perfect for advertising new sport supp lements. To sum up this idea, the presence and the
domain in which the third person is active is a n important factor in increasing the trust of the
possible customers.
According to Rogers (2003) and his theory regarding how technology is spread , which can be
found in his book Diffusion of Innovations , there are five types of people and behaviors when it
comes to a new product on the market:
 Innovators,
 Early adopters,
 Early majority,
 Late majority,
 Laggards.
With this theory, we can understand b etter how the conversion from visitor to buyer is done, as
it all depends on the openness of the influencer’s followers . The several types of behavior in
people that are mentioned above go from those that would like to try it first , the in novators , to
those who would rather wait for others to try and then invest in such a product , the laggards .
But is the popularity of the influencers that important? Some would say that having a big number
of followers would create more credibility. Bakshy, Hofman, Mas on and Watts (2011) studied the
relevance of choosing the right influencer in their paper entitled Everyone’s an Influencer:
Quantifying Influence on Twitter . “From a marketer’s perspective, the critical capability is to
identify attributes of individuals th at consistently predict influence” (Bakshy et al., 2011).
Although their experiment was conducted exclusively on Twitter, they managed to identify some
relevant features as predictors, which could be taken as landmarks in my study. To classify these

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predic tors in two categories, Bakshy et al. ( 2011 ) enumerated them as following: “seed user
attributes”, as the first category, which has the following components: number of followers,
friends and tweets, as well as the date of joining; the second category is: “ past influence of seed
users” and refers to how many people reposted the user’s tweets. In their findings, they state
that “individuals who exert average, or even less -than -average influence —are under many
circumstances more cost -effective” (Bakshy et al., 2011), explaining that for certain types of
business, the quality and not the quantity is essential.
Ribbink et al. (2004) stated in their article that “the sample in the present study appeared
homogeneous in many respects” and that more demographic infor mation could also be gathered
about the participants”. They recommend to “replicate the study on a larger scale, and possibly
extend it to other industries”.
3. MODEL AND HYPOTHESES
The model used for this thesis is described in the figure below, explaining different ways that the
new online business can approach potential customers. According to the literature review, there
are analyzed three ways that this could happen, having in mi nd that the possibilities of creating
a customer net work from zero are endless. The three possibilities in the thesis are:
 Ads;
 Blogs ;
 Social Media Influencers .
The main variables forming the model are found in Figure 2 . First being the new online store or
merchant which is going through advertising in three different ways: ads, blogs or influencers . In
the end, they all lead to the same point : the customers . The goal is to find which one of the ways
is the fast est and most effective one. More variables wil l be added to this model after the result s
of the survey are analyzed, therefore, in the end it is more complex.

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Figure 2 – Customer Approach Model
I have developed several hypotheses based on past research in the field, each of them belonging
in one of the three categories above. There are some research questions as well to b e answered .
I will start with the conclusions based on other papers belonging to the similar topic. These
conclusions will be tested in my master thesis, using a survey.
H1a: Google is the most popular search engine.
In the paper entitled Search Engine Use 2012 (Purcell , Brenner & Rainie, 2012) where several
aspects of online search engines are studied , one of the results of their survey was that most
online searchers , mo re specifically A mericans, trust Google, as it is a reliable source of
inform ation. In their survey participated 2,252 adults. According to sections one and two of this
chapter , in which there were described different ways that an online business can approach a
customer, Google Ads were also discussed. As a result, if in my study, Google turns out to still
hold the first place in search engines popularity, it could mean that its Ads platform would benefit
the new online store whe n promoting itself. However, the participants of my study are mostly
from Europe, thus to generalize my findings would be a long shot , but it still gives an idea about
the usage of search engines .
H1b: Young adults, having high education, are the ones usin g search engines the most.
In th eir study, Purcell et al. (2012) discover that younger people are searching information online
more than others, and they find this information trustworthy, accurate and non -biased. They are

