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In an attempt to get a better understanding of what affiliates want (aside from money) and what it takes to manage a good affiliate program and build lasting relationships I ask the following.
What do you prefer?
Commission:
Preferred commission: PPC, Fix amount per sale, % per sale or other
Sale notification:
Instant notice of sale, No email, other
Tracking:
What is the best tracking technology? In house, outsource (befree, CJ etc) or other
Stats:
What do you want from your stats?
Minimum monthly Payout:
How much
Final Payment:
What is the industry standard, to allow for refunds, chargeback’s etc…
Incentives:
What are the best incentives?
Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
What directories or other sources do you use to find merchants?
If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
What other things would you do for a monetary incentive (where talking affiliate program ; )
If I have missed any other key points that are important to affiliates please feel free to elaborate.
Thanks
Sale notification:
Notice of sale - nice motivator
Tracking:
I prefer in house if possible
Stats:
Ability to track unlimited campaigns, updates in real time, knowing what I've been paid for, ease of use
Minimum monthly Payout:
Doesn't really matter to me - if I am not making enough to meet whatever it is, I wouldn't be promoting it anyway
Final Payment:
Some hit for chargebacks and cancellations, some don't
Incentives:
Money by way of increased commissions for performance
Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
I don't - I usually have new programs brought to me by AM's or friends, unless I find a niche industry
If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
Probably not. Convert well, pay well, pay on time, and give me good support when I need it and I probably won't go elsewhere. Don't do the above and I will.
What other things would you do for a monetary incentive (where talking affiliate program ; )
Money talks. The programs that make the most money will likely get more of my time and effort.
Commission:
Sale notification:
Tracking:
Stats:
Minimum monthly Payout:
Final Payment:
Incentives:
Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
What other things would you do for a monetary incentive (where talking affiliate program ; )
I do a lot of comparison sites where one merchant is not an option. However, you might be surprised how a little tweak here and a little tweak there can add up to huge differences in each merchant's share of referrals.
what do affiliates want?
Offer competitive commissions and convert, convert, convert.
Q: Sale notification:
Does not matter. Emal notification is not necessary. If you want to use them you had better offer possibility to turn them of.
Q: Tracking: What is the best tracking technology? In house, outsource (befree, CJ etc) or other
A: No the third hand! We would like to get their money ourselves. This kind of software is simple enough to make it yourself.
Q: Stats: What do you want from your stats?
A: Everything. Espasially we want to see logs of visitors who have not became customers.
Q: Minimum monthly Payout:
A: Does not matter. Low level is good but in other hand low level attract a lot of bad affiliates so you do not have enough time for us - good affiliate :)
Q: Final Payment: What is the industry standard, to allow for refunds, chargeback’s etc…
A: Depends on your field.
Q: Incentives: What are the best incentives?
A: After Phoenicians invented money other ways to say "thanks" became to cost less. :)
Q: Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
A: Everywhere. Mostly by occasion.
Q: If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
A: it depends. Sometimes it is possible.
Q: If I have missed any other key points that are important to affiliates please feel free to elaborate.
A: as I told you via mail: program should be clearly described and ... I guess word "transparent" is the best for it.
[edited by: Tsuren at 3:26 am (utc) on Aug. 16, 2004]
It doesn't really make sense for a merchant to have only one affiliate and it doesn't make sense for an affiliate to be locked into one merchant.
Sounds more like an employee.
Hope you don't mind as I stole your format. :)
Q: Preferred commission: PPC, Fix amount per sale, % per sale or other
A: Other. Up front lead based commission on a set amount.
Q: Sale notification
A: Email
Q: Tracking: What is the best tracking technology? In house, outsource (befree, CJ etc) or other
A: I prefer CJ.
Q: Stats: What do you want from your stats?
Conversion ratio.
Minimum monthly Payout:
$50-$100 is fine. If I can't make $100 from the program in one month, count me out.
Q: Final Payment: What is the industry standard, to allow for refunds, chargeback’s etc…
A: Depends on your field. But to turn back a lead based commission, there better be a very good reason. Returns on sales commissions are understandable.
Q: Incentives: What are the best incentives?
A: % of commissions made, say, "10%" on top of commissions earned.
Q: Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
A: Google them.
Q: If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
A: Yes.
