Thread: Talksaferdating.com Affiliate Programme Launch

I'm sorry to inform you that I don't believe your proposition to the network is competitive enough.

Although reaching the upper tier (100 registrations) is pretty easy, 75p per registration still isn't competitive in he general scheme of things.

I was interested to see that the implication on your program description was that this is your initial program....am I correct in thinking that the program terms will change over time?

Dear Darren,

Thank you for your comments.

Disappointed to hear that you don't feel our proposition is competitive enough and sorry but we disagree with you.

The commercial decisions made about our current programme are very simple. Talksaferdating.com has been operational for about 10 weeks and has not charged a single member yet. It is for this reason that we will not be offering higher commissions at this time. We have noted what our competitors commission payments are and have also noted that in some cases our commission is equal to or higher.

The facts of the matter are, because our launch promotion offers 30 days FREE Essential membership (that’s full membership worth £20), coupled together with the fact that our website is the best in the industry, we offer the safest dating in the world, courtesy of our unique Talksafer™ phones, “dedicated phones for dating”; with us affiliates have the best proposition in the market. This should be good enough reason for any affiliate to join our programme, least of all our conversion rates are likely to be higher too.

So to reiterate our main objectives, we need to grow our database before we can confidently charge for our service. We note that you understand this is our initial programme and "yes" it will change in time, but only for those affiliates who support the brand. Rewards will be commensurate with growth. If achieving 100 registrations is as easy as you suggest then prove it and earn some easy money. We doubt that your affiliate colleagues would agree with you, knowing they and us will have to work a little harder to achieve this level.

We will be happy to talk directly with you or any AW affiliate about higher commissions when the time arrives and respectfully this is how you should have addressed this issue in the first place. Please remember that my company has already paid a considerable amount of money to initiate the scheme with AW and what you have said here is potentially damaging before our scheme has even started. Affiliates and merchants alike should unite to give each other a winning chance.

To all that are reading this - We wish to work with affiliates and welcome further comment. Post her e or alternatively email us directly by using the contact details provide at AW.

Dean Baxter
Managing Director
Talksaferdating.com Limited

I didn't mean to sound so negative about your program. I tried to offer some constructive critisism.

I do see what you're trying to do here and have no doubt whatsoever that the proposition you have made has been well thought out and fits in well with your overall budget. However, I was trying to reiterate that, when it comes to attracting affiliates to program, almost always an affiliate will take the proposition from the merchant who offers the highest potential earnings...i.e. the one that brings us the highest EPC.

"We doubt that your affiliate colleagues would agree with you, knowing they and us will have to work a little harder to achieve this level."

To be frank with you, generating 100 actions for your site should be very easy for quite a number of the affiliates here....but of course, you don't know what volume of traffic I and others have in terms of dating and, of course, it could be the case that traffic to your site may not convert....although I'm 100% confident that traffic to your site WOULD convert very well. Maybe you could disclose some of your stats regarding clicks-to-registrations, etc?

I admire your enthusiasm and am pleased to see that you took out the time to reply to my comments. For that reason....I shall pass through some traffic to your site and see how it goes.

<em><strong>"We doubt that your affiliate colleagues would agree with you, knowing they and us will have to work a little harder to achieve this level."</strong></em>

No I agree with Darren, for the right merchants with the right attitudes many of us on this board can perform very well. I don't have a dating site, yet I done over 300 dating sign-ups for another program, many of how went on to buy a full membership in less then 7 days, ok not great by some of the dating guys standards but I was happy

<em><strong>"We will be happy to talk directly with you or any AW affiliate about higher commissions when the time arrives and respectfully this is how you should have addressed this issue in the first place."</strong></em>

Just so we are clear this board works 2 ways, you come on here and get to advertise your business to us affiliates for free, we in turn ask you questions and make constructive feedback, if it's not constructive then tell a moderator and it will be removed if it's not been done already. So keep in mind by making your post here you have saved your self hundreds of pounds in revenue and time, which you don't have to waste looking for the right affiliates.

<em><strong>"To all that are reading this - We wish to work with affiliates and welcome further comment."</strong></em>

Good stuff, I look forward to giving your program a try. If it works for me, and I am sure Darren will say the same we will be happy to tell others, and when it comes to dating sites I trust Darren's word, as it was him that let me know about another dating site that's made a fair few penny's so far and he didn’t have to.

