This presentation is from Affiliate Summit East 2014 (August 10-12, 2014 New York City).
Session Description: Affiliate program management entails 5 major processes: affiliate recruitment, activation, policing, communication, and optimization. Geno will equip you with knowledge to effectively handle all five.
6. Source: AffiliateBenchmarks 2013 Global Affiliate Questionnaire
Active:
Network emails: 36.3%
Blogs: 29.6%
Aff. manager emails: 13.9%
Active Recruitment
7. Active Recruitment
5 Key Principles
o Automation
o Personalization
o Persistence
o Leaving Options Open
o Education
8. 1. Automation
au·to·ma·tion
noun ˌȯ-tə-ˈmā-shən
the technique of making an apparatus, a
process, or a system operate automatically
Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Employ Tools to Perform Routine Tasks
E.g.: don’t just “google” it, but have Google
Alerts deliver prospective affiliate’s info to
your inbox!
9. Free & Inexpensive Tools
1. SEO Quake (free)
2. Backlink Watch (free)
3. Open Site Explorer (free)
4. Citation Labs (~$20 per 500-1000)
5. BuzzStream ($29/mo - $249/mo)
6. Raven Backlink Explorer ($99-$249/mo)
7. iBusinessPromoter ($250-$500)
Paid Tools
1. AffiliateRecruitment.com
2. Linkdex
3. Syntryx
11. Linkdex (advertiser level query)
Interrogating affiliate program-specific tracking domain(s),
yielding lists of affiliate sites linking in
12. Personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened.
Adestra July 2012 Report
Personalized emails had a 5.13% higher average open rate than
the regular emails. …they also had 17.36% higher
clickthrough rate.
2012 AWeber Case Study
A study by email marketing provider YesMail found that
personalization increased their clients' response rates from
4.7% to 14.8%.
"The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing" by Bill Nussey
2. Personalization
14. Effectiveness of Following up:
Initial email: max. 4% sign up
Follow-ups: ≈12% more join
Frequency:
1. A week from original email
2. 1 more week down the road
3. 2-3 months
4. Half a year
5. A year
3. Persistence
15. 4. Leaving Options Open
Besides Primary Call to Action (“join our
affiliate program”)…
Embed also a Secondary CTA into your
affiliate recruitment emails!
17. Source: 2013 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report
Passive:
Merchant site: 51.3%
Search engines: 38.6%
Directories: 38%
Word of mouth: 20.3%
Support efforts: 14.6%
Passive Recruitment
18. Source: AffiliateBenchmarks 2013 Global Affiliate Questionnaire
Passive:
Support pages: 47%
Network sites: 44.7%
Search engines: 33.1%
Forums & directories: 17.6%
Word of mouth: 17.5%
Passive Recruitment
19. Passive Recruitment
Ways to Get Found by Affiliates:
o Program description (with visible link)
o Program FAQ and/or support site/blog
o Affiliate directories
o Social media
o Second-tier affiliates
o “Subscribe to affiliate news” link
o Press releases
22. Pattern to Follow:
1. Remind them of your program details
2. Include an activation promo
3. Enclose performance-based incentive
4. Pre-coded affiliate links (incl. coupons, feed, etc)
5. Detailed contact information
Start With Approval Email!
23. “What’s the maximum acceptable affiliate program
application response time?”
Source: 2010 AffStat Report
25. Congratulations!
You have been chosen as a CSN Stores Affiliate Program Rising
Star.
All the members of this group have been able to bring in a
significant amount of traffic to our sites over the last few month. We
want to help you make sure those visits lead to sales and
commissions! For the next month, April 1st - May 1st, the CSN Stores
Affiliate program will be offering an exclusive promotion to the
members of this Rising Stars group.
If in the month of April you can convert just 10 sales you will receive
an additional $150 bonus on top of your commissions.
Example of Motivating Newsletter
26. To motivate others effectively, managers must have “a clear, unbiased
understanding of the situation at hand, deep insights into the
vagaries of human nature, the establishment of appropriate and
reasonable expectations and goals, and the constructions of a
balanced set of… incentives.”
Bronwyn Fryer, "Moving Mountains“ (Harvard Business Review on Motivating People, 2003)
Start with the truth
Appeal to greatness
Make them proud
Stick to your values
Provide constant & consistent communication channel
Build trust
Care for the little guy
Set different incentive levels
How to Motivate
34. FTC's Rules on Endorsements
In essence…
• merchant-affiliate = sponsor-endorser relationships
• relationship must be clearly disclosed by marketer
• advertiser responsible for educating, equipping, and
policing compliance
35. What to Do:
1. Sub-clause of Affiliate Obligations clause in TOS
2. Provide affiliates with disclosure template(s)
3. Routinely analyze sites of top performers
4. Look into content monitoring solutions by
BrandVerity and TheSearchMonitor to automate
policing
36. Coupon Usage
Coupon harvesting or usage of protected
coupon codes
Pseudo-couponing
Click-to-reveal “technology”
48. How to Optimize
o Replicate your
own successes
o Employ
best practices
o Spy on your
competition
49. Monitoring Competition
Competitive intelligence – “the process
by which companies inform themselves
about every aspect of their rivals’
activities and performance”
(Christopher West, Competitive Intelligence, p. 12)
50. What to Monitor:
Technologies used
Product/service features
Price levels
Customer-oriented promos, discounts, rebates
Perceptions they create for their brand
Means of creating perceptions online
Affiliate program specifics (cookie life, locking
period, creatives, marketing collateral, etc)
Types of affiliates used (and avoided!)
Affiliate-oriented incentives (bonuses, contests,
tiered commissions, private commissions, etc)
Affiliate program policies
51. Focus: Practical Application
“The real purpose of competitive intelligence
is to learn and to act” …not merely
collect data or “develop information”.
(Seena Sharp, Competitive Intelligence Advantage, p 101)
52. How to Spy on Your Competition:
1. Analyze their performance stats
2. Become their customer & affiliate
3. Create automatic monitoring
campaigns
4. Do friend and follow them
5. Employ traffic measuring tools