Over the past few days there have been a few articles in the mainstream media about affiliate marketing and another one someone shared with me from a small affiliate marketing company. Two of them were great and one of them were terrible. Surprisingly the articles from the mainstream media had some great information for merchants looking for more information about running a successful affiliate program. The other one? Very bad information that will lead merchants down the wrong path.
Let’s take a look at these three articles and see which make more sense:
The first article is from the New York Times and is called Surviving the Dark Side of Affiliate Marketing. It details a merchant who started their affiliate program on their own and soon found out how a poorly managed affiliate program can bring no value due to some coupon sites and other affiliates who don’t drive incremental sales. They hired an outsource affiliate manager, Greg Hoffman Consulting, who was able to take his program and make it a valuable marketing channel instead of one that just hijacked existing sales.
BTW, I have no idea why the author of the article didn’t mention Greg as the outsourced manager that ran the Santa Claus Christmas Store affiliate program. Seems like a huge oversight.
The article then talks about a couple examples of merchants and affiliate managers who understand the affiliate channel, understand how to work with affiliates that can drive value, and which affiliates shouldn’t be in an affiliate program. Kush from VMInnovations and Adam Riemer are both affiliate managers who know how to build a profitable affiliate program and how to avoid the “Dark Side” of the industry.
The second article (by the same author) is an interview with Kellie Stevens from Affiliate Fair Play who understands how adware, toolbars, spyware, and other “bad” affiliates can kill an affiliate program. These adware and toolbars hijack sales that would otherwise have already occured so the merchant pays a commission they shouldn’t have to. From straight cookie stuffing to ad injection these adware and toolbar affiliates bring zero value to a merchant. One of the worst I have heard of is an affiliate that set their affiliate cookie when the customer was already in the merchant’s shopping cart and on the checkout page. Why should a merchant have to pay a commission for this sale?
Some affiliate networks heavily promote these adware and toolbar affiliates as people who can drive big sales and revenue and there is no doubt they can produce big numbers for an affiliate program but these are sales that the merchant would have otherwise received. If I was a merchant and had other marketing channels running that were driving traffic to my site why would I want a toolbar popping up while the customer is already on my site with an affiliate link? If you are looking for an affiliate network that doesn’t allow toolbar or software affiliates check out Shareasale.com. They won’t even let these affiliates in their network, let alone encourage merchants to work with them.
We haven’t even touched on how these toolbar and cookie stuffing affiliates hurt other affiliates who can drive legitimate sales.
Anyway, in this interview Kellie gives some examples of what she has seen in her years in the industry, how the affiliate channel can be good for merchants, and advice for beginners.
The third article is from an Indian affiliate community and the article is misleadingly titled “All you wanted to know about affiliate adwares as an advertiser“. This article shows the “benefits” of working with adware and toolbar companies. High conversions? Of course they will have high conversions since they set their cookie when the customer is already on their site. Targeted traffic? Once again, if they are on a merchant’s site already of course they are targeted. Cost efficient? How is paying a 10% commission for a sale that you would have already made efficient? Seems like a wasted 10% to me.
Imagine if you had a brick and mortar store and you gave your friends a kickback to refer their friends. You want them to tell their friends, talk about you to the people they know and generate some new customers for you. Would you want them standing by your cash register as people were checking out and earning their commission from customers you already had? Of course not. But that’s exactly what many of these toolbar and adware sites do.
There is a lot of misinformation out there about affiliate marketing. If you are thinking of launching an affiliate program or if you already have an affiliate program take the time to talk to some of the people like Greg, Kush, Adam, or a number of others who know what it takes to run an affiliate program that can generate incremental sales, generate new customers, and do it in a way that provides value to your business rather than just hijacking sales to earn some commission. Go to Affiliate Summit and talk to some affiliate managers. Drop me an email if you have any questions and I would be happy to answer them for you or refer you to someone who knows the answers.
Leave a comment if you have any questions or need any more information.
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