How best to announce affiliate incentives?

[Chris Brown]

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Hi everybody,

I’d like to get a bit of feedback from you guys on affiliate incentives. We recommend to all our clients that they run regular incentives for affiliates and the immediate response is “what uplift will we see from it?”

This is very hard to gauge but a key factor in persuading clients to run incentives so we try to get them to understand the value in terms of promotion and recruiting as well as bottom line sales.

One of the other issues we encounter is promotion of the incentives, we use the forum, emails and even calls to key affiliates however it is getting harder to get your incentive seen amongst the constant stream of incentives and emails from a variety of merchants.

It would be good to get some feedback from you guys as to:

• What makes an incentive stand out?
• Does it have an impact on your promotion of a merchant?
• What would be a good way to get it into the consciousness of a wide variety of affiliates?

We always try to make the incentive appealing and achievable so we do not alienate affiliates who may not be driving huge volume, but it would be good to get some insight as to what you see as a “good incentive”

We try to be innovative here at Brilliant Media so are happy to take all ideas and suggestions on board no matter how wacky. We have took the announcements of the winners to the next level with posting the video of a prize draw on youtube so we would appreciate your feedback on this announcement method too! See the latest video for Netflights Las Vegas incentive

YouTube - Netflights Draw

All comments and feedback welcome; help us help you!:tup

[csn]

YouTube - Netflights Draw

Flashbacks to the Awin Raffle Bonanza videos... :tup

[Chris Brown]

Yeah that was a bit bigger but they stole the idea from us. Check out the original for Dreams back in November :tup

YouTube - Dreams Beds Affiliate Prize Draw

[Travel Pixel]

Sorry to state what is probably the obvious Chris but the answer to these three points:

What makes an incentive stand out?
What would be a good way to get it into the consciousness of a wide variety of affiliates?

Is.....

A GREAT PRIZE!

The last netflights incentive was excellent. We didnt uplift our promotions though for other reasons.

Dave

[Chris Brown]

Thanks for the feedback Dave, we are really keen to ensure the incentives we run are appealing.

[Rich79]

Hi Chris,

This is a really good question and nice one for bringing it up - here's my 2ps worth on the subject...

I think you really have to decide what the objectives of the incentive are first of all and the two main ones as I see it are:

1. Incentivise your existing affiliates to increase their activity
2. Publicise the affiliate programme to get more affiliates signed up/active

In my experience, a prize draw for cash or a gift will not incentivise affiliates to increase activity when they are mostly using PPC to promote the campaign. They can not really use this to re-invest as they are not guaranteed to win it. Prize draws are however quite good for publicity, recruiting new affiliates and reminding those signed up but not yet active to get their links live if it's interesting/appealing enough.

As with most promotional communications it's imperative you know your audience - are you trying to increase activity from 'super affiliates' who are an SME, or are your affiliates more likely to be a 'sole trader' working from home?? For example, a PPC exec working in a company is not going to be too motivated to win a trip to Silverstone if his/her bonus is set on profitability. (Also their boss is more likely to nab the prize anyway!).

Most affiliates I have spoken to on this subject only really get turned on by increases in commissions. If these are set tiers it means they can rely upon the increases and in turn calculate how much extra they can invest in PPC and their own time and resource.

I'm still searching for the ideal affiliate incentive that ticks all the boxes so the more feedback we get on this thread the closer we will get to making it happen on more of our campaigns!

[millionpoundlake]

How about an incentive for just smaller affiliates only.

I'm probably wrong but I don't take much notice of the prize draw incentives because I assume the "big affiliates" will win them all. Well done to Net Flights for the transparency of their prize draw.

At the end of the day probably cash is the best incentive then you can choose your own reward.

Rob
Buttercup Holidays
Find holidays, flights, hotels, car hire and cruises at Buttercup Holidays. Search for special deals and offers at top holiday companies

[Chris Brown]

Rich and Rob, thanks for your input

In an ideal world I would like to have 2 or 3 incentive categories so we could target small, medium and the larger affiliates, however this is not always possible if there is only 1 prize.

