Thread: Advertisers and Affiliate marketing = bang head on wall.

for those interested I responded:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>
Hi xxxxxxxx

Thanks for your email.

Increasing numbers of advertisers are seeking a true return on their investment and that's why they are moving over to a CPA-based marketing strategy. Companies like Argos, Marks and Spencer, Direct Line, Capital One etc know that in these times they have to look for a guaranteed return on their marketing investment. Companies that do not explore this method of accepting advertising will experience a progressively smaller amount of advertisers willing to spend their marketing budgets with them.

If you believe that your audience is "targeted" and your traffic figures "high" then you would have no problems converting that into revenue. Surely only companies that are not confident in their ability to convert would only offer a CPM/CPC approach?

In this case, Telephone Central Limited offer £30 per sale on a £99 service this is not a "small percentage" it is 30%.

What sort of advertisers do work well? Is it those that are interested in traffic levels rather than sales? At the end of the day traffic doesn't pay staffs wages, its sales.

I expect we will leave it to career-affiliates to make the most out of the offering as they have the ability to gain and convert the traffic. Perhaps we should set ourselves onto understanding why affiliate marketing is the fastest growing form of advertising and is not the preserve of under-funding businesses but it fully and whole-heartedly supported by major international corporations.

Kind regards,

Lee

[/quote]

Hey Lee

Maybe the are worried that because their traffic is so small they won't get any sales?

Give me a call - I know someone that should carry it on a CPA basis and they are much much bigger.

cheers

Why not offer a hybrid deal or just work your metrics back to see what your effective CPC rate is?

ie. if you convert at 1% then your effective CPC is 30p.

You might find they will settle on 10p CPC and allow you to buy that traffic at a lower rate than your CPA offer.

Sometimes its easier than banging your head against brick walls trying to sell CPA and over time you will both have a better feel for how the campaign performs and can re-negotiate to suit all parties.

However, if you do go CPC I'd suggest you place restrictions as to how they handle creative - exactly as you would on a PPPC campaign (qualifying click thurs first).

Neil,

Cheers - think I'm going to have to get the slide-rule, calculator beers and stats out and work on the best cpc rate. Off the top of my head I know the conversion rates are good and we've made some amendments to the order form to make it quicker to fill out.

Best start number crunching again

Lee

<blockquote style="padding-left:0.5em; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; border-bottom:solid 1; border-top:solid 1; border-right:solid 1; border-left:solid 1">As a publisher with high traffic levels and highly targeted traffic </blockquote>

Is this a euphemism for 'we're so full of ourselves that we can't see the wood for the trees'?

I imagine the site will disappear up its own importance soon!

People really do need to step back and view the current internet marketing situation as it IS, not how they think it is.

As affiliates, I believe we have the clearest view of how marketing on the internet works, but, you can't even lead some of these people to water, never mind getting them to buy a round!!

Their loss I think.

This is even better:

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I am afraid our views differ slightly. Although I take your point that £30 is a move in the right direction because it is a reasonable percentage I do not agree that affiliate marketing is necessarily the way in which advertising is moving forward. My opinion is that it may move forward in this direction if more and more of the type of international corporations you have outlined actually agree to offer publishers between 30 - 50 % revenues as opposed to 2-5% revenues on sales - otherwise I think that the publishers are going to start clamping down as at the end of the day they do not need to give away their traffic for a very low return. In addition I think it is a little short sighted to suggest that this is the main way in which internet advertising is moving forward bearing in mind the strength of " search" and companies like espotting and overture that work on a pay per click basis.


Our audience is targeted and our traffic high and I am sure we can convert traffic to sales but to be quite frank why should we get paid purely on results. We are a media owner with high audience figures and we have made the business decision to act in much the same manner as offline media. At the end of the day magazine publishers, television companies and radio stations do not agree to get paid on the amount of sales made from the adverts they run and we do not see why Internet advertising should be any different. In fact as the internet is the most measurable form of advertising, pay per click seems to me to be an answer that should be agreeable to both advertisers and publishers alike and this is the line that we are following.[/quote]

Analysis:
* I can not believe they can reasonably expect 30-50% commission on the majority of products!
* Granted CPC is good at driving traffic, but seo is the lowest risk alternative
* "why should we get paid purely on results." OMG - why should people use them if they don't deliver results?
* online is completely different from offline companies have to act different
* television and radio companies have seen their biggest drop in advertising revenues ever!
* companies that do not deliver will not be recommended and will not have thier contract renewed
* it is because the internet is the most measurable form advertising it is those media owners that don't "deliver results" that run the risk of loosing customers and going out of business.

I'm totally gobsmacked that any medie can assert they should be conserned about delivering an effective return on their clients marketing investments.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>agree to offer publishers between 30 - 50 % revenues as opposed to 2-5% revenues on sales - otherwise I think that the publishers are going to start clamping down as at the end of the day they do not need to give away their traffic for a very low return.[/quote]

He has a point, the 2-5% revenues account for about 5-7% of my daily turnover. As a publisher I do push the higher payers and there really is no need for me to work with any of the lower % folks.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>end of the day they do not need to give away their traffic for a very low return[/quote]

True, and I dont

Edit bit >>

O but theres plenty he said that was complete B*****s!

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>end of the day they do not need to give away their traffic for a very low return[/quote]

but they run the risk of excluding those companies that offer a higher return i.e. dating etc purely because they take the attitude of "we don't do CPM"

and I'm sure supercod, NFS, Reward sites won't turn down 500 50p's a day?

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>we don't do CPM[/quote]

I would never work CPM, dosent work for me at all.

<em><strong>and I'm sure supercod, NFS, Reward sites won't turn down 500 50p's a day?</strong></em>

No I won't, might sound like peanuts but if you can deliver thousands of members in a short space of time it really is a winner.

The way I have always done it is, promote everyone I can however the more you pay the higher profile and more things like newsletter adverts you get. I can understand small and new start companies having tight budgets, so don't excluded them from my sites, and often tick over with them on SEO results that are free for me at the end of the day.

yup gnu's .. not guru's

love this bit

"but to be quite frank why should we get paid purely on results"

wow... what an eye opener...

so maybe he happy to just push high but crap traffic towards any given domain then and not even consider that it may actually be a better proposition..to get paid on results..

methinks all marketing applicants need at least 5 years life experience first... tis not a straight out of uni position.. lol

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>tis not a straight out of uni position.[/quote]

They actually go to University?

Quote:
<hr>but to be quite frank why should we get paid purely on results<hr>

I'm going to apply for one of those Sales roles at a high street store - you know, the one where you're paid to push hundreds of random people into the shop, rather than get commission on selling anything - sounds like a much easier job (especially when it's raining lol)