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also the ones to be more exposed to target advertising, which leads the discussion further in my
study. Almost one third of the young adults that took part in the study by Purcell et al. , reported
that they are okay with target advertising, which is advertising based on previous searches or
interests. The meaning behind it, is that the search engines will keep a history of what the user
has searched before in order to show further relevant ads when they spend time on the internet.
Some may perceive this action as privacy invasion but othe rs will find it helpful.
H2a: Young adults, having high education, are using social media the most.
Seen as a way to communicate easily, social media comes in help of people who want to stay in
touch more. The communication between the users can be done in a lot of ways nowadays,
because social media platforms compete to have the most innovative methods to connect people
around the globe. The era of letters as a way to keep in touch is long gone . People now have
instant messages, posts or stories to transmi t their thoughts to others. In his article Social Media
Usage: 2005 -2015 , Perrin (2015) finds that high educated young adults are the ones using social
media the most, with little differences between genders. To study the usage of social media, the
author used 27 surveys across all America during several years.
H2b: Most people use Facebook.
Smith and Anderson (2018) study in their article named Social Media Use in 2018 , different
platforms and how people interact with them. They state that “F acebook and YouTube dominate
this landscape “, “but young adults are especially heavy users of Snapchat and Instagram “. Their
findings are based on a survey that they conducted among U.S. adults. Online marketing can be
done on any of these platforms. All of these popu lar social media platforms have a lot of options
when it comes to connecting users and some of them were mentioned above: instant messaging,
posts in the form of text, photos or videos, and stories, which are basically just posts that will
disappear in 24 hours. More than these, the social media platforms let the users communicate
their location and similar interests in the form of hashtags, if they want to meet new people. On
the business side of these platforms, there are even more options: stores that ha ve an account
here can tag their products in the posts they make online, which will redirect the visitors to the

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online store’s website. In my survey, I have researched about which of these platforms is the
most used and how this would help the new online stores.
H2c: People trust authentic influencers who are similar to them.
It is very important that the influencer’s followers are there because they think they are similar
to him or her. As a result, they share the same values as the influencer and theref ore they can
relate to what he or she is saying or doing. If this connection between the two of them has been
made, the followers will also value the opinion of the influencer about different things and this
can be a good sign for stores choosing to promot e themselves through influencers. The main
research that the online stores should do in this case would be about the influencers who could
represent and value what they are selling. The next step is to turn the followers into buyers.
Woods (2016) state in his study called #Sponsored: The Emergence of Influencer Marketing that
the “sense of credibility and trust of an influencer again comes from the application into real life.
A celebrity can not provide this as they are viewed as higher class society and ther efore not as
relatable as an everyday social media influencer”. Therefore, the relationship that is formed
between the influencer and followers has to be based on trust and authenticity. For his research,
the author conducted thirteen in -persons interviews with New York people experienced in
influencer marketing.
H3a: Most blog readers are young males.
In the study Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and
knowledge sharing motivation , Hsu and Lin (2008), mention that young males use blogs most
often, both as readers and creators. This category that is reading blogs most often, turns out to
also be loyal online customers, meaning that there is a high chance that they will buy what the
blogs are promoting because they know and trust others’ opinions. The authors used a survey
research, having 212 participants, mainly from Taiwan. For my study, it would not be enough to
generalize their findings, but it is still fair to test the theory.

25
H3b: Altruism of the blogger is seen as the most important factor in the decision of blog
trusting.
When a person finds a new blog, there may be different reasons that she or he can start trusting
that blog. Hsu and Lin (2008) mention that some of them c ould be: how useful the blog is, how
easy to read it is , or how much the audience enjoys it. The main reason found after their study is
that the more the blogger transmits the fact that he or she is willing to help the reader in all
possible ways, the more readers are open to find it reliable. As a result, the foll owers of that blog
may become buyer s if the blog advertise s something because the creator of the blog has tested
the product or service advertised and is recommending it for good reasons.
4. WHICH IS THE RIGHT OPTION ?
To conclude this chapter, I have explained each of the two options that I will explore further in
this master thesis, the ads and the affiliate marketing, the latter being split in two categories,
blogs and influencers.
When speaking about ads, there are several options that the most popular social media platforms
offer to their users in order to help them promote their business. There can be the ads that
appear as first result in the search engine and then, there are the visual ads t hat can appear while
the user is spending time on a social media platform. For a new online business, the ads creation
tool is very important when it comes to the settings that the user can do. Google AdWords is very
powerful in this direction offering ple nty of options, but Facebook’s and Instagram’s tools are
also good.
Affiliate marketing is another option of advertising a new online store. Both blogs and influencers
can affect the sales of the business that they are promoting and they work in similar w ays. There
are two ways to pay the affiliate marketer, either when his or her followers access the online
store or when the followers actually make a sale. Sometimes, to choose the best affiliate
marketer, it does not matter the number of the followers tha t they have, but rather the quality
of them and how open they are to new products or services, as well as what they value.

