Affiliate Programs - Retailers, watch your backs
I was sent a link today about opportunistic affiliates taking advantage of internet merchants - I have to say, the information scared me. And this article is not about 2-bit Yahoo store retailers being swindled - the case study shows examples of web giants Blockbuster and Netflix being overcharged by shady affiliate traffic.
We are excited about the launch of the Sewell affiliate program, but this serves as a good reminder that we need to keep an eye on what our affiliates are doing. Within a week of launch we saw some questionable techniques (which we addressed).
My conclusion? Have a sharp affiliate manager (like Postelwait) or hire a company to manage your affiliate program who knows what they’re doing.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
| TrackBack URI
You can also bookmark
this on del.icio.us or check the cosmos
come to see u
Comment by Thisisfun — May 30, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Definitely! Thanks for the heads up.
Also, I wouldn’t allow affiliates to bid on your keywords (at least not your brand keywords).
IMHO, affiliate programs will only work in one of two (or both) circumstances: 1) you suck at seo/ppc advertising but your affiliate are good at it 2) your affiliates have tons of visitors to their sites that fit your target demographic and your ads are well placed.
If one of these don’t apply, affiliate programs can end up just being a waste of time. Merchants love the idea of affiliate marketing (shifts the risk to affiliates), but affiliates seem to rather just get their sure CPC/CPM paycheck.
One more thing to look out for: if you offer discount codes on your site, some customers will see that you offer codes, then search the coupon/bargain sites (the biggest affiliates), where those sites will list you (even if you aren’t offering a special discount), and the customer will click thru to your site. So, you’re paying a commission for a sale you already had.
Comment by cameron is not gay — May 30, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
I agree on the promo codes - they shouldn’t be obvious during checkout because you drive people to search for discounts and many times they are distracted by a competitor’s offer.
I don’t think I agree, however, about affiliates bidding on your branded keywords (though this could obviously vary by industry). Ubiquity is always the goal - if somebody searches for you and you have one of the sponsored links and the rest are competitors bidding on your terms (which has been deemed legal for the time being), wouldn’t it be better to have a bunch of affiliates saying good things about you?
Also, using this technique you aren’t exposing yourself to any additional risk (as you would attempting to open several different adwords accounts and acheiving ubiquity on your own). There is just a slight premium of whatever you set your affiliate commission as on top of your normal ad spend.
So I don’t think you have to suck at seo or ppc for an affiliate program to make sense - you can harness the power of a distributed network of affiliates to acheive brand awareness on a massive scale that would not be possible by yourself.
Comment by admin — May 30, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
see u again
Comment by Thisisfun — June 12, 2007 @ 1:08 pm