Present: Special Projects; Past: Co-founder & Head of Corporate Development @ Squaredance
The fastest way to kill all momentum in your affiliate program is to launch them on every affiliate platform or network. The concept of scarcity is an effective tactic with your customers—why wouldn't it be the same with your affiliate partners? The goal is to make your campaign so desirable that affiliates seek you out. When every AM in the industry pitches affiliate partners on your campaigns, the opportunity with you becomes a commodity and less desirable. Control your own narrative, and remember, exclusivity is a compelling incentive that fosters growth and loyalty. #affiliatemarketing #affiliate #shopify #ecommerce
Great point that isn’t talked about enough. It’s also important to note that some of the biggest offers in the industry were the result of a Network investing a ton of time and capital in helping the brand succeed by developing highly competitive funnels, offers, creatives etc for them and affiliates. Without exclusivity, it removes the incentive/benefit (and increases risk) for them to do that. This also makes the offer as a whole undesirable when it doesn’t have the necessary pieces for high RPV and scale for affiliates.
Faster than having a campaign that isn’t converting?
Where to find your affiliate program ?
In my verticals the biggest issue is that stopped subaffiliated jump from network to network, and if you work with 100 networks they jump 100 times with their Low Quality traffic 😅more jumps than house of pain or kriss kross.
17 years in the industry and this is 100% accurate. I could never understand why an advertiser/ merchant would want to work with with multiple partners. More partners does not equal more money! It’s that simple. Here are 10 things to think about when looking for the right partner and setting up your affiliate channel. 1. pick 1-3 really good partners, I can name them all for you. There aren’t many. 2. Provide them with everything they need to be successful- content, creative, a strong offering, etc… 3.Allow them to go to work for you. The good platforms / networks will know the right partners to reach out to. 4. Go deep, not wide. 5. Educate them on your busiesss. You will be surprised how much more value a good partner can bring when they understand your business and how you make money. 6. Ensure you have the right CPA / CPL, they will know better than you. So ask for advise and take it. 7. Don’t get impatient. Sales don’t always happen over night. 8. Don’t limit their ability to buy media. It’s impossible to target every customer unless your product is super niche. Open all channels. 9. Relationships generally take work, so work with your partner. 10. Back to point 1, like friends pick affiliate partners wisely.
Completely agreed. For years now, I have been a massive fan of finding the right platform for your program in terms of tools, target affiliate saturation in your targeted markets and philosophy and leaning hard into becoming a power user of that platform vs taking a shotgun approach with platforms/networks. More than anything, that strategy doesn't scale well and you can definitely run into issues with deduping orders, etc. Unless there's a really compelling reason to open up on another platform like accessing a new audience that can't be reached effectively otherwise, I'll always stick to one primary partnership platform.
Launching an affiliate program on every platform is not a smart strategy, but there is value in working with a handful of platforms/networks based on the type of affiliates they specialize in. Having a sound strategy and being able to know the strengths of each network is key to program growth
Exclusivity adds allure. Launching everywhere dilutes the appeal. How can we make affiliate partnerships coveted assets, not just another offer in the mix?
Affiliate & Partner Marketing Leader
10moI'm not sure I'm ready to buy this. I'd be open to hearing it teased out more, but if I might, let me offer an alternative perspective: Some affiliate platforms, whether by origin or by intention, tend to attract certain kinds of affiliates. Still others tend to be pretty far-reaching, and their "average" affiliate isn't really notably distinct from the industry average. An example of the former might be infoproduct affiliates on Clickbank or B2B affiliates on Partnerstack. On the other hand, many affiliates do have a favorite platform to use, for better or worse. You've got to remember that many platforms put a considerable amount of effort into drawing publishers and advertisers alike to their platform. So, is an affiliate more likely to promote my brand if I'm on his favorite network as opposed to if I'm not? I'd wager he is. Now, I do agree that scarcity or exclusivity can be useful, even if there have indeed been successful affiliate programs that have not focused on it. But I think there might be better ways to do it than to limit the platform you're on.