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CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH DESIGN

This chapter gives a clear idea about the research methods that were used, explaining the
concepts, the sampling technique and the data collection method.
1. RESEARCH METHOD
The type of research best suited for this kind of research question is the exploratory one, as it
will give a more clear idea about how the new online store can be profitable in the end by
advertising properly. The sources of data that were used to analyze the research question were
both primary and secondary data.
I used survey research, collecting primary data in a quantitative way by conducting a
questionnaire containing 26 questions , structured so they approach each category mentioned in
the introduction of this thesis: blogs, influencers and ads . The target population to be studied
were individuals, having any age, gender or education. The main idea was to see how people
react to different online advertising methods in order to define which one is to be chosen by
online businesses. The study was cross -sectional.
In the survey, I used non-biased closed questions, which help the respondents make quick
decisions and give a more structured idea when analyzing the data. The questions had answers
in the form of nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio, as well as itemized rating scales. The survey was
created with the use of LimeSurvey.
The Funnel Approa ch was used, going from general to more specific questions but only if certain
conditions were met, and slowly increasing the difficulty level as the respondents went through
the questionnaire. Data considered as sensitive, such as per sonal data about the respondents ,
was also col lected at the end of the survey but the respondents remain anonymous.
As secondary data, past research was used to formulate hypotheses and conclusions that can be
found in section three of chapter two of this thesis and they can be tested in the questionnaire .

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2. SAMPLING STRATEGY AND DATA COLLECTION
I have used a nonprobability sampling technique, and more exactly, convenience sampling, as I
have sent the survey over e -mail, social media or dedicated groups. In total , I have sent the survey
to 300 people, having 16 8 complete responses. The majority of the responde nts of the survey
live in Europe.
3. DATA ANALYSIS
In order to answer the research question: Which is the most effective way of adver tising for a
new online business between affiliate marketing and ads? , I have conducted quantitative
research, mostly testing how much trust there is in any of the two methods. Affiliate marketing
can be found in multiple forms, but the two of them analyzed here were influencers and blogs.
As stated before in this chapter, the design of the survey was made using LimeSurvey, whi ch also
has a data analyzing tool to structure it. The results that were found are highlighted in chapter
four of this thesis .
The questions of the survey were structured in the three sections discussed: ads, blogs and
influencers.

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CHAPTER 4 – RESULT S AND INTERPRETATION
OF THE FINDINGS

In this chapter, the results of the survey will be analyzed, starting with the most popular search
engine, moving to how effective the ads are and then how affiliate marketers are seen.
As the Funnel Approach was used in the questionnaire, there are general questions first,
following by more specific ones, only if the respondents chose particular answers. I will start with
showing who my respondents are and then I will move on to the answers:
1. WHO ARE THE RESPONDEN TS?
In order to give a more clear idea about the respondents of the survey and therefore about the
segment of the population that the new online business should approach when choosing to
advertise in this way, I have run univariate tests about age, gender loca tion and educational level .

Table 1 – Age statistics about the respondents
As the number of the respondents was 168, the sum of all ages was 4261, with an average of
25.36. The median and mode of age was 24, havin g a standard deviation of 4.14 and a variance
of 17.15 years. As the minimum was 17 years and the maximum 42, the range of the participants
is 25 years, like in Table 1. In Table 2 and Figure 3, the frequency of the respondents’ age can be
seen, in both table and chart form.

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Table 2 – The frequency of the respondents’ age in table form

Figure 3 – The frequency of the respondents’ age in chart form

When it comes to the gender of the respondents, 62% of them are females and 38% of them are
males, like Table 3 and Figure 4 show .

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Table 3 – Gender of the respondents in table form

Figure 4 – Gender of the respondents in chart form
The majority of the respondents live in Europe and to be more precise, 86% of them, the rest of
14% living in other parts of the w orld, which can be seen in Table 4, below.

Table 4 – Location of the re spondents
Moving on to the level of education of the respondents, in Table 5 and Figure 5 can be seen that
they have a high level of education, the majority of them having completed a bachelor’s degree
or master’s degree.

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Table 5 – Level of education in table form

Figure 5 – Level of education in chart form

2. MOST POPULAR SEARCH E NGINE
The results of the survey show that search engine usage is extremely high . When sear ching for
information online, 78 % of the survey respondents use search engines more than once per day ,
as can be seen in Table 6 below . The most popular one is Google, as was stated in chapter three,
section Model and Hypotheses and as 92% of respondents affirm , results that are observable in
Table 7 .

