EUROPEAN GOLDEN LINK AWARDS ENTRY PACK

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in our European Golden Link Awards (GLAs). Now in it’s third year, our awards celebrate and showcase all our advertisers, publishers and agencies who are out-delivering on their objectives to drive next-level performance.

This year, you’ll see a couple of new categories including Best Influencer Marketing Campaign, The Outthink & Outperform Award and Rakuten Advertising Representative of the Year which aims to celebrate our team members who ensure you outperform. Every single time.

Taking place in the afternoon, after DealMaker Europe at The Brewery, our cocktail-style ceremony will include a comedian, delicious food and of course, a glass of bubbly or two! The ceremony will be included in your Dealmaker Europe ticket.

Your wins are our wins, and we can’t wait to celebrate with you. Good luck with your entries and if you have any questions, please contact events@rakuten.com

Abi Jacks, VP of Marketing International

Dates for your diary

  • Entries are now open!
  • Entry deadline: 19/05/2023
  • Shortlist Announced: 29/05/2023
  • Voting opens for ‘Advertiser/Publisher of the Year’: 29/05/2023
  • Voting closes for Advertiser/Publisher of the Year’: 12/06/2023
  • Golden Link Awards Ceremony: 29/06/2023

Why should you enter?

  • Showcase Your Success: Receive industry and network recognition throughout the year. Winners are featured on our website before, during and after the ceremony and in our ‘Golden Link Awards Winners Book’. As well as a trophy, we also provide badges for email signatures and social media assets to shout about your wins!
     
  • Build Partnerships: Put your achievements front and centre with advertisers and publishers across our European network. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your existing partnerships or attract the attention of new partners – your award win will help to put your brand in the limelight.
     
  • Industry Recognition: Display your efforts alongside your peers and be identified as a leader in creativity and innovation within performance marketing.

Categories

  • Partnership of the Year
  • Best Managed Affiliate Programme: Complete & Complete Lite
  • Best Managed Affiliate Programme: Exchange & Advisory
  • Best Global Expansion Strategy
  • Social Impact Award
  • The Outthink & Outperform Award
  • Best Influencer Marketing Campaign
  • Affiliate Manager or Team of the Year: Advertiser
  • Affiliate Manager or Team of the Year: Publisher
  • Rakuten Advertising Representative of the Year
  • Advertiser of the Year (voted by network)
  • Publisher of the Year (voted by network)

Entry requirements

  • The European Golden Link Awards are open to advertisers/brands, agencies and publishers with an MID or SID in the Rakuten Advertising European Affiliate Network. All work must be aimed at an EU audience except for our ‘Best Global Expansion Strategy’ category.
  • Entries must relate to conducted between June 2022 and May 2023. A majority of the work must have occurred during this time, but it does not necessarily need to have been started or completed during this eligibility period.
  • Each entry must be submitted via our online form. The questions may vary for each category. Please see our category descriptions for more information. We recommend preparing the entry offline before submitting through our online form.
  • Any entries which were submitted in previous Golden Link Awards may not be submitted in 2023, unless there has been considerable developments in the execution and results. It cannot be a simple resubmission of the previous entry.
  • There is no fee to enter the European Golden Link Awards.

Ceremony

29th June 2023 at 4 – 5pm at The Brewery, London.

Your Dealmaker Europe ticket includes access to the European Golden Link Awards ceremony.

Judges

  • Chikay Lo, Performance Marketing and Affiliate Specialist at Lo Digital (Former Performance Marketing Director at Cult Beauty)
  • Matthew Wood, Founder of Hello Partner
  • Robin Langford, Editor at Performance Marketing World

Commercial confidence

Clear evidence of commercial success and ROI will enable our judges to score you fairly.

To alleviate any concerns, we require all judges to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

We would like to showcase a summary of our winning entries in our ‘GLA Winners Book.' This is a great opportunity to showcase your achievements and receive industry and network recognition to drive partnerships.

If you win, our team will get in touch with you directly about content inclusion.

What makes a winning entry

Each section should only be a maximum of 300 words – so remember to be concise and only include information which is related to the original objectives and the story you are telling.

  • Objective

In this section, please provide evidence of well-thought-out objectives for the campaign, including any targets agreed. Remember, that the rest of the entry should showcase how these objectives were met. If you’re saying objectives such as ‘drive brand awareness’ please be specific on how this will be measured so you can show how this was reached in the results.

  • Execution

In this section, we’re looking for details on how the strategy was executed to deliver the objectives outlined above. Please do ensure you include any innovative strategic/ tactics that will set the approach apart from the rest.

  • Success and ROI

The most important part – the results! Please include data that clearly details how the campaign met or exceeded objectives and targets alongside clear evidence of campaign performance. Make sure you refer back to the original objectives to ensure you have covered off how they were met or exceeded. The judges will be looking for clear results based on relevant quantitative or qualitative metrics.

If you have any questions, please contact events@rakuten.com

Good luck!