Your Affiliate Marketing programme may be up and running, with a whole army of eager media owners applying to join in. So that’s good news, right? Well yes. But, what you must consider is that Affiliate Marketing never has, or will be, an out-of-the-box solution to driving sales or leads for your business. In fact, what it can be, by following some simple best practice guidelines, is an enormously cost effective sales channel that will bring in customers well below the CPA costs of other digital channels.
But to get there, your affiliate publishers will expect that you play by some key unwritten rules and will demand levels of transparency within your programme to allow them to maximise the visibility of your brand on their websites with the focus on achieving a complimentary, win-win relationship. And a relationship that could last for many lucrative years.
So what do you need to be transparent? Well affiliates are not all created equal. They will use increasingly diverse methods to drive traffic to your brand, ranging from more traditional methods such as content, paid search, review and email marketing to utilising social media, cashback, voucher codes, video and mobile. These internal channels, which I will look at in upcoming blog entries, are unique and will often demand distinct requirements to maximise their ROI.
No matter what channel they use, being transparent will help all these affiliates understand the true conversion rate of your programme and website, and will help deliver trust in working with you. You must therefore be both open and honest with your programme. If you have a closed brand bidding group, state this and tell people how they too may get involved. If you have guidelines on cashback and voucher codes, then clearly state your rules of engagement. Likewise, don’t ever try to trick affiliates whether intentionally or not. Don’t reduce cookie periods, or commission levels without explanation, and certainly don’t sneak in changes without communicating them first.
Equally, if you de-dupe your sales against other channels, state this clearly. Similarly if you or your network offers PI cookies or re-targeting that enables affiliates to earn additional revenue, make this clear from the start. These small incentives could be the difference between a positive or negative ROI for the affiliate.
After all they could be investing £100,000 a month to generate £101,000 in affiliate commissions. Not an astounding profit margin! If the ROI dropped to below £100,000 per month and the affiliate switches off the campaign, that's a huge amount of turnover for a merchant that vanishes overnight. Unfortunately, this happens all too regularly, especially in niche markets.
You may also discover that your programme attracts just a few hundred key performing affiliates. It’s imperative that you work with them with the right attitude from the outset, and treat everyone equal. You just don’t know if they could turn out to be a top 10 affiliate in months to come!
Revolution Magazine
