Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Archives for November 2007

An Affiliate Done Wrong

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I just wanted to share frustrating affiliate story with you. Back on November 2, 2007, I was accepted by the YouSendIt affiliate program.

I was interested in promoting YouSendIt, because I’ve been a satisfied, paying customer of their service for a while, and I’ve recommended them (without compensation) to lots of people.

If you’re not familiar with the service, it’s a way to transfer and share really big files (up to 2GB), and I’ve found it really useful to share big video files, PowerPoint, etc.

Anyhow, I was planning to run a whole big campaign to promote YouSendIt in my blog, sites, newsletters, etc.

But the other day, when I logged into Commission Junction to check my internal messages, I found out that they had booted me from the affiliate program.

There was no reason given, so I am assuming they had this idea that affiliates would become instantly active and generate tons of leads.

The reality is that it doesn’t happen that way.

A lot of people talk about the 80/20 rule, or even 95/5, where 5% of affiliates are generating 95% of the transactions.

Then there is the long tail of affiliates that can bring in a few leads each per month.

I think I could have been in the top echelon there for YouSendIt, and driven good number of new customers to them.

But now I’ve been alienated both as an affiliate and a paying customer.

I would encourage affiliate managers to take this into consideration before pruning bunches of affiliates from their program so quick and without cause.

Affiliate marketing isn’t a channel where you can hit a magic button and get results.

You need to do some hands on work – affiliates are partners with the merchants and should be treated as such.

I never got a phone call or e-mail from YouSendIt to try and activate me or ask how I planned to promote them. They just bounced me after a few weeks for no reason.

Happy Holidays, YouSendIt.

Affiliate Managers are Spamming Me

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I am working on a new affiliate site and recently applied to a large number of affiliate programs.

Soon after, I began receiving e-mails to confirm my application from all, and welcome e-mails from some. Days passed, and I was surprised that a lot of the affiliate programs hadn’t reviewed the applications, yet.

Well, not so surprised. Plenty of affiliate managers take weeks or months to approve or deny affiliate applications, but I wasn’t seeing anything from upwards of 75% of them.

Then I took a look at my Spam folder in Outlook. What do you know – these welcome e-mails were sent after all, but they were classified as Spam by Outlook.

Word to the wise – test your e-mails through filters in AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Spam Assassin, etc.

You may well have bunches of affiliates that want to promote you and don’t realize they were approved.

Video Conversations at Seesmic

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I typically hear about the next big hit or miss from Sam Harrelson. The latest thing, which I just joined up on Sam’s recommendation, is Seesmic.

affiliate-video

Here’s how MarketingProfs describes it…

“What do you get when you combine video, social networking, micromedia, and a very savvy French entrepreneur? You get Seesmic.

The site is a social network where the primary content is video. Users record video, post it to the site, and other users reply in video.”

The short description I’ve heard from others is that it’s sort of like a fusion of Twitter and video.

This site is currently in alpha and there are a limited number of testers playing around with it. So you can’t see the community in action unless you have a login.

But it looks pretty compelling, and I think if it gets a critical mass of users, it could be as useful or more so than Twitter (assuming you find Twitter to be useful in business – I do).

More details at Seesmic.com.

Cyber Monday: An Affiliate Anthem

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Yesterday, Linda Buquet of the 5 Star Affiliate Programs Blog presented me with a call to action in her post, The Cyber Monday SONG – Sing It with Me Now!.

She wrote about how she’d modified the lyrics to “Monday, Monday” by the Mama’s and the Papa’s to be a song about Cyber Monday for affiliates.

Oh and if Shawn or anyone else wants to sing it and ham it up on YouTube, I”ll post it! Lets see if we can make this song rise to the top of the blogosphere charts by Monday!

While I am not a big fan (or a little fan) of the Mama’s and the Papa’s, I do have to confess that I liked the Bangles back in the 80’s.

So I felt compelled to put together my own version of “Manic Monday.”

Best of all, I’ve performed my new hit, “Cyber Monday,” a capella.

Enjoy this long distance dedication to all the affiliates out there.

Best Type of Affiliate Links

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I came across the Smart Marketing Affiliates Blog, where they have a post on The Best Kind of Affiliate Link, which reinforces my experiences in testing different types of affiliate links.

links

The best converting affiliate links you can use are text links that offer a coupon code or mention some sort of discount.

