Amount of Under Performing Affiliates?

[Rob_TID]

For those of you who run merchant programs, I was wondering how many of your affiliates actually perform?

We are getting between 5 and 10% of our to make regular sales.

How about you?

 

[Lisa76]

Hi Rob,

We are at about 10-15%. Anywhere between 5 and 15% is pretty normal.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yep in our biz its not the 80/20 rule but more like the 90/10 or 95/5 rule.
I think like Lisa said most programs run in the 5 - 20% range.

 

[Rob_TID]

That means we have room for improvement! (ie from 10 to 20%)

Any tips?

I have been contacting affiliates individually and asking if they need help. I have also been putting up the occassional tutorial for them.

I am also building a whole affiliate site off our free XML feeds and plan to write up exact instructions of how I did it and distribute it to our affliates.

What do you guys do?

 

[Lisa76]

Hi Rob,

Treat them to SiteSell's free Affiliate Masters Course at
http://aff-masters.sitesell.com and that will get them off in the right direction. It definitely jump-started me!

 

[kenacts238]

I agree with Rob. It is hard to beat that personal touch.

Ken

 

[Stephanie Harris]

I'm not so sure about this whole personal touch thing. We're debating this right now with our current programs, and to get some perspective I asked some "average" (read: does not know a cookie from an oreo) folks what they thought and it seems like the whole idea of an email is impersonal. If you're not actually talking the affiliate, isn't an individual email just as impersonal as more of a mass? We're testing this right now - doing some mass vs. individual just to see the response. To tell the truth, it's not like the affiliates write back when they see you've sent them a personal email with a promise to perform and then they do. Usually, its a low response rate either way. Unless its just me and the emails I send stink - but I've decided to be in denial about that so i'm sticking with the theory

 

[DomainMagnate]

As an affiliate I can tell you the only thing I'm interested in is high comissions

I hate it when the program spams me with new offer and I don't see the point of aff managers emailing me asking if I need any help. If I need help I'll ask

Well also if there's a female account manager in that program, who has a sexy voice I'd love to talk of course

imo if you want to turn inactive affiliates to active, email them about the best compaign you currently offer, just as simple as that

 

[Lisa76]

Stephanie, I've found that the more "established" or "higher earning" affiliates don't respond as much when I contact them but the $100-$200 check affiliates who are just getting their feet wet, seem to be a bit more responsive. I contacted one lady who had made her first $200 check and congratulated her. She was quite enthused and said no other program had done that before.

So I think it really depends on the affiliate and where they are in their affiliate career (and other factors as well) I'm definitely still experimenting in this arena, though.

lol Michael!

 

[Stephanie Harris]

Michael you'll have to tell me if you actually pick up the phone for a merchant - male, female, ostrich (random animal I know) or otherwise. I feel like calling an affiliate is like walking through a drive-through - you're all web savvy and accessible and then we try to pull up with a telephone

Was that not the weirdest analogy? Don't give up on me yet - I'm bound to get more creative with them

 

[Stephanie Harris]

Ok 5Pillar (sorry I feel akward calling you that! Can we shorten to 5 - actually that could be worse like "hi five" - a little cheesy),

I agree with you about the congratulations emails - those are key and do have a personal touch that's needed. But for instance right now we're trying out an email where anyone who performed for us throughout the month will get an additional congratulatory email with incentives and we're trying it mass. There's tons of ways to make the fields dynamic so they feel customized and personal (oops for any affiliates out there reading this - shield your eyes! We still do yours personally, of course )

 

[Rob_TID]

Why does 5Pillar get a cool nickname and the rest of us miss out?

 

[Lisa76]

I have no idea why I didn't just use my name like everyone else did. I guess I call myself being creative but it's caused nothing but confusion. lol I've put my real name, "Lisa" in my sig file.

 

[Larwee]

5Pillar (Lisa), there are many of us who don't use our real names. I assure you that my name isn't Larwee.

I am one of the men around here. But I guess because there are a lot of women here, many of the women think other members are women when they can't determine it based upon the username. At least 4 women have assumed I am a woman.

Here is a link to my favorite thread in which this happened http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/showthread.php?t=2631

 

[Scratch2Casher]

I'm not so sure about this whole personal touch thing. We're debating this right now with our current programs, and to get some perspective I asked some "average" (read: does not know a cookie from an oreo) folks what they thought and it seems like the whole idea of an email is impersonal. If you're not actually talking the affiliate, isn't an individual email just as impersonal as more of a mass?

