There are two ways to run an affiliate program: you can either do it
all yourself or let someone else run it for you.
If you want to run it yourself, you can buy software (If you already
have a shopping cart, many have affiliate tracking
built in) and
install it and then track your affiliates' sales and figure out how
much you owe each one every month and write and mail checks (and deal
with how to
pay the ones that are in other countries) and act as tech support when
they have problems, etc., etc.
[Can you imagine writing and mailing out checks to a
thousand or more affiliates every month? ACK!]
And then there's the trust issue... Affiliates prefer to work
with companies they’re familiar with – ClickBank, ShareASale, PayDotCom, etc. –
because they know they'll get paid, they can count on when
their pay will arrive, it's easy to join new programs through
them since most
affiliates are
already a member of those networks, and they can see their stats online
any time they want in real time. But when you run your own
affiliate program, to most affiliates, it's a leap of faith, and the
affiliates who've been burned before won't be too willing to take that
leap
again.
FYI: If
you’re running your own program, affiliates track the number of
visitors they send to you so if the commissions you report they earned
doesn’t jive with what they think they should have earned,
they’ll stop sending you business. And they'll be quick to
complain about you in forums where other affiliates will see, and then
your affiliates will start dropping like flies.
Decide Which One is Right for You
Whether you decide to run your affiliate program yourself or let
someone else run it for you, you have to choose the one that's right
for you.
First, it has to do what you need it to do. Do you sell an
e-product, like an ebook or software, a tangible product, like
a home gym, or have a membership site, like a dating
site, where members pay you recurring fees each month or once a
year? Or do you want leads, like for an insurance or mortgage
site?
Some
services only do pay-per-sale, some do three – pay-per-sale,
pay-per-lead, and pay-per-click – so choose the one that will do what
you need it to do.
Next, since almost all of them have a one-time, set-up fee, choose one
that fits your budget.
Do you have a shopping cart on your site? Make sure the one you
choose will work with your existing shopping cart. [Like I
mentioned before, many shopping carts, like 1shoppingcart.com, have
affiliate tracking built in so check yours]
Is there a monthly charge?
Is there a charge per sale?
As an affiliate, I hate
it when...
...I'm at a site and click
on their 'Affiliates' link and see:
"To join, send an email to
affiliate@somesite.com"
Affiliates expect to see one of three ways to join an affiliate program
on a seller's site:
# 1
If the seller uses Clickbank:
Use
this link
http://XXXXX.123SELL.hop.clickbank.net/
(just replace XXXXX with your Clickbank ID) and start earning big money
today!
Not a member of Clickbank yet? Click here to join and
start making money in minutes.
An
affiliate who's already a member of Clickbank just needs that link
(above in bold) and can start driving traffic to that seller's site in
seconds.
# 2
If the seller uses any other
big-name affiliate network:
There
will be both a form to fill out if they're not already a member of the
network and if they are a member, a login box where the affiliate just
needs to fill in their user name and password to join that seller's
program.
# 3
The seller runs their own
affiliate program:
There
will be a form for the affiliate to fill out to join that seller's
program.
Anything
else, like seeing that email address in that box above, is not only
cheesy, but raises our suspicions.
Approving Your Affiliates
Lots
of sellers have an automated process and instant approval. Once
the affiliate fills in the form, it tells them to check their email and
there they'll find their affiliate ID/affiliate link or they're told to
log into the seller's site to get it there.
And then there are sellers who take days to approve an affiliate...
When an affiliate joins your
program, she's all fired up about driving you traffic.
But...
...when you make her wait a few days, she has time to sign up with
another seller offering what you offer and if he gives her instant
approval, she'll havealready sent him thousands of visitors by the time
you approve her.
Grab 'em while they're hot! Approve your affiliates as quickly as
you can!
If you use
Clickbank or PayDotCom,
every affiliate is approved, but the other affiliate networks appear to
give you the option to be picky about who can and can't join your
affiliate program.
Let's say one of your current customers decides to join your affiliate
program. Since he's completely new to being an affiliate, he's
learning as he goes. So he builds a website, signs up for hosting
for one year (he doesn't want to pay for two or more because he doesn't
know if this is going to pan out or not for him) and since he doesn't
want his home address to come up on WhoIs.com or other places on the
Internet, he opts for the free 'Privacy' his hosts offers.
Guess what? Depending on how you set up the criteria on some
affiliate networks (Google's comes to mind), your customer would be
denied. Why? Because his site was just launched, he only
signed up for one year of hosting and he doesn't want his home address
splashed across the Internet.
[Hmmm... think this would make your customer mad enough that he'd
demand his money back on the product he bought from you? Maybe]
Sure, deny affiliates because their websites promote things you
wouldn't want to be associated with (sex, violence, hate, etc.) but be
practical when you're setting up the criteria for your affiliate
program.
Interneka
will allow you to have a 2-tier affiliate program, but their pricing
has three tiers: If you have up to 500 affiliates and 50,000 hits a
month, it'll run you a $75 set-up fee and $29 a month. If you
have up to 1500 affiliates and 150,000 hits per month, it's $149 and
$39. If you don't want to be limited by the number of affiliates
you can have and your hits per month, it's $799 and no monthly charge.
DirectTrack is a web-based solution.
You have to contact them to request a quote.
If you want to let someone else do the work for you, you have quite a
few options...
If
you sell e-products, services, like design websites, or have a
membership site, and you need to collect payments, as well as start an
affiliate program,
They accept payments for you (including through PayPal), work flawlessly with DLguard, handle all the affiliate tracking,
and pay you and your affiliates either by check every two weeks or by
direct deposit every week like clockwork. And
Clickbank has over 100,000 affiliates who
will be able to easily find your product in Clickbank's Marketplace
and start driving you traffic immediately. Clickbank charges a one-time
$49 set-up fee (and that covers up to 500 products!) and a small
percentage on each sale.
PayPal and just want to add an affiliate
program, check out PayDotCom. They
handle all the affiliate tracking for you but
you do have to pay your affiliates once a month through PayPal's Mass
Pay. If you sell one product, you can join
PayDotCom
for free or if you sell multiple products, you can pay $29 for
an unlimited membership. They charge a per sale fee and you'll
also
be charged a per sale fee by
PayPal as well. PayDotCom
also has a Marketplace where
thousands of affiliates will be able to find your product and start
driving you traffic within minutes.
For other kinds of products, here are the most popular affiliate
networks that most affiliates are already members of:
ShareASale handles
the affiliate programs for companies like Hoover, the Washington
Redskins, EarthClassMail.com, ChecksUnlimited.com, FSBO.com, etc.
They do pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-click.
LinkShare handles the affiliate programs
for Wal-Mart, Macys, iTunes, McAfee, AT&T, CompUSA, Office Depot,
NetFlix, etc.
Performics is now Google Affiliate Network
and
while they don't list the companies they work with, like others do, I
do know they handle the affiliate programs for Vonage and OfficeMax and
that Google's strict criteria is too strict for many affiliates,
particularly newbies.
Some sellers think they need to
offer affiliates two or more networks to choose from.
Don't. It
will make you look fly-by-night and turn affiliates off. Just
choose
one affiliate network.
