THE
AFFILIATE MARKETING PRIMER
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4
- HOW TO SELECT THE BEST
AFFILIATE/ASSOCIATE PROGRAMS (Part 2
of 2):
You've
read PART
ONE, of course?...
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---Do
the
company's products/services
fill a need for customers, in
an immediate, obvious
way?
Particularly, do
they solve a nagging or even
critical problem? (easily
and cheaply?). Solving a
problem is worth more than
preventing one... Most
people aren't foresightful
enough to take preventive
measures, but we all know how
desperate and grateful people
can be for simple solutions to
problems they have now!
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---Also
along
those lines, is the company's own
website of a high quality?
In other words, is it attractive to look
at, easy to use, fast-loading, etc., and
able to turn the valuable visitors you
send it into buyers? (You really
should check this out for any program
you decide to promote.) And does
it encourage repeat visitors?
The product
range might do this of itself, but there
might also be other content that
attracts... Such as promises of
new offerings/upgrades, contests, games,
interesting articles, rotating displays,
classified ads, news, a discussion
board/message center, or other "free
stuff". The best associate program
managers make themselves responsible for
making the customer want to buy.
---Is
the company's website loaded with
banner ads that might spirit people
away from your own
site? This can be a
differentiating factor for affiliates
trying to capture and keep traffic,
especially where the other site's
banners represent competing
advertising. (Besides the fact
that lots of junky-looking banners
detract from the quality of a
site.) I'd like to know that when
I "send" my site visitor off to look at
something of interest, s/he'll be likely
to come back to my site for more instead
of getting lost in the surf!
(By the way,
this little bit of HTML coding placed at
the end of your HTML URLs will ensure
that people are returned to your site
when they close that new URL
window: target="level1".
This is what it would look like:
<a
href="http://searchit.sitesell.com/granite.html"
target="level1"> ...and you can try
it by clicking
here.)
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---Does
the affiliate company use multiple
means of referral tracking? As
we've seen, cookies expire or can be
deleted by the tracked visitor. You
also want an affiliate company to be able
to trace phone, fax, mail, and email
orders as well as web orders generated by
your efforts. Companies that are
conscientious about recompensing their
affiliates strive to provide backup
methods of tracking referrals, such as CGI
scripts and more sophisticated database
matching algorithms. (Note that some
companies offer alternate payment methods
that don't
lead to your getting an affiliate
commission - tsk tsk!)
---In
a similar vein, how long
does the company offer commissions on
purchases made by people you refer
to its website? Some companies set
a time limit of, say, 30 days, or 3
months, in which it will pay you the
referral/sale commission...
Meaning that if someone clicks on your
banner/link and goes to the affiliate
company's site but doesn't purchase,
s/he has to return to the site and make
a purchase within a set period in order
for you to get your commission.
(If it's a day after, too bad!)
Naturally, then, the longer the company
will track your referred visitors, the
better.
Really
outstanding programs, like that
for SiteSell's Site
Build
It!, offer lifetime commissions...
Because
you did the work to give them the new
customers that they have the opportunity
to sell to over and over.
Beware of companies
that offer only a few days grace
period. Many sales are
made immediately rather than through the
customer's later return... But
most advertisers are aware that it
usually takes several viewings
of an ad before someone decides to
buy. (Which leads into the next
factor...)
---Is
the company clearly committed to
helping its affiliates? Some
companies
offer excellent aids to affiliates, such
as good FAQs, message boards where
affiliates can help each other,
high-quality articles about the company
offerings to post or link to,
newsletters specifically for affiliates,
testimonials affiliates can use,
examples of high-earning affiliate
sites, etc. One good article, for
instance, can create a huge demand for
the offering. And because of the
slowness of many people to respond to
ads for things that are new to them,
autoresponder email courses that
continue to sell on your behalf are
especially useful.
Consider all
the ways in which you can enhance your
chances of success. The most
proactive affiliate companies will
provide you with the means before you
even figure out that you're missing out
on them! ...The best associate programs
make it easy for you to help them sell.
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---And
does the company, if multiple-tiered,
give you information on who your
sub-affiliates are? This can
give you a valuable edge in providing you
a great avenue for increasing your income
by helping your sub-affiliate team
increase theirs. The most
forward-thinking companies actually give
you a mechanism for emailing your team
members, like Ken Evoy's "SiteSell"
associate program's "Mail Out"
feature. (Even if the identities of
your sub-affiliates might be anonymous to
you, a way to reach them is a good
thing.)