The response I get when I ask, and the response to most of the polls I've seen on the subject in various forums, is that an affiliate will usually prefer an email or IM to a phone call. I've always assumed (correct me if I'm wrong), that that is because many of them are working with alot of sites and programs, and therefore the sheer volume of phone calls can be a burden.

 

[jonlevine]

I felt the need to throw my two cents in after reading what is turning into a quite spirited discussion.

I too am struggling with the "contact" issue and have had similar results regarding who replies and who doesn't. I, like Lisa, send congratulatory emails to affiliates after they reach specific milestones. Usually, it's the newer affiliates (newer meaning to the affiliate marketplace) that are quite communicative. Others, especially affiliates in foreign countries, are usually never heard from. This includes some of my best performers.

What's interesting is that about a month ago, I sent an email out to all of my affiliates (around 450 at that time) telling them that anyone who called or emailed me in within five days time would receive an instant cash bonus ($10 if they showed me a link for our products on their site, $5 if they just contacted me). You know, I didn't give out more than $60.

Regarding the original question in this thread, I would definitely say it's a 95/5 split. The key, at least I think, is to keep that 5% growing. So, it will always be only 5% of your program that's producing, but you need to make that 5% as big as possible!

 

[Lisa76]

What's interesting is that about a month ago, I sent an email out to all of my affiliates (around 450 at that time) telling them that anyone who called or emailed me in within five days time would receive an instant cash bonus ($10 if they showed me a link for our products on their site, $5 if they just contacted me). You know, I didn't give out more than $60.

Regarding the original question in this thread, I would definitely say it's a 95/5 split. The key, at least I think, is to keep that 5% growing. So, it will always be only 5% of your program that's producing, but you need to make that 5% as big as possible!

Wow...$60....that's it! Heck, can I join your program and call you to earn a quick $10 bucks?

I've also found that the "older" affiliates (not by age but by when they joined) seem to respond the least. Of course many of them may have just moved on but I also wonder if a lot of that is due to the fact they have outdated email addresses in the system. I know for sure I joined a lot of programs way back when with email addresses I no longer use.

 

[Scratch2Casher]

What's interesting is that about a month ago, I sent an email out to all of my affiliates (around 450 at that time) telling them that anyone who called or emailed me in within five days time would receive an instant cash bonus ($10 if they showed me a link for our products on their site, $5 if they just contacted me). You know, I didn't give out more than $60.

That is interesting. We have some success with the same idea. We offer $25, that have to be cashed out within 2 months of registration, for putting up a banner within 3 days and emailing the URL to me. This has actually improved the average number of active affiliates, and everybody wins, since they basically have to get at least 2 sales before they can cash out.
So what do you think the difference is? Just the difference in amounts?

 

[Stephanie Harris]

Why does 5Pillar get a cool nickname and the rest of us miss out?

Because your username lends itself easily to just "Rob", Rob. I'm sure we can think of a more clever nickname, like Hearthrob Rob for all the ladies in this forum, or Sob Rob for when you're upset over affiliate marketing. I was never really much of a poet so I'm not so good at the rhyming nickname thing. I think I need to go back to 3rd grade when we were all more practiced in coming up with them. Besides which, what about my cool nick name? They used to call me Step-On-Me in school...

 

[Stephanie Harris]

That is interesting. We have some success with the same idea. We offer $25, that have to be cashed out within 2 months of registration, for putting up a banner within 3 days and emailing the URL to me. This has actually improved the average number of active affiliates, and everybody wins, since they basically have to get at least 2 sales before they can cash out.
So what do you think the difference is? Just the difference in amounts?

Maybe it depends on the programs you're promoting. I think some lend themselves better to quick sales with less effort, like accessory sites or those that are really coupon-driven. Whereas other programs take more of a time investment if they are at a higher price point and do less coupons. Then, its like no matter how much of a cash bonus you offer, it seems the affiliate doesn't bite because its not worth their time to get the visitor to purchase.

Any affiliates want to weight in on this? Right now we're having a hard time getting even our top affiliates to drive sales for one of these high quality, no discount type programs.