If you are thinking about becoming a Merchant in the affiliate marketing world then there are many things you need to know before you rush in to the unknown and start up your own affiliate program. This also refers to the very experienced Merchants who have been in the game for a long time. An affiliate program must be developed slowly and make the necessary changes when affiliates needs grow.
Please take a careful look at the following information below and if you are confident you can accommodate these common goals, then you are on your way to producing a very successful affiliate program. We try to cover all issues, but please be aware affiliates requirements grow depending on the market they are promoting, so you need to know what your affiliates desire. If you really want your affiliate program to become a success, only those Merchants who listen to there affiliates needs will come out on top.
Merchant Questions & Answers
What is a Merchant? A Merchant, also known an Advertiser to affiliates, is a online retailer or service who are willing to allow website owners to promote there products and services on there own website and pay the affiliate commission once he/she is responsible for generating a sale for you.
How much does it cost to become a Merchant? Costs to become an Merchant vary, if you are thinking about becoming a Merchant on an Affiliate Network, you may think about contacting them and see the rates they offer and compare them to other Affiliate Networks. However, if you develop your own affiliate program on your site, you will be required to purchase a licensing fee for use of the affiliate program software. But some web hosting providers already have this technology integrated into your site. But you may have to pay a fee to upgrade.
Top Tips & Advice for Merchants/Advertisers
Go it alone or with an Affiliate Network: This really depends on your budget, there are always fees to pay what ever you decide, you just need to know what you can really achieve with either choice and gain a return on your investment. If you join an Affiliate Network you must take into consideration the charges involved: this includes the Set-up Fee, Monthly or Yearly Fee, and of course the deposit you must pay into your Merchant account to be able to pay the affiliates. This could add up to anything from £300 to a massive £10,000. So shopping around Affiliate Networks may be a good idea before you make up your mind.
You can of course set up your very own affiliate program on your website where there is no middle man to pay unlike some Affiliate Network costs. The only thing you will be paying for here is the Affiliate Program Software provided from many affiliate software providers. Once you have paid the licensing fee, its then time to integrate the software into your site and make sure that everything runs smoothly. The Advantages of running your own program is that you are in complete control. However, the down side is you have not got a network of affiliates ready to join your affiliate program, it is up to you to promote your affiliate program and be sure to submit it to affiliate program directories.
Don’t Direct Customers: It is vital you do not place your customer phone number on your site if you are running an affiliate program. Affiliates spend a lot of time and money promoting your products and services and don’t deserve to be taken for a ride when Merchants go and plaster there phone number all over there website.
This will only tell the customer to make their order by telephone instead of online, and as you can imagine, affiliates will receive no commission for that referred customer if they place the order by phone. It is vital you have a telephone number as must online businesses require it if your accept credit cards, so placing it on you contact or customer support page would be best.
Affiliates do not tolerate this, so if you ignore this vital piece of advice, you will find it very hard to recruit new affiliates or keep your old ones.
Communicate with Affiliate: It is vital to your affiliate program that you contact your affiliates on a regular basis with any new features and changes to your affiliate program, this includes: a commission raise or drop of commission and new banners available to them.
Affiliates, of course, will have many questions for you and special requirements they need regarding your affiliate program including a possible commission rise for there performance, your best sellers available and new banner designs and text links.
So be sure you contact them back as quickly as possible, don’t let them wait or they may become frustrated with you and drop your program especially for those new affiliates who need help setting up your banners and text links.
Validate sales Quickly: When an affiliate generates a sale for you, his or her commission will not be approved until you the Merchant as approved it. The reason is your customer may return there purchase for a full refund, so this means your affiliate hasn't made a successful sale and the commission will be rejected from there account.
However, it is important you don’t allow the affiliate to wait to long for there commission if the sale went well, be sure the commission is placed into there approved sales account so they can receive there next payment on the date it is due.
Send Affiliate Payments on Time: If you operate an independent affiliate program you must be sure to send out affiliate payments on time, or on the date specified. If you are late with payments, affiliates may feel you have failed to pay them and may be quick to give you a bad name. But if there are any payments due late, let all your affiliates know and give them an exact date for the new payment to be issued.
Affiliate Payment Options: If you run an independent affiliate program, you must try to give your affiliates a variety of payment options, as not all affiliates will like to receive a cheque. But always try to make cheque payments available to all affiliates. Also, Wire Transfer (payment into the affiliates bank account) is quick, safe and allows the affiliate to receive the payment on time. PayPal, can be very useful, but then affiliates will lose a little money for the PayPal charges so not all affiliates will like this payment method. If only give PayPal payment option many affiliates don’t have a PayPal account so they won’t join your program.
