27 replies to this topic

[Hyperformance]

Ok, torka & Scott y'all are the model for affiliates.

Model? Hardly, - Doing something I am good at and that works for me? Priceless. And I will also state that you are correct... most affiliates I have met or even seen their stuff online are lazy and do want fast money - I still do not see how they accomplish (true success) it except for sheer numbers and then you still have to copy a lot of stuff?

True, but how much are you earning (taking out of my pocket) to get that sale (all things considered)? I don't think most companies truly evaluate the overall costs of running an affiliate program, and if they did they would see the ROI isn't worth the competition in SE rankings or PPCs (for those affiliates that don't write their own copy).

You see, this is where we differ - I take nothing out of your pocket... you used to pay salespeople, you had payroll, human resources, accountability, you had taxes and all kinds of overhead that does not exist online (yeah, and all the savings would be passed on to the consumers) NOT.

Anyway, there is no firing, no hiring, no unemployment to pay, no mileage, no benefits, etc. And what tracking there is - is done mostly by software.

Now why is it I am offered a paltry 8% with a 30 day cookie as my job offer (or 10% and a ONE day cookie)? First off, I sent them to you, so no matter when they buy - I should get my referral (IMO), secondly, why aren't they my customer for life? If I were your salesman, they would be my account as long as I was employed? Third, pay me like you want me to work! Now if you truly want a good affiliate to look at your offer, then you need to act like you want a real salesperson and make them a real offer. Finding trustworthy Merchants is one of the toughest parts of the equation... and I know you are saying "finding the right affiliates is the toughest..."

I wanted to add - I do absolutely ZERO PPC on these affiliate websites... strictly organic seo and making it a hub or a piece of it, whatever the category... However, like you, I see affiliates infringing on copyright and trademark all the time on PPC Ads - just type in any popular program in Google and check out all the Paid Ads for it... 99% of these are affiliates for the product manufacturer, but not the Manufacturer themselves.

I found this thread interesting and I appreciate your honest input - it offered me another perspective and some things to consider when I am negotiating terms -

Please don't detest me.. I was just getting warmed up to you -

- Scott

Edited by Hyperformance, 17 November 2008 - 10:51 PM.

[BBCoach]

I don't detest you Scott because this isn't personal, it's the affiliate model as a whole I detest. Actually, over the last couple of years I too have enjoyed what you've had to say and pretty much agree with you 99% of the time when it comes to SEO.

You see, this is where we differ - I take nothing out of your pocket... you used to pay salespeople, you had payroll, human resources, accountability, you had taxes and all kinds of overhead that does not exist online (yeah, and all the savings would be passed on to the consumers) NOT.

Again, this is where I disagree with marketing folks. There has been a dramatic paradigm shift in contacting, referring and making a sell. True, the other "older" methods still exist and have a thriving market, but when we talk about the internet it's a whole new ball game. My skills in creating a website and SEO make it so that I don't need or even have to consider using salespeople or a third-party referral system (except maybe at the start-up of a new site for 1-2 years). If I build it they will eventually find it in the SEs. Not to mention using all of the other marketing avenues (like PPC) available to promote my site.

And Scott if I may suggest something, if you do what you say you do, then you are a model of how affiliates should work, and that is a very valuable asset to any company seeking to increase sales of a new site or one that has ten-thumbed programmers (SEOs) that can't get their products ranked.

Now why is it I am offered a paltry 8% with a 30 day cookie as my job offer (or 10% and a ONE day cookie)? First off, I sent them to you, so no matter when they buy - I should get my referral (IMO), secondly, why aren't they my customer for life? If I were your salesman, they would be my account as long as I was employed?

I would say the affiliate payment model suffers from the original internet marketing plans. Those models of banner ads that are pretty much a thing of the past where Yahoo (specifically) and many, many others charged on a per click/per view basis and didn't claim ownership of the referral. The sales models of MCI, Sprint, Farmers Insurance, Amway, etc. of life-long referral kickbacks never had a chance of gaining a foothold in the internet model once the click-thru model set the standard for remuneration. Ergo, the next great thing to come down the pike was the affiliate model and those networks set or promoted the remuneration models affiliates are saddled with. It's now intrinsic to ecommerce marketing and I don't think it'll be changing anytime soon.

[Conspicuous]

BBCoach- no offense, but I think you need to do a reality check.

