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.

After nearly four years of development I am delighted to announce the launch of the Mobile Affiliate Network.

So what makes the Mobile Affiliate Network different to all other Affiliate Networks?

Our unique technology platform was built with 4 key points in mind – access to information, usability, flexibility and transparency. The Mobile Affiliate Marketing’s management team have all experienced platforms, stats packages and marketing tools that have never quite cut the mustard.

Our platform was built organically, from the ground up, with love – you will enjoy the refreshing change…

Mobile Affiliate Network understands that no two businesses are the same and that as an agency you need to ensure your clients needs are matched by what we offer.

As US/UK Affiliate Marketing specialists we have many years experience in domestic vertical markets and can bring that experience to benefit you and your clients, large or small.

How It Works

A customer enters a web address and if they are using a mobile phone they can automatically be redirected to a mobile template of the retail site. If they are using a standard pc connection they can be directed as normal to a website address.

A customer then may either pay by mobile billing or SMS billing or use a standard debit/credit card to purchase goods. Existing merchant billing can also be fully integrated, however Mobile Affiliate Network does offer both a full Merchant Account billing, SMS billing and other Pay By Phone proprietory software solutions.

The entire product inventory of the retailer is made available to customers via a mobile platform and mirrors the available products on a traditional website.

The system allows full integration of web and mobile traffic through one easy solution.

Publishers (Affiliates) may also refer traffic to a retailer via either an affiliate link on their web based site or via a free mobile site which literally just takes minutes for them to create./Retailers (Merchants) can upload a full product datafeed for publishers (Affiliates) to use on both mobile based and web based sites.

Our integrated solution enables both Merchants and Affiliates to harness the power of mobile marketing and seamlessly integrate this into standard web based sites.

Our flagship technology, enjoy the new way to monetise your visitors…

Following on the heels of technology are the marketers – small, medium and large. For the first time, anyone can be an affiliate marketer advertising almost anything. This macro marketing model is moving ever more rapidly to mobile as consumers change their shopping habits along with ever more convenient, time efficient technologies.

Mobile Affiliate Marketing’s mobile technology presents the opportunity to make the communication relevant to the individual consumer and therefore build greater traction and brand loyalty.

Mobile Affiliate Network has a unique ‘out of the box’ mobile marketing and affiliation solution…

Our unique multi layered mobile portal and billing mechanisms, coupled with a specialised tracking capability has given us a unique ability to deliver a fully functioning mobile affiliate network, linking consumers, affiliates and their merchants or retailers, be it digital or physical product purchases.

Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception in the early days of ecommerce. The e-commerce website has become an integral part of the overall business plan and in some cases has grown bigger than the existing offline business.

Affiliate marketing on the Internet is well established with CPC and CPM programmes. However, with the growth in usage of the mobile internet, mobile affiliate marketing with CPA (cost per action) based advertising is now really beginning to develop as a key sales channel for mobile content and services.

Merchants

Mobile Affiliate Network is a mobile (WAP) based Performance Marketing network, enabling you the retailer (Merchant) to benefit from the most modern method of advertising available in the 21st century. Mobile marketing is a revolutionary method of promotion, whereby millions of customers throughout the world have instant access via our mobile affiliate network to the endless opportunities presented to them by the many retailers (Merchants) making use of this channel.

Our network of publishers (affiliates) host adverts and are paid commission by the advertiser (merchant) for every visit, lead or sale generated by the advert.

It is a ‘revenue sharing system’ whereby the advertiser (merchant) only pays for performance related results.

What we provide for Merchants

Mobile Affiliate Network provides a unique mobile entertainment, marketing and multi-layer billing exchange that enables the aggregation of all aspects of mobile content, segmentation, wap site creation, mobile advertising, mobile marketing, network delivery and affiliate billing within one easy to use management platform.

Merchants have the opportunity to use this platform in a variety of manners:

Basic features

1. Using your existing website you supply advertising copy (i.e. banners, text) to be integrated into our mobile platform
2. The ability to operate an in-house affiliate platform
3. The functionality to be part of a network driven solution
4. Specialist billing solutions, i.e. Pay by card, pay by phone (added to users phone bill)

Enhanced features

1. The operability and design enhancement to enable the channelling of traffic to a number of destinations (i.e. a mobile website, traditional website). A small amount of technical integration will be required to enable the tracking of transactions/sales.
2. Secure and safe payment gateway
3. Specialist billing solutions, i.e. Pay by card, pay by phone (added to users phone bill)

Affiliates

An affiliate is provided with their own mobile website via the network, and shall populate their own mobile website with the merchants’ banners or content.

The affiliate has the option to make use of the advertising material on their own traditional internet website and decide whether to direct traffic to their mobile based platform or their internet based platform.

All commissions earned are combines so that affiliates benefit from aggregation of earnings as all earnings are combined from the merchants that affiliates wish to promote.

A comprehensive solution enabling each affiliate their own mobile platform plus also the functionality of traditional web based site promotion, means that affiliates have multiple choices as to how to promote.

