This post was provided by a guest contributor to TUNE.
A couple years ago, I was an affiliate of a skincare company when I received an unexpected call from my affiliate manager. He told me they had a bug in their tracking that was over-reporting the sales we generated by 15%. We were pulling in $10,000 a day in commissions from them, so let’s just say that he had my attention.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s our error and we know you use our reporting to optimize your campaigns. We’ll fix it and pay you all the over-reported commissions.”
We thanked them for comping us the ghost conversions and went on to generate over $1,000,000 more in real commissions as their affiliate. This skincare company ran a fantastic affiliate program and in the anecdote above, they employed the golden rule of affiliate management: “Keep your super affiliates happy.”
You may be wondering how we connected with this skincare affiliate program in the first place. Well, we use a tool called oDigger (which we built and own) to find new affiliate programs to work with. oDigger is an affiliate offer search engine and a simple search for “skincare” returns all the skincare related affiliate offers along with a link to sign up to each affiliate program.
Every day, thousands of affiliates use oDigger to search for new affiliate programs to work with. oDigger is the largest affiliate program directory in the industry and affiliate programs powered by TUNE are super easy to list on oDigger.
If your affiliate program is listed on oDigger, chances are a super affiliate has already stumbled across your page. So how do you hook a super affiliate and get them to reach out?
10 Elements Super Affiliates Look For in an Affiliate Program:
1. Clear, crisp landing pages and creative.
The quality of your landing pages is paramount, and a super affiliate can instantly tell a winner from loser. Make sure to continually optimize your landing pages for conversions. Super affiliates will notice and come knocking.
2. A great reputation.
There are many affiliate network review sites (oDigger included) so there is no excuse for not taking control of your brand image. Get your affiliates to leave you good reviews. Even a couple will pay off.
3. Consistent, on-time payments.
If you are late with even one payment, you may lose us. Sorry, your competitors pay us (as affiliates) on time. You should too.
4. A clear competitive advantage.
Every affiliate network says they have great support, highest payouts, reporting, etc. To get a super affiliate’s attention you need to be clear about what your competitive advantage is. Do you do one niche better than anyone else? Do you have exclusives? Are your landing pages converting really well? Communicate a different competitive advantage from the rest and it will pay dividends.
5. A strong rewards program.
We worked with one network for years because they issued prepaid gift cards based on commissions generated. We loved getting those little envelopes in the mail.
6. Brand bidding.
If you don’t let a super affiliate bid on your brand we will never work with you.
7. Quick communication.
Super affiliates will constantly bombard you with requests (changes to landing pages, banners etc). If we have to wait to get approval from the advertiser then we’ll lose interest (and money).
8. Transparency.
Super affiliates thrive on knowledge so share everything with us. If you need us to sign an NDA, no problem. We’ll both make more money if we put our heads together.
9. Niche domination.
If an affiliate program specializes in a niche (gaming, diet, payday, etc) and brings exclusive expertise to the table, I’ll notice.
10. Direct line to advertiser.
Super affiliates prefer to work directly with an advertiser because it means clean communication, fast turnaround times on updates and no middleman taking a piece of the commission.
If you want to turn your affiliate program from a ghost town to a thriving bustling commission center, use the guidelines above and always remember to abide by the golden rule of affiliate management: keep your super affiliates happy!
Want one more golden rule story? Several years ago we were working with an affiliate network called MarketLeverage and an advertiser stiffed them on a big invoice. We had been promoting the advertiser and MarketLeverage owed us $xx,xxx. MarketLeverage paid us our commissions even though they themselves didn’t get paid. We continued working with them and went on to become their number two affiliate in terms of gross conversions.
Partner the way you want to with the TUNE Partner Marketing Platform, the industry’s most flexible SaaS solution for managing marketing partnerships across mobile and web. Request a demo or trial today.
Author
Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she led a variety of marketing and communications projects at San Francisco startups. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After living nearly a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned to her home of Charleston, SC, where you can find her enjoying the sun and salt water with her family.
Why would you allow them to brand bid? What value does that add?
Brand related keywords convert really well so if you want affiliates to promote your program, they’re going to want to be able to bid on your brand.
Many advertisers say “But if I allow affiliates to bid on my brand name, it drives the cost of my brand keywords up and makes my own internal advertising efforts more expensive.”
Yes, this is true. But if this is an issue then you need to reflect on whether affiliate marketing should be a core part of your sales and growth strategy.
10. Direct line to advertiser. Super affiliates prefer to work directly with an advertiser because it means clean communication, fast turnaround times on updates and no middleman taking a piece of the commission.
If you are late with even one payment, you may lose us. Sorry, your competitors pay us (as affiliates) on time. You should tooWe thanked them for comping us the ghost conversions and went on to generate over $1,000,000 more in real commission
fantastic affiliate program and in the anecdote above, they employed the golden rule of affiliate management: “Keep your super affiliates happy”.
Search is not the only way for affiliates to add value. Content is king, and working closely with great affiliates to create compelling content can also yield amazing results.
What value does that add?
I agree with all of the above but Search is not the only way for affiliates to add value. Content is king, and working closely with great affiliates to create compelling content can also yield amazing results.
Mark – thanks for the quality article man! Q: what are Top 3 tracking platform do super affiliates today prefer to work with?
Hey Rob, we love working with HasOffers. They have a robust technology, first class team and are making big strides in mobile.
Good to know Mark, thanks – and good to connect w you on Linkedin – RR
Mark – but what value are they actually adding to the merchant? The merchant has built the brand. Not the affiliate.Anyone searching for a brand knows what they are looking for. It’s therefore a sale that a merchant would have got anyway – not an incremental sale.
No wonder he’s making 250k a month . He’s stealing sales that merchants would have got anyway!
