Yesterday evening, a hard-working affiliate, Joe Sousa, tweeted:
My immediate reaction was:
What better plea for sensible affiliate management could there be?!
Joe replied, and a few minutes later another well-known affiliate chimed in:
The problem, however paradoxical, in a nutshell, is as follows:
(a) affiliates want to market merchants (being compensated on post-pay basis!),
but (b) merchant’s/advertiser’s actions are actually preventing it.
But I reached to both Joe and Tricia, and asked them if they’d like to add anything to the above-quoted tweets; and here are their replies:
Joe Sousa, owner of NFL-Football-Jerseys.com, elaborated:
Basically I am trying to get a new site set up in a niche I haven’t worked in before and I keep getting denied by merchants since the sites in my profile doesn’t match that niche.I am getting responses like:Thank you for emailing regarding your Affiliate application. Our policy for approval is that a website must contain content related to our product or our demographic. Currently your website does not have any content at all. If, after adding relevant content, you would still like to become an affiliate, please feel free to re-apply and we will reconsider your application at that timeandBecause you submitted for XXXXXX.com We are happy to approve website with valid content to our brand.With both of these merchants I sent an explanation when applying for the program, got declined, sent an email asking why, and am now trying to explain that I can’t really build a site with any relevant content without being approved for their sites (datafeed based sites mostly). They want me to have a site before I get approved. I want to be approved before I build a site. Kind of a chicken or the egg type of situation.I have the domains ready to go on these. But without access to the datafeeds I can’t really get started.
Tricia Meyer of Sunshine Rewards summarized:
Affiliate marketing is most successful when the affiliate and merchant work together in a way that is beneficial to both sides. When one side pulls too much, the other side then gets too little. Merchants have to understand that balance and work with us toward it.
Unfortunately, scenarios when merchants and/or affiliate program managers hinder the development of their own program aren’t that uncommon. Are you guilty of being an obstacle to your own affiliate marketing program?
Tags: affiliate management, affiliate management mistakes, affiliate marketing education, Affiliate Program Management, joe sousa, Tricia Meyer
Geno, great job with this post.
I’ve found that the most successful private affiliate partnerships I’ve worked with have been exactly that…partnerships rather than “affiliate/vendor” relationships.
So long as everything is above-board…I don’t understand why some merchants make it so difficult for the affiliate to get down to business.
The way I see it, the problem is always one (or a combination) of these three reasons: (i) lack of clear understanding how affiliate relationships/partnerships function, and what exactly is needed for them to yield good fruit, (ii) transferring traditional managerial approach(es) onto their management of affiliate program(s), and/or (iii) plain negligence.
I have had similar problems as Joe. I have websites that I want to build but can not get approval from the merchants to get into their program. I have sent emails and tried to get an explanation on why I was not approved or to find out how to get approved but most of the time do not get any reply.
I have also had cases where I was approved and declined by the same merchant in different affiliate networks. This one makes no sense to me since I am submitting the same information to both networks.
Sad realities of affiliate work.
And to the point that some of these things “make no sense”: they shouldn’t and can’t, because they are nonsensical.
I’ve always wondered exactly how many affiliates are affected by this problem. I think networks and advertisers should be able to communicate this problem clearly enough that more advertisers are open to taking on affiliates that are trying to establish their sites rather than only focus on what’s already established.
Affiliates that are successful in one niche often go to others because they’ve found what works and want to duplicate it in another area. They should be encouraged to do this instead of the way it often is now.
[...] affiliates need educated affiliate program managers. Remember the quick Twitter exchange we’ve had between you, me and Tricia Meyer? That one exemplifies the (crying!) need [...]