Affiliates, why sign up but not promote?

[Stuart]

Main reason for me and the same as many others who hve mentioned this, often I want the links as part of building/improving a site, then it can in some cases take months to complete and start driving traffic but when we want the links we wnt them now...not waiting for approvals

Also I do mostly price comparison, niche and one large site, if the merchant is not the cheapest, often it can result in less sales or no sales, can't see a way around that one and for price comparison they have to be on the list...

Br
Stuart

[sgpratley]

For me, it's because sometimes it takes affiliate managers a while to get around to approving new affiliates, so I sign up as soon as I have the idea, hoping they'd do it by the time I'm ready to promote.

Mostly the same, and a short attention span means if I don't get approved there and then I've probably moved onto something else by the time I do.

[lauriebred]

It is far more sensible for an affiliate to promote a generic product, rather than a merchant that makes or sells that product. Why? It's simple.

Merchants have the infuriating habit of closing or suspending their programmes, usually at little or no notice. The poor bl**dy affiliate who has spent perhaps months of work optimising his/her site and getting relevant backlinks, and who has possibly spent considerable sums of money too is left high and dry with nothing more than a "thank you for your hard work etc etc".

If merchants want their products promoted then the way to do it is to identify the productive affiliates and provide them with a marketing allowance, which is a marketing method that has worked for decades at least. Too many merchants just look upon affiliates as a source of free advertising, to be picked up and dumped at will.
:td

[Entrepreneur]

Fantastic post and thread.

A lot of points already covered, but for non-PPC affiliates developing a site can take months and it's nice to know who you can work with from the outset.

On the other side of that coin, sometimes i need that link NOW! and when you get approved days, weeks and months after applying the moment has passed and chances are I've found someone else to work with.

My current pet hate is signing up and then finding a lot of out of date banners - there are still plenty showing 2008, Summer Sale, offer ends June 30th, etc., It tells me the merchant isn't at all interested in affiliate marketing and that the program won't be worth promoting.

[DanielROEYE]

My current pet hate is signing up and then finding a lot of out of date banners - there are still plenty showing 2008, Summer Sale, offer ends June 30th, etc., It tells me the merchant isn't at all interested in affiliate marketing and that the program won't be worth promoting.

Good point. We are building up a picture of a perfect programme.

[stevecroest]

I'm the affiliate manager here at viagogo - we are a ticket exchange site. I think this is a great thread, great to understand how affiliates judge and assess programmes before they have even really started promoting.

I'm a big believer in never writing an affiliate site off, as we know from experience that the development time that goes into ticket aggregation sites and gig listing sites is extensive. We also put our tech resource at the disposal of any affiliates who are asking for help with their site. Essentially, I feel that the more involved you can be in the development, the better the programme will be for both of us.

THe really worrying comment that I have seen in the thread is that affiliates will judge a programme on the quality of the network it is in - although I guess the learning is that affiliate managers should reach out to affiliates more and cultivate direct contact so the influence of the network is lessened. But is this something that affiliates want? And it is not always easy to get in touch with affiliates through the networks themselves (for obvious reasons!)

Great thread.

Cheers

Steve

[aotagain]

I guess its always nice as a merchant to see quick results from new affiliates, but its not always clear whether an affiliate is starting a new site or has established sites to drive traffic from (I've seen this from both sides). As a merchant you can't always see them and as an affiliate you can't always fit them into the boxes.

There is also the point that if as an affiliate you are building what you hope is going to be a significant site, then you don't want anyone knowing about it in advance. So from a merchants point of view you could be completely in the dark about a really good project.

It also takes quite some time to get datafeeds working correctly (at our end for site output), assess the product ranges and competition, fix the site design and to go through what in an offline business would be a fairly rigourous project, including securing your suppliers before you set up shop and gaining proper knowledge of how their products vary from month to month etc.

Perhaps it would be helpful from a merchants point of view if there was some sort of standard brief questionnaire to ask affiliates questions about likely timescale / size of their plans, without specifics, so that merchants could concentrate efforts on those affiliates who are on 'GO' at the current time.

