Cleaning Up Our Affiliate Programme - Good Idea?

[DanielAustin]

Tweet

Something I noticed while carrying out a little research yesterday. What say you affiliates, is this fair enough? I suspect a lot of merchants would like to do this but they feel there would be a backlash from remaining and future affiliates.

It could probably work in two ways depending on what type of person you are. A lot of people could see this and think I had better pull my finger out and do something. Others would see this and think, forget it kick me off I don't care...

N.B - I don't advocate this idea of expiring affiliates for lack of activity and I am not trying to start a witch hunt here just an open debate.

Dear Affiliates,

We wanted to let you know that we are currently having a cleanup of our affiliate program.

At the moment you are all signed up to our great program and we'd like to thank you for your interest in merchantxxx. However, in order to allow us to look after you better and really manage the relationships the way we would like to, we have decided to take a closer look at our affiliate database. We are hereby inviting you to bring us one sale during February, a period that we feel offers the best opportunity for you to promote mechantxxx, drive sales and earn commissions.

At the beginning of March, we will then be looking at the affiliate performance and all those who have sent at least one sale through, will be invited to stay on the program and work closer with us, to make this the great partnership we believe it can be. Unfortunately this also means that we will be removing those that have not managed to drive any sales for merchant xxx during this period

However, if no sales came through your site, but you still feel that there is potential, we would be more than happy to talk to you and discuss any ideas you might have..

[ian]

Before I could give an opinion on 'cleaning up' being a good or bad idea, I'd need to know the reasons why you'd want to clear away non-performing affiliates from a program in the first place. How does removing a section of your potential sales base allow you to better manage relationships ?

[aero_mansoor]

I have been kicked of Certain programs in the past, but only issue with this is that it takes time to bed a site down, and different affiliates are on different learning curves. I dont see it as a constructive step.

Merchants have a right to cancel any affiliates they may seem fit. I dont understand how the affiliate manager sides wok to be honest, but I would say that for a given programm there may be 20-30 affiliates who do REALLY well 100-200 that do WELL these two combined might give the merchants 60-70 percent revenue. BUT the hundreds or thousands of affiliates that are out there, who may generate one sale every two month... do contribute, and when combined end up as a significant revenue stream.

In my case I dont appreciate being told that this is what i NEED to do, I am my own boss part of the reason why i am in AM to begin with. With so many affiliates, and so many merchants about there are very few rare occassions where other merchants are not availble! you are right it can be taken in two ways, and two types of people will react differently..

I would say the Two type of people are

1) Those who get Scared easily
2) Those who have thier own game plan in mind and prefer the bigger picture...

just my thoughts...

[DanielAustin]

I don't think any merchant in their right mind is going to kick affiliates off a programme for generating only a small number of sales, after all it all adds up. I think what this email is saying is that if you have signed up to the programme and you haven't done anything, not even a click or impression, then if that doesn't change in the next month they will suspend you from the programme.

That is the point I am trying to get across, is that fair enough? You know as an affiliate you may sign up to a programme and plan to do something in 3 or 6 months but then never get around to it. I think this merchant is trying to avoid that.

[aero_mansoor]

Daniel that is fair enough.. though every mrchant that i sign up atleast gets a page impression!! To be honest I have signed up for programmes and its taken me 3-4 month to develop the site and get everything in place THEN start link building so I would prefer the approach be something like....

1) ASK is there is anything wrong?
2) Then make decision based on answer...

But it leads to questio baout voucher code sites, they are entirely dependant on voucher codes given by merchants...what happens then?

[DanielAustin]

.

But it leads to questio baout voucher code sites, they are entirely dependant on voucher codes given by merchants...what happens then?

I guess it is down to the individual merchant in that case.

[nnh001]

Bad idea...I got this. They lose the potential of thousands of brand recognition ad impressions. Far better to look at the individual affiliate and try to assist them better. A lazy way of cleaning up a network!! Silly Ann...

