Affiliate Management Software

• Why Should I Start My Own Affiliate Program?
• What Are the Advantages of Having An Affiliate Program?
• Are There Any Problems that I Need to Worry About?
• What Do Affiliates Look At When Choosing a Program?
• What Affiliates Watch Out For -
• What Affiliates Consider Warning Signs
• Is There Anything I Should Do Before Buying Management Software?
• What Should An Affiliate Management Software Do?

Affiliate Program Management Software is so designed to reduce the amount of time and work required to manage an Affiliate Program.Operating a successful Affiliate Program requires significant amount of work and maintenance. Having a successful Affiliate Program is much more difficult now than when Affiliate Marketing was just emerging. It is rare indeed for an affiliate program to generate considerable revenue with poor management or no management at all.

Therefore, it is essential to invest in Affiliate Management Software.

Increased Market Exposure -
Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com was the first to successfully implement the Affiliate Partnership Model. This was back in 1996. Today there are very few places on the planet that hasn't heard of Amazon.com. Affiliate Marketing has proven itself to be a very successful way of increasing exposure on the Internet.

Enlist An Army of Professionals -
An Professional Affiliate Marketer is not someone who just throws a bunch of banners on her/his site and then stands by the mailbox waiting for the checks to come. Affiliate Marketing is a business and like any business much thought and research is involved to achieve success.

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What Are the Advantages of Having An Affiliate Program?

The advantages are many and I'll list a few here -

• You Pay Only For Performance -
  You pay only when a visitor buys something or performs any wanted activity such as signing up to your site. Your Affiliate Partner knows this and will put every effort into PreSelling your visitor before sending her/him to you.

  Affiliate Management Software allows you to automate commissions giving you more time to focus on tour core business.

• Your Affiliate Partners Provide Awesome Feedback -
  Affiliate Marketing is a service oriented business and if the customer is not satisfied, then there is no business. So by listening to any praise or concern that your Affiliate Partner shares with you is real time data that you can use to increase sales.

  Affiliate Management Software usually comes with a mailing function making it easier to keep your Affiliate Partners up to date on any new products or services, and any price changes.

• The Visibility of Your Site Will Improve Because of In-Bound Links -
  In-bound and Out-bound links are just 2 of the hundreds of parameters that Search Engines use to determine Rank, and having in-bound links from quality Affiliate Sites certainly wouldn't hurt. The Affiliate Professional knows that these links are important, therefore they will only seek out only the best companies to do business with.

  Locally hosted Affiliate Management Software automatically creates SEO inbound links from your Affiliate's Websites, thereby increasing the popularity of your site.

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Are There Any Problems that I Need to Worry About?

As with any business there are some things that need to be watched out for;

The Loose Affiliate Program -
a Loose Affiliate Program is a program that is poorly managed or more often, not managed at all. This is an open invitation for Rouge Affiliates to enter into the game. Rouge Affiliates can damage your brand in a number of ways.

• They can steal content from another site and place your banners and links on it.
• They can conduct mass spamming campaigns and place your name on it.
• They can perform cookie stuffing to steal the commission from legitimate Affiliates and creating false referrals to your website.
• They can engage in False Advertisement thereby damaging your Brand.
• Typosquating, which is different than Domain Parking in that the unsuspecting web surfer is redirected to a totally unrelated site – usually a porn site. The FBI has reported a dramatic increase of redirection going to child pornagraphy.

The Affiliate Industry has organized themselves to fight this kind of abuse. The result was Code of Conduct by Commission Junction/beFree and Performics, LinkShare's Anti-Predatory Advertising Addendum, and ShareASale's complete ban of software applications as a medium for affiliates to promote advertiser offers.

Affiliate Management Software provides you with the tools to keep rouge affiliates out of your Affiliate Program.

Publisher Recruitment -
Many companies believe that if they have an Affiliate Program people will rush in to sign up. In the real world, especially in the beginning, you will have to be actively engaged in recruitment. Here are some suggestions;

• Software-
  There is software – often free – that can help you to find Affiliates that are already working with competing Affiliate Programs, or are working in a niche that you wish to occupy.

  Arelis and LinkCapture can be helpful if used properly. After receiving contact information don't rush out and send 1000 E-mails asking if they want to join, this is still called spamming. Instead go to their sites and research to see if you want them to recommending your product or service. If so then get in contact with them with a personalized request.

• Search Engines -
  You could also use search engines to prospect for Affiliates.

Some companies don't want their Affiliates to bid on their Keywords, while others actively encourage it. This is a decision that you will have to make on your own.

Sales Tax Vulnerability -
In April 2008 the State of New York inserted an item in the state budget asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to residents of New York, based on the existence of affiliate links from New York–based websites to Amazon. The state asserts that even one such affiliate constitutes Amazon having a business presence in the state, and is sufficient to allow New York to tax all Amazon sales to state residents. Amazon challenged the amendment and lost at the trial level in January, 2009. The case is currently making its way through the New York appeals courts.

This will set a precedence for other states to follow.

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What Do Affiliates Look At When Choosing a Program?

