If you’re planning to start your own affiliate program, or have a program with flat performance, you may ask yourself “What is a good merchant?”. What do super affiliates look for when they’re ready to sign up with a new merchant? One aspect they look for is whether or not the merchant is serious about their program. Many merchants would answer this challenge by stating of course they’re serious or they wouldn’t want to start their own affiliate program. Well, you may think you’re serious but will potential affiliates think you’re serious? To help determine if a merchant is serious, affiliates will examine you, your site, your business, your program and even some of your current affiliates, if you have any yet.

Let’s start with you. How long have you been in your current field of work? Do you have experience marketing or selling products online? Affiliates, like any other business, want a ROI for their efforts. If you can’t close the sale with the referred leads then affiliates will look elsewhere for a merchant. If you don’t have the experience, you need to have some key talent on your staff that does have this experience. If you worked out your closing ratio, and you should by now, be prepared to provide this information.

Does your site look professional? This is also important as a professional site gains more trust from potential customers and affiliates alike. Your site needs to have easy navigation, be intuitive and work consistently. Your shopping cart should function as expected, without errors. If the general public won’t buy from your site, top affiliates won’t want to buy into your program. Make sure this is in order before you announce your affiliate program.

How long have you been business? Is the business successful or does it have a track record of starting new ventures and then closing them after a couple years? Potential affiliates want stability and will shy away from merchants who they don’t think will be around for long. Your business needs to be as credible and trustworthy as your website. A killer website and 10 years of online experience aren’t much help if your company has a track record of bad service and not paying commissions due affiliates.

What kind of shape is your affiliate program in? Do you use a respectable third-party network provider or an in-house program? Using a third-party network can offer some credibility to your program but there are also some super affiliates who won’t work with the largest 2 networks. An in-house program can also be successful if you, your site, your program and your business can gain the trust of potential affiliates. How does your commission stack up with your competitors? Your cookie life should be respectable, so avoid the urge to go with 1 day or 7 days. A minimum of 30 days is good and 90 days is even better so give some serious thought to this. Have someone dedicated to managing your program. After all, like your business, you get out what you put in. Unanswered emails and phone calls, unresolved issues, lack of promotions and general inaccessibility can all kill your chances of success.

Lastly, how can your current affiliates affect your recruiting efforts for new affiliates? Plenty. Thanks to the growing number of parasites, loyalty and reward affiliates, browser helper object (BHO) and rebate sites out there many top producing affiliates will look to see who you have on your team. If they think their commissions can be diverted by any of the above, say good-bye to your chance of getting them to sign up. These type of programs can “divert” upwards of 20-30% of commissions from other affiliates. Given that, why would a super affiliate be willing to work hard and lose 20-30% of his or her commissions? Would you work hard for a certain company only to have 20-30% of your commissions paid to someone else? If you have affiliates and popular products to sell and don’t know if you have any parasite, BHO, rebate, reward and loyalty affiliates you may chasing away affiliates and not even know it. For more information about this topic, see the entry titled “Know Your Affiliates”, click here.

The bottom line in all of this is simple; but serious effort into being a “Good Merchant” and you’re much more likely to enjoy the type of affiliate program that most merchants never see. It all comes down to a win-win, it needs to be good for you and good for your affiliates. There’s plenty of competition out there and the top producing affiliates have limited resources. So, why should they choose you?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.