We seldom see articles written about the income affiliate networks and merchants get that the affiliate will never see any residual income from.
Food for thought?

We were delighted to hear that LoveHoney.com has acquired the brand CoCo de Mer. The sale comes quickly after their purchase of BeCheeky.com.

The business, which markets itself as an up market, ethical sex shop, selling lingerie, toys, whips and even crockery has two shops in Britain: in Covent Garden and Brompton Cross in London, and one in Los Angeles. Its customers include Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Read more

BeCheeky delivers great conversions by offering customers:

• A fabulous range of flirtatious and fun lingerie, including stylish and unique designs you won’t find in high street stores, and all at affordable prices!
• An increasing range of items that are hard to find on the high street or at other online retailers
• Safe and Secure Shopping
• Discreet, Fast and FREE UK Delivery
• Outstanding Customer Care
• Free 30 Day Returns – if you don’t like your purchase for any reason, our free UK returns policy mean you can have a refund or replacement for up to 30 days from your purchase date!

Why you should promote BeCheeky:

• A very generous 10% commission for accumulative sales under £1,000
• Rising to an amazing 15% for sales over £1,000
• Fantastic 120-day cookies to help you get that sale
• Automatically updated product feeds
• Industry standard size banners (but if you need more, let us know!)
• Dynamic content links
• 30 day validation period on sales
• Excellent conversion rates helped by our free delivery and returns
• Average order value £35
• Low level of returns (even with our free returns policy)
• High level of repeat purchases
• Tons of special offers and promotions, plus check out our best sellers for our top selling products that are just flying off the shelf!
• Regular weekly affiliate newsletters with tips, news and all the latest offers
• Program managed by affiliateprogramadvice.com
• Dedicated affiliate manager, just contact Catherine at affiliateprogramadvice.com
• We’re here to help, so if you need anything just give us a shout!

Demographics

• 60% female, 40% male – apart from November to February when this split reverses, with men typically buying lingerie as Christmas and Valentine’s gifts.
• Customers are generally aged between 20-45, with 25-35 year olds making up the second largest proportion of orders.

Click here To Join the BeCheeky.com affiliate Program

Methodology

“AffliateBenchmarks™ reached out to a broad array of affiliate networks for recruitment support. In addition, some of the most prominent advertisers and industry news sources in this medium also assisted in recruitment to ensure a diverse pool of respondents. These various promoters helped enhance the outreach for AffliateBenchmarks’™ fourth research report by directing potential respondents to the highly intuitive, best-in-class platform developed by SurveyMonkey between the survey’s opening on July 1st and its official closing on September 1st. With their involvement, we were able to maximize the number of participants and ensure the report would be based on a representative sample of the entire market. Each participant was only offered access to the raw data; no rewards or payment were offered, which could have created answer bias. This report contains data from affiliates and advertisers around the globe. We thank everyone for their support. Due to data integrity issues, we have not included the agency/consultant data in this report and will release that data later once the issue is resolved. Questions can be directed to AffliateBenchmarks@Netx.com. We apologize for this inconvenience.” There were in total 7,279 respondents.
Survey shows that of the respondents the largest percentage of people categorized themselves as Affiliates/Publishers. The next largest percentage of respondents categorized themselves as Advertisers/Merchants with Agencies|Consultants|OPM representing the lowest percentage.”

Where are the women in Affiliate Marketing?
The survey shows us that the affiliate marketing industry is still predominantly made up of men and what is remarkable is the percentage of male/female split is almost the same as the UK demographics in the 2009 UK Affiliate Census. By the way the UK have just closed their survey for the 2011 Affiliate Census so it will be good chance to compare using current data. I still don’t know why the overall ratio between men and women is so great. As I have stated before, it’s the perfect industry for women with children who want to generate income, be able to work from home and choose their own hours. I rarely come across Female Directors of our industry companies but more often than not, the marketing roles seem to be predominantly women as employees.