A robust tracking solution combined with real time monitoring enables the affiliate to ensure that all clicks and sales are carefully recorded.

It is due to a number of factors, not least the devastating floods in Pakistan – one of the world’s biggest cotton producers. Fears over this year’s crop in China, threatened by heavy rain, have also pushed prices up. It comes at bad time for retailers already battling problems such as rising transport costs, supplier wage inflation and the VAT hike to 20 per cent due in January. Retail experts Verdict Research have forecast clothing inflation will hit 4.4 per cent in the UK this year, the highest level for 24 years.

All this woe has an impact on Affiliate Marketing with some smaller retailers cutting back on their Affiliate Programs and others looking closely at commission structures. The unpopular use of first customer order metric is also being looked at, despite the unpopularity by mainstream affiliates in the implementation by merchants, looking to cut expenditure. Fortunately merchants have not undertaken this generally owing to the counter-productive nature of payment on first order only.

However when companies like Next, BhS, Marks & Spencer all have to either take a cut in profit or put clothing prices up then this market space needs watching closely. Debenhams confirmed clothing prices were set to rise, however they did indicate that they hoped to shelter customers from most of the rises and predicted that budget retailers would be hard hit.

Chief Executive Rob Templeman said: “Cotton prices are only part of the equation. Prices are up 4% and volume is down 2%. What is driving inflation is Forex (currency markets).” He said his firm hedged against cotton price rises over a long period to avoid possible cost problems.

So will this mean a cut in commission for affiliates or the introduction of first order metrics? Not necessarily.

The use of first order metric is highly unpopular with affiliates and many have publicly stated they would not act as publishers for retailers adopting this, on the grounds that a high proportion of referred sales would be rejected for commissions. This is already an issue in the fast food sector and is currently subject to review by companies like Domino Pizza.

So this generally leaves a commission squeeze to reduce costs. This is already taking place in the clothing and fashion sector with many companies reducing publisher/affiliate commissions during sales periods. The emphasis that these commission cuts are by nature a temporary affair, has in no way reduced the levels of promotion overall.

Last year the clothing and fashion sectors, along with many other retailers, opted to absorb in part or in whole, the VAT increase from 15% to 17.5%. However with a rise to 20% and the potential for further rises, absorbtion of VAT by retailers will not be possible, especially when in the clothing and fashion sectors, we also see an increase in the Cotton price.

Clothing and Fashion retailers are constantly competitor monitoring and this particularly affects smaller retailers with seasonal ranges. So we predict we will continue to see discounting by Brand but with the hope that the “full price” season that is just commencing will enable Clothing and Fashion retailers to recover. It all depends if the major retailers don’t “blink” and cause a ripple effect in the industry.

Either way there shall be some hard decisions taken by retailers with regard to publisher/affiliate commission structures and it is probable that these commissions shall continue to be squeezed.

Even before the economic sharp intake of breath, I said that merchants should think about joining two affiliate networks. One of reasons, I stated back in the day, has proven to be correct which was not to rely on any one affiliate network for their sales and or leads just in case an affiliate network goes bust. Id like to think I was being prophetic but its just common sense really. Merchants should be adopting “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” strategy across all their ecommerce when it comes to being dependent on third parties, paid advertising for example. I feel belonging to two networks is still appropriate today and for the reason above. Since 2000 there was evidence that if one affiliate joined one affiliate network the chances were they had joined most of them and is still true today and I can see the point made in the e-consultancy.com report “from a merchant’s perspective the benefits of belonging to more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly”. We can see that not all affiliates use all the affiliate networks that they have joined up to, affiliates therefore have clear favorites now. We know that some affiliates who joined affiliatewindow.com in 1999 joined many other affiliate networks but never promoted their merchants. We could attribute this to the same reasons why some merchants are reluctant to join a second or third affiliate network. “more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly.” Another reason why we may see this pattern in the likes of Cj.com, Tradedoubler.com, Affiliatewindow.com and other established affiliate networks is one of affiliate choice and familiarity. Choice meaning a wide range of merchants within the affiliates sectors. Familiar meaning, payment terms, linking methods and even country specific. I still feel merchants should go with two affiliate networks and start focusing on affiliate networks with international presence as it’s not impossible to sell goods abroad but more over merchants can tap into cross border affiliates. In a nutshell, merchants and affiliates should not limit themselves always have a plan B :0)

What we have seen is merchants getting a better understanding of how affiliate marketing works, some affiliate networks have provided better technology to aid more transparency on where sales are coming from. Merchants have a better understanding in the pay per click arena and we have seen a huge reduction in the number of merchants allowing brand bidding. I think these are the key factors that have contributed to the 2% loss and not necessarily anything to do with the current economic crisis. The predicted increase at 12% is a clear signal that affiliate marketing continues to thrive. I can’t help but be disappointed that affiliate marketing has only ever made up even 10% of all online sales, I thought this figure would or should be so much higher by now.

There is a core group of affiliates that are hard at work trying to come up with new ways to use the internet to acquire their own website traffic, new affiliate blood is still sluggish and still top heavy with just a few affiliates generating most of the sales for their merchants, now that merchants are getting to grips with this ambiguous form of internet marketing maybe “we” the industry should be honing in on those affiliates that need the same kind education and nurturing to balance things out?