---Along
these
lines, too, is the issue of whether or
not the company makes it easy for
you to track your affiliate earnings
and your click-to-referral ratios.
Earnings will come to you, whether you
track them or not - some people may want
to just let them flow. However,
both earnings and click-to-referral
(CTR) ratios are of interest in helping
you to determine whether a program
you're involved in is working
well. They're benchmarks against
which you can analyze the effects of any
changes you make. And they might
help you in deciding whether to drop a
program and try another one
instead. Many successful affiliate
marketers feel that time spent in such
labors is of great value and
therefore are enthusiastic about a
company's efforts in this direction.
There are
various options for tracking
click-through yourself,
which you can find by doing a web
search. Really, it's far better
not to leave it to individual affiliate
programs!
Further
tracking of importance is the
efficacy of your marketing, via coded
links, and first-time
referrals. A program such as
The Ultimate Link Tracker (free with
SiteSell's "5 Pillar Affiliate Program")
is of inestimable use in informing you
of just how well all of your
promotional efforts are doing.
(See "Affiliate
Tracking—Track Your Results/Experiment
for Better Results" in the
primer section "HOW
TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR
AFFILIATE PROGRAMS, Part 1"
for more
information.) First-time
referrals are especially of interest
in programs such as SiteSell's which
pay lifetime commissions.
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---This
is without doubt the most uncommon feature
of an associate program: self-limitation.
I've run into only a couple of companies
that have limited the number of
affiliates they signed up (involved with
webmarketing products)... The point
would be that there is never any chance of
saturating the market and eroding the
benefits of the people who have signed up
and made (perhaps great) efforts to help
the company succeed. (Of course,
other businesses may say
they plan to limit affiliate signups, so
as to get you to sign up now.)
---Is
the market for the product/service easy
to target? If you can
effectively play to a limited market,
great. If you can take advantage
of a vast market that's already clued in
to the product in question, and wanting
it, so much the better! If you
already have a line to such a market,
your further efforts need only be
minimal...
If, for
instance, your website is already
attracting, or your newsletter or Tweets
are already going out to, a whole bunch
of middle-aged men... Then if you
offer an affiliate link to the
much-touted hair-restoring drug Rogaine,
you can be assured of an interested
audience in the bald men. ...If you can
drive on paved roads, you'll go
farther faster!
The thing to
be on the watch for is market
saturation... If scads of other
companies (or affiliate sites) are
touting the same thing, and the product
is available at discount stores, does it
really add much to your site? - probably
not.
---Do you
have to be a resident of a certain
country to join the program, or to
benefit fully from it? Read the
fine print! (Also, see the section
below under "Crossing
National Borders" for more
about international issues.)
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ASSOCIATE
PROGRAM SELECTION CHECKLIST:
Here's the
above in the form of a checklist you can
use...
ASSOCIATE
PROGRAM SELECTION CHECKLIST:
____
Will it suit your purposes?
____ Can you feel good about
and honestly recommend the product or
service?
____ Does the program reflect
your own interests?
____ Are you required to pay
to join the program?
____ What options for linking
does the affiliate company offer you?
____ Are the banners of high
quality?
____ Are the company's
offerings (and banners) relevant to
your purposes?
____ Does the company pay per
impression, click-through, lead, or
sale?
____ How much does the
company pay?
____ On how many levels does
the company pay?
____ Does the company pay
residual fees?
____ Does the company offer a
multiplicity of, and/or repeatable,
products?
____ Are the company's
products/services priced to sell?
____ Is the company's own
website of a high quality and does
it encourage repeat visitors?
____ Is the company's website
loaded with banner ads that might
spirit people away from your own site?
____ Does the company use
multiple means of referral tracking?
____ How long does
the company offer commissions on
purchases made by people you refer to
its website?
____ Is the company committed
to helping its affiliates?
____ Does the company, if
multiple-tiered, give you information
on who your sub-affiliates are?
____ Is it easy for you to
track your affiliate earnings, your
click-to-referral ratios, the efficacy
of your marketing, and first-time
referrals?
____ Is the program
self-limiting?
____ Is the market easy to
target?
