Contact Lenses

Brendan · 19-09-03

Hi Everyone,

Get Lenses has just joined the Affiliate Window family as a merchant - we're in Health & Beauty. I must say, it's a very vibrant community which we were completely unaware of.

We are one of the largest and fastest growing mail order companies in the UK, but because our prices are so competitive ( approx 30 - 50% below the high street) we work off very tight margins.

Our single biggest overhead was marketing and the promises from online marketeers always seemed to differ markedly from the results!

Thus affiliate marketing seems to be perfect from our point of view as Customer Acquisition Cost is fixed.

Anyway, enough waffle! My question is, can I ask the old hands to take a look at our links etc and give us any advice which you think will help us to get more and better placed affiliates - I'm afraid 50% commission isn't possible!

Secondly, do most affiliates prefer text links, banners, flash, small, big??????

Sorry for the length of the post - All advice gratefully accepted!

www.getlenses.com

John · 19-09-03

Hi Brendan, welcome to the forum. always good to see more merchants posting here.

The most obvious thing from an affiliates point of view that has to go is the prominent Telephone Number - Displaying a freephone number on your site = lost sales as far as Affiliates go (unless you have some ingenious way of tracking the calls back to the affiliates)

Secondly, you invite customers to apply for a brochure... Many people will receive the brochure, and then order either by phone, or possibly outside of the cookie length. Again, more lost sales for the affiliate.

And thirdly, (and most importantly for me!) have you considered using Affiliate Window's new "Lifetime Commissions" feature, whereby customers are "tagged" to an affiliate, and we receive a commission every time that customer returns to purchase (which I'd imagine for the disposable lenses would be quite a lot), rather than a one off 5% for a customer who may well shop with you for many years to come?

Oh, and for me... it's text links all the way. Don't forget to get a nice range of different sized banners though, as everyone has different ad space to fill.

Darren · 19-09-03

Welcome to the forums, Brendan