Regardless of whether you are looking at an affiliate network as a merchant (aka advertisers) or an affiliate (aka publisher), I believe there are certain bases that are critical for each affiliate network to cover. And when these foundational bases are not being paid the attention they deserve, they turn into problems …major problems.

Today I’d like to focus on 5 such key components of healthy affiliate network existence. Based on what I’ve observed over the past 10 years, the five most dangerous types affiliate network problems are:

1. Support Problems — For example, slow, in-concrete, or low quality answers (especially when it comes to technical questions).
2. Tracking Problems — This one should really share the first place with the previous point, as both are equally important for the success of affiliates and affiliate programs.
3. Communication Problems — These are universal… Most networks have learned it the hard way that advance notifications (of scheduled maintenance, etc) are a must, but many are still struggling with maintaining healthy ongoing communication channels (which should include newsletters, participation in forums, blogging, tweeting, etc) with their affiliates and merchants.
4. Lack of Transparency — If the network is going down, and it does affect the tracking, be honest with your customers (both affiliates and merchants), and don’t say that “tracking isn’t (or hasn’t been) affected”. Things like this are easy to figure out just by comparing performance to days/hours when tracking functions properly. Similarly, if there’s an affiliate violation going on, don’t cover it up (because you’re being paid 20-30% of everything that affiliate earns) until someone figures it out.
5. Poor Tools & Lack of Innovation — To succeed in an industry as rapidly developing as affiliate marketing, you want to constantly innovate, and come up with new tools to equip your affiliates (and merchants!) empowering them for success.

I know I have probably missed something that you deem worth mentioning here. If so, please do chime in through the “Comments” area below. Your input is always greatly appreciated.

It’s Friday again, and in the best traditions of Twitter #FollowFriday today I’d like to bring you a list of US affiliate networks which are actively using Twitter to keep both affiliates and merchants up-to-date with their latest news, developments, blog posts, and so on…

I see that in 2009 Zac posted his compilation of “affiliate networks using Twitter”, but the list has grown significantly since then, and it is time for an updated one.

If we include niche and CPA networks, there are over 60 on Twitter now (see this Twitter list of mine). However, today I’d like to focus on the mainstream affiliate networks who actively tweet. It seems that there at least 13 which you want to consider following (I’ve also included respective Facebook pages though at the time of this post not all are equally active on Facebook):

1. AvantLink — Twitter | Facebook
2. Amazon Associates — Twitter | Facebook
3. Buy.at — Twitter | Facebook
4. Commission Junction — Twitter | Facebook
5. eBay Partner Network — Twitter | Facebook
6. Google Affiliate Network — Twitter | Facebook
7. ImpactRadius — Twitter | Facebook
8. LinkConnector — Twitter | Facebook
9. LinkShare — Twitter | Facebook
10. Pepperjam — Twitter | Facebook
11. ShareResults — Twitter | Facebook
12. ShareASale — Twitter | Facebook
13. WebGains – Twitter | Facebook

Important: The above list is merely alphabetical; and is not to be taken as any kind of ranking. And yes, I have also included ShareResults (who are based in Canada, and would otherwise make a list of one), and Amazon and eBay (which, in my opinion, should also be mentioned here) too.

Happy #FollowFriday, and have a great weekend ahead, everyone!

A new OPM has emailed me:

I may start working soon with a large company that deals with generating leads in a specific vertical in the medical field.  This would be my first time managing a lead gen affiliate program.  I’ve done some research into this, but I wanted to ask your opinion on what network you think would be best for a company dealing in lead gen?  Would Commission Junction or LinkShare network be the best option for this advertiser?

Regardless of whether you’re looking to generate leads or sales, my reply would be the same: since you’re ultimately looking for consumers interested in your products or services,  you want to go with a network that already has strong affiliate producers in your vertical. A basic competitive intelligence analysis of what your immediate competition is doing in the affiliate marketing field would be a good first move.

Then, once you’ve identified the affiliate networks on which your direct competitors run their affiliate programs, analyze both the performance of those programs (EPC, program ranking(s), conversion and reversal rates, where available) and their structure (payouts, performance incentives, cookie life, etc).

At the end of the day, seriously consider the affiliate network where your competition harvests the fruit. If their affiliate program demonstrates success on the network, then there are affiliates on that network that make them successful.

Of course, there will be many other factors and variables to consider, but the above approach should give you at least some idea on what to do here.

Finally, make sure you also read my following articles (directly related to this subject):

• Choosing an Affiliate Network
• Top 4 US Affiliate Networks Compared
• Side-by-side Comparison of North American Affiliate Networks
• Incentive of Loyalty Affiliates won’t work for most lead gen programs
• Don’t Blame Affiliate Network for Not Growing Your Program
• … and consider employing Pay Per Call Affiliate Marketing as well

When I type in nearly any affiliate network‘s name, among the top suggestions I see [affiliate network]+”scam” search phrases:

This isn’t surprising.

