Designing an attractive affiliate program

What are the best ways to attract prospective affiliates?

[AmSoc]

Greetings all,

I am developing an affiliate program for my site and I am curious as to which features of an affiliate program you find most attractive. Obviously money and ease-of-use are big factors, but are there any other factors you feel are especially important?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks!

-Ray

[edited by: eljefe3 at 1:18 am (utc) on April 3, 2003]
[edit reason] No URL drops nor specifics please. [/edit]

[eljefe3]

Hi Ray and welcome to WebmasterWorld.

I believe you will find our fourm very useful and beneficial if you abide by our terms of service which are at the bottom of the page. We discuss ways of doing business here, but we don't "do business". For the benefit of everyone we try to keep the discussions as broad as possible.

What you might want to do is to mention what your program is doing to attract affiliates, and then see if there is anything else that our members can help out with.

Once again, welcome to WebmasterWorld and we look forward to having you as a member here.

[nativenewyorker]

Hi Ray,

Welcome to Webmaster World!

Some important factors to consider.

Real-time tracking of sales, leads or clicks

3rd party tracking to increase trust (especially if your company does not have a recognized brand name)

Reasonable cookie duration (average is 30-45 days)

Reasonable payout thresholds ($25 is a common amount) Affiliates will just pass you by if they think you are trying to take advantage of them. i.e. If your average sale generates $1 in commissions and you set a payout threshold of $100, you will have a tough time recruiting affiliates.

Monthly payouts at a minimum (over 95% of the programs out there pay out on this timeframe) Payments should be made reasonably quickly (2-3 weeks after the end of the reporting period).

Sub-affiliates for your program which is akin to viral marketing

Residual payments for subscriptions or similar products or services with recurring sales

Ted

[Gibble]

If it's a commission on sales, the ability to incorporate the products into our own pages via an XML feed, or similar.

[AmSoc]

Thanks again -- this definitely makes me feel more comfortable with my program. Sounds like if I work in the sub-affiliates part, I'll have all of these points covered.

Also, I'm getting proposals from various networks to act as promoters of the program to webmasters. Do webmasters pay any attention to those? Does being listed by those networks carry any weight? From what I've seen so far, it looks like they'll list any program that pays them.

[eljefe3]

>>From what I've seen so far, it looks like they'll list any program that pays them.

Yes they will. This is where they can make extra marginal income without doing too much. I'd recommend to see if they would work out a deal on this (I.E. If they can bring in X amount of sales from this extra service, then they make a percentage of the extra sales).

[Drastic]

>Sounds like if I work in the sub-affiliates part, I'll have all of these points covered.

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about a sub-affiliates setup. 2nd tier setups are highly overrated [webmasterworld.com]. Most pro marketers I know couldn't care less.

[firstmark]

I would not say second tier programs are highly overrated. Just how do you get webmaster sites to mention a given affiliate program prominently without financial incentive?
Gaining prominent placement on webmaster sites is a thing that two tier programs help to accomplish with no upfront costs.

If you go with a network and they offer a two tier program that is almost the same as your program offering it individually as the referring publisher gets something for those who sign up under them and they can encourage people to use your program under the network and be paid.

Networks offering two tier incentives for publishers include CJ (one time lead price only) Clickxchange percentage of sales, Clixgalore percentage of sales.

[Drastic]

>Gaining prominent placement on webmaster sites

So, is that where you find/pick your best aff programs?

Not me.

[firstmark]

Drastic no not in that sense. I do check out the programs mentioned in webmaster message boards. And I do pay attention to what other sites are running. But I am speaking of easy traffic for new affiliate programs.

Why ignore those who can reach the webmasters that might promote your program?

You have to get the word out about an affiliate program somewhow. Either you can pay for using a prominent elite network to get the word out for your program, or you can advertise your program, or you can offer a two tier program. Or do all three of these things.

Really it is not much trouble to offer some incentive for those who refer new sites to your program. Even if its a flat rate or a percentage of sales. Two tier programs are probably the best investment one could make to ensure the growth of ones programs with minimal cost providing it converts and works first of all.
If no one ever signs up under a two tier system it costs you nothing to try, so why not try? You never know who might read about your program on some small webmaster site because of two tier incentive and sign up and be a powerful affiliate.