All things equal, some affiliates are better at marketing and driving sales than the merchant is. For example, the skincare merchant I mentioned in the article allowed us to brand bid and the sales funnel we created generated a higher volume of conversions than they generated internally.
When a merchant leverages affiliate marketers to drive conversions they are essentially outsourcing their marketing and hedging their risk by predetermining costs and margins.
If the merchant has a strong internal marketing department that can drive sales online and beat the cost of commissions to affiliates, then I would not advise allowing affiliates to brand bid.
It all depends on what the merchant’s marketing strategy is. A strong affiliate marketing program works well for some merchants and not for others.
As an affiliate manager for a merchant I’m not going to let you brand bid.
I agree with most of your other points but letting someone brand bid is just stupid.
Peter: “Mark – but what value are they actually adding to the merchant?”
Not all merchants know how to drive traffic; that’s why they use affiliates. It’s not always about adding value, sometimes the merchant just wants more sales.
Matt: “I agree with most of your other points but letting someone brand bid is just stupid.”
That depends on who you mean by ‘someone’. Many merchants run their own in-house campaigns and DO brand bid; by not allowing it, they are reducing competition as they just don’t want affiliates to compete with them.
Hey Matt, it depends on the merchant, their marketing strategy and who is allowed to brand bid.
Some affiliates are excellent at driving sales and the merchant will make more profit by outsourcing their marketing talent. The affiliate takes on all the risk and advertising spend because the merchant already knows the profit margins they will earn off affiliate sales.
I should clarify that I would never recommend opening up brand bidding to all affiliates. That would create a zoo. Rather, give select affiliates who you know can push volume permission to brand bid.
Also keep in mind that other affiliates who are working for the competition will probably be bidding on your brand. So it’s always good to have your own super affiliate ally writing ads, sucking clicks away from the competition and driving sales for your product.
Awesome article. One tiny piece of information missing was to do with your “best month”. You made $405K but how much did you spend in marketing to get that volume of sales? I’d really like to know because quite simply, I’m fascinated.
Thanks.
Our net profit margins were generally in between 35% – 70% depending on the affiliate program and time of year.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72f63e6a8f51e029d21407b6846aea676488ec2b06cbca7b3ac7fe88a45bcf22.jpg , what should do to not be flagged? what should do to get support from facebook and google fastest when u have the campaign ads. what should do set up fastest, spend 5$ per day and unlimited
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6. Brand bidding. If you don’t let a super affiliate bid on your brand we will never work with you.
Yes, and that will guarantee that any content affiliate who knows what they are doing and would actually bring in new customers and additional sales wouldn’t go near your affiliate program.
Hey Mark,
I own a few offers and I am trying to understand the affiliate business. Maybe one day I can make 5% of your commissions 🙂
Would you mind giving me some tips on how to start?
Thanks!
Hi Guido, Bit late in the day so you’ll probably never get this but on the off chance you do how did you fair? I own a fantastic offer myself and I’m in the same position as you were 3 years ago.
Mark, how can I contact you? I am marketing manager that would like to make cooperation with you.
hey mark can you give names of coupon codes affiliate networks ?
Is there any risk in affiliate marketing? What are the tips beginner should know to have success in this field?
great article, our offer LottoRevenues.com is not yet on hasoffers affiliate platform, but rather a different premium software, does it mean we can’t join ODigger?
I’d add to #8 “Transparency and Professionalism”. I recently started an Affiliate Program Directory http://www.AffiliateLister.com and I’m amazed at how rude some of these small business / affiliate program managers can be… I can only hope they treat their affiliates and super affiliates with more of a professional flare.
http://www.emfurn.com is currently accepting affiliates. payout per sale is pretty good.
http://www.bizprofits.com/
We are top heath and beauty affiliate program.
We offer up to $50 CPA/50% rev share.
We support our affiliates 24/7, providing reports and all needed tolls for product promotion.
my contacts: [email protected]
Skype: seanbizprofits
I help turn regular affiliates into super affiliates.
Top Binary Options affiliate program with CPAs starting at $175 and going much higher with quality and volume of traffic.
Contact me for details or sign up here:
http://affiliates.rushbucks.com/signup_affiliate/68
I agree with all of the above but Search is not the only way for
affiliates to add value. Content is king, and working closely with great
affiliates to create compelling content can also yield amazing results.
GFURN
We are looking forward affiliate marketers for our design & development business. Good commission. Interested people please contact us.
Dear Davidson,
I am doing a research paper on affiliate marketing from the advertiser point of view. I have a couple of questions that you might be able to answer.
1. Existing tools that will help finding the most suitable affiliates for the advertiser? This tool is often demanded by many advertisers and I doubt that it exists.
2. Whats your opinion on affiliate fraud?
3. Are there any tools for advertisers, other than BrandVerity, to monitor keyword bidding?
Thank you very much for your time.
, what should do to not be flagged? what should do to get support from facebook and google fastest when u have the campaign ads. what should do set up fastest, spend 5$ per day and unlimited
Rent Facebook account for Advertising Facebook Advertising is more popular in the world and bring to businessman a lot of benefits. You want to increase your revenue, but your Google account is limited. Your Advertising account can not spend a lot of money. Your account do not have high level covering. Whether you have trouble with your account and need supporting? If you do not know who can contact and how? …….. You are needing an reliable account to run Facebook Advertising.
I run Facebook Account but GG account also have more benefit ., it can spend 5000$ per day and more, and it run 500,000$ now, it is running continue
We are prenium partner of Google and Facebook.
Recommend rental Business facebook and google Advertising account. Provide with low price & high qualities.Contact to me: My skype : Piemary16894/dothimai16894
Thank you so much!!!