Painting affiliates with such a broad brush is both unfair and ignorant. It's like saying SEOs are all blackhat scammers simply gaming the system. Sure there are bad actors in any business but to try to represent them as a representation of an entire industry is flat out wrong.

From Jill in the [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?act=boardrules]Forum Rules[/url]

From time to time an administrator may post affiliate links to help cover the costs of the forum. These may or may not be labeled as such.

I'm sure the people that get referral traffic from HR are over the moon about it and don't have a second thought or regret when they're paying.

Maybe you've had bad experiences but as more and more examples of "good" affiliates (Hyperformance, torka, Jill) pop up, you should acknowledge that perhaps the world isn't as bad as you think.

[Hyperformance]

BBCoach - You said a number of nice things... I thank you. I have always respected your opinions and thoughts as well.

One of the wonderful things about THIS forum, is that there are some rules... we don't outright slam any business (I don't think), but Conspicuous - we are also allowed to say how we independently feel or what experiences we have had... and get feedback (thoughts, ideas, and perspectives) about those statements or thoughts as well.

This is what makes the forum so (in)valuable (IMO) . - It's that freedom, the education, getting the real deal - even if it is not what you wanted or hoped to hear, it is, and has been, a reality check for every reader of this thread... because they all read it whether they responded to it or not... whether they agreed with someone or not... the reality IS that this gets "out there" -

I do not believe that BBCoach and certainly not myself - were trying to make up or change anyone's mind. (I could be wrong, yes, I am wrong there) - The thread moved towards a topic that a few felt strongly about... they said why, just like you did - and I submit... The (affiliate) World is not as 'good' as your post tends to lean either - but it's great that we get to say what we think! Right?

Thanks BBCoach, I know you do not detest me (my unrecognizable humor, I guess). I get soooo angry at Merchants sometimes it's not good for me (this is where bias comes from - experiences) - Everyone has their pet peeves, especially when it revolves around a totally self-generated income. It can touch nerves... and usually does. It's not that I want to be a 'model' affiliate as much as a 'great' affiliate (LOL) - But I DO believe it can be made better for everyone involved and so I am trying to move the stick a little.

- Scott

[SuperAffiliate]

Our client has affiliates that want to bid on many of the same keywords that we are bidding on. How can we manage this so that the affiliates don't drive up our cost on PPC?

The affiliates are saying they won't 'outbid' us but how can we best manage both the keywords and costs?

Thanks

Be very carefull when listening to someone like "BBCoach". You need to look at the bigger picture. What do you think your affiliates will do when you tell them not to bid on products you sell? Do you think they will just give up all the hard work they did in trying to drive traffic to your site? Not likely. Speaking from experience, when this happened to us, we just directed all our traffic to a competitor selling the exact same products. That's right, the narrow minded first company not only lost all their sales from us but they were still paying the same PPC. As my mother always said, don't bit the hand that feeds you.

[BBCoach]

Thank you Hyper for the kind words. All I was trying to do is expose the under-belly of the affiliate world, and to point out that sites should look for affiliates like you, torka and Jill. I'll say it again because I don't think it's being read, "Affiliates can be a VERY GOOD thing for new sites or sites that don't have the wherewithal to get their products ranked." I would not give a blanket recommendation for them outside of those two conditions (except to target affiliates like y'all) because of all of the problems and resources needed to "manage" them. A wise website owner should understand the pros/cons and ROI of conducting an affiliate program.

You need to look at the bigger picture.

That's what I attempted to convey. It's not all roses and newbie merchants to the programs need to know it.

Speaking from experience, when this happened to us, we just directed all our traffic to a competitor selling the exact same products. That's right, the narrow minded first company not only lost all their sales from us but they were still paying the same PPC.

Two points.

Painting affiliates with such a broad brush is both unfair and ignorant.

I was neither unfair nor ignorant. I'm speaking from 7+ years experience of running an affiliate program for a multi-million dollar website having used two affiliate networks (at the same time) with more than 3500 affiliates enrolled. Unfortunate for me I never got to work with quality affiliates like Hyper or torka. Wished I had.

It's like saying SEOs are all blackhat scammers simply gaming the system.

Those are still out there as well as those who only read what others say and try to pass themselves off as SEOs with no real-world experience. I combat this with every prospect I contact.