Q: If I have missed any other key points that are important to affiliates please feel free to elaborate.
A: Work work work.
Q: Sale notification
A: Instant email
Q: Tracking: What is the best tracking technology? In house, outsource (befree, CJ etc) or other
A: In house
Q: Stats: What do you want from your stats?
Conversion ratio.
Minimum monthly Payout:
$50-$100 is fine. If I can't make $100 from the program in one month, count me out. -Ditto
Q: Final Payment: What is the industry standard, to allow for refunds, chargeback’s etc…
A: 15th day of the following month, checks are sent out.
Q: Incentives: What are the best incentives?
A: Bonuses for reaching certain milestones of sales.
Q: Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
A: Search engines.
Q: If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
A: Of course.
Q: If I have missed any other key points that are important to affiliates please feel free to elaborate.
A: Being paid in full, on time, consistantly every month/week.
Synergy has hit the nail on the head. Give me a product/service that sells, good conversions and the above. The rest is all just details.
By the way, 5star, I take it this "survey" is to help you relaunch your aff program after that one high producer bailed?
[edited by: engine at 8:11 pm (utc) on Sep. 22, 2004]
Q: Sale notification
A: email with ability to turn off
Q: Tracking: What is the best tracking technology? In house, outsource (befree, CJ etc) or other
A: I'll try anything if I think it is well built but I don't want to lose 30% commission to the tracking program
Q: Stats: What do you want from your stats?
The more you can add the better - I love stats
Minimum monthly Payout:
Don't care anything too small is often a pain to bank/process. I would focuss on payment methods. If I'm earning >$1000 a month can you wire the payment?
Q: Final Payment: What is the industry standard, to allow for refunds, chargeback’s etc…
A: I love it when a merchant accepts chargebacks for good affiliates. Sure if I've made two sales and one charges back. But if I make 200 a month do you really want to remove $20 from my account and leave a bad taste in my mouth?
Q: Incentives: What are the best incentives?
A: Bonuses for reaching certain milestones of sales plus I always like a thoughtful gift :)
Q: Where do you go to find affiliate programs?
A: I look at who the top SERP listed affiliates and PPC affilates use
Q: If you were offered an incentive to sell a product exclusively (meaning you wouldn’t promote another competitors in the “same field” on your site) would you do it?
A: Yes. But never make it a clause before I join.
Q: If I have missed any other key points that are important to affiliates please feel free to elaborate.
A: payment needs to be ontime and I really expect affiliate management involvment when I start making $'000.
If I can't email someone a problem and I'm sending reasonable traffic I get nervous
1. Higher commissions (20% - 5% Higher than our closest competitor).
2. In-House independent program: We did a similar survey with our highest performing affiliates as to features we wanted, then had a custom system built for us (actually not too expensive when using elance).
3. Lifetime commissions: This was the bigeest request we received from our top affiliates. Essentially, they simply wanted a longer return period (it had been set to 30 days). After looking at the numbers, we decided to make affiliate's customer's commissionable for the life of the customer (tracked via database).
4. Advanced lining tools: Affiliates needed to be able to link to our site essentially in any way they wanted (i.e to the main page, a sub category, individiual products, etc.). To help them our, we added both individual product links already hard-codede with their tracking ID, as well as a datafeed that is updated in real time (i.e. it is never out of date) that they can download in multiple formats.
I should note that although a few "super" affiliates do not like (for some reason) to deal with anything outside of the major networks (CJ, etc.), the majority not only love our little Indie program, but realize that our competitors (who've all gone the network route) simply can;t compete with our features, ont to mention our commission rate (since they have to pay such huge fees to the networks).
Further...the fact that we're going to limit the number of our affiliates to 500 (to prevent over saturation), as well as including an anti-search engine spamming clause in our affiliate agreement has kept our program running pretty much flawlessly for the last 6 months ;-)
Cookie duration will make or break me even applying to an affiliate program.
Parasiteware (?Spelling), if your program has known parasites I will not even bother to apply. Why let BHOs, cookie overwrites steal my hard work.
Take care,
Brian
Keep the product page to the point and sell the darn product. If you need a looooong selling page then get your own traffic. If I'm selling it for you then I want people to go buy it, not go read for half an hour or click that ever-present home or favourite search engine button.
