Forum Moderators: skibum
What percentage of affiliates out there are primarily content sites. For example, let's say I have a baseball bat e-commerce site - my dream affiliate is going to be finding the guy who coached baseball for years and maintains a site for baseball coaches with lots of good content on strategy etc. - then, on one of his pages about equipment, he places a link to my baseball bats page etc.
On the other hand, I see some affiliate sites out there that are strictly about offering product and good seo. Although I have no problem with these (please take no offense, those of you into this), I don't want affiliates of mine competing with me on my own keywords in the serps - unless they are adding valuable content.
Am I making any sense? What do you think the breakdown is?
I'd estimate that the majority of sites with affiliate code on them are content sites, however countless numbers of these are non-performers --or sites trying to pick up bandwidth money. If your talking pro affs, the ones that do the selling, they may be less content-oriented as a group. This isn't necessarily a negative, I know several here that have logs to prove that their traffic hits the site then goes directly to the money page, bypassing all the content.
Your affiliate program, to succeed, has to become an integral and important part of your business plan. Otherwise, its simply an afterthought that's not really worth the effort.
You will find the best affiliates are the ones good at SEO.
You want affiliates who know how to SELL, and know how to get your products noticed. Sure, some of them may end up competing with you on prime keywords, but wouldn't you rather have your affiliates keeping you company in the top ten search results instead of your competitors?
The only kind of promotions that should be off limits for your affiliates would be bidding on your brand names in pay-per-click search engines, and spyware/parasiteware/thiefware/scumware that uses parasitic link placement.
thanks!
Heh, now that our affs have worked you over (but nicely), I'll add that you do have a valid concern *IF* the practices of the affs diminish your brand or tarnish the image of your company --you should manage that aggressively, IMO.
But, as for competing with you, that's another issue. Companies have always worried over paying a commission vs a commission-less house sale, you just can't easily set sales territories on the web.
Most affiliate programs that are successful don't even try to compete with their affiliates as long as they are selling widgets, and not parent company patents,technology, name brand etc. I know of many affiliates who will not go with an affiliate program where the parent company is competing against them in adwords, overture etc. as the affiliate will look at this and think that they are being used for "branding" pruposes by the parent company and that the parent company doesn't really care about the affiliate.
If you have enough quality affiliates and are selling a product, you don't need to compete with your affiliates, instead concentrate on growing your sales.
While I understand where you are coming from with your concerns, I think you are looking at affiliate backwards.
Everything posted by other is true. Strong affiliates typically are much better at marketing than their merchants are.
Here is my definition of affiliate marketing:
Imagine… having an army - potentially thousands - of independent sales reps promoting and selling your products and you pay only for performance – in other words straight commission! They do all the work. They build their sites, pay for marketing & advertising to promote your products out of their own pocket – not yours! You get all the exposure, traffic branding and only pay commission for bonafide sales. Many successful affiliate programs claim that their affiliate sales account for up to 40% of total revenues.
Think of it this way. Dell computers has a site. They are the manufacturer. If they wanted to be the ONLY ones selling their product and the only ones listed in the search engines selling their products - where would they be? They have thousands of resellers, dealers and distributors selling their products for them. And thousands of affiliates are selling their products as well.
You can and should as Buckworks said - prohibit your affiliates from competing with you for your own brand name. But savvy affiliates will come up with many additional keywords that you may not have thought of and will many times know how to out rank you. As long as the sales come to you, you are just maximizing your exposure.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by adding an affiliate program. Just be sure you treat your partners fairly and set your program up as a WIN/WIN and it could be the best decision you have ever made!
Best of Luck!
Linda
[edited by: Marcia at 3:14 am (utc) on May 23, 2003]
[edit reason] Promotional passages clipped. [/edit]
If you promote yourself you may have 1 or 2 positions in the SERP and also the SE can trash you any time ...But with a Good Affiliate program the entire SERP may be filled by your affiliates , so even if the SE boots some , the others will remain and sell for you.
In other words by a good Aff Program the competition is in between your affiliates ( you win irespective of which ever affiliate wins ) rather than between you and your competitor! .
And catalyst you are wrong about Dell . They are direct sellers and dont have any distributors or resellers as far as i know!
100% of $10,000 sales in a year without affiliates
or
90% of $100,000 sales in a year with affiliates.
Looks pretty damn simple to me.
It is, however, quite common for affiliate agreements to include a clause that stops affiliates actively competing on your trademarked company name... eg, they can compete on 'widgets'... but not on 'Widgetville Widget Shop'.
Elizabeth , i didnt meant their Aff program . I meant they dont have distibutors and resellers ( retailers) in the traditional sense as the other computer manufacturers ...
This is a main requisite for their "just-in-time inventory " strategy!
100% of $10,000 sales in a year without affiliates
or
90% of $100,000 sales in a year with affiliates.Looks pretty damn simple to me.
Excellent Explanation!
