Finding Affiliates

allaffiliatepro · 29-08-04

Hi All,
Ok, I'm still new here. But the top thing for merchants if they are on a network or have an indie program appears to be finding affiliates. (that probably seems a bit obvious to many)

So my question is:-

If there was a super duper affiliate promotion package to find you new affiliates, what would it contain?

To get the list started:-

Submission to affiliate directories
Spot in affiliate e-zines
Affiliate finding software (how do you people view this sort of software?)

I'll leave the rest to you. Looking forward to what I can learn.

Lyle

justnozy · 29-08-04

Don't know how feasible it is :-

but a function that could search the web and report back aff sites within a certain category.

Eg if I was a merchant selling fishing tackle - it would report back aff sites within that market.

Chris Clarkson · 30-08-04

Hello,

this got me thinking. Are we missing an opportunity here? I know there are affiliate directories to help merchants find affiliates, some involving a cost.

Why not take it one step further? Bear with me..

The long discussed UK Affiliate Assoc., allowing us to represent ourselves as one body, could possibly be funded like this.

Create a website directory of affiliate members, where you take the time to keep your sites/categories up to date, and charge merchants for access to search this database and make first contact with an affiliate(s) suitable to their program.

Also provide a "Merchants Code of Conduct" that merchants must keep to. I realise this is a difficult issue, as if a large earning merchant for you gets "black-balled" it's difficult to cut off this stream of income, but perhaps other punitive measures could be used?

The benefits to merchants is it makes the difficult job of tracking down relevant affiliates that much easier. For affiliates it could allow the possibility of finally having a UK Affiliate Assoc. as a self funding body, with elections for positions, but the administration and day to day running being carried out by dedicated employee(s).

Charges would need to be discussed, but as an idea, if every merchant who wanted to join was charged a flat rate fee of £100 a year, preventing any bigger companies trying to put a "squeeze" on.

OK, having read this back it still seems like a good idea, but no doubt the devil will be in the detail.

Continuing this post here...
http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread...threadid=22629

allaffiliatepro · 30-08-04

Hi Justnozy,
I think that software exists. That's what I mean by affiliate finding software. Take a look at http://www.superaffiliatetracker.com/
I think it does pretty much that. I've a special partnership with them so I can get the software cheaper for you if you want it, but I haven't yet put them on my site.

Dos anyone have experience with this sort of software?

Calibration4U - GENIUS!!!!!

It's a bit simliar to a project I have started, but it's from a different angle. I think it's bloody good idea. The merchant charge might be a bit high. With a lot of programs having a 2nd tier, you could get a lot of revenue from affiliating with the merchants in the directory. If you allowed affiliates to leave comments under each merchant, they could have insight on whether they are reliable or not.
I think this is an idea you should definately work on. Maybe you could arrange some sort of co-op between the affiliates?

jess1 · 30-08-04

Unless you have the time to sort through your results of any "affiliate Finding Software" Leave well alone! It is not a quick fix to suddenly finding 1000's of affiliates! And even if you found 1000's of affiliates, what percentage of those would join up to your program, what percentage are still active? How will you contact them? Generic spam email?

Affiliatepro: Its already been done and abandoned! But I dont want to be down on the idea... have a think about this!

Merchants will not release too much info about how many affiliates generate their sales, I suspect its becuase they are embarrassed to tell you and are worried that their program must be poor cos they only have a few affiliates, they then get it into their heads that its all about finding affiliates! ( Merchants dont worry, you are normal!) Didn't help when some great selling myth started by some networks stating to merchants we have 1000's of affiliates... which implied that it is the norm to have 1000's of affiliates all generating sales/leads. Actually for the first 3 months of any affiliate program we are talking perhaps between 100 & 200 affiliates signing up to a merchants program? give or take?, and dependent upon the offering to affiliates and the merchants product!

If a merchant has a good affiliate program, affiliates and advertising houses will find you! My advice is spend the time on the affiliates you have!

Jess

drivetowin · 30-08-04

Calibration4u

I think that's a great idea - one of the problems with forming the Affiliate Association has always been how to fund it but I think you may have found a very workable solution.