Here’s what I’ve discovered. Internet shoppers are looking for a deal. Anything that’s “in your face” such as large banners, they don’t believe. It screams obnoxious, scammer, etc. Text links they do believe.

Subtle sells. A text link comes across as a recommendation. A text link mentioning a coupon code or discount turns your recommendation into a timely treasured secret.

In the decade or so that I’ve been an affiliate and an affiliate manager, text links have routinely outperformed banners.

The irony is that banners are typically used more often by affiliates.

But another reason why many affiliate programs have a small group of affiliates generating the bulk of sales or leads.

A Day in the Life of an Affiliate Marketer

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I’m going to take you on a little tour of a day in the life of an affiliate marketing. In this case, it’s a chronicle of what I did on Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

Shawn CollinsSince I get questions about my typical day at AskShawnCollins.com from time to time, I thought I’d put together a short video to tell the story.

My day consists of various things related to being an affiliate, affiliate manager and working on the Affiliate Summit conference.

Here is a time-line from this day:

  • 01:00 – Start of the day with a post to my blog and catch up on e-mail – then some sleep
  • 07:00 – Wake up with some Diet Dr. Pepper and check out e-mails that came overnight
  • 07:30 – Team up with my dog, Mickey, to wake up my three daughters
  • 07:45 – Drink some hot caffeine in the form of black coffee; breakfast for the kids
  • 08:00 – Double-team the kids with my wife, Vicky, to get teeth and hair brushed
  • 08:10 – Walk my daughter, Caity, to school
  • 08:20 – Wait for the bus with my daughter, Lexie
  • 08:30 – Write up letters to welcome the Affiliate Summit speakers
  • 09:15 – Drive my daughter, Kerri, to school
  • 10:00 – Weekly call with Payless ShoeSource to discuss the latest on the affiliate program
  • 11:00 – Work up a list of stories to cover on the Affiliate Thing show
  • 12:00 – Co-host the Affiliate Thing show with Lisa Picarille of Revenue Magazine
  • 12:35 – Wrap up the Affiliate Thing show and write a recap of the show for the Affiliate Thing show
  • 13:00 – Wolf down a sandwich for lunch
  • 13:30 – Walk a few miles to get fresh air, exercise, deposit affiliate checks, pick up mail, and catch up on podcasts
  • 14:30 – Shower and shave
  • 15:00 – Record a video review for WeViews.tv and a few other videos for various projects
  • 16:00 – Edit the videos with Sony Vegas Movie Studio software
  • 16:30 – Render the videos (compile them into a format suitable for uploading)
  • 17:00 – Upload the videos to TubeMogul.com to distribute them
  • 17:45 – Write a blog post for WeViews.tv on Send a Ball
  • 18:30 – Spark up the grill and cook some dinner
  • 20:00 – Wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen – then some hang time with my wife until she goes to sleep
  • 23:00 – Finish off this day by the glow of my monitor. I write the weekly Affiliate Summit newsletter and set it up to mail the next day in AWeber

By the way, the video for a day in my life was shot on my Flip Video Ultra and MacBook 13-inch White 2.16GHz.

Thanks for spending the day with me.

Recruiting Super Affiliates

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Q: We are a growing B2B website that added an affiliate program about 6 months ago. While the growth of the program has been decent, we have hit a bit of a wall lately. Our biggest challenge is in getting larger affiliate sites to give us a chance. We have strong rev share numbers (5% on an ave order size over $300), but still can’t seem to crack many of the big players.

Part of the problem is we aren’t well known yet, and B2B is still a distant second as far as affiliate networks go. But, we have hit a bit of a ceiling and don’t really know how to proceed. Can you give me some advice on things we might be able to do to be more attractive to larger affiliates?

Shawn CollinsA: First of all, I took a look at your Web site. I am not going to mention it, so I don’t embarrass you, but one thing you have to do is to stop hiding your affiliate program.

I went to your site and I couldn’t find anywhere to join your affiliate program or learn more about it.

I was looking all around until I finally happened upon your affiliate program by clicking on one of the navigation tabs and found a link to the affiliate program down the list on that “Resources” tab.

You did an excellent job of burying your affiliate program, so most affiliates will never find it.

