In a traditional business, once you establish a relationship with someone, it tends to last a long time, often years. By comparison, Affiliates can be fickle and their loyalty is hard to gain. Relationships can often last a matter of weeks, maybe never get off the ground at all even though you spend lots of time nurturing the relationship.
This is not new and it’s not related to the current economic climate – it’s been part of the game since I started establishing and managing Affiliate programs in 2005.
There are exceptions…
At different points in time, I have had as many as 28% of registered Affiliates active through our small in-house program with more than 20% of those generating consistent sales for 2 years or more.
On many occasions, we have paid out commissions of $20,000+ to individual affiliates in a single month.
I’m not alone in this respect. I know one group whose leading Affiliate has been delivering strong sales month after month for more than six (6) years.
When you can achieve results like these, then Affiliate marketing is a wonderful channel for promoters such as ourselves and of course our Affiliates.
The major networks are not any different…
Many of the bigger networks – including the CPA networks which operate on the Direct Track platform – enjoy great success. However, I suspect that this is due to their having hundreds of offers and thousands of Affiliates … and that, if you look closely, many of the offers they feature are marketed successfully by only a handful of affiliates.
I say this based on my own experience of being on one of the big networks PLUS feedback from one of my colleagues who has 2,000+ Affiliates who have registered for his offers on one of the big networks, yet only a very small percentage are active and, in any given month, only about 5 deliver any results.
Reasons for poor “active” status and resultant lack of continuity (loyalty):
- Testing and ROI: Professional Affiliates are running a business and therefore constantly test new offers in order to find what works best for their readers and subscribers. Their focus is, quite rightly, on ROI. Affiliate Marketing is a business and it should be run that way!
- No Financial Investment: Affiliates programs are free and so the actual commitment is vastly different to that where a financial commitment is required. {I know one Affiliate who signed up for 40+ programs in one day and ultimately did nothing with any of them.}
- Fad Mentality: The Internet is all about “the latest” and so many Affiliates are driven by this rather than focusing on products and services which are solid and offer continuity.
- Lack of Expertise: Many Affiliates seem to think that placing a banner or link on their site is enough to attract sales. When it doesn’t, they drop the offer and go to the next – and generally they get the same result there as well. Basically, they are not pursuing the Affiliate options I have outlined in 29 Tips For Building Quality Website Content .
- Affiliate Network Influence: Some Affiliates Networks are paid by a merchant to do a promotion to their Affiliates encouraging them to promote a new offer. When they do this, all they are doing is shifting an Affiliates attention from an existing merchant to another of their merchants.
- The Hype Factor: Too many Affiliates are taken in by “product launch” hype and / or supporting their buddies as I have outlined in Guru – or A Member Of The List Mafia?, and therefore place their focus on those offers rather than trying to build a long term platform.
- ADHD: Many Affiliates joke that they suffer from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) … and some in fact do, acting impetuously rather than in the structured manner which Affiliate Marketing requires. Many of these Affiliates will place a banner on their website and remove it after one week, undertake only one of a series of 7 recommended emails, etc. They never give an offer the chance to prove itself. That is not a good way to build a business!
- Social Media: The enormous growth of social media networks has diverted the attention of many Affiliates away from conventional affiliate offers. Having a list of 100,000 followers on Twitter is vastly different to having a list of 500 genuine fans / buyers away from any social media platform. Many Affiliates have gone for the former when it’s the latter which produces results.
- Secondary Income: Yes, there are many who derive their income solely from online marketing, including Affiliate Marketing. However, the vast majority of Affiliates tend to operate their online business as a secondary income stream and hence are not 100% focused on this activity. This is why many Affiliate managers only want to deal with groups who have 5,000 or more unique visitors per month or lists of 10,000+.
- Pure Online Focus: Affiliates are all about marketing on the Internet. However, this is only one medium and therefore they are leaving a lot of money on the table by disregarding traditional business channels. Quite a few online marketers have proven that, by integrating online and offline marketing channels, you can boost returns by as a factor of 10. Unfortunately, few Affiliates adopt an integrated marketing approach.
As I indicated earlier, traditional business relationships are vastly different and many of the above simply don’t impact on building long term relationships. / loyalty.
Is there an answer to this never ending lack of continuity?
Yes there is but you do need a dedicated approach to Affiliate management and adoption of the processes outlined in the 28 Ways To Inspire Affiliate Loyalty, most of which are now standard practices in the Affiliate sector.
Even by ensuring you have all the right mechanisms in place, the real key is that you have to consider your Affiliates as partners and work with them to create a true win:win position for both parties.
If you want to get into Affiliate Marketing, then I urge you take note of the points above and drive your Affiliate business as the professionals do.
PLUS, take a more expansive view by looking at our Partner Program and others of a similar nature and focus on building a business rather than pure short term gains.