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Table 6 – Frequency of search engine usage

Table 7 – Google usage
When it comes to who uses search engines the most, in line with Purcell ’s et al. (2012) findings ,
I could assume that high educated young adults are the ones to take advantage of the knowledge
found on the internet , according to my respondents. The average age of the respondents who
said yes to using search engines to find information is 25, 61% of them being female and 39%
bein g male, as in Table 8 . Their level of education can be observed in Table 9 , where the majority
of them has higher education, meaning that they have academic studies. But the issue is that my
respondents are only young adults, so in order to see if there is any relationship between the age
and t he search engine usage, I have conducted a bivariate analysis. In Table 10 can be observed
that there is no correlation between the two variables, meaning that I can not prove that young
adults are the ones using search engines the most to find information, at l east according to my
data.

Table 8 – Gender of respondents who said yes to using search engines

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Table 9 – Educational level of respondents who said yes to using search engines

Table 10 – Correlation between age and search engine usage
3. ADS ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE SEARCH ENGINE
Moving to more specific questions, people who chose to complete my survey were asked if they
would access websites highlighted as ads in their search page , where the response was 38%
negative and just 35 % said they are sl ightly likely to access it , 11% stated that they are moderately
likely, 8% very likely and only 3% extremely likely , as in Table 11 . These kind of results that appear
first or second on the search page of an engine, are the ones that are paid, so if the new online
business wants to buy one place here, it may actually not be a very good idea, because if people
do not access it, it is n ot very profitable and effective.

Table 11 – How likely are people to access websites highlighted as ads?

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On the other hand, from the respondents who said that there is a chance they would access the
result highlighted as an ad when searching for a specific product, 40% of them stated that they
are moderately likely to actually purchase it from the online store , 21% of them said very likely
and only 2% are extremely likely , as seen in Table 12. As the majority chose moderately likely, it
is a chance that they might or might not buy from the online store, so the results are not in favo r
of online ads.

Table 12 – Buying from online stores when searching for a specific product or service
But when not searching for a specific product, there is a small chance they would buy anything.
As seen in Table 13, only 1% of the respondents are extremely likely to buy from the online store
if they were not searching for a product or service, 2% are ve ry likely, 24% moderately likely, 44%
of them slightly likely and 28% not at all likely. Of course, there is always the chance that an ad
can just raise awareness about something and in the future, the people that saw the advert will
buy it.

Table 13 – Buying from online stores when not searching for a specific product or service

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4. ADS ON SOCIAL MEDIA P LATFORMS
The same results go for advertisement banners which appear on social media platforms . If the
products or services advertised are interesting to the users of the platform, 3 9% are not at all
likely to c lick on the banner, while 25% said they are slightly likely to do it , as Table 14 shows . But
from those that would access it, 4 2% said they are moderat ely likely to purchase it and 35 %
slightly likely , while only 14% are very likely and 0% extremely likely, according to Table 15 .
Although the results are not very good, they are better than ads that appear on search engines,
so if the new online store wants to use ads, they might as well use the tools provided by social
media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, described in the second chapter of this thesis , to
raise awareness about their products and services and in hope for future sales . As seen in the
study of Lewis and Reiley (2014) , ads mostly af fect offline sales and not online, thus if the online
store does not have a physical store, ads are not very effective.

Table 14 – Accessing ads from social media

Table 15 – Buying from online stores after being redirected from a social media ad

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5. HOW ARE BLOGS SEEN ?
Moving on to the section about blogs, 4 4% of the respondents follow bl ogs of their interest like
Table 16 shows, and unlike Hsu and Lin (2008) have discovered, most of them are actually females
and not males with a 74%, respectively 26% , like in Table 17 . Their average age is 26, therefore,
young females are the category to follow blogs the most. However, the respondents of the survey
that Hsu and Lin (2008) conducted live Taiwan, and my respondents live in Europe, thus
geographic diffe rences appear. However, to test the relationship b etween gender and blogs ’
usage, I have conducted a bivariate analysis . In Table 1 8 can be observed that there is a significant
and positive correlation between the two variables mentioned , with the correlation coefficient
0.217 and the significance 0.005.

