Affiliate Program

[jrockfl]

Does anyone have an affiliate program?
Has it been successful for your e-commerce web site?

My social media manager suggested that we implement one.
At first, there would be no cash payout. The affiliates would earn credits each month that can be applied to their purchase.

If you have an affiliate program, please tell me about it.

[DeeCee]

Am I understanding you correctly? Work as an affiliate for "credits" that only work to make purchases in your store? Basically a small rebate given to your own customers, if they bring in new business?

You are early with the April Fools jokes. It is not April 1st yet.

[not2easy]

Sounds more like MLM than any affiliate program. My suggestion would be to visit wiki-pedia and get a better understanding of how that all works.

[jrockfl]

I know what an affiliate program is.
Please read my post and answer my questions instead of posting your opinions.

[DeeCee]

That was my opinion and my answer to that question. That it will never be successful if you expect affiliates to work just for credits towards purchase of products in your store.

Sort of like in the old days, when for example coal miners were paid partly in 'script', which they could use as payment only towards groceries in the expensive company store.

Without cash payout, no affiliates.

[jrockfl]

Let me try this again for you since you are having difficulties reading my post.

Does anyone have an affiliate program?
Has it been successful for your e-commerce web site?

[lorax]

Let's get this back on track folks. The OP asked us to share our experience in running an affiliate program - regardless of payment/compensation terms.

I have not personally run a program but have a couple of clients that have them. The have been successful but the success is largely dependent upon their market space, depth and breadth of marketing materials available to the affiliates, clarity on the terms of use and implementation, and of course - appealing compensation terms - worth their effort to market the products.

[jrockfl]

Thank you lorax, that is what I was looking for.

[MisterT]

affiliates want cash, not credits

[jrockfl]

The biggest issue I face is trying to make the payouts. Are the payouts by check or paypal?
I'm just not sure how I could automate the process so it is not time consuming.

[jrockfl]

Ahhh...PayPal has something called MassPay
Looks like you can upload a file or call the api directly.

[wingslevel]

If you are US based, watch out for a sales tax gotcha. Must be at least 10 states now (including ny, ca and mi) that have laws claiming nexus if you have even a single affiliate in their state.

[haggul]

You'll have trouble gaining affiliates I think with an in house program.

I'd look at a network - you won't have to implement tracking / process payments / spend time recruiting affiliates - and best of all the affiliates will know they will get paid for sales so will be more inclined to sign up and promote you.

But as everyone else has said - they only understand one method of payment...

[jrockfl]

Please strike my comment of credits from the record. The only reason I even mentioned that was it would be easier to handle payouts.
Now, that I have discovered MassPay through PayPal, making CASH payments through PayPal is not an issue.

Overall, I'm really disappointed with the majority of the comments. The purpose of this thread was to get feedback from users who have affiliate programs and if they have been beneficial. Not to tar and feather me because I mentioned something that sounds like MLM.

[haggul]

No worries - I still stand by my comment of using a network - don't underestimate how hard it can be to recruit decent affiliates - that's harder than tracking and processing payments because you can automate that if you know how.

With regards success - yes - we have good sales through the affiliate channel. You do have to police them though as they will see every opportunity and so to protect your brand and protect your other marketing you need to be specific with your T&Cs (i.e. brand PPC bidding etc)

Get to know your leading affiliates and speak to them regularly. Give them what they need including creative and product feeds if you can. Reward them well!

[BaseballGuy]

ex-affiliate here...

No way in hell would I want "credits" over cash.

Also, be sure to lock down your coupon codes....guys like me can and will take full advantage of it (not in an illegal way, just in a way that we make sales without providing any useful content.....basically arbitraging off of your brand name).

Well, I should say "old me".


Also, be prepared for a 3-6 month build up/learning curve....depending on the vertical you are in. Very rarely do you see immediate profits and sales when you start an affiliate program, despite what these affiliate managers tell you.