Exploring affiliate marketing's impact on customers' brand engagement and vulnerability in the online banking service sector

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Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of affiliate marketing strategies as a tool for increasing customers' engagement and vulnerability over financial services. This is attempted by examining the connection between affiliate marketing factors and customers' brand engagement and vulnerability metrics. Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed a three-staged methodological context, based on the 7 most known centralized payment network (CPN) firms' website analytical data, which begins with linear regression analysis, followed by hybrid modeling (agent-based and dynamic models), so as to simulate brand engagement and vulnerability factors' variation in a 180-day period. The deployed context ends by applying the cognitive modeling method of producing heatmaps and facial analysis of CPN websites to the selected 47 vulnerable website customers, for gathering more insights into their brand engagement. Findings: Throughout the simulation results of the study, it becomes clear that a higher number of backlinks and referral domains tend to increase CPN firms' brand-engaged and vulnerable customers. Research limitations/implications: From the simulation modeling process, the implication for backlinks and referral domains as factors that enhance website customers' brand engagement and vulnerability has been highlighted. A higher number of brand-engaged website customers could mean that vulnerable categories of customers would be impacted by CPNs' affiliate marketing. Improving those customers' knowledge of the financial services utility is of utmost importance. Practical implications: The outcomes of the research indicate that online banking service providers can increase their customers' engagement with their brands by adopting affiliate marketing techniques. To avoid the increase in customers' vulnerability, marketers should aim to apply affiliate marketing strategies to domains relevant to the provided financial services. Originality/value: The paper's outcomes provide a new approach to the literature, where the website customer's brand engagement comes out as a valuable metric for estimating online banking sector customers' vulnerability.

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