Affiliate Program Hell
  Written By Raven

Before opening an affiliate program, STOP! THINK! LISTEN!

It seems everyone is opening affiliate programs these days. From the 50/50 partnership to pay per trial to pay per active member. I think it's a fantastic idea to share the wealth. You get webmasters sending you traffic. Webmasters get a piece of the pie. BUT. . .

If your sites are crap and your customer support is virtually non-existent and you don't update and you don't have quality traffic along with the unfiltered traffic, your program will fail and your reputation will suffer. This discussion centers on the newer webmaster, whose resources are not great enough to offer per signup or per active member.

There are some steps you need to take before calling your billing company to set up an affiliate account, before designing the website, before raking in the cash your webmasters are going to help you make.

If your pay site has only been up a month, you have no way of knowing how successful it will be long term. While I am not suggesting your site needs to be live for a year, there is a time factor necessary to test its success, before offering it to the webmaster community. Asking webmasters to give you their hard-earned traffic for a site that is not yet proven is asking for big trouble. Smart webmasters are doing this for the money. It matters not that you have a zillion friends who will put your banners on their precious real estate to promote your new kick-ass site. Traffic is precious. Knowing what to do with traffic is even more of a treasure. Every click has to be maximised. Your site has to close the deal. When the traffic comes knocking on your door, they have already been primed and pumped for you to sell the product. A lack of forethought and a good business plan, regarding your program, results in no sales. Even if the surfer joins your trial, should you have one, the conversions from trial to member will be a very low number. Your webmaster friends won't stay your friends for very long, if your product doesn't make money. Your banners will come down. When you see your particular program being mentioned, the last words you want to see in writing are "This Program Sucks". Webmasters DO talk amongst themselves and they talk on the boards. It doesn't take very long for a sponsor's reputation to wildly spiral down the tubes.

Make sure your creation works
Check every link. Since pay sites can be hundreds to thousands of pages deep, it's an essential, if not tedious task, to click on every link to make sure everything works. Nothing pisses off a member more than not being able to go where they want and when. It's sloppy webmastering at its worst and will result in unhappy members who don't always write to you to complain. They show their displeasure by refusing to pay the credit card bill or they don't honour the check or they dispute the phone bill.

How many sign ups do you get a day?
Keeping in mind that you are sharing the wealth, it's imperative that you are getting enough surfers to join, so that you CAN make the offer to give money to webmasters. While stats are important, the bottom line is even more so. Count your success by how much money is in your account. If you're getting a ratio of 1:100, that's great. On paper. If you're only gaining one member per day, that's not great. If you're thinking about opening an affiliate program so you can increase your traffic numbers, think again. You should have your own infrastructure of sites, sending surfers to you. If you depend solely on webmasters to send traffic, you're already in trouble.

How often do you update?
Every site has to be updated. The niche you've chosen will determine how often you update and how much you have to add. If you're selling a teen site, you may want to update every five minutes. The competition out there is fierce. Automatic update systems are something to consider. There are sites out there, refreshing their content every six minutes or less. I kid you not. Let me take this opportunity to give a word of caution. To compete with huge mega sites is suicidal, unless you have the capital. In my other pay site article, I suggested charging what your market will bear, not necessarily the going rate. Join one of the gigantic sites in your genre. See what they're offering and how much they are charging for what is in their members' area. Price your site accordingly. If your prices are too high, your members will know immediately and will not stay. Worse, they will not pay. Micro niches require fewer pictures; but, the content is not as readily available, so the expense might be higher for custom or exclusive shoots.

Are you offering trials? How many convert from trial to join? Before offering trials on your affiliate program, test it out. See how many convert from trial to member.

What's your retention, once the trial period ends and the member is charged for a month? How many months does a member stay, on average? Note chargeback and refund and cancellations. Your program cannot be successful if there is something wrong. Your stats will tell you much information about your member base. If you're offering a trial and your sign ups are high, look to see how many convert from that trial to a full month's membership. Webmasters don't mind trial payouts, as long as the member stays for a while. If you see your new members canceling before they convert to active, there is something not right about your insides. Fix it before creating your kickass affiliate program. Never piss off your webmasters. Conversely, members can and do ask for refunds and they will charge back. An unhappy member cancels the trial before being charged. They may not tell you why. Nothing hurts a partnership program more, because these charges are passed onto your affiliate, decreasing the amount of money earned for you and them.

Your webmaster support system is as important as your site conversion ratios. Always be available. There is never an excuse for not responding to questions in a timely manner. No matter how trivial the query, your response time is noted. Positive webmaster support can mean the difference between a webmaster staying with your program and leaving it, never to return. If you're never at your computer or you're under the mistaken belief that partnership programs run themselves, you are going to fail.

What tools are you offering your webmasters?
Give your webmasters selling tools. Keep your resource section loaded with places for them to get content, if you're not giving them free content for their sites. Have a list of content providers, especially the ones you have used for the inside of your site. If you've shot your own pics, offer your webmasters some of it to put on their sites, so they can advertise what you have. Showing a webmaster tips on how to sell your genre/niche/fetish is a time saver for them. Education is important. The better informed your webmaster is, the more likely his site will effectively get the surfer to your site. Keep your banners and text links updated and fresh. Surfers tire quickly of the same old sizes and looks. Text ads sell. If you don't feel you are clever enough to write your own, outsource text ads. It takes money to make money. Give your webmasters the best tools you can. Money in their pockets means money in yours. It's a symbiotic relationship that can benefit everyone.

Weekly emails to your webmasters, informing them of new banners and text ads, are essential for the success of your program. Giving your affiliates tips on how to sell your sites helps them market correctly and helps both of you make money. Emails also keep your program name in the forefronts of their minds. Often, webmasters join programs, just to see what is on the inside. A few days later, your program is forgotten. Useful information contained in an email will serve as a reminder that your program is alive and well. Keeping your program updated and fresh will go a long way in creating a lasting relationship between you and those who are giving you their traffic.

Don't start offering per signup or per active member until you are sure your pockets are deep enough to cover the costs. Refer to the previous paragraphs regarding your webmasters. They are the fuel for your engine. You're depending on hard working men and women to support your program. Treat them right and everyone makes money. Take advantage and you'll find yourself alone with a program nobody uses.