7 - SETTING UP AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM (Part 3 of
3):
You did start with PART
ONE, I hope?...
AVOID THESE MISTAKES IN SETTING UP
YOUR PROGRAM!:
This list of typical affiliate
program problems (from the point of view of the affiliate) is taken from Allan
Gardyne's excellent newsletter from AssociatePrograms.com (sign up and
refer to archived issues at http://www.associateprograms.com/search/newsletter
.shtml - it's not just for affiliates):
--No affiliate contract
--Specific information missing from the
contract
--Inconsistent information (webpages
differing from contract)
--Referral tracking system not
explained (method, length of time)
--Typos! - if you don't have it all
proofread, you look sloppy
--No obvious link to the affiliate
program page (if you intended one, that is)
--No FAQ for affiliates
--No name and physical address of the
company revealed
--No privacy statement assuring
affiliates that their names/addresses won't be revealed
--Website not easily navigable
--Graphics on website not optimized
(i.e., it loads too slowly)
--No ALT tags defined (so graphics
links can be "read" if page loads slowly or people are surfing
with graphics turned off)
--Banner sizes not stated in bytes;
small buttons not offered (for people who are minimizing their site's
graphics load)
--Use of HTML coding that's not
viewable by all browsers (HTML 3.2 is universally acceptable)
--Affiliates not kept informed of
important changes (e.g., of changed webhosts)
To this, I would add...
--No aggressive anti-spam policy (your company's
reputation is at stake!)
--No (simple) text links provided
--Excessively long payment periods or large minimum payment levels
--Reducing commissions/increasing minimum payment levels after the program
has been advanced by the efforts of the early affiliates
...Which leads us nicely into this advice, posted in the same
ezine
in March 2000 by an experienced affiliate, touching on the biggest mistake
of all...
"Treat affiliates with respect. Webmasters and ezine
writers talk among each other frequently. One bad experience will be
broadcast through a large network of individuals." Affiliates
know they are company assets... yet many affiliate companies treat affiliates
merely as a resource to be used.
Acknowledging, fostering a strategic partnership
with your affiliates will quickly reward both of you. The more you
can help your affiliates achieve their best success, the greater
your own success will be.
EXPERT GUIDES TO SETTING UP AN
AFFILIATE PROGRAM: Much of the work involved in preparing to set up, and setting
up, an affiliate program stems from your own lack of knowledge. With this
primer you've started to improve on that situation. To go forth even
more confidently into the fray, you may wish to avail yourself of some
more advanced help. If you only
choose one source for that help, I'd recommend Neil Durrant's free e-book,
The
Practical Guide to Creating and Managing a Profitable Affiliate Program.
Neil has interacted with many affiliate program managers over several
years, both expert and
floundering. His book covers all the questions that may crop up in your
decision-making along the way... Some
highlights: Does size really matter? Choosing the right model for
your business. Affiliate payment options. Tracking solutions.
Identifying all your niches. Creating banners. Offering free reports via
auto-responder (as Neil does below). Interactive content and
personalization technology. How to get the edge on your competitors even
without beating their commissions. Recruiting and activating affiliates.
Cross-promotions. Generating free publicity. Creating a
"fast-start" training guide for your affiliates. How to best
test your marketing. Recruiting a Program Manager. Worksheets. ...And a
case study on planning and implementing a program.
If you're like me, you might feel
best doing all the research you easily can on a subject... In which
case, you'll also want the following two books:
By Declan Dunn, an expert on affiliate programs from both
the merchant and the affiliate points of view, is: The
Complete, Insider’s Guide to Associate & Affiliate Programs.
This is a book for merchants providing, among other things, invaluable
information on the ins and outs of setting up your own affiliate program
and tailoring it to your needs, and on attracting and keeping great
affiliates (and maximizing the results even the least of them send you).
As well as action plans to follow, it incorporates many insights from
leading affiliate networks to prevent you from wasting valuable time on
unnecessary experimentation (let the pioneers pay the high cost of
learning the hard way!). Bonuses include access to a large archive of
marketing aids and monthly updates of the book online. You can download an
excerpt from the book for free, and your purchase is backed by a 90-day
money-back guarantee. ...And you can go on confidently to translate affiliates into sales.
