Re: How to promote an affiliate program

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Wed 20 Sep 2000 12:36:11 -0500

GLENN SOBEL <YourWebURL_at_aol.com> WROTE:
> 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.

I agree with everything you say, but I'd like to throw
something in from my perspective. I have tried dozens
of affiliate programs through the years, and I've got
one or two waiting in the wings for me to start working
with.

The one program which has paid me more than all the
others combined is Amazon.Com. I am currently
generating about $10,000.00 a year in sales for them.
This is not exactly a stellar track record. I doubt
I'll ever become their affiliate of the month. But I
don't have to do much to sell their stuff.

I have all but given up on direct links to Amazon
products. I'll feature occasional links in reviews
but otherwise I just go with the search box. I tried
the maxcomm link conversion script for a while but
Amazon shrewdly caught on to that trick and began
changing their page design frequently so as to keep
the affiliates "honest" (and I don't wish to get into a
debate over whether it's honest to generate hard
links). I found that even when the script was working
most of the sales were only for 5% commission items
anyway.

What makes the Amazon program successful on my site is
the following:

1) Relevance. I run a science fiction domain. You can
buy all sorts of related products from Amazon. The
search boxes make it easy for people to do this.

2) Merchant usability. It IS the merchant's
responsibility to get the visitor to buy something,
and Amazon makes it very easy to do so.

3) Customer satisfaction. I've read plenty of horror
stories about Amazon customers who were unhappy. But
people keep coming back to Amazon and buying stuff
again and again. I've bought stuff from them with no
problems. I've also often walked into local stores and
bought leaky milk jugs, broken merchandise, dead
batteries, etc. Getting those things replaced takes
time and effort, too. So I can live with the prospect
of an occasional inconvenience from Amazon.

4) Payment. I have dropped all my Linkshare affiliate
programs and I will never go back to any Linkshare
merchant. I never got paid. Linkshare has set up the
system so that most people never will get paid. And
for some reason, their system isn't as effective in
reporting conversions as other systems I've worked
with.

I was invited by 800-Trekker to join their affiliate
program a couple of years ago. I didn't promote it
much but I still got a small check from them after the
first quarter. I was impressed. I went and revised a
lot of pages to carry more 800-Trekker links. They
specialize in science fiction merchandise and I
thought, "This could be the ticket that pays the
Web-hosting fees". That's a modest goal for an
affiliate program.

And then they switched to Linkshare. They dropped
their in-house affiliate system in favor of letting
Linkshare handle the burden of managing the
affiliates. I had to revise all my pages AGAIN, and
after months of watching their banner ads flash on my
pages, I had nothing to show for it. I ran tens of
thousands of impressions, got hundreds of click-thrus,
and never once racked up a sale commission. When I
complained to 800-Trekker they told me they were happy
with all their sales and I needed to take up the
problem with Linkshare. Linkshare never answered my
emails.

Never again. Amazon pays. I'll stay with Amazon. I
won't use Linkshare again. I had little fees racking
up from various programs that never met their minimum
check requirements, and they refused to consolidate all
the commissions. Why should I generate sales for
merchants who don't care if I ever get paid?

My point is that a good affiliate program will make it
easy for Webmasters to frame their content around the
affiliate links, and it will pay the Webmasters, and
it will deliver the goods to the customers, and it will
take care of unhappy customers so they come back.

It's a shame Amazon is having financial problems. They
are the best game in town for guys like me. One day,
I fear, I'll have to revise all my pages again, and
get rid of Amazon's search boxes. When that day comes,
I hope I'll have something to replace them with.

If you want to promote an affiliate program, make it
something that people like me will recommend to
others. I can't promise people they won't get paid by
Linkshare, or that they will get paid by Amazon, but my
thousands of Web pages show where my loyalties are,
and the people who visit my domain day after day, or
even just once a month, will never again see a
Linkshare referral on my domain. You don't just want
happy customers, you also want happy affiliates (or
associates -- technically, I'm an Amazon associate
rather than an affiliate).

Oh, and I've tried the "pay per visitor" thingee. I
got about $30.00 from it, but worse, I ended up with a
lot of slow-loading pages because the ad server kept
grinding to a halt. I'll take the search boxes with
the 5% sales commissions. What good is a
pay-per-visitor system that drags your site down?

I look for results, not promises. I've had my fill of
promises.

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Received on Wed Sep 20 2000 - 12:36:11 CDT