Tips for running a successful Affiliate Programme?

**D-Mac** · 05-03-04

Hi all

I am new to Affiliates4u, and also new to affiliate management. I found Affiliates4u via a well hidden link in the admin area of Affiliate Window who we recently set up a programme with.

The reason for this post is to ask if there are specific things that readers here believe make for a good or bad affiliate programme? Dos and don'ts.

My aim is to build a successful relationship with a small number of dedicated affiliates. Whether this is realistic or not I really don't know. I am, at the moment, optimistic.

As a professional affiliate what type of things do you look for in an affiliate programme? What is it that makes the difference between a merchant's programme that generates a few extra quid income a month for the affiliate, and a programme that enables affiliates to earn 3+ figure commissions?

Thanks

David

**jesss1** · 05-03-04

Too many to list all in one go...

1. Always pay your affiliates on time miss a payment and your affiliates will drop you like a hot piece of coal in their hands. This is not a possibility, this is a reality!

2. You first need to look at your own website in terms of usability from your visitors perspective. Affiliates have pre qualified their visitors, they have done their job, your job is to receive the referred customer and provide the best possible chance to either purchase or register for your products or services.

Areas on your website that you need to focus on is …
a) Navigation
b) Ease in which to add or remove products from your shopping basket
c) If you want people to register are your instructions clear, its not just banner blindness people suffer from.
d) If you have an order telephone number, you will need to ensure you can facilitate offline tracking as this will put the affiliates off from joining your affiliate program.
e) Get a few of your friends to go through your website and get them to identify areas of weakness.

3. Affiliates with statistics of zero?
These affiliates signed up for your program for a reason. If after a couple of weeks you still have affiliates displaying zero statistics you need to find out why.
Usually there are good reasons. Some of these reasons may include; the affiliate is a novice and does not know how to put your links on his/her website. Some affiliates may work up to a season in advance and are waiting for the right moment to put your links up. Some affiliates may have signed up by accidentally clicking on the wrong merchant link. The message here is to find out what they are waiting for.

4.Dont see your affiliates as a collective but as individuals.

5. Listen to what they have to say, they have been in the business longer then you.

Loads more too

But communication....communication and more communication

**Keith** · 05-03-04

My view.

http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread...threadid=17794

**Gray@Figleaves** · 05-03-04

Become an active user of this forum! Don't be afraid to ask quesions, and be open and honest about your site and your program. Treat your affiliates as an extended sales force, and give them the respect they deserve.

Cheers
Graham
Figleaves.com

**D-Mac** · 08-03-04

Thank you for the excellent feedback.

With regard to offline tracking, I can only think of 1 suitable method, which would be to use some kind of referral code when taking phone orders. Does anybody have experience of this?

Less than 5% of our sales come via our freephone number, but obviously over time this adds up. We intend to solve the tracking issue.

With regard to communication....communication and more communication, I couldn't agree more. The difficulty I have had is getting a response from our affiliates. We have about 100 affiliates on-board via Affiliate Window, but only about 5 of these seem to respond to emails :-(

Like jesss1 said, everybody signed on for a reason. At present, there are 95 or so that I have virtually zero information about, which makes moving to the next stage very tricky. I suspect that some of the affiliates email addresses on AW are out of date. Spam filters probably stopped some others (the emails were sent via AW's internal system). Perhaps the wording of the email was dodgy...

If you're an affiliate reading this, give us a try :-)

David

http://www.expresschemist.co.uk

**Aquanuke** · 08-03-04

Will you be using the IPS (shopwindow)?

**D-Mac** · 08-03-04

Hi Aquanuke

I need to read more about ShopWindow, as I have some reservations about our competitors having easy accesss to our complete product database. However, subject to being able to decide which categories are made available, we will definitely be using it.

Thanks for asking.

**lakrasia** · 08-03-04

I'm new to this, but I imagine telephone tracking is difficult. Personally, as an affiliate, I'm always attracted to merchants who offer a discount for buying online, as I know this gives me a better chance of earning my commission, so I suggest this as an alternative.

**BenKowaBunga** · 08-03-04

You could use the affiliate ID as a phone extension so it can be automatically tracked by the person at the other end, or maybe simpler is to have the Aff ID appear on your contact page (wherever the phone number is) then when someone calls up, the helpdesk person just asks for that number that appears.

You could also use a 'Click here for us to ring you back' type feature. This then passes the aff ID through to you to record.

Express Chemist - I know what you mean about affiliates not responding, but don't worry about it too much. If you see referrals going up then it means they're listening and working for you. If you screw up then you'll soon hear from them

**watcher** · 08-03-04

Regarding data feeds and competitors:

A determined competitor can always get all, or a substantial part of, your product data base using data mining tools. Your site is straightforwardly linked (good!) so wouldn't present a big problem to the more sophisticated tools.

So not supplying data feeds doesn't stop a determined competitor but it will limit your affiliates - which is limits your revenue.

**Aquanuke** · 10-03-04

Very true dosent take a genius, even I could do it

If you do use the shopwindow let me know and i'll sign up.

**D-Mac** · 10-03-04

watcher - "A determined competitor can always get all....your product data base using data mining tools" - yes, good point

Aquanuke - ShopWindow - yes, on it's way