Affiliate Sourcing: Let every one know about your affiliate program. Add an Affiliate sign-up page on your site providing the affiliate sign up process and help and tips. Add a “Become An Affiliate” link to all your pages on your site so affiliates can spot your affiliate program, this is a must for any Merchant.
Other variations you can add to your pages if you are not keen with “Become An Affiliate” include: Join Our Affiliate Program, Affiliates, Affiliate Program, Affiliate Programme (UK spelling) and Affiliate Scheme. Some Merchants use “Affiliate Network.” However this is not a good choice as this could mislead affiliates to think you run an Affiliate Network and not an affiliate program. This is a common mistake, so if you have an Affiliate Network link listed, be sure to replace it with one of the preferred variations above.
You should really think about how you can recruit new affiliates in to your program. The cheapest option would to submit your affiliate program to as many Affiliate Program Directories as you can. All you have to do in return is exchange links with the website but some directories allow you to add your affiliate program with no reciprocal link in return.
You may also think about a Pay-Per-Click program on Google or Yahoo, and set up a campaign to send potential new affiliates to your program. This will require you to set up an affiliate page on your site so the affiliates can learn more about your affiliate program, commission rates, Affiliate FAQ and more. If you sell flowers, then using keywords in your PPC Campaign such as: Florist Affiliate Program, Flowers Affiliate Programme and other related words will be a good start.
Give Affiliates A Pay Rise: You must keep your options open to raise the current commission offer to top performing affiliates. So if you start with 10% to all affiliates, you may think about raising this to 13% to your better performing affiliates. Keep in mind you must try not to drop your commission rates you started with for all your affiliates, or they may feel they are not doing enough for you and make an effort for another similar affiliate program in your category who are offering better commission. Always try to be the best affiliate program in your products/service category and see how other affiliate programs compare regarding commission rates, affiliate communication, etc.
Reward Affiliates: Many Merchants out there pay top performing affiliates anything up to £500 reward if they achieve a sale total in a given month the Merchant set. You should really think about rewards and incentives you can offer to top affiliates and keep them performing for you in the future. Your best option is to raise your commission rates, perhaps then you can add the affiliate into a prize draw. It is entirely up to you how you would like to reward the affiliate, another way you may like them to choose anything from your product range.
Keep links updated: Try to keep your site as updated as possible regarding out of stock products. There’s nothing more annoying than affiliates promoting your products through deep linking and product feeds only to find out the item is out of stock. If this happens email your affiliates in an affiliate newsletter to let them no.
Product Datebase: Supply a database; If you can’t supply a newsletter to all affiliates, produce a database listing all your products with important product information next to it like a chart. Such as: Product Name; Price; Shipping Cost; In Stock - and let them no in the affiliate application you have this database available 24 hours a day and they can check regularly on product information and when is the best time to promote such products.
Stay Competitive: What ever category your site falls under, there is sure to be plenty of competition out there of yours offering better commission rates than you, better communication with affiliates, and more banners and text links. Letting affiliates no you are a force in your industry and offering one of the best rates in your sector, they will sure join your affiliate program. Affiliates will compare your products, website design and reliability, banners and text links available, reviews, and look at your competition and decide which one of you is worth promoting. Longer cookies on your affiliate program may be worth considering, it can look very attractive to some affiliates.
Receive Affiliate Feedback: There’s no better way than receiving constructive criticism, good or bad, than from the affiliates themselves. Allow affiliates to come onto your website and fill in a feedback form regarding your affiliate program. From this you will get a better idea what improvements your program requires straight from the affiliates themselves. Asking questions like is our website easy to navigate, is our commission rates competitive, etc. will sure give you a better way of improvements not only to your affiliate program, but also the way your website works and what updates are needed to acquire the affiliate.
Allow International Affiliates: With the millions of affiliates worldwide a huge percentage of them target either there own countries market, a worldwide market and even another countries market. And its this what you must take into consideration when accepting affiliates into your affiliate program - they may be targeting your own countries market but live in a far, far land.
Some affiliates are joining foreign affiliate programs because that's the audience they are targeting for there website. They may be receiving thousands of UK visitors to there site but it may be an affiliate from as far as the United States, Australia and even Russia. You don't have to ship worldwide, you just need your own countries visitors to find you and buy your products. You just need to let your affiliates know you only sell to the UK (or any other country you deliver to), and will only accept affiliates if they target these countries.
Plenty of Creative Available: Affiliates love a good variety banners and descriptive text links. Be sure you have tons of banners available for your affiliates. Try to get hold of all the popular banner sizes, including the good old 460x60, small button banners and skyscrapers. You should also think about using different colour themes on your banners even if the general design is the same so the affiliate has a banner they can use that doesn’t stand out terribly on there site and looks a real eye saw. Please check out our Graphic Designers page and learn more what makes a good banner design for affiliates and most importantly the tricks to make people click on them.
