I’ve had a merchant approach me with a basic question, but since many other merchants who are also new to affiliate marketing may wonder about the same things, instead of just replying to him via email, I am posting my reply below.
This particular merchant is considering starting his first-ever affiliate program on ShareASale, and is [...]
Continue reading about How to Read Affiliate Program Statistics & Calculate Commission
Today I am starting a series of posts (I am not planning to publish them in a consecutive manner, but new ones will be added as I come across the issues to address), and a whole new category – Affiliate Marketing Fallacies. In this rubric I will be covering the popular fallacies and misconceptions [...]
Continue reading about Misconception: Only High Commissions Attract Affiliates
So you have decided to start an affiliate program. One of the very first question that you will have to deal with is what to set the program’s commission rate at. There are various opinions on how to calculate it.
My short advice is this:
a) Calculate the maximum that you can afford to pay your affiliates
b) [...]
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With common regularity both affiliates, and merchants wonder what is a commission locking period.
Let’s take ShareASale (SaS) for one example. On this affiliate network for every transaction in their reports merchants see a “lock date” (see example below):
Affiliates, on the other hand, see both the “lock date”, and the transaction status (example of how the [...]
Continue reading about Locking Periods and Lock Dates in Affiliate Marketing
A merchant, who has recently started an affiliate program emailed me the following question:
Affiliates are currently being credited their commission at the moment of sale. What if an order gets canceled, or we sell something that is no longer in stock?
First of all, make sure you it is not possible for the end user to [...]
Continue reading about Do Affiliates Get Commission on Canceled Orders?
Every once in a while affiliates post (in blog, forum, or other social media channel) about merchants lowering the commission rates in their affiliate programs. History also testifies that this happens not only with smaller brands, but larger online merchants were caught doing this as well. Some justify commission drops by inaccurate initial calculation of [...]
Continue reading about Lowering Affiliate Commission Rate = Big Mistake
One of the most effective types of affiliate incentives is commission increase.
There are two basic ways merchants increase affiliate commissions:
1. Based on Performance
Performance may be measured in the number of sales or the cumulative monetary value of affiliate-driven sales.
Example A: The default commission is set at 10%, but affiliates that refer 10 or more orders [...]
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One of my blog readers has e-mailed me a question about what commission to offer when launching an affiliate program. It is a good question. Therefore I have have decided to reply in a blog post.
Truth be told, I have already addressed this question in detail in my A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing volume. [...]
I have just looked over descriptions of several affiliate programs run by established brands, and noticed that some of them reward affiliates only for “new and unique” customers (wording retained, italics mine). Wow… They are pushing away thousands of affiliates on the pre-recruitment phase just by having that policy in place. In fact, this is [...]
Continue reading about Commission for New Customers Only – Bad Affiliate Marketing Practice
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