Table 16 – Blog usage

Table 17 – Gender of respondents who follow blogs

Table 1 8 – Correlation between gender and blogs ’ usage

37
If almost half of the survey’s respondents read blogs, the balance tilts for affiliate marketing,
since 43% of them stated that they are moderately likely to buy a product that the blog
recommends and that they have not yet seen before but which interest them , as seen in Table
19. This happens with blogs that they already know and trust, but what happens if a new blog
appears while they spend time online?

Table 19 – Buying from an online store recommended by a known blog
6. WHAT MAKES VISITORS B ECOME FOLLOWERS OF B LOGS ?
When they were asked what influences their decision to trust a blog new to them , the majorit y
answered that the quality of the information fo und on the blog is extremely important, followed
by the blog’s ease of use and the writer’s willingness to help his or her readers . Other respondents
mentioned the maturity of the blog, the number of followers or the blog’s interface. As Hsu and
Lin (2008) mentioned in their study, the altruism of the blogger plays a big role for people when
they decide if they should trust a blog or not, but the quality of the information that they sh are
is more important than that, following the result of my study , as in Figure 6.

38

Figure 6 – Factors that influence the trust in a new blog
But when it comes to buying products recommended by the blog that a person just found, there
is another discussion , as the trust is not yet established between the visitor and the blog, hence
the majority decided that there is a small chance the visitor might actual ly buy something the
blog recommend, a percentage of 33 declaring moderately likely and 48% slightly likely, as in
Table 20 , below.

Table 20 – Buying from an online store recommended by a new blog
7. SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE
As Perrin (2015) found in his study, high educated young adults are the ones who use social media
the most . In my results , 100% of the people who answered my survey stated that they use social
media , as in Table 21 , 62% females and 38% males with an average age of 25 , more than 90% or

39
them having completed more than a Bachelor’s degree . This means that social media became an
undisposable part of many people’s lives.

Table 21 – Social media usage
Smith and Anderson (2018) mentioned that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular
platforms but also that young adults prefer Instagram and Snapchat. As the majority of my
respondents are young adults, the classification of the pop ularity goes as following: 41% said that
they mostly use Instagram, 35% voted Facebook and 17% YouTube, statistics that can be seen in
Figure 7. The findings of Smith and Anderson (2018) cannot be confirmed with my data, but there
is a difference between the geographical are as where the studies were conducted.

Figure 7 – The most popular social media platforms

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8. WHAT ABOUT INFLUENCER S?
As stated before, influencers are another side of affiliate marketing , working on the same system
as bloggers, the only difference is that they may be perceived different by people, being more
present on social media platforms than on blogs. More than two thirds of the respondents
answ ered yes when asked if they follow any influencers, results shown in Table 22 . From them,
67% are females and 33% are males, with the same average of 25 years old. I have conducted a
bivariate analysis to check if there is a relationship between the age and social media usage , more
exactly , the following of inf luencers . The analysis can be found in Table 2 3, but there is no
correl ation, so the age does not seem to be associated with the following of influencers.

Table 22 – Influencer following

Table 23 – Correlation between age and influencers following
These influential people on the internet have different marketing techniques when
recommending products or services to theirs followers. They have to be very sincere when
promoting something, so their credibility remains in place. From the people that stat ed that they
do follow influencers, 14% declared that they are very likely to buy what the influencer is
promoting, 40% said moderately likely and 40% only slightly likely. These statistics are competing

41
with blogs statistics, but are in favor of affiliate marketing in the same time . The results can be
seen in Table 24 .

Table 24 – Buying a product or service as a recommendation from an influencer
9. WHAT MAKES PEOPLE TRU ST INFLUENCERS ?
When spending time on social media, users have the chance to find an in fluencer new to them
and they might follow him or her for different reasons. The most popular reason s for trusting a
new person on the internet is how authentic he or she is, after which comes the credibility that
he or she transmits, how similar he or she is to the user and the number of the fo llowers that the
influencer has. Woods (2016) explain ed the same thing in his study and the responses of m y
questionnaire can be seen in Figure 8.

Figure 8 – Reasons to trust a new influencer

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People are more open about buying from influencers than blogs, but the differences are not
significant. Survey’s responses show that people are 3 5% moderately likely to purchase
something that a n influencer new to them promote and 46% slightly likely, like in Table 25 .

