Affiliate Programs - any success?

Hey all,

I would like to know if anyone on the forums use any affiliate networks to promote their products?

I have heard both for and against arguments with regards to using them.

I am just exploring different avenues of promoting our products that are not Organic or Adwords based.

Anyone who has any first hand experience I would love to hear more.

 

[SFD]

deadgoodundies on here uses affiliate programs with great success I believe, maybe have a search through his previous posts or send him a PM

 

[henford30]

I'm too trying to promote my website thought we do have affiliate links, and promoting thru them but the lick thru rate for the site is very poor.. its a Niche concept in the UK.. u must have heard cashback shopping by VPayCash UK.. where you get paid for every purchase you make online..

 

[deadgoodundies]

As SFD said we've had a huge success with our affiliate program.
I'm not going to pretend it was easy to achieve the position we hold within the affiliate community but as with anything you get out what you put in.
I've seen too many people enter into affiliate marketing just thinking that they can provide a few banners and the sales will start rolling in so if you are thinking about it then PLAN AHEAD and don't expect instant results (it took six months of hard work before we started to see the results we were hoping for).
I'd be happy to talk you through how it all works, what pitfalls to avoid, what network might suit you better etc.

Henford the problem with cashback sites is that you are up against huge well established ones like quidco who have very large budgets and already have had lots of publicity which has created brand recognition and loyalty so it's always going to be a uphill struggle for you.
That's not to say there isn't room for another cashback site (please not another voucher site though everyone) but you need to be able to distinguish yourself from all the other cashback sites who are already more established.

 

[henford30]

Yeah I understand its gonna be a uphill struggle.. but do u have any suggestions ?

 

[amazestore]

look forward to good advices...

 

[deadgoodundies]

Ok this is the order I would do things for someone starting out in affiliate marketing

1. Research - have a look at your competitors who have affiliate programs, look what sites are promoting them, speak to owners of forums in your sector and ask them if you start up an affiliate program would they be interested in joining it, same with blogs - do all this FIRST before actually creating your program as it will create initial interest so you can get going straight off the bat when you have your program running

2. Research some more but this time with the networks.
Different networks will charge different rates for setup from the most expensive which I think is tradedouble down to the less expensive ones like affilaite future - don't think that more expensive is better or cheaper is worse - look at what the networks can offer you in terms of support, affiliate utilites, are they proactive in coming out with new technologies that will help you with your program

3. When you've settled on a network - Haggle !!!! setup fees are not set in stone and if they think your business will create them money in the long run then they will be movable on your setup costs. Also check what their override is (the little wedge they take for themselves on each sale made - normally it's about 30% of the comission so if you made a £100 sale and your comission rate was 10% the affilaite would get £10 and the network would get £3 so in effect your are paying out £13 in total)

4. Check that your ecommerce backend can output a datafeed and if it doesn't get someone in to code it for you - it's important you can get your products out to the affiliates so using a datafeed is the standard way - if you are familair with submitting your products to google shopping then it's pretty much the same idea

I could go on and on about what to do and what not to do but i'd be here all day so that's a few starters

 

[CraigieDD]

As well as the great advice by DeadGoodUndies you should also think about how much of your business you are prepared to allow to put over to Affiliates.

If you're looking at 10% of your overall profits to be generated by affiliate marketing I'd say that you're in a good place.

If however you get to above 40% then you're effectively owned by the network. And most networks don't really care about you, they just care about profits. They'll switch to promoting another supplier in the blink of an eye if they feel there's more bucks in it.

And I've known networks that have cut there losses and simply launched their own websites and traded them after they've garnered the information the required from their clients. Effectively, cutting their clients income dramatically and simultaneously launching a competitor with inside knowledge of the industry. Terrible, I know, but true.

The most skilled example of non-affiliate work I've seen recently is Direct Line.

When all the insurance companies (100+) jumped on the big affiliate schemes Direct Line point blank refused. It went against everything their brand stood for. "Go Direct".

End clients started to go these sites, like MoneySupermarket.com, etc. etc.. to compare insurance quotes.

But Direct Line refused to join.

Why?

Because, they'd just cut the number of competitors from 100's to three or four comparison websites (which sprung form the affiliate schemes). Effectively, they became 1 choice out of 5 instead of 1 out of 100+.

 

[Astaroth]

Sorry to tell you that Direct Line does have an affiliate scheme (and has done for many years) as it is through OMG (as many insurers are) [URLNO="http://www.directline.com/about_us/affiliates.htm"]Direct Line Affiliates[/URLNO]

There was a short period when all the RBS Insurance brands were pulled from aggregators but this was due to a risk with compliance rather than a business strategy.

Direct Line "refused" to go on the Aggregators rather than have Affiliates though of cause their sister brands (some of which are underwritten by DL) are on the aggregators (eg Privilege & Churchill). That way the Group gets access to this market whilst Direct Line retains a strong marketing message (only available direct).

Of cause in the very begining they really got the ultimate best of both worlds. Some of the aggregators were listing them either through screen scraping or were listing them but stating no quote was available. They therefore got business from the aggregators, didn't have to pay any commissions and was able to get mileage out of breach of trademarks etc

Plus until recently Tesco Compare was a JV between Tesco and DL's parent company RBS Insurance

 

[CraigieDD]

Astaroth - You've summed it up better. Thanks.