Cindy Ballard Marketing

How Important Are Your TOS

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Prior to launching your affiliate program you want to be sure you have a thorough set of Terms and Conditions. Though they will need to be modified occasionally, its best to start off with a strong foundation so your affiliates know exactly what they can and cannot do.

Your Terms of Service should start with an overview of what is expected and make it clear that by submitting an application to the merchant program the affiliate understands this is a legal agreement and has read this agreement.

Sections to be included in the TOS should include:

*Merchants rights and obligations

*Affiliates rights and obligations

*Payment provisions

*Promotion restrictions

*Confidentiality

*Indemnification

*Warranty Disclaimer

*Termination

*FTC compliance

*Misc. (if needed)

Most networks do have a standard TOS that you can base your individual agreement around, however, you may have a different position regarding promotions or obligations therefore you can adjust it to your specifications.

It’s important for the TOS to be precise, easy to read and understand and naturally protect the rights of the merchant as well as the affiliates. Most affiliates in honesty will never read them, however, if there is ever a need to remove an affiliate for breaching the TOS you will have an excellent source to reference to them.

How Attribution Helps Merchants

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When we think of attribution in affiliate marketing we typically associate it with affiliate commissions and how they are affected. Of course, with a fair attribution program set up by affiliate management, affiliates involved in the click stream can all end up with at least some portion of the commission from a sale.

However, how does this affect the merchant?  With an innovative attribution program, merchants are able to track and measure their affiliate’s contribution to the end sale. This is helpful to them in that they can then check with the affiliate to identify what type of campaign or marketing efforts they are using to help not only attract consumers but also in learning how they are closing the sale.

I find this to be especially helpful to new merchants that are trying to brand their products. They should be regularly monitoring their attribution results and communicating with their affiliates for best results. Doing this will give them a better understanding of the direction they should take in marketing their products and securing a strong brand. This can also in help them optimize their organic search efforts or paid search efforts.

Maximizing affiliate marketing options is a key to a strong affiliate marketing program and can be achieved with an advanced attribution program which rewards not only the affiliates and keeps them happy but is also useful to the merchant.

 

Recruiting Affiliates is Like Playing Scrabble

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Many Affiliate Managers try to impress their merchants by recruiting a multitude of affiliates every month as a way to show they are excelling at their job. While recruiting affiliates is a vital part of their job, it’s more important that they recruit the proper affiliates.

It’s like playing Scrabble. It’s not how long the word is, it’s the letters you use and where your place them. The same goes for recruiting affiliates. On any given day any Affiliate Manager can sign up 10 or more affiliates, a great Affiliate Manager will sign up super affiliates and engage them right away in promoting their merchants products. Naturally this takes more time and skillset but is certainly more profitable for the merchant.  I’d be willing to bet that the Affiliate Manager that goes for quantity over quality has less than 50% of those recruited affiliates even listing that merchant on their site and less than 10% of them active with the merchant.

You can call it a numbers game and say that with larger numbers of affiliates that eventually there has to be sales. That’s not true. Adding affiliates that have no correlation to the merchant’s products and have no real plan to promote them is a waste of affiliate management time.

The key to recruiting affiliates is to find affiliates that are active in promotions and have an audience that is generally interested in the merchant’s products. Thinking outside the box is fine as long as it does not hurt the merchants branding either. If your merchant has higher quality products you don’t want to cheapen by placing them on sites that sell low quality products because that is what their audience is looking for.

Affiliate managers should always be watchful of the affiliates they approve into their programs and auto approval should never be an option.

 

How I Can Help

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Do you understand Affiliate Marketing?

Do you understand Affiliate Marketing terms?

Is your site ready for Affiliate Marketing?

Do you know which Affiliates are best for your site?

Are you aware of the different Networks available?

Do you have an affiliate manager already and if so, are they doing the best they can for you?

Are you aware of the FTC guidelines?

These are just a few questions to ask yourself if you are interested in starting or continuing an affiliate program. These are also the questions that I have the answer to, and with my consulting program, you too will gain insight as to where your status should be in reference to affiliate marketing.