What is stopping you from running an Affiliate Program?

[sabian1982]

It's times like this, i could do with a poll

So... why don't you run an affiliate program for your online E-Commerce store?

1. You're not really sure WHAT affiliate marketing is and how it can add value to your brand
2. You've considered it but never taken the steps to launch an Affiliate Program for your business
3. The cost of running an Affiliate Program either through a network or stand alone software was simply too high!
4. You used to have an Affiliate Program but due to costs and poor results you ended up closing your program
5. Having an Affiliate Program isn't an avenue of marketing you want to go down or it simply doesn't suit your business model

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts

 

[bensmoa]

First of all i will see if am gaining anything or not from affiliate marketing as i have to pay out to the affiliate marketer as well. Second if you are dealing in very low price items which are very competitive then it's hard to convince a affiliate marketer as well to promote the product as he'll get low returns on his hard work.

 

[cromiem]

I am just trying this now to drive more sales to my website.

 

[lynxus]

Its actually something I'm due to launch soon with a fairly high % revenue share.

 

[Raging Bull]

Its actually something I'm due to launch soon with a fairly high % revenue share.

What do you consider fairly high?

 

[lynxus]

What do you consider fairly high?

Still up for debate, But it would be a recurring percentage monthly until the referred account closes / cancels.

I'm toying with the idea of having a few options..

Ie:
- Maybe ~20% monthly until cancelled.
- 100% for 3 months then 10% until cancelled.
- 100% for 5 months then 5% until cancelled.

Anyway, All that's up in the air until the system is fully written. So any ideas are grateful.

 

[sabian1982]

I am just trying this now to drive more sales to my website.

Its actually something I'm due to launch soon with a fairly high % revenue share.

Cool and if you don't mind me asking... did you go with a hosted solution of your own or did you go with a network?

 

[lynxus]

Cool and if you don't mind me asking... did you go with a hosted solution of your own or did you go with a network?

We are writing our own system to track and pay.

 

[sabian1982]

We are writing our own system to track and pay.

Wow that's a mammoth task! surely a standalone system such as iDevDirect or similar would be more cost effective...?

 

[lynxus]

Wow that's a mammoth task! surely a standalone system such as iDevDirect or similar would be more cost effective...?

Na, Not too much of a task.

Its more time than money that's being used up. Talking to paypal etc is easy so people can cash out as soon as we receive the funds from paypal and the whole lot will happily run itself. ( Although id probably put a 2 week pend on all funds to be protected against chargebacks etc. )

 

[andygambles]

Number 4.

Too many cheats to keep a handle on. What we do is based on high volume low margin. This effectively encourages Affiliates to sell as many as possible due to the low return they get and therefore try and cheat the system.

 

[Esk247]

Our problem was the huge setup costs for an agency to run it for a retail website.

We probably don't have the time to run one ourselves along with everything else we are doing. But when I looked at the big hitters they were talking silly money, £1000 a month plus service percentage plus commission, you would have to have pretty big margins on stock for it to work or be turning over very high volumes, hundreds of products a day all year round.

For the smaller affiliate programs I don't know how you'd even get people to sign up. We had one running and only got agencies contacting us asking for £250 for a 'consultation over the phone'.

 

[cromiem]

I was thinking of using post affiliate pro, any experience with it?

 

[ncoopie11]

Not really sure how an Affiliate programs work?? Can someone explain?

 

[sabian1982]

Not really sure how an Affiliate programs work?? Can someone explain?

This should just about answer your question

 

[sabian1982]

Our problem was the huge setup costs for an agency to run it for a retail website.

We probably don't have the time to run one ourselves along with everything else we are doing. But when I looked at the big hitters they were talking silly money, £1000 a month plus service percentage plus commission, you would have to have pretty big margins on stock for it to work or be turning over very high volumes, hundreds of products a day all year round.

For the smaller affiliate programs I don't know how you'd even get people to sign up. We had one running and only got agencies contacting us asking for £250 for a 'consultation over the phone'.