Get the full report from e-consultancy.com

What do you need to give affiliates to help them to generate sales for you?
Terms and Conditions
Third Party trusted affiliate network
Technical and marketing know how
Graphics
Data feeds
Promos
Converting website
Product demand
Landing pages
Continuity
Information.
No traffic leakage.

Your affiliates are your virtual sales force, they drive new customers to your site, they send customers back to shop with you again. Affiliates send targeted traffic all merchants have to do is make sure their website is ready to receive them.

Could you manage an affiliate program in-house?
If you can afford to employ some one, then an experienced affiliate manager, who can split out the types of affiliate and accommodate their needs, will cost between 30k and 60k, depending on experience and your marketing and website technical resources. Do not employ anyone without a proven track record, when inexperienced affiliate managers make the wrong choice it affects not just other affiliates but can affect your customers. You need to check your affiliate program activity on a daily basis, be reactive and proactive. An affiliate manager will need to liaise with not just you or your other members of the marketing team, but website technical support, third party affiliate network, affiliates and of course business to business opportunities. It is in essence a full time job.

Once an affiliate program begins it gathers momentum, increasing (almost) minute by minute in numbers of affiliates, clicks, potential new customers or a customer reminded to come back.
Is it like herding cats? Yes, your affiliate manager needs to be on the ball.

In-house affiliate manager or AffiliateProgramAdvice.com?
For low monthly flat fee or performance percentage or both depending on your website conversions, we can offer to manage your affiliate program that suits your budget.

The process

Prior to launching an affiliate program for our clients, your assigned account manager will be doing a lot of competitor analysis in order to put together an attractive affiliate program, including the right commission levels to suit your website.

(a) The foundations of an affiliate program that has a degree of flexibility for the affiliates but ultimately as your company grows so may it incur changes, either technology, margins, resources (internal and external) to name but a few. So we need to set up a strong foundation in which your affiliate program can thrive.

(b) We will write your affiliate program terms and conditions. Affiliates most common gripe is when a merchant launches an affiliate program whereby the terms and conditions keep changing without notification or when there are too many changes too suddenly. Just like a parent to a child, affiliates need clear rules and boundaries. They also require attention and rewarding. I am sure affiliates won’t mind that analogy! Terms and conditions need to be water tight. We are tenacious when it comes to monitoring your affiliates!

So the first step is you and your account manager here at APA will need to talk. The second step is setting up your affiliate program, this is more the mechanics.

The Affiliate Network

Depending on your business model we will make recommendations, keep in mind we may even be able to get affiliate network set up costs reduced or in some cases waivered, we may also be able to get you a reduced affiliate network override cost reduced. Remember we are international, we have strategic partners all over the globe.

Your Affiliate Program

The Affiliate Program will require banners (brand, categories, product and promotional). The Banner example you provided is certainly a good starting point for a generic banner and we can work with you to tweak the design to ensure good conversion rates on all your banners! In essence, your account manager handles all the admin and is go between the affiliate network, affiliates and you the client, ensuring continuity and clarity through communication and experience. Your account manager will be liaising with you in terms of affiliate commission structure, cookie date, PPC policy, incentive affiliate sites (including cashback and coupon sites and comparison sites).

Once the affiliate program is launched, it is our job to:

• Validate affiliates (this means we vet affiliates before they are allowed to join your program)
• We monitor affiliates on a daily basis.
• We communicate with affiliates on an individual basis, by group and collectively.
• We recruit new affiliates.
• We retain existing affiliates.
• We will protect your brand.
• We provide end of month reporting on everything we have been doing, we can tailor to the information you want and also what statistics you need to be looking at as transparency is everything.
• If you want a conference call, no problem. We are on skype, msn, by phone, email, and by facebook!
• We will announce you to our contacts of affiliates, on our blog, forum and facebook.

What separates us from the rest?
Almost twelve years of experience in this industry.
Our contact list of who is who in terms of affiliates, affiliate networks, software, software development, PR, logistics and newly added Mobile Marketing.
Our tailoring of analytic reporting that suits your requirements.
Our past and present client testimonials.
Our Results and our prices!

Cheaper than hiring an in-house experienced affiliate manager.

Contact John, Jessica, Catherine or Stuart for more information.
http://www.affiliateprogramadvice.com/index.php/contact-us/

AffiliateProgramAdvice.com
Affiliate Marketing Best Practice 2008

WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?