Then there's the fruit of experience from
Kowabunga! Technologies and its powering of My Affiliate Program... The
Affiliate Marketing Plan Builder was
written by Rachel Honoway, Kowabunga!'s affiliate program manager
-
you
can believe that she knows what she's talking about! Not only has she
had access to company expertise, but she also has gotten feedback from
their own affiliates, of the sort that's invaluable in devising an
effective program. You can download free excerpts from the book.
AFFILIATE UNION CERTIFICATION?:
The Affiliate Union was started by a
group of people particularly interested in the affiliate side of the
affiliate-merchant partnership (though some are definitely interested in the
merchant side as well!). A number of folks are in the process of devising
a certification program for merchants. This is largely in response to "horror stories" of affiliates
acting in good faith who have been, well, shafted by various merchant
partners. Naturally, you wouldn't fall into that category of
merchant! - but you might like to see what the current thinking is on a
standard for affiliate company policies and contracts.
The group has
consulted with affiliate merchants and clearinghouse managers and is interested in having feedback
from them on the resultant standard, which seeks to provide a fairly
basic-level benchmark rather than to dictate procedures. I think you will
find it illuminating - and easy to be certified when the process is in
place.
No doubt certification will be another selection factor for
affiliates, so I imagine that it will be in the best interests of
affiliate companies to bother with it. See an annotated version of the
document, by Brian Clark of ReveNews.com, at: http://www.revenews.com/advice/strategy/openletter.html. (And
who knows, by the time you read this, it's possible that the
certification process will be going! ...I bet you'll be able to
find out on ReveNews.com.)
HELP
YOURSELF BY HELPING YOUR AFFILIATES: Just
as affiliates can further their own interests by helping their
sub-affiliates to succeed, you can do much to magnify your own success by
helping your affiliates to produce great websites (or other marketing
efforts). You might review "HELP YOUR SUB-AFFILIATES FOR GREATER PROFIT" in the primer section "How
to Get the Most Out of Your Affiliate Programs"
for ideas that you could also pursue.
First, establish a useful means of
communicating with your affiliate partners...
If you don't have a
"hands-on" type of affiliate program, create a way to discover
them. I'm thinking of the popularity, for digital authors (of
e-books, private sites, software, etc.), of using ClickBank...
Which does the affiliate program handling, and in which case you might not
ever find out who your intended affiliates are until they make a sale. One
excellent way to "gather in" your ClickBank affiliates is to use
a script called AffPage
for ClickBank... if your webhost allows you to access your CGI
bin. For your affiliates' sake, it gives them protection against
other ClickBank affiliates "stealing" their commissions by
substituting ClickBank IDs. Also, not only does this script collect a list of the people who you can
now regard as "your" affiliates (i.e., anyone who has in this
way discovered what
their "extra-coded" ClickBank link would be to your program)... It also makes it possible
for the affiliate to use your own domain in place of ClickBank's
funny linking code (via automatically set up individual web pages housed
on your site) - which helps with your SE link popularity. It even
sends a confirmation email with promotional tools to the affiliate.
(Other useful features include instant HTML banner code and pop-under code
generation.)
A more sophisticated CGI program with the same basic
aim as the above is EasyClickMate,
which gives your affiliates similar protection while allowing them to use their
domain name in the links to your products (helping them with their
link popularity - and bypassing any need to host excess webpages on your
website). With this product, you can manage multiple products on
multiple websites with one ClickBank account. It also collects your
affiliates' locations, if you wish - which can come in handy for
pinpointing affiliates who might help you with marketing specifically in
other countries.
And if you don't have access
to your CGI bin? Perhaps at least you can set up a webform to
collect your affiliate's name, email address, and ClickBank ID. (If
you don't have the means or desire to do this yourself, FreedBack.com
provides an easy way to set up a webform and send the data to you via
email.)
Once you know who your affiliates
are, what do you want to say to them? Here is an article that gives
some excellent ideas on that: How
to Develop a Communications Strategy for Your Affiliates, by Jason
Ciment.
You can help your affiliates (and your bottom line)
measurably by giving them the benefit of your in-house experience...
Let
them know which banners and text links work best (and in what context,
especially). If you have some super-affiliates who are doing extremely
well for you, showcase them in a newsletter to the others... Not only do
they deserve the attention, but the others can learn a great deal from seeing
what is working on someone else's site.
