Affiliate Marketing eGreetings Industry

Associates program (also termed as affiliate/referral/sponsor program) is a mutually beneficial plan offered by the merchants to encourage webmasters/publishers to use their services and generate sales in exchange for a fee or commission or some other mutual beneficial ways like sharing banners, links etc.

I am trying to sum up the key points to get a success in the affiliate program and the affiliate marketing. This affiliate marketing needs continuous innovation, planned step by step approach and patience to be succeeded.The following points should be taken care of while setting up an affiliate program.

1. Solid product and merchant site
2. Image of a trustworthy company
3. Good communication with associates
4. Regular affiliate newsletter and it should be described in the associate homepage
5. Feedback/comments section for associates
6. Offering multiple residual commission
7. It is not recommended to go for multi level marketing (MLM), paypal also does not entertain MLM as previously MLM had some adverse effect in this affiliate industry
8. Promotional material like banners should be less than 100 kb, text links are fine
9. Provide pre sales content to the associates to save their time
10. XML feed should be there, so that whenever there is a change in the main merchant site, the same should be reflected in the associate’s website also
11. Solid tracking and monitoring software should be there
12. Cookies should be set to expire in a minimum 90 days
13. Allow associates to be able to set their own custom commission thresholds
14. Use paypal-make arrangements to upload commissions in a batch file and fund a/c via cheque. This will minimize the amount the affiliate needs to pay to paypal
15. Also if possible offer a wire transfer
16. Payment regularity should be NET 30 to NET 60(30 -60 days after the sale)
17. Spam policy should be highlighted
18. Promoting affiliate programs via mail
19. Checking cookie setting function : click on one of the affiliate link supplied to you and then check your browser cache folder: Cookie:yourcomputername@merchantsite.com
20. Affiliate link should be cloaked with javascript to remove the affiliate id from view
21. Give fast response to associates and be polite to them
22. Steal ware protection should be followed.
23. Cookie or pixel tracking has some disadvantages. Scripting technology should be used for affiliate program
24. You should have an affiliate agreement
25. You should treat our affiliates as sales partner
26. Subject line should be catchy and content should be rich with links for the emails
27. Article submission in the internet database is required.
28. For managing a successful affiliate marketing program the following 5 points have to be remembered :
i) Affiliate approach
ii) Affiliate experience
iii) Program offer
iv) Link inventory
v) Affiliate marketing tools – Tracking software, resources etc
29. Ezine or short courses for affiliates are useful tool.
30. Personal testimonials of other affiliates can be a good tool for promotion of affiliate program.
31. Add a storefront - A store front is a central location to showcase all items for sale by a seller. A storefront provides the following information:
A description of the store
A store logo
Contact information including address, telephone and email
All of the products being sold by the seller
31. Advertisement in online magazines is useful for affiliate marketing
32. Give affiliates a free reward, coupon or discount.
33. Set up automated email based follow up systems that contacts associates on 3, 7, 14 and 21 days after their sign up
34. For those who do not generate traffic or sales, move them into customer loyalty program.
35. Keep fun and contest and bonus for associates
36. Contact through phone, chat and email
37. Participate in Affiliate conferences organized by CJU, Affiliate Summit or Linkshare symposium

As an example, I have come across the associates program of 123 Greetings.com Inc. This is free and not on commission basis. 123greetings.com having a gallery of more than 15,000 cards has its unique affiliate program offering webmasters to customize their greeting card site with their own logo, background, text color, and customized email notifiers.

123greetings offers their members the facility of banner sharing in the ratio of 1:1 only if they are achieving the set target of creating 50 cards per day or 350 cards per week for a continuous period of 30 days. The members can then give their advertiser’s banner code and 123greetings adds it to their card pages and members can earn good revenue from this system. This gives the webmasters a cutting edge to drive more traffic to their websites through this free content and greetings cards and it also offers regular free promotional and other internet marketing tips and resources to the webmasters to increase their card count.

Another example is the affiliate program of American greetings. It is on commission basis and on pay per sale basis. The commission range varies from 40% to 60% depending on the sales generated by the associates.