In layman’s terms, affiliate marketing is about the relationship between you (the merchant/Advertiser), the affiliate tracking software provider (The Network) and the affiliates (publishers). It is ultimately a loyalty program between you and the affiliate with the network operating as a facilitator and intermediate. Your affiliates will become your virtual sales force driving new traffic, new customer acquisitions and ultimately sales through a variety of tracked linking methods. You pay your affiliates only when a sale or lead has been generated. In essence you are only ever paying for results.
WHY IS AFFILIATE MARKETING EFFECTIVE?
Everything can be tracked back as it is all transparent right down to the last penny. Advice, get a good analytics package and look beyond google analytics 
• Affiliate Marketing increases brand awareness
• Brings your products and or services right into the homes of your target audience
• Your affiliates are your partners and some will become champions of your products and or services.
• Affiliates have cross over skills in their own marketing and technical experise.
• Good old fashioned relationship building

What is affiliate marketing best practice?
In an industry where there is very little written about affiliate marketing best practice, “best practice” can and does mean different things to different people. From an affiliate’s perspective it’s about being paid on time, it’s about clear terms and conditions, it’s about being given the right tools and information to assist them.

From a merchants perspective, it’s about affiliates adhering to their terms and conditions, it’s about how affiliates are promoting them or should be promoting them and its ultimately about getting new sales and or leads but at no risk to the their brand or existing marketing initiatives.

For affiliate networks, its about facilitating merchants and affiliates ensuring their technology is reliable, payments in and out is swift and providing a service that can accommodate the growing demands of an expanding industry, in a nut shell best practice is all about procedures and ethical marketing.

You may be quite surprised to hear that there is no mystery or marketing psychobabble to have to decipher, 99% of best practice is good old fashioned common sense and remembering who our end user is, consumers and affiliates alike.
But if there was one single piece of advice I had to give any merchant coming into our industry, if your website does not convert overall, then affiliate marketing is probably not what you should be focusing on as no amount of additional traffic is going to fix the real heart and soul of your business, namely your website and or demand of your products or services.

There are very few clear guide lines out there and some even conflict with others. The consequences of this renders the industry exposed to ambiguity and open to multiple different interpretations, further to add, each guide can lean more in one direction depending on which ever side of the fence you happen to be sitting on.

What we have seen develop in recent years and in the absence of a definitive best practice, is a pattern of “best practice” being initiated by experienced industry authorities from all sides of the fence. In essence the industry has regulated itself to a greater or lesser degree and no better example can be made, then in the case of combating spyware in the UK. In fact, best practice guides can be traced back to the first affiliate marketing white paper in the UK written specifically for e-consultacy.com in 2002 by yours truly. Since then we have seen quite a few publications emerge and exploring best practice.

When the IAB announced it was coming into the affiliate marketing space, it was a bitter sweet moment. On the one hand those that had been working in the industry immediately recognized this was a clear signal that affiliate marketing was not longer the poor relation to other marketing initiatives and that it had come into its own. How ever one feels compelled to ask questions about motives and in who’s best interests were they looking after? Their subscribers or the wider industry at large? However whatever the motives at least there are big companies trying to get some industry regulations in place which can only be seen as positive. Many of them come from the affiliate networks themselves. The political climate still battles with “its one thing writing about best practice but its an altogether different matter enforcing it.”. The writing has been on the wall for a long time and we advocate and would support any kind of affiliate association set up by affiliates for affiliates with an independent and impartial authority can accommodate more then just its own members. Until we come together collectively the industry still remains fragmented but a lot less so then ten years ago.

Best Practice
When setting up an affiliate program merchants need to set up the rules for affiliates to follow. We call these terms and conditions. Terms and conditions is a vital element of any affiliate program. It is the first port of call for affiliates to understand what they can or can’t do. It’s the one piece of information that will protect all parties. It’s the one piece of information that merchants and affiliate networks can refer to in the rare cases of an affiliate in breach of the terms and conditions. In the same way your customers have to adhere to returns policy, affiliates need these guide lines too. Do you need to seek legal advice? Your affiliate network or agency can help you put this together for you, but a word of caution, if you make your terms and conditions too restrictive or too lax, both scenarios could cause you problems down the line. The first could render your affiliates to be confused and will assume they can do XYZ when really you only wanted them to do XY & Z has you pulling your hair out, probably best not to lock the door after the horse has bolted. By contrast, a too restrictive terms and conditions could deter affiliates from joining your program altogether, or end up providing our industry bloggers with fodder to highlight the fact that you don’t get affiliate marketing. A good true example of a restrictive clause “affiliates must not rank above us in the search engines” and here is another little gem, “Affiliates must not bid on the term Flowers”, from a well known florist.
It’s ok not to know, but it would be unwise to bury your head in the sand, there are thousands of people all wanting to help you and here is a tip, why not ask the very people who will be promoting you? A good example of terms and conditions

Tools
Industry sized banners
There are many that would argue the point of banners at all, indeed if we look at our stats we know the majority of leads or sales do originate from text links. How ever we have been monitoring the effectiveness of good strong quality banners and if they really do yield any impact on sales or leads. Without hesitation, they do drive leads and sales as well as raising or re-enforcing the brand.

So what size banners should you offer. The most popular is 468×60, 88×31, 125×125, 234×60, 120×600.
We also supply the following to cover all bases. The majority of affiliates will find at least one suitable size banner. Note keep your domain name extension off the banner, why? Affiliates deem this as affiliate commission leakage. They would rather their visitor clicks through the banner link then type the url directly into their browser. The rationale here is that the visitor would not have known about the merchant unless the visitor had visited the affiliate’s site first, quite right too!