Dear Darren and Clarke,

Thank you for your posts regarding this topic.

Thank you both for having the integrity to join our programme to experience what is achievable. Of course without doing this where would any of us stand. With our credentials there is absolutely no reason why Talksaferdating.com shouldn't deliver for everyone. We do appreciate that greater effort is applied to those merchants providing the best pay outs. What we are offering in the early stages is a competitive commission for a non-paying member (not the best admittedly) and as much assistance as we are physically able to give our affiliates in marketing our very unique proposition. Hopefully over time this will turn into a closer, more profitable relationship.

To address your comments : It is too early days to disclose our stats regarding clicks-to-registrations, equally we are a little uneasy about divulging too much information on here. However, before joining AW, we were very encouraged by the number of people visiting the site and then becoming members, all be it in small numbers. Naturally this information is useful and by no means do we wish to hide it from affiliates when reliable information is available. I think the best thing to do is ask in a few weeks directly by emailing us and we will be happy to provide whatever information we can.

Interestingly no comments on our lack of linking methods. We do feel that our current offering falls short of what is required for a successful marketing campaign. Please be rest assured we are working hard to address this, and will email all our affiliates when new links are added. Again we invite you to tell us what you specifically need.

I think the best thing to do now is to let the figures speak for themselves, if not address the reasons why, keep in touch with each other at all stages and grow together.

Kindest regards

Dean Baxter
Mangaing Director
Talksaferdating.com Limited

<em><strong>Interestingly no comments on our lack of linking methods. We do feel that our current offering falls short of what is required for a successful marketing campaign.</strong></em>

You’re just new on today, so that is to be expected you won't have huge amounts of creative. I won't grumble if you can get more choice in banners and sizes but equally to be honest I use text links the most as they convert the best.

Also I would point out that even though you have a company name of “Talksaferdating.com Limited” it's still not cool from an affiliate point of view to have your site URL in the banner. Because lets face it most affiliates look at a huge big URL on a banner as a merchant trying to get people to type in the address and not click the banner so they don't have to pay commission however being new to the affiliate arena you may not know that affiliate have such concerns, however minor they maybe, addressing them all helps make your program more attractive than the other guys.

Always remember use a call to action such as “click here” that results in a click not a type in and you affiliates will love you that little bit more Affiliate marketing is not free branding, it’s partner building and every effort you make will in turn be rewarded by more loyal affiliates.

Dear Clarke,

That is excellent advice and duly noted.

We will make sure that any banners meet this criteria as best we can. Obviously, as you've suggested, it is a little difficult to entirely hide the URL when the company name is the same, but we will apply as much discretion as we can.

It is particularly interesting to note your comments on text links. This advice is given by AW and definately bears true when looking at the stats. More excellent advise sort.

Many thanks Clarke,

Kindest regards,

Dean Baxter
Managing Director
Talksaferdating.com Limited

As promised I said I would report back on how I am finding the program.

Its converting well and sales are validated same day or very soon after so that's a big thumbs up.

As I have said before I have no real dating traffic, so people with dating sites should see this program doing better for them.

Hi Clarke,

I'm very grateful to you for your positive feedback.

As I have already indicated to you in our outside forum correspondance, I have a great deal of experience of sales management at a National level and entirely understand the importance of cashflow in business. I think that it is very important for affiliates to be able to see the results of their support of a merchant immediately and as such I will continue to validate our commission payments as soon as possible. A big thank you to everyone who has joined us so far.

After the first week, there is no doubt in our mind that text links work fair better than banners, however I have now uploaded some new banners, taking into consideration your previous advice of removing large references to Talksaferdating.com so that the customer is unlikely to use the direct url as opposed to the affiliates link. I have a continous programme of development of our marketing material so it would pay all affiliates to check back regularly.

It is our intention to communicate with affiliates in a news letter very soon giving more useful information relating to our service.

Again I would like to invite comment on any aspect of Talksaferdating.com.

Best wishes to you Clarke and all AW affiliates.

Dean Baxter
Managing Director
Talksaferdating.com