Over 65’s active in Affiliate Marketing
It was so great to see that 3.2% of the respondents were over the age of 65 which is in line with Royal Pigdoms social network research that the over 65’s represent 3% of social network groups. http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/16/study-ages-of-social-network-users/ According to Nielsen , although the over 65 only represent 10% of internet users in the US, the numbers are rising and it’s good to see that our industry is on the map within this age bracket.

Are you qualified?
The survey asked the question about the highest level of education that the respondent had.
28.6 percent of the respondents said that they had a college degree or equivalent. I would have liked to have seen an additional question asking respondents how much of their college studies had any relevance to what they were doing now. Affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective is one of the few industries whereby no one needs to hold any qualifications at all. It’s all about experience surely? All any publisher really needs to know is how to set up an affiliate link, those clever techs out there have and are designing sign up and go platforms that can be used in place of a traditional website, example Blogger, Facebook, ,wordpress and so on. The technical skills of having to have a website in the early days are now a thing of the past.

Affiliate marketing is a part time career.
Again by comparison to that of the UK Affiliate Census in 2009/10 half the respondents In the US affiliate marketing survey did affiliate marketing as a part-time job. No surprises there, but what the survey did reveal is that the highest percentage of respondents only came into the industry in 2011. By contrast only approximately 1% had begun in 1994 (I’d like to shake their hands).

So is affiliate marketing profitable?
The majority of respondents got less than $10k per year with the top 2.7% earning over $400K per year. On first glance at these figures I immediately equated these figures as affiliate’s/publishers being in the less than 10k bracket but upon reflection with the likes of the high profile affiliate companies here in the US and UK they almost certainly would have to be in the over 400k bracket. It’s a shame the survey did not split this out. To put this in to context it should be noted that a high percentage of respondents did not or could not reveal their earnings.

What Affiliates look for before joining an affiliate program
I was bemused to read that Affiliate’s, when deciding on which affiliate program to join, the number one choice was the commission amount offered followed by relevancy then product & Price, with EPC (Earnings per click) coming in fifth place. Fair dues, EPC was the only metric of choice offered to the respondents, I’m still surprised that it was not the second highest when deciding which affiliate program to join. The amount of commission becomes meaningless unless the advertiser’s website converts. Most affiliate networks offer publishers the overall conversions of the Advertisers affiliate program allowing the publisher to make an informed decision before they join, however this metric can only be displayed to publishers if the Advertisers/Merchant has an existing affiliate program. Terms and conditions were third from last, I had expected this to be in the top three.

Which affiliate networks do you belong to?
The respondents were asked which affiliate networks they belonged to, the top six Affiliate Networks that most had joined were Cj.com, Google Affiliate Network, Click Bank, LinkShare.com and Shareasale.com, however the respondents only had a choice of fifteen affiliate networks to choose from. In the USA there are between thirty eight and forty five Affiliate Networks.

Did Affiliate’s have a favorite affiliate network?
Cj.com is without a doubt a monster in the industry and longevity has most certainly helped and we were not surprised with it being number one, followed by Google Affiliate Network and Click Bank.

Affiliate Techniques
It was encouraging to see that a huge proportion of affiliates are still using a myriad of techniques in order to get traffic and not just relying on one or two techniques. When asked about their pay per click spend, 44% said they would invest less than around $5k with approx 2% who said they would invest around $60k or more. But natural SEO search came out as the top choice followed by social networks.

What Merchant offers do affiliates find work best
We had a problem trying to interpret this section, from what we can ascertain it would seem like affiliates get a better conversion when a merchant offers free shipping, this could be the top most liked promo. From our own research, free shipping + coupon works well.

What a great question!
“Are all of the websites you indicated above revealed in your affiliate profile?”
Only half of the respondents said that they reveal all of their websites and just under half said that they did not. If we take out the 5% that said the affiliate network does not support multiple URL listings then we see that a lot of affiliates do not display their multiple websites. What this means for an affiliate manager who has to approve affiliates before allowing them to join the affiliate program is that he/she is making a judgment call based on the site that the affiliate submitted when he/she joined the affiliate network. It’s a split second decision that could mean the difference between accepting or denying a potential gold mine for the merchant. How many affiliates have had emails saying “sorry your application was denied…” If the affiliate networks offer affiliates the option to list multiple sites, then in the affiliates own interest to list all of their sites. If the Affiliate Network does not support multiple listings then they should add this feature as it is in their own interest. As the survey reveals, there are some affiliates who have up to twenty five sites and up.