If you aren't going to do it yourself, consider
providing graphics for your affiliates to create links from... Do
you have different products? - give them product shots. Maybe only one or
two out of your line are of interest to them - always give affiliates
"wiggle room". (Hmm, how about a reward for a good design
suggestion? Banners aren't the backbone of sales, but some are used, and
many can be improved.)
What else might your affiliates benefit from? ...Well, ask them! It
might be very useful to survey your affiliates about their needs from time
to time (and revealing!). You'll find out what the spread of
sophistication levels is as well as pinpoint specific areas to target in
your future newsletters and the like.
You might also consider encouraging your
sub-affiliates to avail themselves of useful software like Affiliate
Assistant. Sign up as an affiliate yourself to get a
commission... Or you could give them a rebate of your commission - or even purchase it for them (you might be able to purchase resale
rights from the software company, as Ken Evoy did with The Ultimate Ad
Tracker).
I
think you will learn many useful things from this article from the
Internet Marketing Chronicles newsletter, "Secrets of Advertising 'In
Context'"... that is, in the context of your affiliates'
websites. There are many excellent ideas here about how to integrate
your own advertising into individual websites to make it more
"seamless"... more apt to be interesting to site visitors
rather than repellant simply by virtue of overtly being an
"ad".
This includes advice on how to make your own banners
more attractive, even unto making them look less like a typical
banner and more like text in a site. Also touched on is the type of
site that pulls better for sales of any kind - that which is geared to the whole concept of selling. Lastly,
you can focus on ways to keep your affiliates actively marketing for you
- some are listed here. This is advice from someone who has
"walked the walk"... It might make all the difference in ensuring
your success.
Then, why not encourage your affiliate
partners to do the kinds of things you do?
...Like surveying their
customers about your service or product. Helping their affiliates,
if you offer a multi-tiered program. Automating (you are doing a
lot of this, aren't you?). Pre-selling. Testing. (...But not too much of
this too fast! That simply gets overwhelming. Give them time to work on
one or two improvements at a time -
and really facilitate their efforts...
That'll get 'em going!)
SHOULD YOU WORRY ABOUT YOUR INACTIVE
AFFILIATES?: Well, certainly you should worry
about them some... After all, the more that are inactive,
the less effective your affiliate team is on the whole. ...But the
positive angle is - the more room there is for
improvement!
Truly helping your affiliates will improve your
bottom line. And there's no reason why you can't get that typical
"80/20" percentage (or 90/10, as it really tends to be with
affiliate marketing) honed well down. But there are a number of reasons
why you'll have an inactive cadre, some of which you can probably
influence, and some of which you can't... Some
people will sign up for your program and then decide that it isn't
a good fit for them... If they can't evaluate the program itself before
signing up, that's your fault. You should make sure that all of the points
of interest are laid out understandably on your site - don't leave it to
the annoying legalese of your affiliate contract to divulge what everyone
wants to know! You should also make sure that you provide what most
affiliates need in the way of HTML links, statistics, and affiliate
support services. Beyond those things that you
have control over, though, there's reality... Many of your affiliate
sign-ups will come when people are still in the midst of setting up their
websites. The creative juices are still flowing, folks are always learning
more about how to tune their sites, new promotional ideas are always
headed their way, and their private lives are forever evolving... Things
change! If someone isn't trying, don't
worry about them; that's life. It's the people who are trying and
still not succeeding who you might have a good effect on... if you give
them some good pointers, as we discussed in the last section. ...Assume
that there will be a certain portion who you don't have to worry
about; and be patient with the others! - it often takes awhile to put
good advice into effect (I can tell you from the affiliate's experience). But
will your efforts pay off? Yes!, incrementally... Meanwhile, don't forget
to help your top affiliates do even better!
And may I wish you the very best of
luck? -
I do!
Copyright February 2000 and onward. All rights
reserved.
"The Affiliate Marketing Primer"
www.AffiliatePrimer.com
You have permission
to LINK to this report from any website, email message, or ezine.
Please do not COPY it
or portions of it without seeking permission. Thank you.
Sherry Gordon
Chapter 7 last updated
1-23-2005
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