I personally think £100 per merchant is about the right level - if someone, even a small one man band, is not prepared to invest £100 into promoting their affiliate programme they are really not doing it for the right reasons. Having a flat rate would also prevent large companies from buying their way and also removes any problems of removing any company from the scheme for not adhering to the charter.

I made some suggestions concerning a charter a few weeks ago...

My thoughts are they should include the following:

1. Clear zero tolerance policy of spyware.

2. Clear commission structure.

3. Will not change commission structure without giving 28 days notice.

4. Where commission is a fixed sum rather than a percentage, to increase commissions at least in line with the government inflation rate annually on the anniversary of programme launch

5. To commit to validate all commissions within 42 days.

6. To commit to pay network invoices within 30 days.

7. To provide full contact details and to respond to affiliate emails within 48 hours.

8. No prominent telephone numbers displayed on site or creative

9. No url displayed on creative

10. To provide complete, regularly updated product feeds (and not attempt to hide url or telephone numbers within product descriptions )

So what's in it for the merchant?

I believe that if merchants agree to the above we should give them something in return, i.e. merchants who sign up to the charter would be guaranteed preferential promotion on our sites compared to non charter merchants.

jess1 · 30-08-04

Kbudden: Yup I agree on some kind of affiliate ASSOC, its crucial for getting some kind of standardisation within the industry too!

I would pay £100.00 as a merchant for applying to be a reccomended merchant! I would also pay £100.00 as an affiliate to find reccomended merchants. As a netwok, I would pay too!

Problem is finding people that have the admin time!

drivetowin · 30-08-04

Jess

I agree with you about the admin time

If there is an overall level of interest I would be more than willing to do the admin to set up the association and manage the day to day admin involved (with the support / overview of an elected committee) - but I couldn't possibly look at starting this until after the Christmas rush - but I suspect it would take at least that long to get things together anyway.

I would see a committee of approx 21 people to allow for the following

one rep from each of the networks (AF, AW, POR, OMG, TD, CJ, DGM, SQ, Buyat)

six reps from the merchant community

six reps from the affiliate community

With meetings held say once a quarter (there could of course be sub committees of this to deal with specific issues).

If meetings were timed around the various nationwide a4u get2gethers this should minimise time out of the office / travelling / accommodation costs for all involved.

Sorry to hijack the thread but what do people think - would you join for £100 a year - so far its me and Jess but I'm sure there must be more of you who'd be interested (and mods - please feel free to move these comments to their own thread if appropriate)

renegade · 30-08-04

An Affiliates Association remains a desirable objective.

My main point of difference from previous discussions of this idea remains the inclusion of either merchants or networks because the interests of merchants, affiliates and networks are inevitably different.

I would prefer an independent "UK Affiliates Association" with achievable step by step goals. For starters a forum here with a moderator so we can evolve a workable structure.

I'm not in favour of a quango which needs regular face to face meetings - although of course we can chat when we get together and if the need arises we could organise a get2gether.

I am in favour of charging merchants for an "Approved merchants" certificate and £100 seems about right.

If the concensus is to include merchants and networks perhaps we are talking about a "UK Affiliate Marketing Association" rather than a "UK Affiliates Association" but there's no reason we could not have two separate quangos.

Maybe we should take a poll on that before we get into any in-depth discussion?

Spreader · 30-08-04

Hello All,

Good thread.

I agree with Jess! You do get twitchy at first when you are only getting a few orders via affilates, and you've not got the 1000's of affiliates that you "should have"...

...However, the important thing is to look after the affiliates you do have. Make sure you do as much as you can for them, be it providing creative specific to their needs, sorting out a problem with your data feed or whatever. Also talk to them - you'll really start to see things from a different perspective.

An Affilate Association = a cracking idea. Count me in and keep me posted. In my opinion this would be a great help to everyone. As a merchant - especially if you don't know about this forum - you may, unintentionally, be doing something on your site - be it putting on a big freephone number, having pop unders, general leakage etc - which really alienate your affiliates. If there was a list of "do's and don'ts" which merchants and affiliates could adhere to, then I'm sure this would be a good thing.

Anyway, that's my two penneths worth.

Cheers,

Zak.