Biz Web Marketing

Associate Programs Newsletter #8

CONTENTS:

1. “Second generation” AShoppingGuide
2. New way to start your own affiliate program
3. Amazon.com now has 3.1 million customers
4. Pyramid scheme payout
5. OzEmail Buddy similar to ICQ
6. Anyone want to buy a web site?
7. What’s your web address worth?
8. A good one - not for foreigners

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1. “Second generation” AShoppingGuide
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I reckon it’s time to take a fresh look at AShoppingGuide - whether you’re a merchant looking for a place to get publicity or a webmaster looking for an good associate program.

AShoppingGuide has an attractive, easy to navigate layout, and Richard Hauf is pretty clever at attracting visitors to it.

The “second generation” AShoppingGuide will debut tomorrow, or maybe on Monday - I’ve been given two different dates. The updated site features “online communities” built around “revamped shopping channels”.

Who needs another shopping mall to add to the thousands? Whoa! Richard insists that the site is a “shopping directory”, not a shopping mall. “Unlike many cybermalls, we do not generate revenue for our site by selling shopping cart programs, credit card processing services, or web hosting to our merchants,” Richard says.

Also, it doesn’t trap visitors in frames. “Once a visitor clicks through to our merchants’ site, they are then customers of the merchants’ site and no longer ours.”

The part I like best is the completely revamped affiliate program, which offers commissions of $US7.50, $US75 and $US150, and real-time statistics. (A banner says payouts go as high as $100, but the site says $150, so I’ll believe what the site says.)

Richard says that affiliate models based on a per click-thru basis are difficult to administer and leave themselves vulnerable to fraud. (More about that in the newsletter next week.) So he now offers commissions based on a percentage. You earn 15% (or 20% if you design a banner which AShoppingGuide uses).

AShoppingGuide sells merchant listings in the directory. A basic listing costs $US50 a year, one with frills costs $US500, and the top of the range listing is $US1000 a year so “there is a tremendous income potential for our affiliate sites”.

Why would a merchant want to buy a listing in AShoppingGuide?

Richard says that, unlike many cybermalls, AShoppingGuide does not rely on free advertising to promote the site, rather most of the merchant fee is used for paid advertising for the site. “In fact, we currently purchase over 250,000 paid banner impressions PER MONTH for AShoppingGuide through select advertising channels.”

As well as that, I’ve noticed how Richard is very skilled at getting publicity for the directory by intelligent participation in popular mailing lists. Remember the name ShopSafeMall? That’s what AShopping Guide used to be called a few months ago. You’ve probably seen the name popping up in LinkExchange Digest, I-Sales, and all sorts of other places around the Internet.

It’s that clever combination of paid advertising and cunning free marketing which makes AShoppingGuide well worth considering for a merchant. With merchant “lease fees” as cheap as about $1 a week, “many of our merchants achieve cost per click-through rates (CTR’s) from AShoppingGuide site that are less than $0.01 per click through!”

That is a very strong selling point.

However, like most associate programs, this one doesn’t reward you for signing up new associates and - unlike my Favourite Web Cards - it doesn’t give you permission to use your special URL in newsletters or articles.

At first glance, I didn’t like some of the banners provided, because they emphasize how great the associate program is, instead of persuading merchants to list - which is how you will earn your commissions. On second thoughts, though, they are eye-catching ads, well designed to generate high click-throughs. And it’s getting people to click which is often the hardest part.

Overall, I think it looks good, so I’ve signed up, and I asked Richard for permission to use my special URL in the newsletter. I haven’t received a reply - probably because my web host is up to his favourite trick, installing new equipment, and some of my e-mail has been bouncing.

[UPDATE: This site has vanished.]

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2. New way to start your own affiliate program
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For merchants wanting to start their own associate program, there’s a new option, Affiliate Link software from AffiliateZone.com (and it has its own affiliate program).

AffiliateZone.com is a joint venture of BelHal Technologies and Interferenza. Craig Belcher owns BelHal - Triguide.com/giftshop - (pronounced bell hall) and Giancarlo Russo owns Interferenza , which specializes in advanced web services.

“We developed the software so any webmaster could start and maintain their own affiliate program without a large upfront cost that our competitors charge,” Craig said.

