5 Things Your Affiliates Want for Holidays

The History Channel defines Valentine’s Day as “a holiday that celebrates love observed by exchanging candy & gifts” [source]. And this morning — three weeks before the holiday — newsletters from a number of flowers- gifts- and chocolate-related merchants have landed in affiliate inboxes.

In their newsletters merchants are informing their affiliates of various sales and discounts, coupons and other offers to market to lovers this Valentine’s Day. But do they really know what their affiliates most want to know/have (to be able to market their products and promos effectively) before each holiday? Let me list the things that I believe to be especially important, and after that you can ask yourself: “am I showing love for my affiliates by supplying them with all of these?”

Before any holiday (not just Valentine’s Day), you want your affiliates to have 100% clarity on the following 5 things:

1. Holiday shipping schedule — It is integral that both your target audience and your affiliates know the exact cut off dates to get a gift in time for the holiday.

2. Promo dates — If you cannot let them know the exact promo details well in advance (for them not to start marketing it too early), make sure you equip them with the information on when exactly to expect the promo information.

3. Promo landing pages — Don’t ruin your good promo ideas by failing to put together dedicated promo landing pages, but having your affiliates send their targeted traffic just to your homepage. Learn about the 5 important elements of a promo landing page here, and make sure you each promo has its own landing page.

4. Good creatives — Each promo must have at least 3 creatives for affiliates to use: (i) a small size image (e.g. 88×31 px button), (ii) a larger size image (e.g. 125×125 px square banner), and (iii) a text link. If you want to offer other banner sizes, see what sizes are popular among affiliates here.

5. Clear descriptions — Finally, each promo must have two good descriptions: one — for the consumers (the information your affiliates will use to market the promo), and another one — for the affiliate (the information on any restrictions or special terms [e.g.: some merchants pay low or no commission on some promos — a practice I don’t support, and especially if it’s not properly disclosed] your affiliates must be aware of).

If you’re reading this as an affiliate, and have something to add, I’d love to hear from you. Please use the “Comments” area below to add any thoughts. Many thanks in advance.

6 thoughts on “5 Things Your Affiliates Want for Holidays”

  1. A list of top holiday sellers is always nice as well. If there are some products that a merchant sees do well at certain holidays it is always nice to know that so as an affiliate we can have ideas of what to promote.

    Sometimes there are products that an affiliate wouldn’t think would do well for a specific holiday that end up being some of the best sellers. If they know that beforehand they can add them to their sites, build new sites around those products, or give special placement to them on the site.

  2. Adding to #5, you could also provide a variety of holiday-specific keywords. For Valentines Day – heart, love, passion, chocolates, flowers, cards, jewelry, gift baskets, engagement, romantic, couples, date/dating, etc. Also provide a few short content samples of how they can tie the keyword with whatever is being promoted and maybe even suggest what image would complement their promo.

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