Table 25 – Buying a product or service that a new influencer recommends

10. WHAT IS THE MOST EFFE CTIVE WAY ?
To sum up the responses and compare them , I need to bring into the discussion the fact that not
all people access ads, follow blogs or influencers. My respondents were not very open to ads that
they saw in the search page but more open to those on social media, but the percentage of them
actually buying a product or service that the y saw in one of these ads is very low. To move the
discussion to blogs, almost half of my respondents are following blogs, which tilts the balance in
favor of affiliate marketing, people being more likely to buying something that a known blog
recommends. When it comes to influencers, more than 70% of respondents state that they follow
them and are more likely to buy something that an influencer recommends.

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CHAPTER 4 – CONCLUSION

1. ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM STATEMEN T AND IMPLICATIONS
The discussion about the an swer of the research question can be spread in many directions. First
of all, the respondents’ average age of my survey was 2 5 years old with a standard deviation of
4 years , meaning that the majority are young adults. The minimum age was 17 and the maximu m
was 42. When a new online business wants to promote itself, they first segment the market to
see what target group is most likely to see its products or services attractive. The answer in this
master thesis will target young adults, so if this is what th e online store is looking to target, then
this is their answer. But, because of the lack of responden ts from other segments, middle -aged
adults or old er adults, there is not enough data to make a sure statements about this, even
though there are many young adults having the same opinion in my questionnaire.
According to the responses of my survey, people tend to use social media a lot, followed by blogs,
which half of my respondent s confirmed that they follow . When it comes to ads, people are not
that open , the results showing that very few of them would access one. Thus, w hen the new
online store wants to make a profit, it should definitely use influ encers, that have similar values
and are authentic, because their followers will value the busines s as well. If the business want s
to use ads as marketing , it should explore the possibility of doing it for exposure and not for sales ,
as not many people will access an ad, but they will definitely see it because search engine usage
is high, along with social media usage .
The model be low shows every variable that has a role in turning visitors to customers, for the
affiliate marketing side. Figure 9 shows what variables are to be taken into consideration for
blogs : information quality, ease of use and blogger’s willingness to help and Figure 10 shows the
variables for inf luencers: similarity to the user, authenticity, credibility and number of followers.

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Figure 9 – Variables when trusting a blog

Figure 10 – Variables when trusting an influencer
When speaking about costs, the d iscussion can also go long way, because it all depends on what
the online store is willing to achieve by using any of those three methods mentioned. First of all,
as mentione d earlier in this thesis, there are two ways to pay an influencer: pay -per-lead and
pay-per-conversion, each having benefits and drawbacks as Libai et al. (2003) explain in their
paper . If the store wants a one -to-one relationship with the influencer, then pay-per-lead is
preferred, meaning that the influencer will get paid a commission on each person that access the
store’s website through her or his link. For the other relationship possible, one -to-many , pay -per-
conversion is better, as the store will not have an exclusive relationship with only one influencer,
but with several. In this case, the influencer will also be paid a commission but this time only if
the visitor turns into a buyer. This commission is decided by either a negotiation between the
business and the influencer, for the first type of relationship or by the business itself, for the
second type of relationship, Libai et al. (2003) say. In the end, the new online business has control

45
over how much money it will pay the influencer for either the sales or the visits. This is equally
available for blogs, as they use the same system of affiliate marketing.
For ads, on the other hand, the business also has control over how long a campaign will run, how
many locations or segment of people to target and so on, which may increase the price
accordingly. But it may not be that profitable if the business wants to r aise the profits and to have
sales, because as seen from my survey’s responses, people tend not to click on ads. Finally, it all
depends on what is the goal of the business.
The answer to the question statement of this master thesis, taking into considera tion everything
mentioned above, is that influencers are the most efficient method to promote a new online
business, as long as the business chooses the influencer accordingly. Another answer can be that
the two, affiliate marketing, in both forms: blogs a nd influencers, and ads, can be combined to a
greater goal of the business.
2. LIMITATIONS AND FUTUR E RESEARCH
The convenience sampling used in the research of this master thesis has advantages and
disadvantages. Since some of the advantages are that it saves time, money and the respondents
are easy to find, they can also turn into disadvantages. The majority of my respondents are from
Europe, thus the study cannot be generalized to a larger scale , their average age is 25 and more
than 90% of the people who an swered my survey have a high educational level, meaning that
they are part of only one segment of people and the behavior of the others could not be defined
by this study.
As future research, the behavior of the other segments of population could be studi ed, as well as
adding geographical diversity, having respondents from all over the world in order to make a
more precise classification.

46
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