Using Affiliate Programs To Gain Cheap Advertising And Branding!
This topic is so important and the concept will make or break your programs long-term success.
Affiliate Marketing is all about performance marketing. Pay by results. For each check you mail to an affiliate you know you have made a profit.
If you are not issuing affiliate checks then your program is not working.
Affiliate Marketing provides you with the best kind of advertising; you only pay when it works.
To be a success your affiliates need to be making money. If you don't pay enough they won't join. If you pay commissions late or not at all they will leave your program and at the same time tell as many other people that will listen that you don't pay.
Do not consider your affiliates as cheap sources of advertising, traffic and branding view them as partners. Help and support, teach them to earn more and so will you.
How to destroy your program
At the time of writing a fairly well established merchant selling toys recently changed it's affiliate program.
The program had been running for some time and was offering a pay by sale commission on each referal.
Recently they decided that rather than pay for recurring sales they would only pay a one off bounty for each new customer introduced by an affiliate.
I guess someone in their boardroom thought well why keep on paying, lets cut our costs. They had used the affiliates to build their brand and then took away their affiliates hard earned efforts for a fair ongoing reward.
No one considered the lowly affiliate and how they would feel about having their commissions reduced.
Guess what that poor lowly affiliate wasn't without a voice after all. Immediately every affiliate news site and directory illustrated what the merchant was up to. Spawning a rash of comparison charts and suggestions as to which of their competitors offers a superior program.
The moral of the story being, build your affiliate program on the foundation of rewarding your affiliates fairly, focus on making them successful and your success will follow.