Banners & Buttons
Banner Size Banner Type
468 x 60
234 x 60
125 x 125
120 x 240
120 x 90
120 x 60
88 x 31 Full Banner
Half Banner
Square Button
Vertical Banner
Button #1
Button #2
Micro Bar
Rectangles & Pop Ups
Banner Size Banner Type
300 x 250
250 x 250
240 x 400
336 x 280
180 x 150 Medium Rectangle
Square Pop-up
Vertical Rectangle
Large Rectangle
Rectangle
Skyscrapers
Banner Size Banner Type
160 x 600
120 x 600 Wide Skyscraper
Skyscraper

Text links
This really speaks for itself, the best converting text link is in fact, your domain but without the extension. Example BadboyMMA

Deep links
I have always found merchants who don’t allow deep linking to a product and or category a little short sighted. We know the consumers search for products, product numbers and product brands. I always thought this restriction was done through lack of understanding, but recently, I became aware that some resellers in the USA are not allowed to promote certain brands via the affiliate route and therefore they disable deep linking to this product and or category. If there are no such restrictions in place then allow affiliates to deep link.

Data feed
A data feed is a file that contains all the products you sell in your online shop. This file is in a standard format that can easily be read by an affiliate’s script to display all these products on his or her website including an affiliate link to the specific product’s page in your shop. This link directly to the product specific page on your site is called a deep link. The most used formats for product feeds are text files in either CSV or Tab delimited format. In a CSV formatted files the various fields of the product record are separated by commas and text is enclosed by apostrophes (example “product number”,”product name”,”product description”, price,”URL”,”image URL” which with data would look like this: “P123N”,”Green widget”,”Our green widgets…”,25.00,”http://www.thewidgetshop.co.uk?prodid=P123N”,”http://www.thewidgetshop.co.uk/images/green_widget.jpg”). In a Tab delimited file you have the same data as in the previous example, but instead of commas and apostrophes each field is separate by a which is a special character in a computer’s character set.

Clear information
Don’t assume anything. The amount of affiliate programs that have been launched without any demographics of what type of customer the merchant is looking for, its so prevalent and what this does is make the affiliate stop and think, do they really want to go out and do the research on your products? Your audience?
Affiliates are brilliant at sending targeted traffic, they are experts in organic search, they are wizards with technology and spotting new trends and their analytical skills are second to none, but their one weakness, they cant read your mind! You need to provide clear information, who, what, where, when and how. Would you allow a complete stranger to promote you without giving them any idea about your business? So why would this be any different for affiliates.

Affiliate News letters, should contain news.
New in
Promotions
Best sellers
Copy
Campaigns
Graphics
Off line PR
Above all campaigns specifically created with affiliates in mind.

Clear payment terms
When will you validate a sale or a lead? When will affiliates get paid? How will affiliates get paid? Will you be doing claw backs. A claw back is taking back affiliate commissions, example on a fraudulent order? Perhaps on returns? Or affiliate abuse?
A word of caution, if your returns are very high, most likely affiliates will not continue to promote you if you claw commissions back. Maybe this is a case where by the problem lies squarely at your door step?

Affiliate network own terms and conditions.
Don’t’ forget, affiliates and merchants are also bound by the affiliate networks terms and conditions and your own terms and conditions should not conflict with the affiliate networks terms and conditions.

Paid Search and brand bidding

Firstly, if no one is looking for you in the search engines, you are not a brand, you are actually trying to build a brand. This is a term that is misused a lot. So if no one is searching for your name, it would not be advisable to implement a no brand bidding policy. You may decide to do your pay per click in-house, in which case you would ask the affiliates not to bid on your name, or not to compete on terms. You may even decide to have a total ppc ban. But you need to weigh up the pros and cons. Affiliates front the cost of the click, they take the risk and the only time you pay out is when a lead or sale has occurred. But affiliates will need to make a return of investment, so you are back looking at your website conversions. Some affiliates are experts, in fact most affiliates that we know who do paid search are better then the big Paid Search Agencies.

Merchants who have trademarks, the rules have changed slightly. Once upon a time in google, you could protect your name from competitors and as an extra measure to ensure affiliates don’t brand bid. How ever google once again shifted the goal posts, Helen Deehan of Tigerstep.com says “The recent change in Google’s trademark enforcement policy has caused a stir in affiliate marketing circles. Google’s justification seems to be that if a user is looking for a given company then they are most likely to go to that company whatever competing adverts are shown for a particular search. As long as an advert does not explicitly infringe a third party’s trademark rights, Google see no need to unilaterally deny that advert. They also see no need to act as some kind of unpaid internet trademark police. The big question, of course, is what impact this change is likely to have on both trademark owners and advertisers of all sizes. The immediate change is the sudden appearance of a plethora of new ads by competitor companies bidding on searches involving third party brand names. The incentive here is easy to see.

