Common Mistakes in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing can be so rewarding, but you need to avoid these common mistakes

Having worked with lots of programmes during my time in affiliate marketing, I thought I would outline some of the common mistakes I see and how they can be corrected. In the new Smart Insights Affiliate Marketing strategy guide I go into the details of how to get these key communications factors right.

1. You don’t communicate with your affiliates

I start with communication, because it's obvious, important, but often not done well. Communicate effectively with your affiliate base doesn’t mean just sending an email now and again, but actually asking for feedback from them as well. Communication should be a two way street where you encourage feedback and ideas from your affiliate base.

Take the time to find out what they need from you and the information they require. Also take the time to find out how they prefer to receive this communication. Is there a specific person within the company? Or do they prefer it in a certain style or format? If you are going to take the time to send information, make sure it is the right information for that affiliate.

You might want to segment the communication based on affiliate type. When sending communications to your customers you wouldn’t take a ‘one-size fits all’ approach, as there are likely to be segments with different requirements. The same applies to your affiliate base if you want to get the most from them.

2. You leave no room to promote

Affiliate marketing is great as you can predefine what a sale will cost you and only pay when that sale is made. A common mistake when setting commissions is to pay the highest figure you can afford. In doing so you don’t leave room for promotions or incentives with affiliates. Incentive sites require an increased and often exclusive commission rate to be able to get additional exposure on their site. This means that you can miss out on the opportunity to work closer with these sites.

It can also impact your ability to drive additional sales through content sites. Being able to offer a bonus or an increased commission can help you to secure better placements on their site, and demonstrate your commitment to helping that affiliate grow their site.

3. Your promotions don’t motivate

So you decide to run a programme-wide promotion. You come up with an elaborate idea to get yourself some more coverage with affiliates. You come to the end of the month and you see it has no impact. What can it be? More often than not the issue will be that the promotion didn’t motivate the affiliate base.

Promotions should be there to incentivise and motivate affiliates to do something you have pre-defined as an objective. Whether that is to make more sales, higher value sales, sales of a particular product, or purely to raise awareness of a campaign; they will only do this if the promotion is motivating to them. The best way to find out? Ask the affiliates. Some affiliates might like a cash bonus; some might prefer the chance to win a prize. Speak to as many of the affiliates you want to target as possible to come up with something that will motivate them. Accept that promotions will work best when you select a segment to target. A segment that you can get feedback from and communicate the promotion to will be more engaged than a programme-wide incentive that’s blindly emailed to thousands of affiliates.

4. You don’t share your objectives

How often do you go into a promotion with your objective in mind? Every time you make a decision on your programme, do you bear in mind how this will affect what you are trying to achieve? Make sure that you share your objectives with your affiliates. If the affiliate knows what you are aiming for they can make suggestions to get the best out of their site to help you achieve this. For example, you might want more new customers, or an increase in average order value. Using TopCashback as an example, we often build campaigns to suit client’s objectives. This could include targeted emails to members who have not purchased from that site before or cashback tiered towards a higher spend on site.

Without knowing these objectives we would work towards volume, which could have a negative effect on new customer percentages or average order value.

5. You don’t give affiliates the tools they need

I think this last point is potentially the most important. If you want to work with affiliates you need to give them the tools to do their job. Think of affiliates as your online sales force. Quite often the products you are offering have substitutes or are sold elsewhere. Quite often, the commission is also similar, so the affiliate’s decision can often come down to which is easiest to promote effectively.

Take this away from affiliate marketing. If you were looking to hire a freelance salesman and offered to support them with a unicycle and a carrier pigeon, but your competitors are offering a company car and a phone, who do you think they would pick? The same logic applies online. If you want a comparison site to push your products you will need a data feed. If you want to get a voucher code site featuring you on site a voucher code will help.

But don’t just look at the essentials. Consider the other tools they might need. Content sites will need information on products and text links. They might also require creative or banners for their site. Make sure you supply them with personalised links so that it is easier for them to pick up your links than competitors’. In an ideal world, you will always supply better tools than your competitors.

Summary

So these are some of the common areas where I often see mistakes made. There are many others out there, but consider how you can make it as easy as possible for affiliates to work with you. Bear in mind their promotional methods and what you can do to support them, listen as well as speak and make sure you share your objectives. Keeping these simple areas in mind will help you to maximise the engagement you get from your affiliate base, and therefore your sales.