How many affiliate do you have?

[Andy_Lativio]

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Looking to find out the sizes of affiliate programs, we have just over 4,000 affiliates but want to know how big we can take it.

Thanks

[drivetowin]

Number of affiliates by itself is a bit of a meaningless statistic - its a bit like the perpetual willy waving contest between networks - "our affiliate list is bigger than yours" - doesn't matter a jot - its how many REVENUE EARNING affiliates you have that is the real distinguishing factor.

[pricethat]

Kbudden says it perfectly, theres still networks out there that proclaim to have hundreds of thousands of affiliate "partnerships" when in reality you could say they had just a couple of thousand "real" affiliates. Some networks i know have less than a few dozen affiliates that do over a grand or two a month.

I wont mention names but it get so tiresome and you make yourselves look like idiots proclaiming to have so many affiliates.

The funniest one i ever heard was network "x" proclaimed to of had x amount of affiliate "partnerships" which was pretty much based on one countries total ever signups and whatever they wanted to add to it. The funny thing about it was the actual amount of "partnerships" they had would of meant that 1 person in every 200 of the population was an affiliate. Considering i never met another affiliate in my life outside of purposely going to meet them i kind of guessed that the figure was actually quite wrong

[Andy_Lativio]

Number of affiliates by itself is a bit of a meaningless statistic - its a bit like the perpetual willy waving contest between networks - "our affiliate list is bigger than yours" - doesn't matter a jot - its how many REVENUE EARNING affiliates you have that is the real distinguishing factor.

I totally agree with you on this one! The problem is how do you figure out what you class as a revenue earning affiliate? Somebody making at least 1 sale, 10 sales?

Then we have a factor, will people reveal this information. I'm interested to know how big an affiliate program can get, maybe it will be hard to find this information.

[Fraser]

I like the question "how many cheques do you send a month?"

Although obviously it's mostly BACS now but the number of affiliates who earn minimum payment per month is probably a more meaningful statistic.

[Paul Wright]

As a quick health check on an individual program how about something like this...

In any given period (lets say one month) first lets work out the % active affiliates (defined by those producing 1 click or more) then also work out the percentage of those active affiliates that are producing 1 sale or more.

I find that the above helps me to monitor two things.

1. When the number of active affiliates drops, you have an issue. Are links broken, is the program not performing, ask yourself why have affiliates dropped your links, have they swapped them for a competitor, do you need to boost commission, introduce new compelling creative etc?

2. By monitoring the change in % of active affiliates producing sales you can then identify and help those with traffic but are not converters. As an affiliate manager you should be contacting these people and helping them to convert these visitors who are clearly interested in your products having clicked on your ads in the first place.

How many affiliates do I have on my programs? Well some programs have a couple of hundred, some 1-2000 and others much higher. As mentioned above there's no prizes for largest amount of affiliates, it's how well each affiliate is performing for you but more importantly how your program is performing for them.

Cheers
Paul.

[Hero]

I think the right question would be "how many of your affiliates are active". Active, meaning producing results. Results, meaning either UVs or sales (depends what you want out of your affiliate scheme). This is the important stat you need to be looking at, not simply the number of affiliates. But not in percentages, as they can be misleading; net numbers are best.

[SillyJokes]

I have a similar quantity on my indy scheme as I do on my network and the indy out performs the network by 10 times. The indy scheme had been running two years when I joined the network. The majority of people on the network who send sales originally started out on my indy scheme and moved when I started with the network. The network itself has not brought very many new performers to the party.

So what I'm thinking is, when you start your scheme and you go off and invite affiliates to join at first do you collect all the good active affiliates within the first couple of years and after that there simply aren't that many more goodun's out there?

I'm sure we have all lost count of the number of no hope 'shopping directories' and MDH that sign up. Really, I should go out on an affiliate hunt again.

[Gavinio]

I'm sure we have all lost count of the number of no hope 'shopping directories' and MDH that sign up. Really, I should go out on an affiliate hunt again.

Join the club!
I like the people who phone up with a concept of "a site where users can choose from loads of different merchants to buy from" and talk to me like it's going to be the next big thing.

There are a lot of people out there who will never make it, the good affiliate managers job, is to spot the Wigan's from the Woking's, so to speak. Who is going to be big, and who will never get there. You'll already know who the Liverpool's and Man United's are - but you never know when a Chelsea will come along with a new idea, a new load of money and jump on. Also keep an eye out for the Barcelona's out there from abroad - if your scheme/pitch is attractive enough, they can offer a lot.

Not to say enough Rotherham's out there can't provide a decent level of income. (This will only make sense if you like football).

[computertones]

Hi There,

thought you may be itnerested in a banner exchange.

My site www.computertones.com

Just launched.

Do get in contact if interested. thanks

James