One last thing Hyper that may shed some light on why some merchants are slow to pay or may not pay (to help with your BP). I blame the networks themselves (not affiliates). Has anyone besides me ever tried to reconcile $20-30K/month using the reports from either of the two major affiliate networks? It's totally CF and next to impossible to balance against. Not to mention trying to figure returns in the mix or order cancellations before they are processed internally (but get credited to affiliates as sales). Hard and very time consuming task. We weren't perfect and sometimes fell behind in making payments (not due to a lack of funds), but mostly would simply cut a check close to what we could ascertain as being valid from the networks. This is an affiliate network short-coming as of late 2006, when we quit. Maybe they've improved, I dunno and don't wanna know either.

Edited by BBCoach, 19 November 2008 - 05:15 PM.

[Conspicuous]

One of the wonderful things about THIS forum, is that there are some rules... we don't outright slam any business (I don't think), but Conspicuous - we are also allowed to say how we independently feel or what experiences we have had... and get feedback (thoughts, ideas, and perspectives) about those statements or thoughts as well.

I'm not disagreeing with you but BBCoach made a strong statement and I called him out with my opinion that he is wrong in what he said.

First, I have to say I literally detest affiliates. They'll do almost anything to make a buck and screw you in the process.

There is nothing constructive about bashing an entire segment of the population. You can detest anyone or any group you want, but when you assign characteristics to everyone in a group that's inaccurate, I think that's bad and lowers the conversation. I'd be fine if somebody said, "I've had nothing but bad experiences with X," or "these are the types of things I've had problems with," but that's not what happened. First all affiliates were scum and then he backpedaled because torka and Hyperformance were exceptions.

When anybody makes sweeping generalizations, they run the risk of running afoul of those who got swept along.

[Jill]

Funny. Maybe cuz we know and love BBCoach we didn't take it in a mean way. I never felt like he was talking about ALL affiliates, just the bad ones, which do tend to be the norm.

[Randy]

I didn't take BBCoach's posts as a slam against all affiliates either Jill. Anymore than I took my own post right after BBCoach's first post in this tread as a slam against all affiliates. Even though my post agreed with what he said, with a bit of clarification that he's already agreed to. I think we've both said that Good affiliates are wonderful, but terribly hard to find.

So I'm not sure where a couple of folks got that impression.

As an example of the frustration webmasters feel, on my one site that still has an affiliate offer there are some 2,000 people who have signed up over the years. Exactly 3 of those get a check each month. And an healthy check at that. There are usually another rotating group of 15-20 who get a smallish check. The other 1,975+ are just taking up space, even though I've given them all kinds of marketing tools to work with that enable a really easy sale if they just use them. Long story short, I'll help them all I can because it's to my benefit. But it's not my job to hold every affiliates hand and teach them how to make money online.

That said, I do have it in my plan to start some testing as being an affiliate myself even though I've not done it seriously before myself. It's a new project where I want to add a lot of statistical (read conversion rate) stuff in the mix that no affiliates I know of are currently doing. Sort of a melding of what I already do with my own sites to maximize conversions and income, combined with the relative ease of finding decent products and promoting them. Just to see what'll happen.

I figure I might as well make good use of the month off I have quickly approaching. ( that's for you Torka!) And things are usually slow enough for me right after the first of the year, other than various tax filings, that I should be able to compile some good data to see if I can't come up with an easier and better way for folks with no real e-comm marketing experience to make a few bucks online.

[ttw]

Thanks everyone for the lively discussion on this top!

So to get back to the original question , has anyone developed guidelines (that work and that they are willing to share) for Affiliate PPC marketing that allows the affiliates to market their products/services while preventing a continually upward trend in CPC costs?

Rosemary

[BBCoach]

Nope. SuperAffiliate plainly stated what will occur when he said,

What do you think your affiliates will do when you tell them not to bid on products you sell? Do you think they will just give up all the hard work they did in trying to drive traffic to your site? Not likely. Speaking from experience, when this happened to us, we just directed all our traffic to a competitor selling the exact same products. That's right, the narrow minded first company not only lost all their sales from us but they were still paying the same PPC.

You can ask them not to, but there's nothing in an affiliate network contract stipulating that they have to obey (concerning PPCs). PPCs are how several of the most successful affiliates drive traffic to their sites and they ain't gonna barter them away for nothing. Personally, if I were in your spot, and I valued the affiliates doing PPC, then I'd pick different keyword phrases that didn't compete against theirs. Remember, they're typically lazy and won't do a thorough job of researching all of the potential keywords that apply to one or all of your products. Other than that there's nothing to do, but let them drive traffic to your site, or compete against them driving up the costs.

