Thai developers eye affiliate marketing to attract new gen homebuyers
Property developers are increasingly adopting affiliate marketing to harness the power of influencers and key opinion leaders to attract the younger generation, a marketing expert said on Tuesday.
Affiliate marketing was introduced to the property market during the pandemic, but on a far smaller scale and without the use of well-known social media figures, Sumitra Wongpakdee, managing director at Terra Media and Consulting Ltd, told The Nation.
“Developers have realised that Thai buyers interact frequently with influencers and KOLs [key opinion leaders] on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, X [Twitter] and YouTube,” she said. “Hiring these internet celebrities to spearhead affiliate marketing campaigns has become a new trend to attract young generation buyers.”
Sumitra said since these individuals already have millions of followers, developers can benefit from a larger audience by hiring them as presenters or reviewers of their projects.
This has greatly helped stimulate the stagnating property market among Thai buyers in the post-Covid era, she added.
In return, property companies are rewarding their “affiliated” influencers and KOLs with lucrative benefits, she said.
For instance, she said, giant players like SC Asset and Sansiri have been organising affiliate programs that offer up to 1.3 million baht in commission to influencers and about a million baht to KOLs, based on the sales they help generate.
SC Asset’s campaign covers its 67 projects nationwide under the concept “anyone can sell a house or condo”, while Sansiri’s campaign targets offloading condos in 27 projects worth 200 million baht, she said.
Home builder Sammakorn Plc, meanwhile, offers 50,000 baht to owners of affiliate links that lead to each contract signing.
Origin Property, meanwhile, hosted a live affiliate programme with three top creators – Napasasi Surawan, Chartsak Mahatha, and Chrrissa Chotijirasathit – to introduce the company’s new 15 condo projects. The programmes also offered discounts of up to 4 million baht to viewers.
Lastly, Sena Development snatched Thailand’s No 1 influencer, Charlie Trairat, to host a live programme on TikTok, introducing Sena’s condos going for between 1 million and 3 million baht. The 1.5-hour long programme has recorded nearly 40,000 views and reportedly led to over 150 appointments to visit the projects, Sumitra said.
