Do the quality of your leads matter? (Affiliate perspective)

[smn2]

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Hi,

I've been wondering about this leads-quality issue for a while.

Basically, would you generate as many leads as possible for
a merchant, even though the leads you generate might not
be the 'quality' that the merchant is looking for?

For example, Tiscali (DGM) have suspended their program
to investigate the quality of leads that affiliates are generating.
I've been doing really well promoting a certain aspect of their
program - free sms - but have no idea if this is an
appropriate thing to emphasize.

(I'm sure people can think of other examples, especially
*some* Espotting affiliates eh!)

Does this matter, or should I just make as much money as
possible as quickly as possible? Or, should affiliates act
responsibly and behave like we'd like merchants to behave
and that is, as if we're involved in a partnership?

Any comments welcome.

Cheers,
Steve

[Mogga]

Most of the tiscali stuff comes with the prerequisite of someone must use their service before they qualify for the freebies - once they've got a sign up who's used the service then I assume its classed as a valid lead - but who knows.
I assume they're not certain either which is why they're looking at it. I also assume the other paid aspects of tiscali program are unaffected as they are sales not leads?

[Barry]

Merchants don't like to waste their money, so lead quality is VERY important. I have had experience of this.

I used to run an 'incentive' site, like a referral swap program, rewarding people to signup to programs. Similar to a 'cash back program' but without the cash exchange - just referrals for referrals.

It worked - for ages - I've got some top downlines out there for loads of dodgy American paid to read email sites (useless!).

When I discovered affiliate marketing in the UK earlier this year i tried to apply this strategy to UK programs. I was getting leads no problem! But was soon contacted by one of the smaller networks about the 'quality' of the leads and had an account Paid up and closed. (fair enough)

My problem was - that I had not been fussy about my own leads and I had a membership full of, what was now obvious, multiple people from the same house hold or from countries where .50p is a LOT of money.

I soon shut down all my incentive sites as many advertisers specified that 'they don't except - incentive clicks' and I was in danger of lossing more advertisers and network associations.

'Cash Back' for sales are safe as there is a genuine transaction happening, but offering cash or rewards for lead based programs often just promotes people opening multiple accounts to drag money out of the system.

If you are offering 'incentives' its really down to you, the program owner (the person giving the incentive) to make sure that you don't have any deviants in your memberbase, just racking up credits for 'easy pocket money'.
What good is it to an advertiser if the only reason somebody signs up is to get a free 20p reward, a packet of sweets, free referrals, banner credits or the like.

I have since found that if you market yourself correctly, you can get leads by advertising to 'interested' people. You don't have to tell them to signup just put your ads in places where they see them, provide them with content to attract them to your site and they signup out of interest, to external advertisers.

Quality leads are from people who follow banners and links that interest them - not from people who are told they will get something back.

American networks like CJ have this (no Incentives) in their T&C for many programs, their market has become infiltraited by people offering rewards for signups and it devalued many program payouts.

I think that european networks will soon be specifing (no incentive clicks or leads) if the lead quality of their customers programs dip anymore.

-And I wouldn't blame them. I certainly wouldn't be happy paying people to send over the same person using different email addresses 10 times, or paying for people who signup for your service and then never even log into their account.

[qwerky]

I think that if a merchant is not happy with the quality of leads then their program is obviously flawed.

The future has got to be pay per action where the affiliate wins and the merchant wins for every action, i get really fed up with program suspenions/closures, every program should make a profit for each action surely its simple economics?


Also i would prefer merchants who start a program thats not working to drop the payment to an acceptable level to them rather than suspend/close even its a penny!

[Shane]

good question

fundamental issue I reckon...

The merchant works out the proposed commission based on track record and other paramaters (affiliate guilablilty etc lol) and builds their scheme around that...

you get the lead price based on that,

If you send amazingly good leads then if that merchant values you he will (ok..ok.. I am a dreamer) proactively contact you and say:
"nice one buddy..keep it up..here's some more money a lead.. I love you"

If you send really bad leads then he should probably contact you with a :
"What you doing..how are you targetting them etc.. try this..that..this and that .. if it don't work then thanks but no thanks"

and if you are just ok then they leave ya to it methinks..

If someone just shovels as much crap toward a merchant paying a fair lead rate then it just screws everything up for all of us.. the best merchants deserve the best quality leads we can give them ..anything short is just shooting ourselves in the foot in the long term...

[Gray@Figleaves]

Interesting points. As usual Shane sums it up quite nicely

My objective for early next year is to look in depth at the quality of customer each merhant is generating, and also how much profit/loss we make per order with them. Some initial results are very interesting - it's amazing how you can think an affiliate does really well for you, but they actually generate some real poor quality customers. On the other hand, it's very nice to see some affiliates generating great customers, and then working with them to increase their sales levels.


