Affiliate Marketing. The Customer Acceptance of Cashback Platforms

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,5, University of Applied Sciences Saarbrücken (Wirtschaftswissenschaften), language: English, abstract: This master thesis gives an overview of the topic Affiliate Marketing with a deep dive into Cashback and analyses the customer acceptance of Cashback Platforms. Existing studies towards Cashback shopping are presented to gain insights into consumer behaviour and satisfaction in the Cashback system. The practical quantitative empirical research examines the customer acceptance of Cashback Platforms focusing on limiting and influencing factors to use Cashback Platforms. The quantitative survey was conducted with online customers aged over 18. A qualitative interview with iGraal as affiliate was compared to the quantitative research results to get further insights in customer communication, customer acquisition as well as customer acceptance within a Cashback company. This thesis‘ objective is to examine Affiliate Marketing with a deep dive into Cashback, to analyse the customer acceptance and awareness of Cashback Platforms, to clarify limiting and influencing factors to use Cashback Platforms and to generate recommendations for affiliates to improve the customer acceptance. The following research questions are at the core of the master thesis: Is there a reason for limited acceptance of Cashback Platforms?Which influencing factors lead to a (future) participation in Cashback Platforms?How do affiliates achieve higher customer acceptance for Cashback Platforms?