Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process of setting up a scalable sales program that other companies can sign-up for to send traffic, leads and sales to your site in exchange for some payment. Depending on the product or service you offer, an affiliate program can be your best customer acquisition channel (yes, even better than search - just ask Amazon.com).
The affiliate channel has changed dramatically in the last 5 years. What was once a quaint cottage industry of mom and pop websites sending people to Amazon.com for a book or CD is now an industry dominated by Super Affiliates that leverage email lists, search engine optimization, paid search arbitrage and high content sites to drive traffic your way. The game nowadays is to find and court the Super Affiliates who can turn on a program and generate significant traffic and sales in a short period of time.
So, is an affiliate program right for you? Here are some questions/issues to consider:
- How large is my business? Can it support the resources necessary to run a good affiliate marketing program?
- Can I dedicate someone to manage the program, either part or full time?
- What is in it for the affiliates? How will they make money?
- How should I pay the affiliates? % of sale, bounty for a subscription, flat fee per item, bonus for new customer?
- What additional incentives can we include for Super Affiliates?
- Where will you find Super Affiliates?
- Should I let affiliates bid on my trademarked keywords?
- Should I sign-up with one of the big programs (Commission Junction, BeFree, LinkShare) or set-up my own using affiliate software (AffiliateWiz, etc.)?
- Do I have the right landing pages for affiliates?
- Do I have the flexibility in tracking and reporting that is required to run an affiliate program?
Affiliate programs are a major commitment due to the amount of energy required to get up and running PLUS the on-going maintenance and feeding required for growth. We've been there, we can help. Contact us.
Read a recent blog post on managing Affiliates and Branded Keywords in Paid Search to get a feel for the types of issues and solutions we deal with on a regular basis.
Click here to read: Should You Let Your Affiliates Bid on Your Branded Keywords