Re: How to promote an affiliate program

From: Glenn Sobel <YourWebURL_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon 18 Sep 2000 15:44:11 -0500

Hello again everyone.

While I definitely agree with Adrian Cooper that most
affiliates/publishers like "pay per visitor" type
affiliate programs, I must respectfully disagree with
the following conclusion:

ADRIAN COOPER <adrian_at_cooper.net> WROTE:
> Any site who does not offer "pay per visitor" to me at
> least has not got the courage of their convictions to
> the extent that they can translate visitors to sales.

Unfortunately this may be true in a perfect world, but
I believe this statement ignores several realiites.

1. Fraud.
Not every affiliate is honest. There is always the risk
of false clicks or deceptive methods being used to
cause visitors to click. A poorly handled pay per click
program can, and has, taken merchants into bankruptcy.

2. Poor choice of offerings.
An affiliate/publisher promoting a program that is not
appropriate to his visitors will generate traffic that
is not well targeted, causing a low conversion ratio.
Not all traffic is created equal.

3. Over-selling.
An affiliate/publisher can generate traffic by overly
hyping an offer, sending people with unrealistic
expectations of what they will find when they click
through to the merchant.

Yes, it is the merchant's responsibility to convert the
traffic sent to them by the affiliate, but like the
affiliate having no control over what the merchant
does, the merchant also has no control over what the
affiliate does or who he sends.

It's a sad fact, but not all affiliates are both honest
and competent marketers. Most are inexperienced and
relatively unsophisticated. While pay per click
programs can be profitable for both merchants and
affiliates, they are also the most likely to be taken
advantage of and victimized.

I do recommend to merchants that they offer pay per
click when appropriate, but ONLY when they are in a
position to discover and protect themselves against
fraud.

There are many variations of payment to affiliates.
They all have advantages and disadvantages, depending
on the circumstances. Merchants need to pay careful
attention to the way they structure their offerings to
make them both attractive to their affiliates as well
as cost effective for themselves.

I'll be up at Commission Junction University on Monday
where I'm sure this will be a popular topic of
conversation. If you are there, please say hello.

Take care all.

Glenn Sobel
www.AffiliateAdvisor.com
Consulting to merchants and providers.
Director - AffiliateUnion.com





Received on Mon Sep 18 2000 - 15:44:11 CDT