Imagine a budget holiday company, looking to take market share from their biggest rival. Why not pay to get your advert shown when someone is searching explicitly for the rival? After all, a customer in the market for a budget holiday of the type you and your rival supply might be just as interested in your offering as that of the company they are actually searching for.

Or imagine a vacuum manufacturer suddenly free to bid on the word ‘Dyson’. A trademarked term, yes. A customer interested in vacuum cleaners? Probably. Worth a few pennies in advertising? Of course.
Annoying to Dyson and Co? Absolutely.

The next obvious change (and of course the real reason Google have implemented this) is the upward impact on CPC prices. If you and only you are allowed to bid on your trademarked brand name, then the ad that gets shown is your ad, and it will only cost you a penny. If your main rivals are now also free to bid on your trademarked term, they will naturally bid up the cost of advertising on that term in order to take the coveted top spot away from you.

Merchants who have previously implemented brand restrictions are now faced with something of a dilemma. Do they leave their T&Cs unchanged try to force affiliates to ‘keep off the grass’, or do they try and let affiliates absorb some of the new extra cost associated with protecting the brand against rival merchant bidding by relaxing the conditions and reactivating brand bidding?

Before this change, the incentives to restrict keyword bidding were obvious – the merchant had an easy way of controlling the cost of the most effective advertising they were likely to see – their own campaign on their own brand name. Where a retailer was also running an offline or PR campaign which naturally drove increased searches for their brand via search engines, this was massively important. The alternative of allowing affiliates to bid on brand terms effectively meant paying out again via commissions, an increase in marketing costs almost impossible to justify.

You need to see who exactly is bidding on your brand name. If it is affiliates of competitor programs then perhaps you should explore opening a dialogue with your competitor counterparts. Putting into place revised Terms & Conditions which state affiliates are not allowed to bid on competitor brand terms using your trademark and affiliate tracking URLS associated with that trademark. In return
for which your competitors would also implement the same T&C’s.
While this may help reduce some advertisers I doubt it will clear the pitch.

In the past I have tended to operate 2 policies that allow brand bidding via an affiliate program. The first is that the affiliate has to increase coverage for your brand via an agreed list of more generic terms, offsetting the return from so called ‘easy’ brand term sales against increasing coverage on more challenging ROI terms. The other option is to discuss with your network the option of allowing affiliates to bid on your brand name but reducing the commissions for those terms.

At the end of the day the decision is down to each individual Merchant. I would advise all companies operating an affiliate program to republish their Terms & Conditions so affiliates are reminded of their particular position on Paid Search activities.

If you have an open policy, then you need to ensure that Affiliates who are bidding on your brand name or misspellings, or who are using your brand name in their ad copy, funnel that traffic direct to your URL. Remember that it’s almost always better to try and sort out problems with brand bidding affiliates in an amicable way.

Finally, if you have implemented brand bidding restrictions you need to make it crystal clear which terms affiliates cannot bid on.

Each merchant will be different, some will attract more attention from competitors than others. Whatever policy you decide to implement do not be bullied into opening up brand bidding if you still feel it is not right for your company. You should be undertaking regular checks on the search engines at various points during the day and week and should review your position on brand bidding as required.

Multiple affiliate programs
If you have multiple affiliate programs a visitor can technically have visited your site through more than one affiliate cookie. For example when the visitor searches for one of your products in a search engine and clicks on several of the search results. Some of these results belong to some of your affiliates in affiliate network A, some of them to your affiliates in network B. On the order confirmation page you have implemented the tracking codes of both networks. When the visitor arrives on the confirmation page and because he / she is tagged by both networks the sale will appear in both networks.

To prevent these double registrations you can work with a local cookie. When the visitor comes to your site through an affiliate link the affiliate network can, if asked, pass on some extra data in the URL. This data includes a code to indicate the affiliate network and most of the times also the affiliate ID number. You can then based on the code indicating the affiliate network set a cookie that stores this code. This cookie should be set on any page where an affiliate can direct a visitor to. On the order confirmation page you can then read the data (the affiliate network code) from the cookie you set and based on the code display the tracking code of that affiliate network only. Normally you set the code for the affiliate network of the last referring affiliate. But ask your affiliate network what their policy is on this.

Conclusion
It’s not rocket science, it’s about being proactive and fair. Sometimes it’s about compromise, some times it’s about holding your hand up and saying “hey I don’t know” be aware there are thousands out there ready to help you make the right decisions and you end up being respected. There is and can be no room in this industry for arrogance or egos, certainly not when you start to work with the people who know this space intimately. Remember affiliates in some cases will know more then you in areas of search, be ready to accept this, but no one knows more about your business then you do! Affiliate marketing is about partnerships, all three players all working together to drive your business forward. Remember you only ever pay for results.