Affiliate Link software is a series of cgi scripts that allows a webmaster to start and maintain his own affiliate program for goods or services. “What we do is install these scripts on your server and give you some simple directions on how to use the software.”

The merchant can choose to pay a fixed amount for click-throughs or set the program to pay a percentage of the goods sold, or a mixture of the two.

“To help prevent fraud we have included a option where the link to your site from your affiliate’s site has to match the domain/path the affiliate had entered in his or subscription to your program,” Craig says. “Example: The domain/path the affiliate entered in his/her subscription was www.isp.com/user1 so if someone visits your site through www.isp/user2.com no sales or click-throughs will be accredited to that particular affiliate’s account.”

If you choose to use that option, the affiliate won’t be able to market your goods or services via newsletters, mailing lists, newsgroups, or articles on other web sites. It sounds unnecessarily restrictive to me, but the good thing is that it’s just an available option. It may suit some merchants who want tight control over how the marketing is done.

Real-time stats are provided so the merchant always knows who is selling what and how much, and the the affiliates have peace of mind that they are not being cheated. “You’ll attract larger companies to participate in your affiliate program since you have this type of service,” Craig says.

The Affiliate Link software can be installed on your server within three business days, he says.

“For a limited time we are installing the Affiliate Link Software on our clients’ servers for $250.”

If you’re too busy to start and run an associate program you can choose a Pay Affiliate option. Affiliate.Zone.com will mail the commissions for you.

By the end of August the new site will be 95% in place and the new domain will be used. You can expect to see some big changes at the site - but more about that when it happens.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. The associate program pays a generous $US50 commission for every merchant who signs up for the Affiliate Link software. I think it’s an ideal one for my site.

http://www.affiliatezone.com/

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3. Amazon.com now has 3.1 million customers
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The mighty Amazon.com, king of associate programs, now has 3.1 million customers, attracted with the help of 60,000 associates, but it’s still losing money. Recent reports:

wired.com/news/news/business/story/13925.html
thestandard.net/articles/news_display/0,1270,1069,00.html

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4. Pyramid scheme payout
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Tempted to get involved in an illegal pyramid scheme? Checks totalling $3US.1 million have been sent to people who were defrauded in an international pyramid scheme.

wired.com/news/news/politics/story/13923.html

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5. OzEmail Buddy similar to ICQ
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OzEmail Buddy is a tool which tells you when your friends or business partners are online and allows you to exchange private and instant messages with them in real-time. It’s similar to ICQ and easy to use, says OzEmail, the largest ISP in Australia. “Simply compile a list of your friends’ email addresses and enter them into your buddy list. When you log on to the Internet from home or work your buddy list will appear. If your friends are online, their names will be highlighted in green and then you are free to start instant messaging them . . . it’s free and open to all Internet users around the world.” Of course, your friends need to have registered, too.

buddy.com.au

[UPDATE: This service closed.]

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6. Anyone want to buy a website?
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Lawrence Kellie writes:

SportsExtra.com says it is out of business.

Lawrence R. Kellie
Cala Creek Website Design http://www.calacreek.com
Affordable and elegant website design

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7. What’s your web address worth?
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If you haven’t bought your own domain name yet, this bit of news reported in the San Francisco Chronicle may persuade you to hurry up. Compaq, which owns the Alta Vista search engine, and has a ludicruous, hard to remember address - http://www.altavista.digital.com - has bought a better one.

It paid Jack Marshall of San Jose $3.3 million (US), for a much better address: www.altavista.com .

What will the name you buy today be worth in a few years?

Got a great idea for a name? See if it’s still available:
http://www.betterwhois.com

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8. A good one - not for foreigners
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Here’s bonus for people who read to the end of this: MyPoints. It’s another of those programs - like CarPrices and Web Cards - which reward you even when people don’t buy anything. MyPoints is a reward system. People earn points which can be redeemed for goods at various sites.

Here’s the really good part. The site is so lively and well designed that an amazing more than 30% of visitors sign up for the the free-to-join scheme. You earn $1 for each sign-up.

Work it out: Send 100 people there, and you earn $30.

The bad news: It’s for Americans and Canadians only. Whatever happened to the global village?