I think promoting incentives to the bigger affiliates is easier as you know these affiliates and can contact them a lot easier, and you can make this very target led so the merchant can see an uplift in sales for the incentive, however I am a big believer that an incentive should be there to incentivise as many affiliates as possible as well as encourage new affiliates, this in itself is a double edged sword. The reasons being;

• The current top performing affiliates might not be motivated as their chances of winning are limited and not guaranteed for improved performance
• Communicating the incentive to the smaller affiliates or to encourage new affiliates is harder as they may only be part time and get bombarded with emails and communications from a variety of merchants and outside of the forum what other are the other public promotional methods to affiliates not on the programme?

This brings me back to the issue of actual promotion of an incentive and getting it noticed.

I'm still searching for the ideal affiliate incentive that ticks all the boxes so the more feedback we get on this thread the closer we will get to making it happen on more of our campaigns!

I'm with you Rich, it would be great to get more affiliate feedback on this subject and maybe we can come up with the "perfect incentive" :drool

[csn]

At the end of the day probably cash is the best incentive then you can choose your own reward.

Not sure I agree. Granted £500 is a nice prize but the chances are most of us wouldn't use it to buy a prize. It would go as earnings and would be used to buy hosting, domain names, advice, etc. Vouchers, for example, force winners to spend them on material objects.

Flexible trips (i.e. the winner chooses the dates and perhaps the location) and tangible prizes are welcomed. Perhaps something outside of the norm but related to the merchant in question. Some travel gadgets, a go in a flight simulator (e.g. like this - looks like a lot of fun :tup ), etc. Something a bit more unusual would certainly interest me. :drool

[csn]

I am a big believer that an incentive should be there to incentivise as many affiliates as possible as well as encourage new affiliates, this in itself is a double edged sword. The reasons being;

• The current top performing affiliates might not be motivated as their chances of winning are limited and not guaranteed for improved performance
• Communicating the incentive to the smaller affiliates or to encourage new affiliates is harder as they may only be part time and get bombarded with emails and communications from a variety of merchants and outside of the forum what other are the other public promotional methods to affiliates not on the programme?

Interesting argument. Some would say that most incentives are aimed towards the big boys and are designed as a pat on the back for them, whilst the smaller affiliates follow the deluded idea that they might win. Controversial but an awful lot of prizes are based on earnings (obviously), hence the more sales that are generated, the greater the chance at winning.

Incentives should be wide ranging and should be designed to encourage fresh blood onto the program as well as rewarding the best performers. Those in the middle (low performing existing affiliates) should be encouraged and should therefore have realistic goals and a realistic chance of winning. IMO.

As for communication, understandably the response from a PT affiliate will be slower than a FT affiliate but generally for me, the prize speaks for itself. Something unusual would stand out from the LCD TV's and cash prizes. After looking at the prize, I'd look at the methods of entry. Some affiliates have large audiences and can deliver on sales. Some have niche audiences that may only deliver a sale in a blue moon. Some are more creative than others.

A comp with unusual prizes, a wide range of entry methods and realistic chances of winning for all concerned would be a sure-fire winner, again IMO, irrespective of whether an affiliate is FT or PT. A worthy competition will get shouted about by prominent affiliates. Case in point - Win Silverstone F1 tickets with Vodafone , Handling Inactive Affilates - Currys Get It Right and even I've had a go at Red Letter Days Understands How To Incentivise Properly

[Chris Brown]

Thanks David some really good food for thought there, I especially like the flight simulator idea.

There are some really good examples of incentives here, what would be interesting to know is if it delivered the desired results.

[bazza99]

One point that I'd make from an affiliate perspective is that it's vital to deliver on your promise.

I've "won" a number of affiliate incentives and never actually received the prize, despite persistent attempts to chase for them.

That's had a negative effect in terms of how I perceive certain merchants, resulting in me no longer promoting them. Disappointing for me, but even worse for some of the merchants who have lost thousands of pounds worth of sales as a result.