Please take a careful look at the following information below and if you are confident you can accommodate these common goals, then you are on your way to producing a very successful affiliate program. We try to cover all issues, but please be aware affiliates requirements grow depending on the market they are promoting, so you need to know what your affiliates desire. If you really want your affiliate program to become a success, only those Merchants who listen to there affiliates needs will come out on top.
Merchant Questions & Answers
What is a Merchant? A Merchant, also known an Advertiser to affiliates, is a online retailer or service who are willing to allow website owners to promote there products and services on there own website and pay the affiliate commission once he/she is responsible for generating a sale for you.
How much does it cost to become a Merchant? Costs to become an Merchant vary, if you are thinking about becoming a Merchant on an Affiliate Network, you may think about contacting them and see the rates they offer and compare them to other Affiliate Networks. However, if you develop your own affiliate program on your site, you will be required to purchase a licensing fee for use of the affiliate program software. But some web hosting providers already have this technology integrated into your site. But you may have to pay a fee to upgrade.
Top Tips & Advice for Merchants/Advertisers
Go it alone or with an Affiliate Network: This really depends on your budget, there are always fees to pay what ever you decide, you just need to know what you can really achieve with either choice and gain a return on your investment. If you join an Affiliate Network you must take into consideration the charges involved: this includes the Set-up Fee, Monthly or Yearly Fee, and of course the deposit you must pay into your Merchant account to be able to pay the affiliates. This could add up to anything from £300 to a massive £10,000. So shopping around Affiliate Networks may be a good idea before you make up your mind.
You can of course set up your very own affiliate program on your website where there is no middle man to pay unlike some Affiliate Network costs. The only thing you will be paying for here is the Affiliate Program Software provided from many affiliate software providers. Once you have paid the licensing fee, its then time to integrate the software into your site and make sure that everything runs smoothly. The Advantages of running your own program is that you are in complete control. However, the down side is you have not got a network of affiliates ready to join your affiliate program, it is up to you to promote your affiliate program and be sure to submit it to affiliate program directories.
Don’t Direct Customers: It is vital you do not place your customer phone number on your site if you are running an affiliate program. Affiliates spend a lot of time and money promoting your products and services and don’t deserve to be taken for a ride when Merchants go and plaster there phone number all over there website.
This will only tell the customer to make their order by telephone instead of online, and as you can imagine, affiliates will receive no commission for that referred customer if they place the order by phone. It is vital you have a telephone number as must online businesses require it if your accept credit cards, so placing it on you contact or customer support page would be best.
Affiliates do not tolerate this, so if you ignore this vital piece of advice, you will find it very hard to recruit new affiliates or keep your old ones.
Communicate with Affiliate: It is vital to your affiliate program that you contact your affiliates on a regular basis with any new features and changes to your affiliate program, this includes: a commission raise or drop of commission and new banners available to them.
Affiliates, of course, will have many questions for you and special requirements they need regarding your affiliate program including a possible commission rise for there performance, your best sellers available and new banner designs and text links.
So be sure you contact them back as quickly as possible, don’t let them wait or they may become frustrated with you and drop your program especially for those new affiliates who need help setting up your banners and text links.
Validate sales Quickly: When an affiliate generates a sale for you, his or her commission will not be approved until you the Merchant as approved it. The reason is your customer may return there purchase for a full refund, so this means your affiliate hasn't made a successful sale and the commission will be rejected from there account.
However, it is important you don’t allow the affiliate to wait to long for there commission if the sale went well, be sure the commission is placed into there approved sales account so they can receive there next payment on the date it is due.
Send Affiliate Payments on Time: If you operate an independent affiliate program you must be sure to send out affiliate payments on time, or on the date specified. If you are late with payments, affiliates may feel you have failed to pay them and may be quick to give you a bad name. But if there are any payments due late, let all your affiliates know and give them an exact date for the new payment to be issued.
Affiliate Payment Options: If you run an independent affiliate program, you must try to give your affiliates a variety of payment options, as not all affiliates will like to receive a cheque. But always try to make cheque payments available to all affiliates. Also, Wire Transfer (payment into the affiliates bank account) is quick, safe and allows the affiliate to receive the payment on time. PayPal, can be very useful, but then affiliates will lose a little money for the PayPal charges so not all affiliates will like this payment method. If only give PayPal payment option many affiliates don’t have a PayPal account so they won’t join your program.
Affiliate Sourcing: Let every one know about your affiliate program. Add an Affiliate sign-up page on your site providing the affiliate sign up process and help and tips. Add a “Become An Affiliate” link to all your pages on your site so affiliates can spot your affiliate program, this is a must for any Merchant.
