1000 affiliates means 1000 possible working affiliates ... sure only 100 may be doing any volume but just 100 working affiliates means 100 possible workign affiliates maximum... sure they may be doing all the volume but is it ever wise to throw away opptuinities ?
whilst I can understand the desire to clean a non responsive email list that's taking up huge resources each week or month, I can't see where culling affiliates is a wise move ever.. why not simple classify them as dormant ?
example in point.. I've been busy creating a brand new site and I was dropped last week by the one of the merchants (1 of around 10) that I was going to put on it, I used to do a few grand commision a month for them and then their offering became poorer so I scaled them back .. now I wanted to put them on because of the niche aspect of their product and they bin me due to no sales.. black and white.. no grey area.. well it works both ways I guess.
now all being dropped says to me is regardless of potential .. 0 sale in x timeframe = deleted affiliate.. ie we'll help the whales but the minnows can annoy someone else as they've not generated any sale by now this must mean they are pretty small fish who can't be bothered to get in touch.
from acorns grow big things.. door closed = zero chance.
Quoting Andy ... "If they find themselves removed from the program, then I'm afraid they only have themselves to blame."
Just to put emails in context .. we are BOMBARDED each day with merchants saying "push us.. do this please.. do that .. hey checkout this creatives.. we've a competitions.. help us do this.. win this for x sales.. " ... we don't sit around waiting for outlook to ping ..everytime it goes we usually go .. oh crap what now.. as we wish we had another couple of arms and keyboards
then there are some people with more than one company, many many sites in many sectors... so time is a VERY scarce commodity.. .. most affiliate managers have one site to manage.. some just ONE PRODUCT.. contact with affiliates can be generic. ONE EMAIL goes to everyone.. rather than just say "what's up.. why haven't you done any sales.. get in touch with us" we have to email everyone back individiually and sort everything individually and yet we are the ones that get dropped when dormant outside a specific timescale..
why not actively market your product .. proactively market it.. instead of saying tell us what you want.. show us what works.. why it works.. most effective ways to market etc.... .. take a look at
www.moreniche.com blog, comps.. aticles.. forum.. etc for a look at a merchant that wants to get affiliates going .. I'm not say do this or that.. just that in order to get the best from affilaites you have to give the best too !..
why nail a door shut just because no one has opened it yet ?