The associate program is run by a third party, LinkShare. You can join LinkShare here:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/linkshare

When you have signed up with LinkShare - it’s free - another program to consider is the Cyberian Outpost. It pays only 3% so I ignored it at first glance, but then I found out that the average sale is $US250 to $US300. It has a bright, lively site, designed for generating sales, I reckon.

I’ve just signed up.

[UPDATE: Cyberian Outpost was renamed Outpost.]

P.S. I’ve just checked my stats and I’ve made about $US90 this month with Web Cards - easy money for recommending that people ask for a free sample of an excellent product.

[UPDATE: I stopped promoting Web Cards after it started using spam.]

Free-Banners is AssociateProgram.com’s official banner exchange because it pays you for getting new members and rewards you with 10% of all banners displayed by members you sign up.

Sign up at Free-Banners now.

All the best

Allan Gardyne

By Allan Gardyne | Published 07/31/1998

Affiliate loyalty isn’t easy to win. To encourage affiliates to be loyal to your affiliate program, you have to do something really special to stand out from the crowd.

Some of the the techniques I describe here require considerable time and effort. However, they’re a wise investment because the alternative is so much worse - spending time and money hunting for super affiliates, who then switch to other programs.

If you succeed in creating loyal affiliates, they will not only stick with your affiliate program and promote it enthusiastically, they’ll recommend it to other top affiliates.

Just in case you’re wondering how important these tips are, consider this…

I learned many of these tips by studying an affiliate merchant who pays me four-figure and five-figure monthly commission checks. Yes, affiliate loyalty IS very important!

Here are 28 ways to win affiliates’ loyalty and boost their sales.

(I’ll assume you’re selling an EXCELLENT product and have a site that SELLS - a site with a high conversion rate. Without those, your program might as well be dead.)

Most important of all, HELP your affiliates

Give them all the tools they need to succeed. Provide lots of precise, detailed, “how-to” marketing info online. Keep them enthusiastic with tips in your affiliate newsletter.

Help your affiliates by writing emails they can publish - or adapt and publish - in their newsletters. Some will will be prepared to use a hard-sell message while others want something more low key.

Give them sales messages and graphics they can paste into their websites. Provide a wide variety of banner sizes, ezine ads, forum signatures, articles and rebrandable reports for them to give away.

While providing these materials, teach them the enormous power of writing personal endorsements and saying things in their own words.

Consider adding a toll-free number for affiliate support.

Put someone knowledgeable in charge of answering affiliates’ questions - promptly, in simple English.

A classic example of someone who went to extraordinary lengths to help affiliates succeed is the late Corey Rudl. Study how his company does it. He was running an affiliate program before Amazon.com and his company owes a lot of its $6 million a year revenue to the fact that it provides heaps of practical, helpful affiliate marketing advice. His company has a huge number of loyal affiliates, and has more than 100,000 affiliates.

Show your affiliates how your top affiliates achieve sales

Give your affiliates concrete examples.

Show them step-by-step, with all the precise details they need, how your top affiliates earn a good living. (Work with your affiliates on this. Not all affiliates will want such publicity. If so, respect their right to privacy.)

Pour special recognition on your high-earning affiliates

Send them flowers, champagne or chocolates. I still think very fondly of the affiliate merchant who gave me my first taste of Tattinger champagne.

Horrified at the thought of the cost? You’ll spend a LOT more finding new super affiliates.

Create friendships and win enthusiastic supporters

The first time Ken Evoy phoned me from the other side of world for a friendly chat I was very impressed. That friendly phone call helped win my loyalty.

Phone calls can turn business relationships into lasting friendships. Turn your top affiliates into loyal friends. Remember, you don’t want just a collection of affiliates. You want enthusiastic supporters.

You’ll need to understand the difference between shallow flattery and sincere appreciation. Read or re-read Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Encourage your affiliates to speak up

You’ll learn what they REALLY think about your affiliate program, and you’ll learn how to make it better.

Praise your top affiliate marketers on your site

This serves three purposes. It teaches other affiliates what works. It rewards your top affiliates by sending them traffic. The public recognition increases affiliates’ loyalty.