I've actually got some details of a fee-free network that is due launch in a couple of months time if you're interested? They are starting to grow their social following over at Facebook. They are also pushing no transaction fees for 2013 for the first 100 merchants that sign up... worth a punt in my opinion!

 

[andygambles]

I've actually got some details of a fee-free network that is due launch in a couple of months time if you're interested? They are starting to grow their social following over at Facebook. They are also pushing no transaction fees for 2013 for the first 100 merchants that sign up... worth a punt in my opinion!

Can you shrink the image or just link to it please? It is messing up the forum display.

 

[sabian1982]

Can you shrink the image or just link to it please? It is messing up the forum display.

Edit button has gone amiss, will need a mod to edit!

Image link is: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bW0K_P8B4...btIYp26Wo/s1600/Affiliate-Marketing-FINAL.jpg

 

[jonas2012]

the principal problem of many people is lead qualification

 

[Vairo]

Hello guys,

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Vairo and I work for the Paydot.com (mentioned above by the sabian1982).

I have started my IM journey back in 2005 as an affiliate, and then in January 2008 I joined the MN Affiliate Network for an Affiliate Manager position. Since then I have been working closely with affiliates and merchants helping them to increase their leads / sales online. Paydot.com is a whole new opportunity that I was given earlier this year to steer the ship and set up an Affiliate Network affordable and manageable for any type of business.

The main difference between the Paydot and most other Affiliate Networks, we at Paydot will encourage our merchants to be as proactive and involved with affiliate promotions as they like! Setting up your affiliate campaign with Paydot will be 100% free and as straightforward as possible; and with no setup fees involved, you will only have to pay when a sale occurs! All of our merchants will run self-managed programs; which will enable them to push their affiliate programs in line with their individual circumstances.

Of course, we will provide a helping hand with affiliate recruitment and we will host an array of marketing guides and tutorials available for all merchants to access. We have already secured a dedicated Paydot area in the buzzing Twist Forum; where all of our merchants will be able to promote their offers to the Twist community (MoreNiche, ImpactFive, Target Click) and other Network affiliates.

To help us kick start the launch we are planning to go LIVE with a special Merchant BETA tester offer in January next year and therefore we are currently on the lookout for new merchants who might be willing to participate in our BETA testing phase. As with any BETA phase, there will be certain benefits to joining us as a BETA tester!

One of the great bonuses to joining up with the BETA version of the Network is that as a merchant, you will not have to pay any Network transaction fees for a period of 12 months after your campaign goes live. Then; following the first 12 months after the join date, you will only need to pay affiliate commission and the Network transaction fee will not be introduced until 2014.

We are currently working on the BETA splash page containing the sign up info, so I probably will post back in a couple of days. In the meantime, if this is something any of you would be potentially interested in, please get in touch by emailing us at no-fees[at]paydot[dot]com!

Cheers

Vairo

 

[Anastasiya]

To my mind there are several disadvantages of affiliate marketing: maintaining the website is time-consuming, and ranking in Google is tough when you encounter duplicate content. Here are some other pros and cons http://www.benchmarkemail.com/blogs/detail/pros-and-cons-of-affiliate-marketing

 

[VenusS]

I've spent time today looking into affiliate marketing and decided it is not for me

The programs I have looked at cost quite a bit and as a start up, I don't have the ££

I know you are going to say '.... you get out of it what you put in'
I guess you have to have something to put something in to start with

I was actually hoping that I could find a way to add my products and pay the commission on sale [I'll do all the warehousing & shipping], but everyone I looked at want payment on 'clicks' some want up front fees too

I'll keep looking, maybe I'll find what I'm looking for

Thanks .... Venus

 

[SillyJokes]

We recently closed our affiliate programme after years of running it.

It has changed a lot since the first inception of people happily promoting your website for a bit of commission. I think the big brands do well out of it, but even some of them have decided not to share their revenue, for instance Direct Line.

Some affiliates do very underhanded things to turn a commission. I've got stories of behaviour by affiliates that would turn your hair white. In the long run the problems we have had have out weighed the benefits.