Why do affiliates stop working with an Advertiser/Merchant?
The top answer was because the affiliate was not generating enough revenue, which links into what do affiliates look for before joining an affiliate program see above. If the Affiliate Network has the metrics to show an existing affiliate program’s overall conversion / EPC (Earnings per click) then affiliates can make the judgment call before joining the affiliate program. If an Advertisers website simply does not convert or has low conversions for anyone, then no amount of traffic the affiliate sends will convert any better than without the use of affiliates. Most Affiliate Network tracking works, some better than others, but basic sale tracking works, so the affiliate network can’t be blamed here for poor conversions. It is black or white, either the affiliate is not sending relevant traffic, or the merchant does not know how to convert the traffic he/she gets. Affiliate Programs that do well are the ones where the Merchant has a good user friendly website with product demand and the right prices.

Don’t call us we’ll call you
Overwhelmingly, affiliates prefer to be emailed when being contacted by Merchants/Affiliate Managers and Affiliate Networks with only 2% opting for a phone call. Why? Because Affiliate’s are busy people and want to do things in their own good time. If just half of the respondents work part time on their websites, I would imagine that some affiliates will be working outside of office hours and at weekends where the only means of communication would have to be email.

Erm you don’t live here!
When asked “Where are you located?” 51% said that they were from outside the USA. This is an example of how affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective has no country restrictions. The internet has facilitated the affiliate for just about every obstacle that may get in his/her way including language and currency. By contrast when Merchants were asked about their location over 70% said they were based in the USA.

In conclusion
By comparison to other affiliate surveys across many years, what we know is… Affiliates come and go like waves. Most of the big money making affiliates of today will in time be replaced by new big money making affiliates. The small affiliate generating one or two sales per week or month is just as important as the big affiliates as they represent a significant proportion of revenue for the merchant. The majority of affiliates are still part timers and prefer to be left alone to read their newsletters, this is not to say that some don’t prefer the phone call its horses for courses. Affiliates do read Affiliate Network and Merchant specific emails providing there is news in it, I bet that’s a relief to some people. Affiliates do use their own website analytics in order to monetize their traffic and Affiliates use social networking as a means to promote their Advertisers and represents a very large proportion of revenue.

Affiliates look at the commission percentage before anything else when it comes to choosing an affiliate program, so merchants take notice of this. I’m hoping that affiliates will continue to look at the Advertisers overall website conversions too before making their decision to join a program and if the network does not display or facilitate this metric, contact the merchant before joining the affiliate program and ask them what the overall website conversion is, average order basket and what the customer retention percentage is.

We already knew that Affiliates come from all walks of life and now from all around the world, they are diverse and many have the skills and knowledge which they use to drive targeted traffic to the merchants website.

Affiliate Marketing is global and it can only get better.

For more information about this survey please go to
http://affiliatebenchmarks.com/

AffiliateProgramAdvice.com and The Noise Farm Inc now have the results of the UK Affiliate Census and we will be comparing UK and US after we get the green light from our friends at Econsultancy.com We already have some staggering differences, stay tuned.

Merchants and Agencies who have or manage affiliate programs using the Affiliate Network AffiliateFuture.co.uk will be stunned to find out that their hard working affiliates are being sent targeted emails asking them to join their competitors affiliate program. See emails we received below. We have removed the name of the merchant competitor for obvious reasons.

