Affiliate Commission for 800# Phone Sales?

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

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I have been working behind the scenes on solving the 800 phone # tracking issue for you all. I know this is a big area of affiliate commission leakage and am excited to announce that some of my merchants are implementing solutions as we speak.

One of my clients just made the bold move and phone orders are now being tracked. I couldn’t talk about it because they would not even give me the details until their patent was filed.

Having an 800# is very important to online sales and legit businesses MUST have an 800# for questions or for people who are afraid to order online. However, some products tend to get more phone calls. With this client, I assume customers sometimes have tech questions like "which is the best turntable that has xyz features?" or "my speakers just blew - what brand do you think is the most reliable and the best price?" So for this company to now track and credit affiliates for phone sales I think is HUGE and shows how high integrity they are.

800# phone sales tracking is not the industry norm and affiliates lose out on a lot of phone orders. I am working on a very exciting new solution with another one of my clients which will be announced soon. I am trying to discover the most compelling wording that will get customers to mention the aff ID when they call the 800#.

This is what one (typically critical) super affiliate had to say about this:

"Linda, first, I have to say thank you. I hope this will serve as an example for others to follow. However, I also realize that this 1-800 tracking is on of the fringe benefits to affiliate marketing when it comes to giving advertisers an edge. We (affiliates) lose on this issue, until someone, like you, and your company, comes along and says, "we care". For merchants who read this: this is how you get noticed, and get preferential treament when it comes to making a decision on what we promote, and what we don't promote."

The 1st client I mentioned above is using "priority code" some others I have seen list the affiliate id as a phone extension. Do any of you work with other companies that credit affiliate phone sales? If so, what is the best method you have seen for insuring that customers will use the affiliate id when they phone in orders?

Once I get merchant #2 set up with affiliate phone sales tracking, I intend to do a large promotional campaign and get a lot of press which will force more other high integrity merchants to follow suit and start paying for phone sales.

Any and all feedback and ideas will be sincerely appreciated and will help lots of affiliates earn more money!

Thanks,

[talk4]

Hi Linda,

I'm assuming that your post refers to solutions from US merchants but the issues are hot here in the UK too. I send a lot of clicks through to an Independent Utilities 'broker' who pay me £6 per lead. I've always known that there would be significant leakage when people look at their website but then call them. I've phoned around their competitors and found one who not only offers up to £18 per switch but also will give me a dedicated 0800 numbers to track this. Needless to say they've got my business! I know Fonetastic Warehouse offer this to their best affiliates (not me unfortunately) but would like to know more about how where people get this service from (so I can become reseller for it to all the merchants out there

[getvisible]

don't want to be a party pooper but www.telephone-central.co.uk already offer this. I mentioned it in a thread a couple of weeks ago about launching a discount-computer offer. At the moment I'm testing it myself. If someone sells a product via telephone ordering that sale is assigned to the affiliate through a reference code that appears on their pages and banners.

Not going to release it to the open market until its fully tested though.

[Russ Short]

I know Fonetastic Warehouse offer this to their best affiliates (not me unfortunately)

Hi Talk 4

Noticed your post and thought I would let you know that we offer 0800 numbers and 0845 numbers to any affiliate that sells just one handset.

You can contact us at any time and we are happy to sort this out for you. Tel: 0114 2250313.

Regards

Russell

[Supercod]

Hi Linda, I don't see what you’re saying as new at all. I used to work with a US Hosting company called Hosting.com and they offered this since 1998 via the Adgrafix brand. Heck I used to answer some of the sales calls here in the UK and have to ask for the affiliate ID.

And I know many of the independent sites here in the UK offer it already also.

What is going to be more interesting is when networks can offer this option to all clients. As they say watch this space, I know of 2 networks who have already developed systems months ago, they are just sorting out the best way to roll it out so all clients can take advantage of it, of course not everyone will be set-up or can change to deal with it, but if the majority do, that will be a start.

[getvisible]

just speaking to my mate Luke. Reckon Telephone Central could provide a service that SMS's affilaites their earnings every night if they were on holiday or away from the comp??

Sure it could be done - would affiliates like that sort of thing?

[talk4]

I'm sure affiliates would love it, but not sure the merchants (and networks) who love to hang on to our commission for months would!

[getvisible]

sorry meant "sms detials of their earnings"

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

Hi Supercod,

I am not saying it's new, it's just extremely rare to find merchants who pay for phone sales. My guess is that 98% don't so when one does, it's news IMHO. What we are trying to do for my next merchant is a variable header that will change when an affiliate link is clicked.

Giving an individual affiliate their own 800 number is one thing.
Creating a solution that will work for thousands of affiliates is another. For merchants - it's not just the phone commission that is an issue. There are programming and testing costs, retraining and monitoring of phone sales reps, the issue of paying a double commission and the extra labor of manually inputting orders into CJ (in this merchants case) that would otherwise be automatically added. So there is alot of time and expense in putting a full blown solution together to track phone sales for a large merchant.