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The Top
10 Things That Turn Affiliates Off
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7 – The Affiliate Program
I hate it when I go to a product’s site, click on the link to their
affiliate program and…
…there are no
details.
[NutriSystem’s springs to mind]
Before I sign up for any program, before I bother to fill in the “join”
info and go thru the sign-up process, I want details.
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How much do I get?
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Is it a percentage or a flat
fee? Is it one time or recurring (like on a monthly membership
site)? |
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How often do I get paid?
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Every two weeks? Once a
month?
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Who runs your affiliate program?
Who pays me?
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More to the point – is it a
company that I’m familiar with (that I trust!) like ClickBank, Commission Junction, PayDotCom, etc. or do you run it yourself?
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How do I get paid?
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Do you mail me a check? Do
you offer direct deposit? Do you pay only through PayPal?
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Is there a minimum I have to
reach before I get paid?
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Some don’t have one [which makes
affiliates very happy!], for some it’s $100. We did the work –
pay us!
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Do you reward super affiliates?
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As
we saw, Marlon Sanders rewards his super affiliates by giving
them an extra 10% when their sales are above a certain level.
Reward your super affiliates. Collect their name, ID, and email
address when affiliates sign up and you’ll know who your super
affiliates are and can contact them.
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Do you offer lifetime
commissions?
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When
we bring you a customer, and that customer buys from you again or on a
regular basis, do we get rewarded for that? Not all affiliate
services do this but more and more are offering it because they know it
attracts top affiliates.
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When do the cookies expire?
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Affiliates
aren’t going to want to send you potential customers if there’s a
chance the cookie with their affiliate ID on it will expire before the
customer decides to buy. We want long-lasting cookies.
[Marlon Sanders's cookies last for 10
years!] Again, this is
probably determined by your affiliate service, but if they let you
choose a time period, opt for as long as you can.
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If I bring you more affiliates,
will you reward me for that?
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Some
programs have two tiers and give the original affiliate a percentage,
like 10%, on the sales the new affiliate brings in. (But don’t
offer multi-tiers – anything beyond two tiers screams, “Pyramid
scheme.”)
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Can I contact you?
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Will you respond?
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Do you support your
affiliates?
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In other words...
what’s in
it for me?
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So... What Do
Affiliates Want?
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An easy sign up without having to
jump through hoops |
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You to use a company we’re
familiar with (that we trust!) - CB, CJ, PDC, etc. |
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Real-time stats (Some programs do
this for you) |
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Long-lasting cookies |
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Pays ASAP |
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No minimum commission |
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Lifetime commissions |
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Rewards for super affiliates
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Two-tiers |
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To be able to contact you |
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You to be available &
supportive |
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To see an affiliate agreement |
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An Affiliate Agreement
shows you’re serious about your affiliates. Here’s an example of one.
[Note:
They have a link to their affiliate agreement at the bottom of the main
page but there’s no link to an affiliate page anywhere to be
found.]
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One of the most popular programs with affiliates is
Ken Evoy’s 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.
Here he truly supports his affiliates and reaps the rewards.
When an affiliate brings him a customer, that customer is theirs for
life, so the affiliate gets paid when the customer buys another site,
and another, and another,… plus the affiliate gets lifetime commissions
so every year when each site renews, the affiliate gets paid
again. And he offers two tiers and tons of support.
Marlon Sanders has
another popular affiliate program. It’s
written like a sales letter (he’s working it!) and tells affiliates
what’s in it for them:
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Bonuses |
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10-year cookies!!
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Live person help
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Real-time stats
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No minimum to meet to get paid
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To collect
your affiliate's name, ID & email address...
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As an affiliate, I hate it
when...
...I click on a link to go to a seller's ‘Affiliate’ page and I land on
a squeeze page and I have to fill
in my name and email address [which they will use to send me emails
trying to sell me other people's products]
before they’ll let me see their real ‘Affiliate’ page and when I
finally
do get there, there’s nothing there for me to use. <grrrrr>
Now, I'd rather hit my 'Back' button and go somewhere else than waste
my time filling those things in. |
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Instead of
forcing it out of them, bribery is a better way to get them to cough up
their info:
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Super Affiliates Earn an Extra 10%!
If
you bring in over X sales in a month, you'll get an extra 10% on top of
your XX% commission!
But you have to enter your info below to qualify:
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Set your form up so that it sends
the info to your autoresponder. That way, you'll know who
your super
affiliates are so you can reward them, and you'll also be able to email
all of your affiliates any time you want.
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| Don't let them forget
about you! Try to email them at least once a month.
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More Tips:
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Newbies,
like someone who just bought your product, won’t know what an
“affiliate” is or how this works so explain it to them in a way that’s
easy for them to understand.
More
affiliates means more sales for you. 
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Affiliates
can transform your business and take you from wherever you are right
now to
sitting on some luxurious, tropical beach sipping frozen cocktails with
little umbrellas in them while ungodly amounts of money are being
stuffed into your bank account, so it pays to treat your affiliates
like an asset, not a pain in your @ss.
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Affiliates
talk. If one affiliate starts raving about how fabulous your
affiliate program is in an affiliate forum, you better believe you’ll
be flooded with new affiliates almost immediately, and more affiliates
means more business for you. But if one bad-mouths you in an
affiliate forum (like the time your grandmother was sick and you forgot
to send your affiliates their checks), lots of other affiliates will
see their post and you’ll soon find your affiliates are dropping like
flies.
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If
you’re running your own program, know that affiliates keep a watchful
eye on the number of visitors they send to you so if the commissions
you report they earned don’t jive with what they think they should be,
they’ll stop sending you business (and bad-mouth you in forums).
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Stay in
touch – not to the point where it’s annoying but don’t let us forget
about you either. Coming out with a new product? Tell
us! We can build so much excitement around it, you’ll have a
widely successful launch. Did you have a copywriter write fresh
copy for your website? Tell us! Did you add new tools to
your affiliate page? Tell us!
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The
Top 10 Things That Turn Affiliates Off
On to # 8…
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