Recommend your top affiliates in email discussion groups

This is a way to build affiliate loyalty which won’t cost you anything except a few minutes of your time but will have a dramatic effect on how loyal your top-earning affiliates feel.

Write to a popular email discussion group such as LED Digest and recommend your affiliates’ sites or something they wrote.

Your affiliates will love you for this! (I’m extremely grateful for the public praise which AssociatePrograms.com and PayPerClickSearchEngines.com have received from affiliate merchants.)

Set those cookies fairly

If a customer returns the next day, the next week, or even a year later and makes a purchase, the affiliate should receive a commission. Track your customers in every way possible to make sure the affiliate receives the commission.

This is vitally important. If your “return days” period is set at zero, many good affiliates won’t even sign up for your program. The absolute minimum “return days” period should be 30 days. The longer the better.

Consider paying lifetime commissions

Imagine the power of saying to your affiliates, “They’re YOUR customers for life. Sell once, earn indefinitely.” That’s a powerful drawcard which will keep your affiliates loyal and enthusiastic.

See the article by Christopher Pearce How to start a lifetime commissions affiliate program. It also describes how to set up a residual income program - another excellent idea.

Pay your top affiliates bonuses

I received a pleasant surprise when veteran marketer Jim Daniels, author of Make a Living Online, sent me $250 for being his top-earning affiliate one month. That helped him retain me as a loyal affiliate.

I really appreciate the hundreds of dollars worth of Amazon book vouchers I receive from other merchants and the Flash memory stick I received recently from Neil Shearing.

Pay special affiliates a special high commissions

You know that key affiliates in key positions of influence are very valuable. Pay them accordingly. Don’t embarrass them by forcing them to ask for the special rate which they deserve.

Residual commissions and two-tier commissions also win favor with affiliates.

However, don’t assume that a high commission alone will be enough. You have to get everything else right, too.

Before you launch a two-tier program, ask yourself if there are affiliates in key places of influence who are likely to want to recommend your program to other affiliates. If there aren’t, forget the idea.

Two-tier commissions aren’t nearly as effective as they were several years ago. This is because these days affiliates tend to switch rapidly from one program to another, always looking for something better. Instead of having two tiers you might be better to pay one large commission.

However, affiliates are always going to be interested in earning residual income or lifetime commissions. I can’t imagine them ever going out of fashion.

Let them buy at discount prices

Give all your affiliates favored treatment. Give them special discount prices. However, don’t allow them to buy your products through their own referral links. That’s not fair to the affiliate who sent them to your site.

Provide individual product links

If you sell more than one product, provide individual product links. Don’t force your affiliates to link only to the main page of your site.

Mention loyal affiliates at affiliate marketing conferences

Give them a warm glow. Use their site as an example in your presentation. I love it at conferences when speakers recommend AssociatePrograms.com to the crowd.

Learn from your inactive affiliates

Do a survey of your inactive affiliates. Ask them what is wrong. Until you know why they’re inactive, you won’t know what to fix.

Inactive affiliates and under-performers could be next month’s or next year’s winners.

Learn from your best affiliates

You’ll probably receive a far more useful response if you ask your loyal super affiliates how to improve your program. Many of these winners will know the best features of the best affiliate programs on the Net. They’ll be happy to give you useful tips on how to improve your program.

Study what your top affiliates do

You’ll probably find that they’re earning money in all sorts of creative ways you’ve never thought of. Their knowledge can help your affiliates earn more.

Make affiliates feel part of your team.

Find ways to build a sense of community. Consider setting up a forum for your affiliates. However, be aware that this can be very time-consuming. You don’t want to have your forum ruined by a disgruntled former affiliate. Don’t start one unless you have someone available to moderate it.

Visit your affiliates’ sites

Here’s a good tip from Joel Gehman.

“We have someone on our affiliate marketing team personally visit the site of every super affiliate every month. All super affiliates get a personal email with specific comments and suggestions. We offer tips on which links are performing best and propose new placements on the site for our links. We also try to broaden the depth of the affiliate’s relationship with our program by suggesting new products or services for possible inclusion.”

Add new items automatically

When you add a new product to your product line, make sure your affiliates are rewarded when someone they refer buys that product. Don’t force your affiliates to sign up individually every time you launch a new product.

