Q: I currently run an affiliate program, but we are having some difficulty finding a niche, since we are an industrial B to B site. Any suggestions on how to develop our program? It appears the affiliate marketing is basically consumer based but we still see some opportunities.
A: I took a peek at your program on CJ, and you’ve got an above average EPC for 3 months and 7 days.
Being that you are B2B, you will not be able to scale like a B2C company would do, but I think you’ve got plenty of space to grow.
One thing to examine is the performance of your creative. I noticed that affiliates are only using a few different text links, and your banners are going untouched.
Try asking affiliates what they want, and then create those sizes and styles. I didn’t notice creative for any of your categories, just logos and then direct banners for specific items.
I’d suggest creating banners for your top 5 or so performing categories.
Also, if you do not have a data feed, I’d suggest getting one ASAP. There are lots of affiliates out there that will create entire sites around your data feed, and drive a significant increase in traffic.
I recently signed on to try out the suite of affiliate tools offered by a guy named Paul Hagopian at http://www.finon.com/affiliate-tools.html for the InstrumentPro.com affiliate program.
He’s got a very attractive suite of offerings for a modest price. His regular price is $99/month for all five of his tools.
- External Datanfeed Manager: Complete Feed Management
- Product Display Maker: Creates customized HTML-based displays of any and all products from your datafeed
- Direct Link Maker
- Search Link Maker
- Search Form Maker
Otherwise, I would just encourage you to do lots of targeted affiliate recruiting.