Written by Jessica Luthi

If I was coming into the industry as a newbie today, here is how I would do  and I wouldn’t need to have technical skills or even a website. This is how to become an affiliate using simple blogging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

An affiliate is, to reiterate, someone or company like you may become. They/You will get visitors looking for your blog and coming to your blog because you are writing about a subject that is interesting or has some relevance to what your potential visitor is searching for. Once you get visitors to your own blog then you, the affiliate, should promote relevant/complimentary service and or product a product and or service that you will endorse and promote. For example, if you were to write a blog article about skinny jeans, then it would be ideal to promote an advertiser who sells skinny jeans. If you were writing about football, then a complimentary advertiser/merchant could be sporting events ticket agents who have their own affiliate program. An affiliate/publisher is usually someone/company that does not have a shopping basket on their website, is not e-commerce enabled, does not sell directly to their own visitors, rather they refer their own visitors to another website that sells a service and/or product. So if you went to all the trouble and effort to get a visitor why would you want to send them off to a merchant/advertisers website to buy anything? If your visitor clicks on one of your advertiser/merchant affiliate text link or affiliate banner link then goes to the advertiser’s site and makes a purchase, you the affiliate gets a percentage of your referred visitors purchase. (Note: text links work better than banners.

How to Begin

Find a subject that interests you, no point in choosing something you are going to get bored with easily, this is why some affiliates go by the way side. I wonder how many websites/blogs have been started but never finished. Be inspired, get creative, and get those thinking caps on. The great thing about affiliate marketing is you can write about anything and you will nearly always find an Advertiser/Merchant with an affiliate program that is selling a relevant product or service. Tip: go for the long tail! What do I mean by the long tail? Let’s use the subject of Fashion as an example. Let’s say I wanted to write about fashion; fashion is the generic key word, to find long tail search terms look below.

Fashion – Generic term

Mens Fashion

Mens Ties

Mens Stripe tie (long tail)

Mens Stripe Bow tie (long tail)

Womens Fashion

Womens Skirt

Womens Mini Skirt (long tail)

Womens Pink Mini Skirts (long tail)

Childrens fashion

Childrens Tops

Chidrens Jumper (long tail)

Childrens red jumper (long tail)

Every generic word has a long tail, Cheese > Blue Cheese > Blue Stilton Cheese > English Blue Stilton Cheese > English Blue Stilton Cheese delivered > English Blue Stilton Soft Cheese delivery.

Each phrase is a search term that someone is typing this into a search engine, someone is looking for these search terms, I know I just looked

You could register the domain names for long tail search terms, these should rank you at No.1 The search engine result for the domain name, is also a real search query by people. Example: womenspinkskirt.com was available as of today 18^th December 09. How many people are searching for it? According to Google Results, there are 1 – 10 of about 12,100,000 listings for this search term. If I were starting as an affiliate, I would register the domain name womenspinkskirt.com and write a blog all about what? (I’m just checking if you are still awake) Women’s pink skirts of course!

For those who are not technical and don’t know how to make a website, don’t worry, if you can write then you can get by with a blog. In my personal experience, I have found blogs to yield better conversions then a standard website simply because a lot of end users are researching products before they buy them.

Here is a list of blogging tools you can use. My advice for newbies would be to use www.blogger.com. It is one of the easiest to use in my personal opinion and you can get started immediately; all you need to be able to do is research and write your own unique content.

Another popular blogging tool is www.wordpress.com 

Where do you find affiliate programs?

So you have the content or idea for your first blog article, how do you go about finding a suitable affiliate program to join? There are a number of ways and the most popular is via an affiliate network.

Popular UK Affiliate Networks

www.paidonresults.com

www.Affiliatewindow.com

www.webgains.com

www.affiliatefuture.com

www.linkshare.com

www.brandconversions.com

www.DGM.com

www.cj.com

www.buy.at

www.tradedoubler.com

www.clixgalore.co.uk

www.profitistic.com

www.filinet.com

Popular European Affiliate Networks

www.tradetracker.com

www.tradedoubler.com

www.zanox.com

www.webgains.com

www.cibleclick.com

www.onlinemediagroup.com

www.cj.com

Popular Canadian Affiliate Networks

www.shareresults.com

www.linkshare.com

www.cj.com

www.adcanadian.com

www.canadiansponsors.com

www.shareasale.com

Popular US Affiliate Networks

www.mediatrust.com

www.linkshare.com

www.pepperjam.com

www.cj.com

www.shareasale.com

http://www.amwso.com/usnetworks.php
(Thanks to Chris Sanderson for letting me link to his comprehensive US affiliate network list)

Ctd from http://www.affiliateprogramadvice.com/index.php/2010/01/31/how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate-step-by-step-guide-excerpt/

People who bought the guide said…
“Really clearly written and covering all the fundamentals. Takes away the mystery and tells you exactly what you have to do. Also provides a host of resources and essential links. This is everything you need to know to get started – I thoroughly recommend it.”

“I just wish I had read this when I first started my first niche site. A must have for anyone looking to make some money from online marketting.”

The guide costs $8.73 buy it direct from Lulu.com publishing http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631

A step-by-step guide on how to break into affiliate marketing.

