What Makes You Trust a New Affiliate Program?

[MarkDon]

When you're considering promoting a brand-new affiliate program, what gives you confidence to test it?

Is it experienced management, payment reputation, tracking platform, industry certifications, responsive support, something else?

 

[T J Tutor]

I am not one to limit myself to any single measure of trust except for the trust I have in myself, and my team, to research and test if I and my team find the program may be a good fit for our business.

Typically I do not engage with affiliate program launches unless they are coming from proven affiliate program providers.

 

[MarkDon]

That’s a fair enough, I think a lot of affiliates with experience have learned that a good-looking offer doesn’t always mean a reliable long-term partner. For me, one thing that makes a new program stand out is transparency from the start - clear terms, realistic expectations, easy communication with the manager, and willingness to answer difficult questions usually tell a lot about how they will treat partners later. Have you ever tested a completely new program outside of the established networks/providers? If yes, what was the first thing that made you decide it was worth taking the risk?

 

[T J Tutor]

Have you ever tested a completely new program outside of the established networks/providers?

Of course, especially in the legacy days starting back in '96 through 2006. That decade was the wild west and all of us were very aggressive and throwing high volumes of traffic at everything to find winners. Costs were lower, very few restrictions and really no regulations. The business now is highly evolved by comparison. Today we all have evolved into far more sophisticated business people and businesses. This is beneficial. It allows for, and truly requires, far more diligence and formality in our decisions and our implementations. That causes a greater respect for the industry, and therefore we become better at what we do. Today we can be far more successful at predictions when it comes to decisions we make when evaluating something new like a new affiliate program.

what was the first thing that made you decide it was worth taking the risk?

We evaluate possible risks, we take actions to minimize the possibilities of risk, but building a business is not about taking risks.

You see, that expression you put forward; "it was worth taking the risk", is truly not a path in our business. We research, we evaluate, and if we see merit, we then test. Risk is not a part of any calculation once we identify where they are or could be because we eliminate them before we take further action. All efforts include some winners and some losers. I've been a business person my entire life. I am 73 now and I still have winners and losers in all things I do, whether it's life choices or business choices. It is part of growing and moving forward.

Definition:
Risk is the probability or chance of experiencing an adverse event, loss, or injury. It combines the likelihood of a hazard occurring with the magnitude of its potential impact. The concept is central to various disciplines, notably defined as volatility or the chance of financial loss in investments.

We do not base any decisions on risk. We identify them and eliminate them before we start. We base each step on research, evaluations, and testing. It doesn't mean we don't have failures. Every business has failures at every level and when discovered we act appropriately to remove/minimize the "risk" of those failures going forward. A risk is not testing an offer we identified as worth testing, as most newbies would cling to.

Honestly, when I see a newbie say "I lost money on my campaign" I always remind them they did not lose anything because if they did their job correctly they collected data and they simply "paid" for that data. That data is valuable and contributes to their business knowledge in making decisions going forward. This is a data business. Everything we do is based on data. The vast majority of newbies continue to think they can come into this business and throw up a pdf for $9 that promises the purchasers they will earn hundreds or thousands in 24 hours without any effort in getting educated about the business, without any significant investment, and they tell the old timers like me "I don't need to do all that "learning crap, I just want to get a few extra bucks a month". Then they refer back to the "snake oil salesmen" that convinced them all they need to do is buy their next newbie course, which of course leads nowhere. The end result is they quit and tell everyone the entire business is a scam.

 

[MarkDon]

You are a real guru of aff marketing! Thanks of your point of view, that's really fascinating.

 

[Graybeard]

a brand-new affiliate program,

... one with a known need. It's very hard to bring "a totally new cutting edge" product to the market.