Why?

Here’s a true story: two days ago I had a merchant approach me. The beginning of our dialogue could be condensed as follows:

Merchant: We are looking at promoting our e-business through affiliate marketing, but got burned on [X affiliate network]…

Me: [X affiliate network] is actually one of the best platforms around (in my opinion)…

Merchant: Funny you should say that [X affiliate network] is the best. We had no luck with them. When you say “platform”, that doesn’t mean they are the best affiliate or have the best publishers, right? You mean in terms of tools/admin, etc, right? After our experience with them, I’m gun shy and our agency is pushing us to [Y affiliate network]. Having no results with [X affiliate network] makes me gunshy…

Do you see the problem? Many merchants don’t, and I bet situations like this one — where merchant’s mistake affiliate networks for affiliate program management companies — significantly contribute to the popularity growth of those [affiliate network]+”scam” search phrases that I started with. Affiliate networks are not affiliate program management agencies. They are not hired to grow and manage your affiliate program. Simply put, they are platforms that provide merchants with such services as tracking, reporting, hosting of creatives and datafeeds, payments to affiliates, etc, but the vast majority of affiliate networks do not offer “affiliate management” services by default. Some provide them for an extra charge, while others do not even mess with it. To recruit affiliates into your program, manage the relationship with them, insure and monitor link placements, police and enforce compliance with your affiliate program’s Terms and Conditions… for all of these and much more you need an affiliate program manager. This could either be an in-house employee of yours, or an external agency, also known as Outsource(d) Program Managers (OPMs). But don’t expect your affiliate program to grow into anything big or successful if upon launching you just leave it running in an auto pilot mode.

As I was packing for PubCon South 2011 at Austin (8-9 March) — where I will be speaking on the affiliate management components the majority of merchants miss — I told my wife that I should order more business cards soon, as I’m running low on them. My daughter (important: who accompanied me on my travels to three affiliate marketing conferences before) hearing our brief conversation went to her room and draw me a “business card”.

It looks like this:

See that star and “ShareASale” written on me (I assume that is me)? Well, that’s an exemplary case of branding done right, ladies and gentlemen! Even my 7-year-old daughter knows that when we’re talking “Daddy’s conference”, there’s gotta be “ShareASale” somewhere there. …and she is right! They sponsored most of the Affiliate Summits I’ve been too, and they’re also on the list of this PubCon‘s sponsors. Branding done right, no doubt about it.

I’ve noticed this new function in ShareASale‘s merchant interface yesterday morning, but wasn’t exactly sure how new it really was. Then I saw Jared Saunders — affiliate program manager at Jenson USA and holder of ShareASale’s “Exceptional Affiliate Manager” 2009 award — tweet about it:

…and apparently Jared’s right. There seem to be no blog posts about this new feature. So here we go:

ShareASale has recently introduced a new feature which allows merchants (or affiliate program managers) to set personalized commission rules for individual affiliates. Before this merchants could only “make changes” to affiliates’ “commission schedule” setting custom (or private) commissions/payouts:

Now in addition to the above feature ShareASale also allows merchants to tailor affiliate “commission rules” on a different level, choosing to set specific performance conditions and tie additional commission rules to them:

Good to see another improvement (which gives merchants good flexibility) from a major affiliate network.

Less than a week ago in an intro to this post, I blogged how pleasing to my (and I’m sure every affiliate marketer’s) eye it is to see new developments at different affiliate networks. Now, in addition to ShareASale, Google Affiliate Network and LinkShare, we have AvantLink with their February news!

Yesterday they announced their very own (and a very robust one too) WordPress plugin. So immediately I have reached out to them to get a better idea of how it works, and how bloggers can/will benefit from this launch. This is how this post was born…

The AvantLink plugin for WordPress basically allows quick and simple integration with a number of the network’s integrated Affiliate tools & scripts. Once the plugin is installed and activated, there are several things to note within your WordPress admin panel.

1. Plugin users will see a “AvantLink WP” link in the admin sidebar, under the “Settings” section. Clicking that link opens the “AvantLink WP Plugin Settings” page, which includes four tabs that allow the configuration of several functions, including a product search engine via the AvantLink API (see image below).

2. Plugin users will see an AvantLink icon in their post editor’s kitchen sink. Clicking the icon will open a dialog box that allows affiliates to select any pre-configured ad type/unit (banner, text, video, etc.), from any merchant the affiliate is active with. It will also allow affiliates to create custom tracking links to any merchant URL they choose (see the two screengrabs below)

3. Plugin users will notice several new AvantLink WP widgets in the “Appearance” area of their WordPress admin. These include

• • AvantLink Product Ad Widget – Easy integration of any AvantLink Product Ad Widget (PAW) subscription that has been configured and saved.
  • AvantLink Product Search Form – Quickly enable an on site product search engine, using data from AvantLink merchants.
  • AvantLink Related Products – Display related products from AvantLink merchants driven by custom keyword searches.