Don't wave it under the customer's nose that they too could be an affiliate - alternatively just add the words "The guy who sent you here just wants your cash and didn't mean a thing he said about us" then watch me dump your program.
I hate, detest and genrally loath garbage copy along the lines of "This should be $99 but for a very limited time only, you can have access to ALL this for just $29.95!"
You want me to hype your product at $99? So you didn't want traffic after all? Why bother then?
Like I say, I'm a newby but if I were selling a product I'd want the affiliate to tell the visitor how great it is, what benefits it brings and what good value it is - so when they arrive they look around, think "OK, seems a professional looking site, what the guy said, so where do I order..? Ah, buy now.."
Not a sprawling over-hyped sales pitch that goes on for ever, gives obviously fake "discounts" and extolls the virtues of your affiliate program.
Please, can the excessive "testimonials", unless you provide photographs, email addresses and their phone number..
Serious affiliates will know to look right at the bottom for some tiny print in between the copyright notice, privacy and other boring gumpth links for the little word "affiliates" in tiny type. Better still, hide it on your contact page.
If you have an attractive product or service, people will LOOK for the affiliate link, don't wave it at our visitors - that is the number one thing that has made me decide against various programs.
We want conversions, not to breed your affiliate program.
Min' payouts? Pay me for every 10 sales, whatever that works out at. More than that and I get nervous you might not be there come payday.
Pibs.
I already know that I need to change my payment structure to be a % or possibly offer a choice. We have done percentages for some clients who have asked, but that seems to be more popular then the other.
More incentives and rate increases for volume which we currently do but I think we can do better.
Better Stats.
Muli-campaign management.
We do allow for custom linking, and depending on the site, if the site already covers the description I would rather they link to the order page. If the site just has a banner… pointing the link to an informational page seems to convert better. But ultimately I think the affiliate knows his site and traffic better then anyone.
Since you are so experienced would you cast your vote based on your knowledge of the industry?
Interesting. How do you go about defining what techniques are acceptable?
I used PPC now, are you suggesting that I give that up? I see 10 - 12% conversions. I would hate to give that up. Please explain.
anti-search engine spamming clause
Are you serious? So you don't want any affiliates with high search engine rankings? I am confused as to what SEO "methods" could possibly bother you?
This leads me into the MOST important aspect that I look for in a merchant - LEAVE ME ALONE - don't send me changes and new rules, just cut checks or YOU'RE FIRED :)
I've also heard Affiliate Managers regulate the terms that affiliates can use within their ppc campaigns. For example, you can give them the approved ppc keyword list for your program and then bid on other terms yourself so as not to compete directly with your affiliates.
I've also seen Affiliate Managers restrict the PPC engines that affiliates can bid on, but I'm not sure that is the best tactic. There are really one a handful of top ppc engines.
Some affiliate managers agree that they should not compete with their affiliates in ppc campaigns and their solution is to simply say affiliates can not ppc for their offers. However, if you do not allow them to run ppc campaigns, more than likely your competitor will and I'm sure you'd rather have them send the traffic to you than your competitor.
In general, the argument as to why you should not compete with your affiliates is that you'll end up driving each others cost up and if they are working for You, you should not be making it harder for them you should be making it easier. Regardless of how you pay your affiliates, you are paying them for the completed transaction. When you're running a ppc campaign you paying for everything including the click costs so it's more cost effective for you to allow the affiliates to run ppc campaigns, but directly competing with them will increase their cost and eventually they will not have an effective ROI to justify their ppc campaigns for your offers.
It is a delicate balance and something that should be given a lot of thought.
I will diffinately do that and welcome others to share their thoughts.
Are you serious? So you don't want any affiliates with high search engine rankings? I am confused as to what SEO "methods" could possibly bother you?This leads me into the MOST important aspect that I look for in a merchant - LEAVE ME ALONE - don't send me changes and new rules, just cut checks or YOU'RE FIRED :)
Essentially, we do not allow any cloaking, "doorway page generators" (I'm sure you know the ones I'm referring to - the page/serp scraping, fake-content kind), or deceptive redirects.
As far as "leaving our affiliates alone", as long as they utilize (what we consider) legitimate SEO techniques (which precludes the "shady" methods I outlined above" they are free to market as they choose, including PPC.