Merchant Competitor 1

“Hi,
I have noticed you are signed up with the Love Honey programme and wanted to let you know about a similar merchant, Merchant Name Removed for purpose of not wanting to promote our clients competitor
. The programme details are below, it would be great if you can start promoting them too.
Merchant Name Removed for purpose of not wanting to promote our clients competitor

Merchant Description Removed for purpose of not wanting to promote our clients competitor
PPC Policy:Brand Name Bidding restrictions apply to this programme. Affiliates cannot bid on the brand name, derivations or misspellings.
Sign up here – http://afuk.affiliate.affiliatefuture.co.uk/merchants/AddProgramme.aspx?cat=Merchant ID Removed for purpose of not wanting to promote our client’s competitor

“Dear Catherine,
As an affiliate of the LoveHoney programme I thought you would be interested to hear about a new merchant – Merchant Name Removed for purpose of not wanting to promote our clients competitor – who has recently joined the AffiliateFuture network.

I hope this has been of interest to you and that you choose to add co to your merchant portfolio. If you have any queries don’t hesitate to contact me!
Kind regards,
Charlotte”

What assurance can you give to your existing Advertisers/Merchants that their affiliates will not receive a similar targeted email asking them to promote their competitors?

We expect a full apology to our Client LoveHoney.co.uk and the affiliates that were spammed.

This would have been a lawsuit here in the US and we would advise AffiliateFuture.co.uk who is semi active in the US not to do this over in the US, trust us on this one unless you have very deep pockets! Not to mention the damage this will cause in our industry for any merchant taking their first steps into our industry! What were you thinking?

APA have been managing the affiliate programs and working with Richard Longhurst and Neal Slateford co-founders of LoveHoney.co.uk since February 2009. Said Richard Longhurst, “Since starting to work with APA, Lovehoney has been constantly impressed by the dedication, hard work and insight provided by the APA team. APA understands the affiliate marketplace and has helped Lovehoney grow significantly in this area”. Catherine Dunn of AffiliateProgramAdvice.com has been LoveHoney.co.uk’s senior account manager and has been the driving force behind the management of the LoveHoney.co.uk and subsequent brands affiliate programs “Richard understands how affiliate marketing works, he knows his business and his customers in terms of acquisition and retention. Add this to a user friendly website, well researched products and demand, good strong customer service and its an award winning combination. Affiliates love the conversion rate!, it is a pleasure working with LoveHoney.co.uk”.

We are tickled pink to see that Lovehoney.co.uk had been shortlisted for even more awards WorldPay Online Business of the Year and the Huawei Customer Focus Award

We were thrilled when we heard that BeCheeky.com had been acquired by LoveHoney.co.uk

A big thanks to all the affiliates who stood loyal to LoveHoney.co.uk and its brands. We hope to see you joining up to Becheeky.com soon, the details of their affiliate program is as follows.

Affiliate Network is PaidOnResults.com
• 10% commission for accumulative sales under £1,000
• Rising to an amazing 15% for sales over £1,000
• Fantastic 120-day cookies to help you get that sale
• Automatically updated product feeds
• Industry standard size banners (but if you need more, let us know!)

• Dynamic content links
• 30 day validation period on sales
• Excellent conversion rates helped by our free delivery and returns
• Average order value £35
• Low level of returns (even with our free returns policy)
• High level of repeat purchases
• Tons of special offers and promotions, plus check out our best sellers for our top selling products that are just flying off the shelf!

• Regular weekly affiliate newsletters with tips, news and all the latest offers

• Program managed by affiliateprogramadvice.com in association with The Noise Farm inc USA

• Dedicated affiliate manager, just contact Catherine at affiliateprogramadvice.com

The PMA has put together a survey intended to measure the impact on California publishers. The information gathered from this anonymous survey will help inform legislators, voters and the press on the impact to affiliate marketing. Complete the survey so you are represented in the summary findings: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CA_Pub_Survey
The PMA believe there is a real chance to reverse the affiliate nexus tax in California so publishers can get back in business!

Thank you!

Sex toy retailer Lovehoney anticipates notching up sales of £13.5m when its financial year ends on March 31.

It recently doubled the size of its warehouse space to 40,000 sq ft by taking on another premises in Locksbrook Road. In addition, the firm has recruited 20 people over the past year, bolstering the staff count to 55.