Graham
Figleaves.com

[NeilDurrant]

Graham,

Out of interest what for you differentiates between a poor and good customer?

Order values? Repeat custom/frequency? 'problem' customers such as high returns/or fraud issues?

I'm just interested to hear the merchants POV and how you might segment your customer base.

- Neil

[Aquanuke]

I like to think I can generate better quality traffic, in a recent post I said there was a merchant who ran two types of programs. 1 which paid less for a reg and 1 that paid a much higher return for a reg with a 30 day action..

Of which I opted for the reg + 30 day action to promote.

[Domain Assets]

but they actually generate some real poor quality customers.
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Understand to a degree but surely the merchant has a big part to play in the "quality" of the "customer", quality of a lead would be different.

The affiliate drops customers of at the front door, its then up to the merchant to welcome them in, show them the products/benefits, take their details, form an ongoing (contact) relationship.

I,m sure your aware of this already, just thinking out loud.

[Domain Assets]

& is there anything such as a poor quality "customer"

[Mogga]

Yes one who buys something, rings up 20 times to ask where it is, then rings 100 times to complain its not arrived, then rings up when it has arrived to say its not right and can they send it back and then requires spoonfeeding as to how to do this, then they ring up again and complain about the whole process. Plus they used a discount voucher then has the cheek to want a full price refund ...
And they'll never shop with you again, and tell their friends you're rubbish...


Something like that.

Someone I know is very hard work due to mental health issues * - the local pc shop (microdirect - why haven't they got an affiliate program?) eventually refunded his money and took his pc off him cos he was a bit of a PITA.
(* he thinks he's john the baptist but mostly takes his medicine so doesn't shout too much about being the prophecy furfilled)

I believe he then went to PC World where I'm sure they'd have had lots of fun with him.

[SillyJokes]

I know you are not joking about the nightmare customer Mogga,
at Halloween I had an order and the customer emailed me 15 times about a £6 mask.

One of the emails was at 5pm to say, "I bet my mask is there waiting to come to me,"

Another was ,"My Mum is happy that you have said you are sending the mask today," I bet she was, poor soul.

Thank God Royal Mail delivered the mask within two days or I think I would have gone mad and I have heard nothing more so they must have been happy.

[Gray@Figleaves]

Domain assets, you are correct - I was referring to quality of lead, and I agree that it's the merchants job to turn these into customers.

Originally posted by NeilDurrant
Graham,

Out of interest what for you differentiates between a poor and good customer?

Order values? Repeat custom/frequency? 'problem' customers such as high returns/or fraud issues?

I'm just interested to hear the merchants POV and how you might segment your customer base.

- Neil

Neil you sum it up pretty much. In my opinion:

Poor customer =

Those who use vouchers/repeatedly use vouchers/only buy discounted product/spend *just* enough to use a voucher;
Problem customers who return everything/fraudulent orders;

Good customer =

Higher basket/repeat purchaser.

As I said these are my opinions - the opinion of Figleaves would be (to a certain extent) that all customers are good customers.

Graham
Figleaves.com

[smn2]

Hmm, some interesting comments made - thanks.

Firstly, I'd *never* generate bad leads on purpose - e.g.
same person, multiple e-mail addresses kind of thing - but
that still doesn't mean that I might not be generating bad
leads for the merchant.

Secondly, I'm interested in Graham's comments re. rewarding
an affiliate who generates good sales

very nice to see some affiliates generating great customers,
and then working with them to increase their sales levels.

Other than sales bonuses, I've never experienced this encouragement
from a merchant, and I have been known to generate a lot of leads/sales
for particular merchants.

If you send amazingly good leads then if that merchant values
you he will (ok..ok.. I am a dreamer) proactively contact you and
say:"nice one buddy..keep it up..here's some more money a lead.. I love you"
If you send really bad leads then he should probably contact you with a
:"What you doing..how are you targeting them etc.. try this..that..this
and that .. if it don't work then thanks but no thanks" and if you are
just ok then they leave ya to it methinks..

I agree with you, ShaneRbn21.

Quality leads are from people who follow banners and links that
interest them - not from people who are told they will get something back.

the-jigsaw.com's comments (above) imply that so-called cashback affiliates
are not what a merchant is looking for. Is that right? (Cashback
shopping seems to be all the rage, right now - there's loads
of these sites!)

Re. the Tiscali example I initially cited, it seems that you don't
have to dial-in using Tiscali to get access to Tiscali's free sms
service (though you do have to register, as you do at
RedAlertz). Maybe this is the problem, or maybe I'm just paranoid
that I may be the generator of poor leads.

Anyway, this is probably the first time I've ever thought about
the 'quality of leads' issue from a merchant perspective - it's
obviously an issue to merchants, and maybe it should be more
of an issue to more affiliates too.

Steve