It should be noted that most of those affiliates that have been caught using those techniques we do not allow had mediocre and inconsistent sales at best, and most woudl not even rank in the top 50% of our affiliate sales force.
The fact is, while I want my affiliates to make all they possibly can, I have to balance that with protecting the brand and image of the business I am building.
For example: One affiliate whose sales had bee relatively strong after about 90 days in our program was found to have used an automated program to grnerate thousands upon thousand of individual keyword specific doorway pages. While that affiliate did indeed generate a large number of sales, he did so at a conversion rate FAR below our established average due to the fact that only about 2% of his doorway pages used relevant keywords (i.e. most of them were targeted at phrases that realated to similar products that we did not carry). Couple that with the 3 dozen or so complaints we received from cutomers reaching our site through his "marketing" that were looking for that very item his page was supposedly pointing them to, and you see the dilemma.
I fully understand that many merchants could care less, as long as they get that first sale. However, by sticking to our guns, and keeping our customer experience/conversion rates high, we not only protect our business, we get over 40% of our customers to make second and subsequent purchases...which considering our affiliates get paid on each and every sale their referred customers make for the life of that customer, is a win-win for both of us.
I look at it like this....in the brick and mortar world, a commissioned sales force must adhere to certain guidelines in their customer acquisition process. A car commissioned car salesman would not last long at a dealership were he to continually lie to the customers, right? Why should a commissioned sales force in the WWW be any different?
At any rate....I've not received a single negative comment form our affiliates (with the exception of those that were kicked for violating our markeitng guidelines, of course), and we'll soon hit the 500 affiliate mark ;-)
Michael,
Thanks for the heads up about the ppc thread already in place.
Amazon and Ebay, two of the most recognized brands on the web have tens of thousands of affiliates doing exactly what you do not allow.
Anyway, this thread was about what affiliates want, not greedy merchants! We all know merchants want to have their cake and eat it too. Every merchant thinks they are the most wonderful in the world, similar to every company thinks their sales force is treated the best in the world :)
Tip for all affiliates. Promote programs that have lots of replacements available when you are ready to dump your merchant. I generally have a few of each site with different links.
It should be noted that most of those affiliates that have been caught using those techniques we do not allow had mediocre and inconsistent sales at best, and most woudl not even rank in the top 50% of our affiliate sales force.
You're right of course. Short-sighted thinking is what leads one to implement these techniques, and short-sighted thinking never leads to anything good.
I would never dream of doing anything that would jeopardize the long-term viability of my rankings/sites, and usually, this type of approach goes hand-in-hand with what a merchant wants to see. So it's never even an issue.
One thing that I do have a problem with: overzealous legal departments crafting long intellectual property (IP) clauses for the aff agreement. IP is important, to be sure, but I don't want to have to get someone's permission every time I use a logo, or write a descriptive paragraph on a product or service.
And one thing that I prize above all: a dedicated account rep, a live person, whom I can call or write anytime, who will address my problems/questions immediately while being able to look at things from mine, and not just the merchant's POV.
Tip for all affiliates. Promote programs that have lots of replacements available when you are ready to dump your merchant. I generally have a few of each site with different links.
I can't stress this enough myself. I have at least 7 different merchants lined up per affiliate program I'm with. Even if I never use the extra programs, they are there just in case something turns sour with the program I'm with at the time.
Boy, that cuts out most top performers than. ;) Here is a tip - as long as affiliates are representing your product legitimately (i.e. not sending your widget site traffic based on you giving away free widgets when you're not), then leave the policing up to the search engines.
There is no black or white with search engine techniques. For you to even try to police them is absurd in my honest opinion. And, I can guarantee you, will drive away some of the most successful affiliates you could get.
Besides, when you cut an affiliate using what you feel are spam techniques out, they'll just end up promoting your competitor - and probably promoting them very well.
3. Lifetime commissions
Very very very good one. This is a feature that will make your affiliate feel what they are doing is worthwhile for the long term.
I should note that although a few "super" affiliates do not like (for some reason) to deal with anything outside of the major networks (CJ, etc.),
After having experience (and making alot of money) with a small in-house built affiliate system, CJ and other major affiliate networks completely turn me off. I look for affiliate programs that use ONLY the in house systems. It makes for a much more intimate relationship IMO.