____ Do the company's
products/services fill a need, solve a
problem for customers?
____ Do you have to be a
resident of a certain country?
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THE
BIG ISSUES:
To synthesize
and synopsize what can be learned from
the above: The big, cool things to
look for in a program are... high
payments, in whatever form (not just
high percentages - percentages of
what??), more than one tier, and
residual payments or the likelihood of
recurring purchases. In a company,
it's the quality and sellability/
popularity of the product or service, an
effective website, and a commitment to
its affiliates.
But the best
associate programs are the ones that are
best for you.
WHAT
ABOUT "LITTLE" PROGRAMS?:
You don't
want to expend a lot of energy on a
company that falls quite short - you are
in this for the money, presumably.
If you're only going to go with one
associate program, choose one that will
pay you well for your efforts.
BUT - if
multiple possibilities will fit in with
your site/plans, there's no reason on
earth why you should hold each one to
the highest standards... they all
do pay.
"Little ones" could simply be icing on
the cake. You'll just choose the
best little ones for your
purposes... Each should clearly
provide added value for your site
visitors.
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JOINING
MULTIPLE PROGRAMS:
If you go
with multiple associate programs, just
avoid competing programs -
unless there are compelling reasons not
to (e.g., if you're providing reviews of
several in a specific category). A
directory that lists many in a category
is an entirely different matter from
another type of website offering more of
the same thing - the latter doesn't make
sense... Unless it does
make sense!
By that I
mean, you might indeed offer two of the
same type of program if they
complement each other - or if one
is priced for the more affluent buyer.
...If it would really help people to
have a choice of both, that
would make sense.
For instance,
you might proffer associate programs
from two different map company
websites. (The same principle
would apply to plain old site selection
for a directory type website, whether
there were associate programs involved
or not.) ...One specializes in outdoor
maps, the other in what you might call
mainstream maps; they clearly complement
each other, even though they do also
overlap somewhat. But I wouldn't
offer webhosting from companies
with similar pricing and features - what
would be the point?...It would only
frustrate and confuse, which would much
diminish the impact of any marketing
you're trying to do.
One caution
about multiple programs (from the
trenches!)... They really add up
time- and energy-wise.
But at least
a few are a good idea - to hedge
your bets against the possibility that
one may fold!
AFFILIATE
AGREEMENTS:
Once you have
narrowed the field down to some
good-looking options, be sure to read
each company's Affiliate Agreement/Terms
and Conditions carefully...
Be on the
lookout for exclusivity clauses (i.e.,
you may not have a competing
program on your site, like two
booksellers).
Here you will
also find out whether the company
insists that you use only their
banners and/or text links to advertise
their offerings (and in some cases
insist that you display a cumbersome
"this person is affiliated with our
illustrious company" notice!).
Take note,
too, that some companies will only
accept your application provisionally
and will need to see your website (i.e.,
it must be "live" when you apply) before
accepting you as an affiliate.
Others might hold you to a minimum
number of site visits a month before
they'll let you sign up.
CROSSING
NATIONAL
BORDERS:
This short article
by Allan Gardyne (who lives in Australia
and New Zealand) illustrates a problem
affiliates outside the United States
face...
Many, many
programs are devised in the U.S. - and a
lot of them are set up by people who
haven't thought outside the
U.S., even if there isn't a restriction
on people outside the U.S. joining
up. Allan gives some good tips on
how to deal with "country-centric"
sign-up forms (and even suggests waking
affiliate managers up to the
international interest in their
program).
RIDING
THE WAVES:
One last
point on selection: You might very
shrewdly go with a program in order to
take advantage of a hot new product or
service... that eventually gets to be
"old hat". The diminishment of
gains from it (as it hits the discount
stores and shopping channels, perhaps)
doesn't imply that you didn't choose
well... only that you rode the wave to
shore.
Drop it (if
it's single-tier and you have no
investment in a sub-affiliate downline -
you never know, some of your
sub-affiliates could very well be
reaching just the right targeted market
to continue with the selling
nevertheless), or ignore it afterwards
if you want to. As I keep saying,
it's all up to you - do what best suits
your purposes.
And with that
under your belt and beginning to be
digested, in the next section I tell you
about a cadre of my favorite affiliate
marketing tools...
SEARCH
THIS
SITE OR THE WEB:
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