Last year the privately owned company, which was established in 2002, reported an annual turnover of £10.4 million and profits of £1.5m, with sales on track to be 30 per cent up this year.

Lovehoney has a strong hold on the UK’s online sex toy market, with an independent report from web analysis firm Experian Hitwise stating that the company’s website accounted for one in three purchases of adult products online.

The firm fulfils about 10,000 orders every week in the UK, a figure which has more than doubled since 2007.

It has more than 10,000 product lines intended to produce a happier sex life, including lingerie, books and condoms, as well as sex toys.

Director and co-founder Richard Longhurst said: “Sales have exceeded our projections during the past 11 months. We’ve had significant growth in both first-time customers and repeat business.

“UK consumers are increasingly confident in actively seeking out ways to achieve personal satisfaction, and at a time when money is tight, consumers are discovering that the simplest pleasures can deliver the most satisfaction

“Sexual happiness is about achieving greater personal wellbeing through a better sex life. That’s a lot more fun than going to the gym or eating your five a day.”

Lovehoney is predicting further growth in 2011. It is expanding its overseas wholesale operation, which achieved sales of £1 million in its first year.

Co-founder Neal Slateford, who is responsible for new product development, believes that making adult retail accessible and improving its reputation has been a key factor in the company’s success.

“Our strategy has always been to make purchasing sex-related products fun, informative and discreet in order to make all customers feel confident when selecting their purchases,” he explained.

“When we set up the business there was a lot sleaze and it was hard for consumers to properly research products without stumbling across X-rated content or dealing with less-than-reputable retailers.

“We saw an opportunity to provide a much better product range, customer service and online experience which remains the focus of our activity today.”
Source http://www.southwestbusiness.co.uk/retail/good-year-Lovehoney/article-3312192-detail/article.html

Many congrats Richard and the gang, well deserved :0) We love working with you and so do your affiliates!

With new season clothing coming in combined with strong links to the music industry the brand is gathering momentum here in the US with a strong Californian following, the home of music inspired fashion.

Atticus Video

Affiliates are seeing average click to sale conversion, as of 17^th Jan 2011, just under 6%. We increased affiliate commissions from 8% default to 10% default with cookie date of 90 days and EPC of $16.77. We have an open PPC policy and we offer customers free US shipping. We have promos and creative’s and we hope to get our product feeds sorted out soon.

Current Promos (valentines)

Dragging the Lake CD

Let Music be the food of love (Ideal for cash strapped students)
CD, featuring Blink 182, Recover, Lydia and 21 other artists for $7.99
Get 10% off Enter coupon AFFVAT1
Expires 02/15/11
Plus free Shipping to US only.

To join this affiliate program you don’t have to be a US affiliate per say as Shareasale.com facilitate international affiliates http://www.shareasale.com/shareasale.cfm?merchantID=28940

This program is being managed by The Noise Farm inc and in association with APA

We just wanted to say a big thank you to all our lovely affiliates for all your hard work this year, so we’ve come up with a terrific Christmas competition which is open to all our affiliates!

The LoveHoney 12 Days of Christmas Competition starts Wednesday 1st December 2010 and we’ve got a fantastic top of the range 64GB iPad with Wi-Fi to give away to one lucky winner, plus daily cash prizes of £50 to give away to 12 lucky affiliates!

On each of the 12 days of Christmas starting 1st December, we’re going to be featuring a different LoveHoney product. All you have to do to enter our competition is feature each of the 12 products on your website, which you can do by posting links, setting up landing pages, or writing articles/editorials. The best daily effort will win a £50 cash prize, whilst the best overall effort wins the iPad! We’ve emailed details of the 12 products to all our affiliates and you can also check out the details here. So get ready for this great competition, and make sure you don’t miss out!

If you’ve got any questions or queries about the competition, just give us a shout!

If you’re not a LoveHoney affiliate already, you can sign up to the affiliate program on the PaidOnResults network here. The program offers:

* 16% commission for accumulative sales under £500
* Rising to an amazing 21% for sales over £500
* 120-day cookies to help you get that sale
* Excellent conversion rates

So make sure you join up!