[Hyperformance]

Hey ttw -

I think I can reference these pages without breaking a rule - It is for example sake only;

The first one has intense PPC guidelines (Wow) X10 - The others look like they copied one another...

http://www.x10.com/a...guidelines.html
http://www.baseballrampage.com/ppc.asp
http://www.aclens.com/ppc_rules.asp

All three of these are attempting to set PPC Rules for affiliates to follow... Now this will open another topic - I am sure.

Hope these help -

- Scott

BBCoach - I do agree with going after the longer tailed and unique keywords if you need to compete on that level.

[arlen]

You need to look at the bigger picture. What do you think your affiliates will do when you tell them not to bid on products you sell? Do you think they will just give up all the hard work they did in trying to drive traffic to your site? Not likely. Speaking from experience, when this happened to us, we just directed all our traffic to a competitor selling the exact same products. That's right, the narrow minded first company not only lost all their sales from us but they were still paying the same PPC. As my mother always said, don't bit the hand that feeds you.

And people wonder why merchants grow weary of and learn to dislike or distrust affiliates. This statement, apparently presented to defend the affiliate's position, is the exact attitude that causes the distrust many merchants feel towards affiliates. What you are basically saying is "You need me, and if you don't believe it, just see how much I can screw you."

Don't bit(e) the hand that feeds you? It's a 2-way street, without the merchant the affiliate has nothing to promote. Without the affiliate, the merchant stands a chance of losing PART of their business. On the surface, and I'm sure under the right circumstances, affiliate programs should be a positive arrangement for both affiliate and merchant ... a partnership with mutually shared goals.

I've spent some time on a couple of affiliate forums trying to understand what they want from a quality affiliate program. What I've read in large part was a bunch of highly inflammatory, highly disrespectful talk about the merchants these affiliates are supposedly 'partners' with. A slam fest. I walk away from reading this realizing the affiliate's (those posting anyway) place no value at all on the arrangement, or the merchant .... OR the customer. It's all about me and how much money can I make. Certainly not what one would hope from a quality sales force.

I've personally not had hugely negative experiences other than poor performance. Actually, "most" affiliates (at least the bulk of those who've signed up w/ my program) appear to be rookie webmasters trying to learn how to earn money without a huge financial investment, which is totally legit and power to them. Unfortunately, these green affiliates don't offer a lot to the merchant, and it does take a lot of effort to support them at the level they expect.

Affiliate programs, at least the one I use, are largely weighted in the Affiliate's favor. There is very little means for me to confirm whether my site is being promoted in a manner inline with the agreement or in a fashion I feel appropriate for my audience. These vocal affiliate forumites tend to think it's none of the merchant's business, as apparently do the affiliate programs. But IT IS my business. My site, my reputation, my customer base, my future is on the line here. I think Randy is probably right that you need to be careful who you accept and who you don't. I may need to reconsider my tendency to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, unless it's obvious that their site is simply inappropriate for my customers.

I've found it very difficult to craft a program that attracts quality affiliates. Affiliates expect a good payout to make the effort to promote your site ... totally understandable. Many also expect a pretty deep discount for the customers they send your way, makes sense. But considering the average retail merchant makes only a modest return on each sale, have to invest in and warehouse the inventory and shipping supplies, invest the labor to process and ship the orders, invest the time to support the affiliates, etc .... if youre not careful the affiliate can 'earn' the largest chunk of your profit while you've increased your workload and costs to see only a very tiny return. I just can't make the numbers work w/ a high payout, and right now I'm far better off marketing in areas that do bring a good ROI. I maintain my program, but put real limits on what I'll do and how much time I'll spend to make it work ... at least for now.

I do think affiliate programs and affiliates are a good component in an overall marketing strategy. But you have to keep it in perspective. It can pay, but it's seems like a pretty fickle community to hang your hat on, and can dry up overnight for reasons completely out of your control.

<edit>Back to answer the original question. Honestly, I don't think you'll ever be able to control affiliates competing with you in PPC. Restricting their ability to go after the most competitive search phrases and capturing the sale will just keep quality affiliates away. Their overhead is likely less than yours, and they can afford the higher cpc if the return is good enough. From their perspective, you shouldn't be competing with them.</edit>

Edited by arlen, 20 November 2008 - 06:00 PM.