It’s important to note that once the AvantLink WP plugin is installed and activated, an Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) subscription is enabled by default on a site-wide basis. The ALE uses JavaScript to convert direct-to-merchant links to affiliate-tracking links on the fly, and within the end user’s browser. This of course can be deactivated via the settings page, if that’s preferred.

Several integrated tools and scripts from AvantLink offer unique and exclusive functionality free of charge to qualified affiliates, and now WordPress CMS affiliates can easily utilize these ad tools and subscriptions with simple, easy to configure widgets. Very nice development!

And it has finally happened!! An hour ago, today on Tuesday (February 8, 2010), ShareASale launched its brand-new Generation 6 merchant interface, and I surely love both the look and the multiple user-friendly features.

Here is the way it looked just this morning:

And here is the way it looks now:

Here are a couple more close-up snapshots from the new interface:

I’ve already taken note of some things to improve (e.g.: that “pending FTP applications” doesn’t seem to reflect the true situation, and the link to the new user interface could surely be made more obvious in the old interface than the hardly visible “New UI**” link, etc), and will be sending these suggestions to ShareASale right after posting this, but I think this is a huge improvement that has surely been long-awaited.

I also see that in their blog ShareASale has announced “complimentary webinar tours of the newly unveiled” merchant interface.

Now I wonder when the new Affiliate Interface is coming.

Yesterday as I was adding new coupons for a ShareASale-based affiliate program I have noticed a little (but a very significant) addition to one of the fields you can fill out when adding a coupon/deal to the network. They now have a field for special commission to be applied on coupon/deal transactions. The fine print (and an important rule) may have been up there for some time, but I certainly don’t remember seeing it a couple of years ago. Under the special commission field it says (highlighting mine):

So “this commission amount cannot be less than your advertised global commission rate for public offers” and “for private offers, it must not be lower than your designated commission rate for that specific affiliate.” Very important rule!

I couldn’t help but recall Todd Farmer’s “ShareASale is My Network of Choice” post. For affiliates it is extremely important to have such an understanding mediator between them and the merchants.

It isn’t unusual for merchants (including some of the largest online brands) to offer lower commission rates on coupons (or to coupon affiliates). I like what I see ShareASale doing above. If the merchant doesn’t want to offer coupons through affiliates, that’s fine. Institute such a policy, and have your affiliate manager police it. If, however, you do choose to use the affiliate channel to distribute coupons, factor in the commission affiliates will receive into the discount you’re offering, and still pay the full affiliate commission. Kudos to ShareASale for supporting affiliates there.

Yesterday brought an interesting news — Zibaba, a Facebook ecommerce storefront provider, is set to launch their (first one around?) Facebook-based affiliate marketing platform.

The network is scheduled to launch at the end of January 2011. Both merchants and affiliates are gonna be charged to participate (between $20 and $100 a month “depending on their number of Likes and how many products they want to sell”). InsideFacebook.com has more:

Affiliate marketers will be able to choose items from any existing Zibaba merchant, agree to a revenue sharing or CPA system, and sell these products from a storefront on their own Facebook Page.

Page storefronts help brands monetize their Likes. Directing these fans off of Facebook in order to make purchases raises a barrier to conversion…

This is where Zibaba, within its Facebook-based storefronts comes in. Now they’re taking it a step further, seeking to embed the performance marketing model into the process as well. InsideFacebook.com continues:

Similar to affiliate portals outside of Facebook such as ClickBank and ShareASale, merchants offer an incentive to affiliates such as 25% of revenue or $2.00 per lead. Affiliates then leverage their existing Facebook audience or send traffic to their branded storefront through advertising.

For consumers, the storefronts are easy to browse and search. Social features include the ability for users to Like and comment on products, and publish these actions to their stream. If users Like the Page hosting the storefront, they can receive a 10% discount on their purchases.

Here are just a few examples of Zibaba-powered storefronts (aka Z-Shops): Interflora | Deja Vu Cosmetics | Wolverhampton Wanderers FC | Shudoo. At this time Zibaba doesn’t offer a universal shopping cart which would work across different Z-Shops, but adding such a functionality is in the company’s plans.

I remember at least two affiliate marketers (Chelsea Osoling and Sharon Mostyn) predicting a closer affiliate integration with social in 2011, and this is definitely getting us a huge step closer to it. Will affiliates be happy to pay is a big question though. Will we see similar free-for-affiliates platforms/networks springing up soon thereafter? Time will show, but in the meantime we’ll be monitoring how things develop on Zibaba’s front.