Other variations you can add to your pages if you are not keen with “Become An Affiliate” include: Join Our Affiliate Program, Affiliates, Affiliate Program, Affiliate Programme (UK spelling) and Affiliate Scheme. Some Merchants use “Affiliate Network.” However this is not a good choice as this could mislead affiliates to think you run an Affiliate Network and not an affiliate program. This is a common mistake, so if you have an Affiliate Network link listed, be sure to replace it with one of the preferred variations above.
You should really think about how you can recruit new affiliates in to your program. The cheapest option would to submit your affiliate program to as many Affiliate Program Directories as you can. All you have to do in return is exchange links with the website but some directories allow you to add your affiliate program with no reciprocal link in return.
You may also think about a Pay-Per-Click program on Google or Yahoo, and set up a campaign to send potential new affiliates to your program. This will require you to set up an affiliate page on your site so the affiliates can learn more about your affiliate program, commission rates, Affiliate FAQ and more. If you sell flowers, then using keywords in your PPC Campaign such as: Florist Affiliate Program, Flowers Affiliate Programme and other related words will be a good start.
Give Affiliates A Pay Rise: You must keep your options open to raise the current commission offer to top performing affiliates. So if you start with 10% to all affiliates, you may think about raising this to 13% to your better performing affiliates. Keep in mind you must try not to drop your commission rates you started with for all your affiliates, or they may feel they are not doing enough for you and make an effort for another similar affiliate program in your category who are offering better commission. Always try to be the best affiliate program in your products/service category and see how other affiliate programs compare regarding commission rates, affiliate communication, etc.
Reward Affiliates: Many Merchants out there pay top performing affiliates anything up to £500 reward if they achieve a sale total in a given month the Merchant set. You should really think about rewards and incentives you can offer to top affiliates and keep them performing for you in the future. Your best option is to raise your commission rates, perhaps then you can add the affiliate into a prize draw. It is entirely up to you how you would like to reward the affiliate, another way you may like them to choose anything from your product range.
Keep links updated: Try to keep your site as updated as possible regarding out of stock products. There’s nothing more annoying than affiliates promoting your products through deep linking and product feeds only to find out the item is out of stock. If this happens email your affiliates in an affiliate newsletter to let them no.
Product Datebase: Supply a database; If you can’t supply a newsletter to all affiliates, produce a database listing all your products with important product information next to it like a chart. Such as: Product Name; Price; Shipping Cost; In Stock - and let them no in the affiliate application you have this database available 24 hours a day and they can check regularly on product information and when is the best time to promote such products.
Stay Competitive: What ever category your site falls under, there is sure to be plenty of competition out there of yours offering better commission rates than you, better communication with affiliates, and more banners and text links. Letting affiliates no you are a force in your industry and offering one of the best rates in your sector, they will sure join your affiliate program. Affiliates will compare your products, website design and reliability, banners and text links available, reviews, and look at your competition and decide which one of you is worth promoting. Longer cookies on your affiliate program may be worth considering, it can look very attractive to some affiliates.
Receive Affiliate Feedback: There’s no better way than receiving constructive criticism, good or bad, than from the affiliates themselves. Allow affiliates to come onto your website and fill in a feedback form regarding your affiliate program. From this you will get a better idea what improvements your program requires straight from the affiliates themselves. Asking questions like is our website easy to navigate, is our commission rates competitive, etc. will sure give you a better way of improvements not only to your affiliate program, but also the way your website works and what updates are needed to acquire the affiliate.
Allow International Affiliates: With the millions of affiliates worldwide a huge percentage of them target either there own countries market, a worldwide market and even another countries market. And its this what you must take into consideration when accepting affiliates into your affiliate program - they may be targeting your own countries market but live in a far, far land.
Some affiliates are joining foreign affiliate programs because that's the audience they are targeting for there website. They may be receiving thousands of UK visitors to there site but it may be an affiliate from as far as the United States, Australia and even Russia. You don't have to ship worldwide, you just need your own countries visitors to find you and buy your products. You just need to let your affiliates know you only sell to the UK (or any other country you deliver to), and will only accept affiliates if they target these countries.
Plenty of Creative Available: Affiliates love a good variety banners and descriptive text links. Be sure you have tons of banners available for your affiliates. Try to get hold of all the popular banner sizes, including the good old 460x60, small button banners and skyscrapers. You should also think about using different colour themes on your banners even if the general design is the same so the affiliate has a banner they can use that doesn’t stand out terribly on there site and looks a real eye saw. Please check out our Graphic Designers page and learn more what makes a good banner design for affiliates and most importantly the tricks to make people click on them.
