Yesterday I had several conversations with people responding to my recent Linked In updates and blog postings regarding my current job status – I’m looking. One of the questions I get is have you actually built an affiliate network from the ground up? The answer is yes. They then ask for details of how to get that done. Now this is the key – there are a lot of decisions to be made all of them centered around what type of product, service, or offerings that company has. I won’t attempt to explain all aspects of creating and running a new program – instead let me simply suggest a bunch of questions you need to consider – the answers to which I will try to blog about in the future – though I make no promises as there are many versions of each answer. (No single person in affiliate marketing has all the answers – and there is never just one answer – its really like a game of chess – a whole lot of strategy)
Should I – Can I – Set up an affiliate network? There are many questions to be considered.
- Creating an affiliate network is not an overnight process – are you expecting instant success? It will (hopefully) bring in a lot of revenue – but it takes time to make it work. (I have some revenue in the millions within several months of launching – but, it is not always a given) The amount of time depends on the answers to the rest of the questions below. The money – that also depends on the various factors below.
- Selecting the network/s you will run on is not always a given – there are many factors to consider including many of the items from the rest of this list
- Audience / affiliate audience
- Payout amount – type CPA, CPL, CPM, CPC
- Search – can you do search alone and not have a network – will they compete if you do both?
- Lead Gen – Host and Post or Landing Pages – freedom?
- Will you allow email?
- Marketing of the program – how? Conferences – The network alone will serve as your announcement
- Your company – do they believe in online advertising? Are they skeptical of affiliate marketing? Do they know it will involve a lot of work followed by much more work? Do they understand quality is always an issue and you have to make adjustments and teach affiliates to adjust things on their end?
- Do they expect overnight success?
- Does the CEO buy in to the affiliate program?
- Does the CEO understand it will take time to adjust and make sustainable.
- Reporting – can you handle the payments, tracking and reporting? Will you choose an in house reporting system or one managed by a 3rd party. Do you have techs and tech systems capable of interacting with other systems?
- Payout amount – what are your competitors paying? Can you afford to pay that or more? What do you have to differentiate from the competition?
- Communication – do you have an affiliate manager who can communicate without having affiliates quit? Can he find other affiliates?
- Who are your target affiliates? Do you trust them? Are they involved in bait and switch, spam, and or other fraud?
- Should you set up a booth at conferences? Can you afford the booth – the travel the giveaways?
- Do you understand that most networks operate on the 90/10 or now days 95/5 rule?
- Do you have a creative team that can quickly provide – landing pages – custom landing pages – banners – text for text links – more?
- Do you have widgets, video, youtube apps, etc. to attract and retain super affiliates?
- Website – required – or do you allow other types of online marketing.
- Lastly – should I create my program – or hire an OPM, Outsourced Program Manager, to set up and run the program for me? (big discussion to be addressed some time in the future)
All of the items above – and many more – are great questions to be asking as you do your homework.
Much more to come…..
Mark
Tags: affiliate program, affiliate program questions, how to start an affiliate network, how to start an affiliate program, Mark Olsen