The following is an excerpt from the fast track guide on how to begin as an affiliate. The guide has been written aimed at people who know almost nothing about the industry or how to get started.  This guide walks newbie affiliates through the very basics just to get them started in generating revenue. The guide is filled with resources and tools and information using blogging methods by way of example for those who may not know how to get a website together. I have opted to charge a nominal fee of $8.73 for the complete guide which can be downloaded here
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631

I never understood and still don’t understand why so many people never looked at this industry to supplement their income. Affiliate marketing is ideal for people on low incomes, the disabled, parents who want to stay at home and look after their children or simply to supplement their income. Affiliate marketing facilitates the opportunity to work from home and enjoy what you will be doing.

I know that it will always be easy when you know how, but even I had to start somewhere and I am still learning after all these years. This article is intended for anyone coming into the industry that has little or no understanding about affiliate marketing. This is specifically aimed at anyone wanting to become an affiliate/publisher.

What is affiliate marketing? Some call this performance based marketing, some call it referral marketing, some call it revenue sharing, some call this loyalty marketing and I have heard it being called partner programs, associate programs, all these terms are correct. Affiliate marketing is predominantly on-line advertising whereby the affiliate is paid a small commission for referring their own website traffic to an online store. Affiliates get rewarded based on an action performed by his/her referred visitor, the affiliate remuneration (referred visitor action) can be based on cost per click, pay per sale, CPA, CPA (2) can also mean pay per lead (example, insurance quotes).

“A system of advertising in which site A agrees to feature buttons from site B, and site A gets a commission on any sales, clicks or leads generated for site B. Affiliate Marketing is on line advertising where the advertiser (Merchant) pays for advertising purely on results. All affiliate campaigns are based on a revenue share or hybrid commission/leads deal.”

          Source: Jessica Luthi, E-Consultancy.com (Affiliate Marketing–A Buyers Guide April 2004)

Do people really make money from Affiliate Marketing?

“High-level findings from USA Affiliate Census… At the hobbyist end of the spectrum, nearly a quarter of affiliates (23%) generate less than $50 per month in sales for their merchants, and a further 7% generate between $50 and $100. At the other end of the scale, 17% of affiliates generate more than $50,000 a month in revenue for their merchants”

          Source: http://econsultancy.com/reports/us-affiliate-census

Reported in the United Kingdom Affiliate Census, “the UK affiliate market was worth £3.82B in 2008, a 22% increase from £3.13B in 2007. An estimated £227M was paid last year in commissions and fees to affiliates and networks.”

          Source: http://econsultancy.com/reports/uk-affiliate-census

Please keep these figures in perspective; whilst there is big money to be made in this industry, the figures should not mislead you into thinking that you can give up your day job in a week. The report is to show you how much money some affiliates earn. I can tell you the majority of affiliates work very hard to achieve a sustainable income.

One problem with this industry that I have found is that it can be vague when it comes to information on how to do affiliate marketing from an affiliate’s perspective. The problem of ambiguity seems to stem from the fact it is an individually defined kind of sector, meaning it’s based upon the affiliate being seen and operating as an individual. Each affiliate will have their own level of understanding about the technology, marketing, how the internet works to name but a few. However, there are some basic rules to follow. Tip: walk before you can run, start off small, and get it all working before reaching for the moon.

When do you start making money?

Realistically, by month three you could be looking at double figures and depending on the subject/topic you chose, you may even reach three figures, (this is also subject to many variables) I can tell you if you have reached double figures by month three, you have something viable to build upon, don’t give up. What this will show you is that you are on your way and what you are doing is working, just some further fine-tuning may be required. There is no magic wand, there is no such thing as a sure thing, and it all takes time and effort. If I was coming into the industry as a newbie today, here is how I would do it and I wouldn’t need to have technical skills or even a website. This is how to become an affiliate using simple blogging

 To buy the guide
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/affiliate-marketing—how-to-begin-as-an-affiliate—a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-break-into-affiliate-marketing/8218631

Sponsored by My Rock City.

Affiliate program on Paid On Results the award for Best Album is always highly contested.

Here’s a full list of all the evenings winners…

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Presented by Criminal Damage

BEST SINGLE: The Prodigy – Omen
Presented by Red Stripe

BEST VIDEO: Mastodon – Oblivion
Presented by Rival Colour

CLASSIC SONGWRITER: Linkin Park

SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE: The Wildhearts

ICON: Alice In Chains
Presented by Orange Amplification

BEST ALBUM: Metallica – Death Magnetic
Presented by My Rock City.com

BEST LIVE BAND: Slipknot
Presented by Marshall Application

INSPIRATION: Machine Head

HALL OF FAME: Limp Bizkit
Presented by: Russian Standard Vodka

BEST BRITISH BAND: Bullet For My Valentine
Presented by Roadrunner Records

BEST INTERNATIONAL BAND: Slipknot
Presented by Guitar Hero

My Rock City pays on 1st order 30% commission on a 90 day cookie with 15% on recurring sales.

The superb marketing profile engaged by My Rock City has drawn close attention amongst the music industry and the fashion sector.

So what’s next? Well My Rock City intends to promote a number of gigs and festivals throughout the UK and is also exploring promotions in the USA. One of the longer term aspirations is to sponsor an award at the MTV Music Awards, so MTV if you are reading this, then get in touch real quick.