Affiliates look for -

• High quality product or service -
  The Affiliate is giving her/his recommendation, so the quality of the product or service must be high. The Affiliates reputation is at stake.
• The Merchant should have a good site that sells effectively -
  It's all about conversion rates. If the Merchant creates a poor image then I don't want to waste my time working with them.
• The Affiliate should be able to link directly to the product being offered -
  If the customer is only allowed to land on the home page and then has to look around for the desired product, then the conversion rate will be down.
• Good Affiliate Support -
  The Affiliate is working hard to promote your products. It is in your interest to take care of your business partners.
• Pays a Good Commission -
  It worries me if the commission is high. It leads me to investigate to see if the cost of your product is too high and/or the quality is low. A good rule of thumb is 10% for hard goods and 20% for E-goods.
• Must Be Free (no charge) to Join -
  It amazes me that there are merchants out there that feel that I should pay for the privilege to work for them.
• Lifetime Commission -
  The way that Affiliates make a living promoting is to build residual income. If I had to choose between Lifetime Commission and a limited commission – I'd choose lifetime.
• 2 Tier Commission -
  Again, I want to build residual income.
• Monthly Payment With Reasonable Minimum -

What Affiliates Watch Out For -

• Slow or No Support -
  This tells me where their priorities are, not with their partners.
• Unethical Behavior of Any Kind -
  They won't be in business long.
• Reports of Late (or Lacking) Payments -
  I'm not going to waste my time there.
• Allow Spam or Seem to Spam Themselves -
  You have got to be kidding me!
• Slow to Condemn or Even Support The Use of Scumware -
  I guess they don't want me working for them.
• Defective Affiliate Joining Process -
  Hey – If they can't get this right...
• Clauses in The Agreement That Are Unacceptable -

What Affiliates Consider Warning Signs -

• Pay Per Click Compensation -
  This is actually a good compensation model, AdSense has been quite successful using it. The problem is that it is so easy to abuse that many merchants either throw in the towel, or switch to another compensation model.
• Multi-Tier Commission -
  This is called MLM and it is perfectly legal and an Affiliate can earn a good living from this compensation model. But if the game is just to bring in more people, then you have a pyramid scheme.
• Poor Spelling and/or Grammar -
  What? No spell check?
• Dead Links on Merchant's Site -
  Ok, so who's minding the store?
• No Clear Anti-Spamming Policy Visible on Merchant's Site -
  Are they condoning It?
• Site That Promotes “Get-Rich-Quick” Gimmicks -
  Listen, I know there's a sucker born every minute...

Affiliate Management Software will generate Affiliate and Administrative reports helping you and your Associates stay on top of your Affiliate Program.

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Is There Anything I Should Do Before Buying Affiliate Management Software?

Yes, there are 2 things that I advise you to do.

• Market Test Your Product or Services -
  If you don't know how your product should be marketed, then you won't be able to communicate this to the Affiliate. This could lead to Hype. If so, then you could find yourself in a position of “Over Promising and Under Delivering” and this would definitely damage your Brand.

Ask Yourself before you buy Affiliate Management Software -


• Do you want to replicate your whole site?
• Do you want to simply give the Affiliate a personal, unique ID and track their referrals?
• Do you want to pay Affiliates by actual sales, clicks, or leads?
• Do you sell Hard Goods, E-Goods, or Services?
• Do you want your Affiliates to market all your Goods and Services, or just some?
• Do you only want to pay the Affiliate who actually made the sale? Or do you want to build a 2-Tier system?
• Do you want International Affiliates, or only from your own country?
• Do you want to pay a percentage of the sale, or do you want to pay a flat rate?

What Should An Affiliate Management Software Do?

In order to run a successful affiliate program, it is crucial to have the right software for the task. Affiliate tracking software is very complex as it needs to perform a variety of roles:

• Affiliate link generation
• Cookie setting
• Commission calculation
• Banner/Text link display
• Affiliate reporting
• Administration reporting
• Multi-tier calculations
• Payment processing
• Mailing functions
• Anti-fraud functions

There are many affiliate management software and commission tracking software products and services available. They can be summarized in the following categories.

Locally Hosted Affiliate Management Software -
This is software that you buy and are licensed to use on your own server. The advantages are that there are no monthly fees and you are in complete control. Make sure to read the fine print, also make sure that your server meets the minimum requirements.

The costs for Locally Hosted Affiliate Management Software can from a couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand. Some offers include allowing you to remotely host your program on their servers for a low monthly fee.

Remotely Hosted Affiliate Management Software (merchant administers) -
This is software located on a 3rd party server. Remotely Hosted Software is a good solution if you don't own a server, or you don't want to bother with maintenance.

The Remote Host often provides good service and good tips to creating and running your Affiliate Program.

The fees are reasonable – usually under $100 per month. I've seen it as low as $30 per month. The advantages are that you won't have to share your profits.

3rd Party Affiliate Tracking and Management -
These are Affiliate Networks such as Commission Junction (now owned by ValueClick), LinkShare or Performics. They handle all the tracking, money and Affiliate Recruitment.

These companies charge a few thousand dollars to get your Affiliate Program established, plus they collect a hefty percentage of each transaction.

The advantage of using Affiliate Networks is that you don't have to worry about your Affiliate Program and can concentrate on your core business.

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