[TomSmith]

I don't see the issue with inactive affiliates on a program. What difference does it make? In my experience of managing a program, you find some affiliates lie dormant for a while before they start to kick their activity off. Some never do kick their activity off, but there is no harm in having them on the program is there?

[Swine43]

Many affiliate signs up with big hype and then realizes you have to do something also..

Cheers, Mikko.

[Grizzly]

I often sign up to merchants for future projects, rather than having to wait x amount of days when the time comes.

Often get removed from programmes for not promoting, but when im in the middle of developing a site, its not always easy to promote. However it is nice to have access to links, and feeds etc in preperation.

[mjp3000]

Yep, another vote for being able to develop your site fully before putting it live. Made the mistake when first starting out of applying just as the site went live. Didn't realise it would take the merchant 2 weeks to approve me! By that point I'd made a nice sum for them, so I was getting ever more nervous until the approval email came through.

Won't be doing that again.

But yeah back to the original point, with some of my sites it would have been impossible to develop and launch without already being approved and having access to feeds/links etc. And developing a site around a day job can take some time! Weeks or months. We're not all full-time you know

[Dazza30]

In the past i would sign up to programmes for use on future projects, but ive found that this can sometimes be a waste of time especialy if the merchants site doesnt contain individual product pages or allow deeplinking to them.

One thing that does wind me up though is the short notice some networks give you about a merchants site downtime or tracking issues.

[ChrisM]

I know a lot of people are going to say exclusive codes and incentives etc but this is a little difficult without historic sales data from affiliates. It has happened a number of times in the past when merchants and myself have put in a lot of work and effort for exclusive deals for affiliates, sometime at large cost, and generated little or no sales.

With the current economic client businesses in general are looking at their bottom lines and are even more reluctant to give thing away, certainly without anything in return.

I think this is probably going to get me flamed, but this is one of the things that most winds me up, particularly with agencies (not directed at any one agency in particular [especially ROEYE]).

I probably take 5 or 6 calls a week from agencies, trying to get me to promote particular merchants. Yes, I've applied to these programmes, usually so that we're either ready to go when a new site is ready, or so that i can actually get to the information i need.

The problem I have is that if I ask for anything like discount codes (whether exclusive or not), I tend to get told I'm expected to generate a sales history first. (Those who publicly supply codes tend not to need to phone in the first place)

In my opinion, if I was contacting the merchant/agency and asking for these things, requesting a sales history would almost be reasonable, but to be contacted in an effort to generate sales for someone else, and be told that to get what i want/need i need first to make sales, that seems crazy. Ultimately, if a merchant wants more from their affiliate programme, they need to understand what will motivate affiliates (they're asking the right question), and act on it. If they dont like what they hear, then they really do need to think about their motivation for running their programme, or at the very least their motivation for making the call. It's the same problem (in my opinion) about affiliate marketing - it is a sales channel, not a marketing channel and should be treated as such. We operate a private network with our ecommerce merchants and every one of them agrees that there should be no such thing as a commission budget (they're out on their ear permanently if they try to pause a programme due to 'budget constraints').

I fully understand that agencies may find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, but thats got to be an occupational hazard.

Rant over!

[kier]

THe really worrying comment that I have seen in the thread is that affiliates will judge a programme on the quality of the network it is in - although I guess the learning is that affiliate managers should reach out to affiliates more and cultivate direct contact so the influence of the network is lessened. But is this something that affiliates want?

Yes it absolutely is something that affiliates want and so should the network.

And it is not always easy to get in touch with affiliates through the networks themselves (for obvious reasons!)

I don't know who you are with but your network should be facilitating easy communication with your affiliates, not restricting it!

[SimonA]

Really interesting thread.

One thing I can say for definite, is that an initial email from an affiliate outlining their plans for promoting Thomas Cook or any of our brands will almost always result in acceptance to the programme that day. These emails don't need to be an essay, but taking 5 mins to just let me know the model of your site, your url and your name will make you stick in my mind, get my attention and make me want to help you succeed.

It's actually a requirement for affiliates applying to the programme, but less than 10% bother. Its that minority however, who hear about offers relevant to them, get asked for feedback when I have an idea, and to whom unique opportunities go to.

Just my thoughts.