Commission Payments

low commission Vs good sales

[elgumbo]

Hi,

I'm currently setting up a new affiliate program and could do with a bit of feedback.

The product we are selling is very competively priced and as such I can only offer 1% or, at a real push, 2% commission.

The low price should encourage more sales but the unattractive commission level means potential affiliates aren't exactly biting my hand off.

The average sale is about £900 meaning a payment of £9.

How does this compare with other programs out there? I know I have seen commissions of 15-25% quoted. But these are for unattractive products that look pretty hard to sell on the web, so surely 1% of £900 is worth more than 25% of nothing?

Can anybody give me any feedback from an affilites perspective?

Cheers

Peter

[Mike_Mackin]

How many people are searching and buying this STUFF?

[rcjordan]

>Can anybody give me any feedback from an affilites perspective?

At the commission levels you're using, I'd say that only niche sites in your category that can simply "bolt it on" their existing websites without any real effort will be interested. IMO, you'll need to sweeten it as much as possible, with long cookie duration, super-prompt payment, etc.

[DeCal]

www.tradedoubler.com

This site should be able to give you a guideline about what other companies are offering

Dean

[elgumbo]

Thanks for the replys -

Mike - How many people are searching and buying this STUFF?

A lot. Overture (US) shows 11392 searches in November for 1 of our products / keywords with over $0.60 needed for top bidding. November was an extremely slow month, BTW.

rcjordan - IMO, you'll need to sweeten it as much as possible, with long cookie duration, super-prompt payment, etc.

Is a 30 day cookie life OK or should I be looking at 60? I'm already committed to a monthly payout (with a £20 minimum)

DeCal - www.tradedoubler.com - This site should be able to give you a guideline about what other companies are offering

Cheers Dean, I've already seen Tradedoubler but nobody is selling the same product so a direct comparisson is hard.

Thanks Again for the feedback.

Peter

[korkus2000]

If you want good affiliates I would say 90 days or greater. I don't mess around with 30 days. To short. A 900 pound purchase is probably one that the customer will think about. Killing affiates with 30 day cookies. You will get more sales and better affiliates if you lengthen the cookie. They got you a sale you wouldn't have. Why not have a long cookie.

[Nick_W]

Is the product something that you could envision selling more stuff to customers that buy it? -- If so, repeat comm. on subsequent sales would be another way to sweeten things up...

I agree with Korkus, 30 days for a 900 purchase would not be realistic..

Nick

[bcc1234]

Set a cookie for 6 months and promise your affiliates to pay as many times as their referrals buy from you, not just the first time.
You might also drop the minimal payout thing, at least for now. You can always add that later if you get too many new affiliates coming it and making just one sale.

Although, I sell low-ticket items so don't take my word for it :)

[elgumbo]

Looks like a 100 day cookie is on the cards :)

[eljefe3]

I'd be curious at how many of those 11,000 searches actually bought a $1400 item. I can't imagine many buying straight from the net so I can't imagine that too many affiliates would build a site to market the products for only a $14 commission. I would also think that to increase sales you would have to go after the sites that could sell a lot of your product and offer them a deal.