The typical convention is to put a link to your affiliate program in the footer of your site. You can’t expect affiliates to do a bunch of legwork to find whether you even have an affiliate program.

That’s one thing – fix that immediately.

Another thing is that I don’t know your space well enough to know how well you rank against your competitors. You say you have a strong rev share of 5%.

That may be very true, at least in your eyes. Hopefully, you are making this statement with the knowledge of the rates your competitors are paying their affiliates.

And if those are competitors that your potential customers will recognize, the reality is that you need to cut into your margins a little deeper to give a reason for affiliates to sample you.

Otherwise, I don’t see affiliates abandoning the proven brand names to test you out for the same commission rate.

So anyway, make the affiliate program easier to find, and pay better than your established competitors.

Also, when you try to lure in the big players, don’t offer them 5%. You should have two levels of commission (or more): your basic rate and your VIP rate for the super affiliates.

When you’re soliciting these top affiliates, tell them you pay 5% to everybody else, but you will pay them 7%, 8%, or whatever you can work into your margins, because you value and respect them.

The super affiliates rightfully expect to be treated better than the affiliates who will bring in a sale or two a month for you.

Their ad real estate is more precious, and you’ve got to pay for access to it.

I think if you make these changes you will see some nice growth in your affiliate program.

Best Affiliate Network

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Q: I am the product manager of a software company that develops small software utilities with sales in the range of about $5,000 to $10,000 per month. I want to know which affiliate network would suit me the best?

Shawn CollinsA: I don’t know your margins or whether these software utilities are being delivered online or as physical goods, such as a CD in the mail.

If you are just delivering your product online, you might want to use ClickBank, oneNetworkDirect, or >PayLoadz.

However, if you are shipping a physical product, there are countless options for you to consider.

There are the traditional affiliate networks, such as buy.at, Commission Junction, LinkShare, Performics, and Shareasale. These companies offers varying levels of service and features, and you’d be best served by trying them out to see which is best for you.

Also, there is a legion of CPA networks, such as Azoogle and CPA Empire. There are probably hundred of them out there and they range in the number of affiliates, unique offers, etc.

Try going a search on Google for CPA networks, as well as affiliate networks. Start making contact, and one good measure of their responsiveness is how quick they get back you you when they are trying to win your business.

If they’re not on top of things now, they’ll be worse later on.

After you hear from them, take a test drive of their interface, get a feel for the analytics, creative options, etc.

And very important – figure out which one best meets your price point.

Good luck with your choice. Let us know how it goes.

Holiday Trend Data from DoubleClick Performics

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DoubleClick Performics has released data detailing online buying patterns for the holiday season, as well as Black Friday and the series of Cyber Mondays.

“The peaks and valleys of consumer shopping behavior during the holidays are filled with misconception among marketers and the general business community. The National Retail Federation originally coined the term Cyber Monday for the Monday following Thanksgiving,” said Stuart Larkins, vice president of search for DoubleClick Performics.

“This helped the industry understand that, while Black Friday is the biggest offline shopping day of the year, the following Monday brought much greater online sales volume, but they only scratched the surface with this finding.

It’s more than just one Monday; it’s a Cyber Monday phenomenon, and the Monday following Thanksgiving tends to pale in comparison to the others that follow.”

DoubleClick Performics Issues Holiday e-Commerce Trend Data

According to the data, online sales decline each week following Monday, but research and other online activity continue.

Apparently, consumers are using search to prepare for their weekend offline shopping.

Keep them online – feed your visitors free shipping and discounts with their favorite brands.

The clock is ticking.

Sponsor Affiliate Marketing Videos

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I’ve got a new sponsorship opportunity that will provide exposure on the Affiliate Tip blog, as well as various video sites.

In addition to publishing my affiliate marketing videos on my blog, I also post them to Affiliate Tip TV (powered by Magnify.net), and more than 10 video sites, including YouTube, MySpaceTV, Revver, and Yahoo Video.

The sponsorship here is in the form of a t-shirt (provided by the sponsor), which I would wear in a future affiliate marketing video.

The price for this opportunity to brand your company and reach lots of affiliate marketing eyeballs is just $100 per video.

Visit http://affiliatetip.com/affiliate-marketing-blog-advertising/ for more details.