[geordiboyo]

Would putting something in place before any affiliate signs up to a merchant program be an option? An example could be how Tradedoubler ask you to copy a authorisation code into the code on your website which you are going to promote this program on. Therefore this minimises the number of affiliates initially signing up to the program without plans in place to promote them.

Then this does not single out new affiliates whom are learning and contributing to affiliate marketing maybe not in a way of producing commissions but trying to produce clicks, impressions and sales. The best feeling in the world is when you get your first click or even more so, sale in affiliate marketing. It does take time though, alot of time in some cases.

Maybe a follow up email after 3 months asking how they are getting on promoting a specific program or do they require any support? But I would personally say NO to removing no impression, no click or no sale affiliates from programs. Sometimes a little subtle reminder to an affiliate may help.

Mark

[jezaff]

Cleaning up sounds a good idea, but how about a mail to the inactive people and ask them to confirm they want to continue. I am inactive in a number of programs but I would have joined them because I had some future intention of promoting that merchant. Being removed for not generating that sale would probably stop me from even attempting to rejoin. If you wanted to build more relationships I would assume it is easy to pick the top x number of performers and engage with them.

[geordiboyo]

Just a quick thought, I wonder what the percentage is of non performing affiliates on programs which have an automatic approval versus a manual approval?

Mark

[DanielAustin]

Just a quick thought, I wonder what the percentage is of non performing affiliates on programs which have an automatic approval versus a manual approval?

Mark

I bet it is a lot higher for auto approval programmes.

[Jimbean]

Very good question geordiboyo!

It would be a very lazy affiliate management strategy to have an auto approval programme with a regular inactivity cull (not that the merchant in question has this policy, purely a hypothetical point).

My personal thoughts on the matter is that if there are a number of inactive affiliates on a programme, what's the issue? They're not harming the programme, and may one day in the near future get round to kick-starting their promotions.

I think the term "cleaning up" is a bit wafty. It's not as if they keep all of their affiliate records on paper in a big room, and all of the inactive affiliates are cluttering up the office and blocking the fire exits

[MattSweet]

I've never seen the point of removing inactive affiliates on normal programmes. 300 inactive affiliates aren't going to cause a problem or stop you from building relationships with the 20 or whatever active affiliates.

I see nothing wrong with sending a few emails trying to activate these guys, but I wouldn't bother removing them if they're just sat there doing nothing.

[Steven Lynch]

To give a bit of a merchant perspective on this... we're taking the approach this year of making a definitie effort in activating affiliates on our program who haven't generated a sale since they signed up.

I can see in some cases where it might be necessary to reduce the number of affiliates you have, if you need to be strict with brand control and checking sites but I suspect this is probably quite rare.

By splitting our affiliates out into different categories, for example those that who maybe haven't generated a sale in the last year or so but have been getting clicks, we focus at looking for ways we can get them converting providing them with content, offers, images, videos etc and suggestions for where we think they can make improvements. Then we look at those who haven't had any clicks either and identify the sites where we think there is likely to be some value in adding DFDS Seaways. Of course there are some who have no relevancy and who probably have no intention of working with us, but having them in a pot separate to the rest of the affiliates doesn't really do the program any harm i don't think - you know where to better focus your attention.

We've also used incentives to try and improve the number of active affiliates we have, making our prize draws more inclusive so there is less emphasis on the top group of affiliates. So far these seem to have worked well.

In essence I don't think there's much harm in having affiliates on your program who don't generate a sale. Maybe better to look at them as opportunities and take some time to help them generate sales, rather than looking at them as a problem. It's not easy to get them making sales but if you do your program will be better for it and if they don't, well then at least you tried...

[Entrepreneur]

Motivate me to get sales, incentivise me to get sales, pester me to get sales by all means, but I am sick and tired of Dear John emails from merchants threatening to boot me off unless I drive a sale by such and such a date.

It tells me straight away that the merchant has no idea what I'm doing, does not appreciate that affiliates sign up to programs that they may plan to promote at some point in the future and it tells me the merchant would be better off spending their time making sure their website converted visitors to at least the vertical's average and other related measures to improve their program. That's what makes affiliates work for you. Not Dear John emails.

Rant over.