| Its hard to have a discussion
about affiliate programs without mentioning Amazon.com. They are
considered to be the pioneers of affiliate programs. And with over
300,000 affiliates, its hard to argue that point.
But affiliate programs are
changing. Many, many companies are realizing that the best way to
sell products and services on the Internet is to recruit
affiliates. Along with this comes a form of competition. Affiliate
program managers want you to sell their products, not the products
of their competitors. How do they make sure that you stick with
them and not defect to the other side? They do their best to make
their program more attractive to you.
There are many ways to make a
program more attractive to potential affiliates. They can offer a
higher percentage of the profits, and/or they can offer more
benefits. Benefits can come in many forms, but the topic of this
discussion will be the benefits that come from the way sales and
visitors are tracked.
Let's bring Amazon.com back into
the limelight for a minute. They are huge...everyone knows about
them...everyone knows that you can create a site, add some good
content, bring in a highly targeted audience, and sell them books!
Simple enough...create a site with a good topic, drive traffic to
it, send them to Amazon, and get rich. But...its been tried
before...and guess what...not that many of those 300,000
affiliates even earn enough to get the minimum $25 check in the
mail every quarter.
Why? Is it because you have
299,999 competitors out there selling Amazon.com books just like
you are? I'm sure that plays a part, but the real reason is the
way you are credited for a sale. You work hard to create a website
full of content, and work even harder to promote it and bring
visitors to your site. Then, what do you do with that coveted
visitor? You wisk them off to Amazon to become their life-long
customer, and never to return to your site again!
That may not seem fair to you,
but can you complain? They give you a whopping 5% of the sale,
maybe even 15% on some of the books if you are lucky. Or, worse
yet, they bookmark Amazon.com, and go back to buy the books
tomorrow and you don't even get the 5%. Either way they are gone.
That precious visitor that could have been a life-long customer of
yours is now off to Amazon.com. They will buy a book or two to
test out the process. Then after their books arrive, they will
merrily open up their browser and type in http://www.amazon.com
and spend their entire paycheck buying books.
How much do you get from this
return visit? Well, it WAS your visitor after all, right?
Unfortunately every penny of that visitor's paycheck will fall
into Amazon's pocket. Of course you have to feel sorry for Amazon,
though. They aren't making any money after all (violin music
playing in the background).
What happened? The same that
happens with many affiliate programs. You get paid per click, per
lead, or per sale. From that point on, they own that customer.
But I'm happy to report that
times are changing! Companies are starting to look for better ways
to compensate their affiliates for referring customers to them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not
condemning affiliate programs...my entire site is dedicated to the
topic. I just want you to know that some companies are starting to
look at new methods of rewarding you for sending them customers.
After all, you are a salesman for them. How many brick-and-mortar
companies do you know of that will have a salesperson make a sale,
pay them their commission, and then never pay them another cent
for future business from that same customer?
Why should the Internet be any
different? It shouldn't...and program administrators are finally
figuring that out.
There are many companies that
will track the visitor that came from your site, and credit you
for the sale even if they don't purchase something until the next
day, or week, or month. Others will make that visitor your
lifetime customer. If they come back two years later and buy
something, you will get a commission for that.
A good example of this is Ken
Evoy's 5 Pillar Affiliate Program. If you sell one of your
visitors a copy of his book: "Make Your Site Sell!"( http://www.sitesell.com/helpmakemy.html
), you will not only get a commission for that sale, you will also
get a percentage of all future sales from that customer, no matter
what product or service they purchase.
A new idea being offered by
companies such as TTA Superstores ( http://affiliatematch.com/ttasuperstores
), is to allow your visitors to buy products without ever leaving
your site. This means that the visitor has the time to spend on
YOUR site, and get to know what excellent content you have to
offer, and to hopefully return to YOUR site for future purchases.
This concept allows you to sell
products such as magazines, gifts, luggage, hats, cooking
accessories from your site, without having to give up the customer
that you worked so hard to get.
Here is an example of the power
of this idea: I have a site that gives tips and hints for those
hoping to become Microsoft Certified. An excellent product for me
to sell from that site is books. Everyone studying for this
certification will need books at some point or another to help
them pass the exams. They come to my site for information, and I
sell them a couple of books while they are there. Does pretty well
for me, but can I quit my day job? Not exactly. I get a great deal
of traffic...highly targeted traffic at that.
I should be rich! I'm not.
Problem is, they visit my site, I do my best to sell them on the
idea that they will need books to help them study for the exams,
then I send them off to Amazon, and they're gone. If I'm lucky,
they might remember my site when they get ready for their next
exam. But chances are that they will still have the Amazon
shipping box sitting on their desk, and will go directly to them
to purchase the additional books.
So what can you do about it? Look
for programs that will compensate you for future sales, or give
you credit for the sale the next day, or month after they first
visited them from your site. Or, look for programs that allow you
to sell products directly from your site, without the visitor ever
having to leave.
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