Problems with Affiliate Programs

[Mook-Jon]

I'm curious to know what type of problems do you experience with even your favorite affiliate program.
- What can affiliate programs do to change how you feel about them or rate them?
- Anything they can do to make it better?
- What is the first thing you look at before signing up to an affiliate program?
- If a program offered perks/incentives for getting X amount of sales, would that increase your chances of joining and promoting?
- If yes, would you promote that Affiliate program harder than the others to reach the incentive goals?

I swear, I am not sending this to the secret affiliate police at cj.com

[Nintendo]

Pay atleast once a month, or twice a month if you can.
Give higher payouts. 50% programs are really nice!

[Mook-Jon]

Originally Posted by Nintendo

Pay atleast once a month, or twice a month if you can.
Give higher payouts. 50% programs are really nice!

Do tier systems act as an incentive to promote more?
Example:
1-25 signups = $10 per signup
26-75 signups = $15 per signup
etc..

[Nintendo]

Oh yes!!!! For example, all of us Amazon promoter freaks loved the Growth bonuses, where if you sold enough, you got to where your commission was DOUBLED!!!! My, those were the days!!!!

If you have a sales site, and you have a lot of products, offer datafeeds, or webservices, so we can easily make sites that are a clone of yours. Google loves those!!!! (For example, Google has indexed 1,020,000 URLs from my Amazon AWS clones, even though it thinks all but 47 of the URLs are very similar!! )

[desslock]

Originally Posted by Mook-Jon

Do tier systems act as an incentive to promote more?
Example:
1-25 signups = $10 per signup
26-75 signups = $15 per signup
etc..

I differ from Nintendo. Do tier systems incite? If you are Amazon.com offering many different stores of products, sure. If you are eBay and you offer huge numbers of auctions in every imaginable category, sure.

If you are selling several lines of products in one or two categories, then I would suggest you keep it simple. Pay one rate on commissionable sales or sign-ups. Let me point you in another direction:

If you want affiliates to work for you, then actively push it to them. I end up spending the most time on the programs that send me regular newsletters talking about their fantastic promotions, giving me copy to write into my promotional ads.

The ones that keep tickling my feet get me to wiggle my toes.


Steve

[wildtrk]

I normally only sign up for affiliates that pay Net 30 or less. Anything over that and I don't even look at them twice.

[5StarAffiliates]

Other things to consider before joining an affiliate program.

1) Are they parasite-free?
2) Are there any commission leaks like 800 #s or ad banners that leak your traffic elsewhere without getting compensated.
3) Nice long cookies?
4) Links and banners designed to avoid ad blockers so your visitors can get to the site?
5) Is the merchant site designed for optimum conversion rates?
6) Is the merchant site P3P compliant? If not, there will be lost income due to lots of cookies getting blocked.

[Mook-Jon]

Interestng feedback so far..

What about programs that offer point systems to earn free stuff along side with getting paid?
Example:

Rack up 500 points (5 points each sale) and get a Sony Digital Camera, and the points never expire or have deadlines.

I've always felt that programs with incentives to sell draw me in to promote them, over a program that just gives small bonus checks to its top 5 affiliates (who are usually these giant networks).

[desslock]

Originally Posted by Mook-Jon

Interestng feedback so far..

What about programs that offer point systems to earn free stuff along side with getting paid?
Example:

Rack up 500 points (5 points each sale) and get a Sony Digital Camera, and the points never expire or have deadlines.

I've always felt that programs with incentives to sell draw me in to promote them, over a program that just gives small bonus checks to its top 5 affiliates (who are usually these giant networks).

Linda's points are very important. If you include some of those in your program, if will give you added benefit when selling it versus a similar program that tolerates parasites and overwrites cookies. (which are many of the big ones) Then - spell all this out in your terms of agreement. In fact, I have personally selected Linda's "5-Star" affiliate programs over others for these reasons.

I have never participated in a program that gave free points. That wouldn't interest me at all. Avoid gimmicks. Keep it simple - offer a good product that is easy for affiliates to market. The main reason both parties are involved in this is because of the commission compensation.

Steve

[ozgression]

Originally Posted by Mook-Jon

What about programs that offer point systems to earn free stuff along side with getting paid?

I would rather just get paid more

[comedyman]

Originally Posted by wildtrk

I normally only sign up for affiliates that pay Net 30 or less. Anything over that and I don't even look at them twice.

I would tend to agree with you. I have had a bad experience with an affiliate program that paid on a Net 90 basis. You need to see your money!

[321web]

Originally Posted by wildtrk

I normally only sign up for affiliates that pay Net 30 or less. Anything over that and I don't even look at them twice.

Hmm I do not agree. Some of my best paying programs are Net 90. I don't uderstand what the big hang up his here, after the first couple of months the checks come like clockwork every month. So what's the difference? Maybe that just me, I have only been burned once...I think it was nailitadvertsing and it might have been $100 at the most.

What would make me happy is a higher percentage. I want everyone to make money, dont get me wrong. I just dont want an ad agency to make a fortune off of publishers. Take what you deserve and give us the rest.

What would be nice in a perfect world is an ad agency run by a group of us publishers. Thus cutting out the middle man and their 50% fee. Or if enough of us got together we could really leverage existing companies. If we really were all that pissed at fastclick we could crush them. If we all wanted an extra 5% out of TF or we were going to move to CS I bet we would get it.

[psyon]

- What can affiliate programs do to change how you feel about them or rate them?
Go back on their promise of lifetime referal fees

- Anything they can do to make it better?
Add a grandfather clause to keep the same promise for existing referrals

- What is the first thing you look at before signing up to an affiliate program?
The programs reputation with other publishers. If they are new, I question their reps to try to see if they seem shady. I always ask if ActiveX is involved in any way.

- If a program offered perks/incentives for getting X amount of sales, would that increase your chances of joining and promoting?
As long as the base rate is good, this wouldnt matter as much, earning more as a bonus for good sales is always a perk though.

[Fahd]

Besides all those already mentioned: Recurring Commissions!

This is what entices me the most!

[WealthStream]

Besides all those already mentioned: Recurring Commissions!

This is what entices me the most!

Better yet, two tier recurring commissions...

Two+ tier programs, however, need to be approached with caution. It is improtant that the focus stays on selling the products, and not on promoting the affiliate program itself.

Also, I would have to agree that the time it takes to receive a cheque is an important factor. I wouldn't join a program that paid net45+ unless it had a very good reason to do so.