I love it when I see in my stats that I’m earning commissions from the sale of a product that they havebn’t even started promoting.

Piggy-back on the winners

Some affiliate merchants provide excellent resources for their affiliates. Encourage your affiliates to sign up with those merchants and learn from their tips. You can even earn a commission when your affiliates make sales in those programs while learning how to help you - and saving you time!

An excellent place to start is: SiteSell.

Imagine you’re an affiliate

See things from the affiliates’ point of view. Visit the Associate Programs Affiliate Forum and read what affiliates complain about. They’re worried about lack of response to emails, late payments, bait-and-switch tactics, high payment thresholds, low payouts.

Do whatever you can to avoid those mistakes, or your affiliates will dump you fast.

Don’t send them junk. Every time you contact your affiliates, sending them something useful, such as new artwork, a search box, top-performing links, search engine hints, and other tips on how to maximize their earnings.

Now that you’re imagining you’re an affiliate, have another look at your affiliate agreement. Is is fair? Would you want to sign a contract like that?

Notify them of sales

Provide immediate email notification when the affiliate makes a sale. This reinforces good behavior and encourages more sales.

Give busy affiliates the option of switching off these messages. One affiliates merchant often sends me 30 or 40 email sales notifications at once - and no way of switching these off.

Send a weekly stats report

Affiliates find it terribly time-consuming checking stats on many sites. Make it easy for them. If you provide complex stats, make sure there’s a link which gives the most important stats at a glance.

Consider emailing affiliates a weekly report of click-throughs, sales and commissions.

Pay affiliates in two ways

Consider paying them per click and a commission. For example, you could pay your best affiliates pays 5 cents per click and 20% commission on sales.

Pay affiliates for position

Persuade your top affiliates to promote you “above the fold” on their main page. Offer them 5% or 10% more if they’ll do this.

Pay them monthly - or more frequently

Don’t make your affiliates wait three months for a check. Pay them monthly - or even twice a month for your super affiliates.

Pay them promptly

After the end of the month, pay your affiliates as quickly as you possibly can. Imagine the powerful impression you’ll make if YOUR check is the first one an affiliate receives after the end of the reporting period. Paying fast shows you care about your affiliates.

Some affiliate merchants have even experimented with daily payout via PayPal. This impresses some affiliates but may not please really successful affiliates who don’t want the added “paperwork”. If you plan to pay daily, give affiliates the option of receiving monthly payouts.

Allow affiliates to set minimum payments

Affiliates in many countries have to pay hefty bank fees on U.S. commission checks. Frequent, small checks can actually annoy these affiliates.

Give them the option of setting a minimum payment amount, for example $50 or $100, to minimize their bank fees.

Avoid making silly mistakes

I know you’re in a hurry. Mistakes are understandable. However, if you make too many silly mistakes, affiliates will dump you. See Silly mistakes affiliate merchants make.

Treat your affiliates as business associates

Respect them or they’ll switch to someone who does. Don’t siphon off some of the traffic they send you to products on which they don’t earn a commission. When referred customers arrive at your site, all money-earning links on that page should earn a commission for your affiliate.

Provide real-time statistics

Serious affiliates need to know immediately whether their promotions are achieving results so they can test repeatedly, fix mistakes and maximize their sales.

Make things easy for your affiliates

They get discouraged fast. Some things are just too darn complicated for many affiliates. Keep your instructions simple and easy to understand.

Don’t have time to coach affiliates? Get expert FREE help

Ken Evoy provides more useful affiliate marketing support for his affiliates than any other affiliate merchant I know. Ken provides an incredible amount of useful information for affiliates: THREE practical newsletters, a 224-page free affiliate marketing manual, and an “80-20 Report”, and the newly revamped and enlarged “Affiliate Masters” course.

Now he’s ALSO helping affiliate merchants.

Be sure to visit the special section of SiteSell: For affiliate managers only.

I strongly recommend it.

(This is the affiliate merchant who regularly pays me four-figure and five-figure monthly commission checks. Get his expert free help now.)

It helps your affiliates while you earn substantial lifetime commissions.

By Allan Gardyne | Published 01/15/2006