UK-based Performance Marketing company Online Media Group (OMG), in August 2011, had appointed Bharat Malik as Country Manager. Malik was previously Head of Online Marketing at Yatra.com. Malik’s appointment came a few months after OMG launched its India office, in May, 2011. In an exclusive interview with India Digital Review, Malik speaks about the affiliate marketing business in India and what are OMG India’s plans going forward.

Online Media Group (OMG) had opened an office in India in February 2011. Before that OMG was present in India with a tie-up with LD Sharma’s Shoogloo. What was the objective behind launching separately in India?

OMG has realized that there is much more to affiliate network than powering technology for a company.  We wanted to bring best practices and tools, which wasn’t possible otherwise with all the limitations.

LD Sharma is now a part of OMG. What is the status of OMG’s partnership with Shoogloo?

OMG is not powering Shoogloo’s technology anymore.

How has been the growth in India so far?

Growth is outstanding so far, we are seeing more awareness among ecommerce players about using our platform and related tools.

What is your revenue expectation from your India operations from the first year?

Would not like to comment, but we are increasing our scale in operations after seeing healthy growth and opportunities.

You joined OMG from Yatra.com. What was the objective behind shifting from the advertiser side to a network?

In Yatra.com I have realized the value of this marketing channel, this is the best way of generating optimal ROI of my marketing spends.  When opportunity came, liked the idea of becoming part of yet another start up and value that I would bring on board from my previous experience of handling  digital marketing for new start ups that have launched and how to optimized their spends by employing affiliate marketing into their overall strategy.

As the Country Manager of OMG India, what are your priorities now?

To spread affiliate marketing to new merchants from ecommerce to travel players (especially airlines) and make this as an integral part of their strategy of generating performance based sales.

OMG UK specializes in financial and insurance sector. What are your focus areas in India?

We have started with Travel and ecommerce as whole would be our focus area.

Speaking about Affiliate Marketing as a concept how is it different from an Ad Network?

This is a performance based approach where merchants would only pay when a sale has been recorded vis a vis in AD network is an approach of spending monies on cost per click or impressions without knowing return of that spends.

There are not too many affiliate networks in India. What are your thoughts on competition in the market?

It will grow as the market matures.

In affiliate marketing, having good quality and timely paying affiliates is an imperative. What has been your experience so far in India?

Yes, but this is crucial in every Business you operate on. We have seen that situation is improving once merchants see value they are getting out of it.

What number of merchants do you have in your network presently?

We currently have 40 merchants live in India.

What is the number of affiliates that you have in your network now?

Close to 2000.

 In India, affiliate marketing is often blamed of doing PPC in Google having similar URLs with an exact same copy of the original website. What is your take on this?

These practices would eventually move out of the system when merchants and networks set strict guidelines to do business. 

 How do you see affiliate marketing industry growing in India?

 It is still in its infant stage and set to grow 5x in coming 3 to 4 years.

Where do you see OMG India two years down the line?

To build a healthy base of merchants and affiliates to compliment our growth in India.