We have an affiliate which uses adwords and gets unbelivable results. Her CPS is 34 while ours is 176 (!) . She doesn't (of course) tell us which keywords she is using and where/when etc. We only know its adwords. Is there any way to discover which kw she is using?
Thanks.
Her keywords won't pertain to other products, those would be different keywords.
>>we wont touch what she is doing..
Of course you will. If you use her keywords you will, why else would you want them? And if she catches you (which she will), she'll be doing what she's doing for your competitors.
Why don't you learn to do your own keyword research, or hire a firm to do it for you? Is it because you want to use her keywords yourself, and then just drop the affiliate program so you won't have to pay commission?
Affiliates spend a hell of a lot of time and money refining campaigns and kword lists, my suggestion would be that you attempt the same.
As for not competing for the same products; if this is the case then the kwords would not deliver the same results. Furthermore you would be a competitor for these terms thus inflating your affiliates costs, particularly if you are working with greater margins. The single url policy would also present an issue if you are both in fact linking to the same one.
That's exactly what you're trying to find out
Way to know which keywords an affiliate is using?
That combination it the way she's writing the ads.
One with out the other would result in weaker results.
If she is an valued affiliate, leave her keywords alone!...KF
Added - here it is:
Furthermore you would be a competitor for these terms thus inflating your affiliates costs, particularly if you are working with greater margins. The single url policy would also present an issue if you are both in fact linking to the same one.
[edited by: Marcia at 2:12 am (utc) on Dec. 9, 2007]
we sell 1000's of products, she uses some combination which is very effective. We will not have to take her keywords we have other products to promote.
Oh yeah. Like any merchant would not want to cut their cost by 80%.
You can encourage your affiliate to advertise for your 1000's of products too. That way it will be a win win for both of you.
I was happy, as it was good to get out of affiliate shell and get into boots of an agency. As you can see here, we are always “chased” for many reasons.
So I made a half page proposal that in short (but clearly) explained my approach, outlined in few phases.
I had to follow up in order to get something back from them. …and the answer was “we decided to keep everything in house”.
It could be that they would have it in house anyway, but it also could be that the fellow manager liked my proposal and thought it would be easy to do it (by themselves).
So much about merchants and their approach.
The initiator of this thread should be able to get that out of his affiliate if they have the right relationship.
I do have some where I can almost send how much I spent last month. Not many though. It is so hard to get the merchant figure that if they’ve shown respect to their affiliates, many of them (affiliates) would take out their last penny to spend onto clicks for that particular campaign, even when they lose money.
davidhu: I am sorry to see you did not get what you’ve expected, but we’ve got screwed so many times, too many.
Have you ever thought about asking your VALUABLE affiliate for a meeting and giving her information you already have, the same one you claim you wanted to turn into more sales? Something like “we see you are good in this, and we think you would do great in that”.
Read carefully now: that THAT may give her a clue which will drive her to bring even more sales, that more that your team would never be capable of.
Think how you can grow your business, not how to cut over the back of your affiliates.
And thanks for the post, it may open eyes of some merchants, in positive way.
On the other side, if we missed the point, and we were all very stupid, SORRY.
P.S.
There are companies out there that charge big buck to give you insight into what you want. Their monthly cost can be as what you spend on your affiliates annually.
We could offer her to do our ads and get paid for each sale but then why should she care about our conversion rates? She wouldn't... right? because suddenly it is not her money.
We offered her a higher commission
So, treat her well and be happy to have such a good promoter for one of your products.
Run multiple campaigns, cover all keywords, get creative with ad text... the rest is simply a matter of running them each long enough to gather enough data before making a change so that you can compare the old data to the new for effect.
When you're starting out a new campaign, consider the additional cost at first the price of learning what works best.
As for wanting her keywords, it's in your analytics since she goes from google to you directly. Filter out non paid traffic, look at the keywords people are finding you with, search for those keywords on google and the ads on the side will eventually give her up.
Of course, she may also have targeted a site that performs well. Sometimes even a highly rated spam site is a godsend since your ad is the most attractive thing on there. Thats in your analytics too.
Get your detective hat on and good luck. Oh, and just a tip, it may not be 100% her keywords that do the trick, she may be going local to get more targeted traffic, she may be adjusting how much she offers... sometimes even lowering a bid price by a few cents increases the results although explaining that would be hard.
even lowering a bid price by a few cents increases the results although explaining that would be hard
Not being in the top 3 positions or even getting only onto page 2 could give you clicks of much better quality than when you cover the top positions.
In my experience, many who click through to page two of the search results and then click on an ad, are more willing to buy (or whatever your desired call to action is) than those that just click on the top three spots and then (disappointingly for both) just hit the back button.
in defense of the merchant, cheating affiliates who use adware to pop a cookie on your shoppers in your cart will give a similar response to the one you described that she gave. merchants need to know some details - but if she's doing well for you, it shouldn't take much looking to know where her ads are showing up. have a call with her if you aren't sure what she's generally doing and ask for a few examples.
This is my first post (exciting!)
The overall problem this discussion illuminates is that affiliates will only work in areas where its quite profitable. Who can blame them? Merchants need that, but also need "coverage" in keyword areas that are less profitable.
The ideal solution is to find affiliates who will work on a pay-for-performance basis for the lucrative keyword arangements, AND work on a spend + commission basis for the less profitiable areas.
This will force us all to work more closely together which is of course a good thing.
Once you have the keyword I would get the ads... as I agree it is the combination of the two that is making her do so well.
You may not like what I have to say, but please consider it as I've been in the affiliate "game" for many years now. If I were your affiliate, that is how I'd like to be approached. I wouldn't want to find out that my merchant was trying to "discover" my keywords so that they could use them for their own purposes and benefits...it wouldn't sit too well....
