Starting an affiliate marketing programme for your business can be a fast and cost effective way to generate leads and, as we have seen, offers a way to gain access to a third party’s SEO and PCC expertise as well as their huge loyal audience.
But it comes with risks. Here are some of the things that you should be looking out for when starting an affiliate programme.
Chose Your Publishers Wisely
By definition, affiliate marketing hands a degree of control over to the publishers who market on your behalf. Because these publishers are incentivized with sales commissions, they may end up using advertising and promotional strategies that your own company might not be comfortable with.
Making sure that publishers who are part of your program only implement “white hat” strategies that won’t harm your brand in any way is vital.
Avoid Low-Quality Publishers
One of the most common mistakes for organizations trying to grow their startup program is to accept too many publishers too quickly.
Obviously, the more affiliate partners you have, the more your products and services are promoted, and the more sales and revenue you should generate. But quick growth is less desirable than quality growth.
There are literally millions of low quality publishers looking for something to sell – and they aren’t picky about what they sell, so long as they can make a quick buck.
Partner with people like this and your brand may be quickly associated with lots of low quality Internet real estate. What’s worse is that low quality partners may produce lots of low quality links and content around your brand, which is absolutely toxic to page rankings and organic search traffic from Google.
It may be that you end up irreversibly polluting other healthy channels, and this can be very costly, perhaps even terminal.
In general, you should vet everyone that applies to ensure they:
• Have a quality site/blog/channel
• Do not engage in spammy activities
• Are a genuine person/business
• Are established within your niche/brand/industry
Ideally, you want to maintain a small, manageable stable of influencers who will promote your brand responsibly and effectively.
Lay Down The Law And Avoid Deviation
It is your responsibility to lay down the rules when it comes to what are or aren’t acceptable marketing strategies.
For example, many companies forbid affiliates from bidding on specific brand keywords in Google AdWords. Obviously it is counter-constructive to drive up advertising prices by competing for your own product and service ad terms.
In general it is a good idea to talk about promotional strategies that are allowed, and disallow everything else. Otherwise you run the risk of some enterprising publisher using a spam technique you’ve never even heard of to damage your reputation.
Provide a list of allowed promotional activities that is restricted based on what is in line with your own marketing methods.
Stay Away From Spam
Even with proper guidelines in place you can be sure that one or two affiliates will overstep their bounds every now and then. It’s important to monitor the activities being undertaken on your behalf.
The problem here is two-fold. Firstly, it can be hugely damaging to your brand if you are being associated with spam – and it can land you in hot water legally if someone reports you – and secondly it is counter productive.
No one is going to click through a poorly spelled, spammy email or link that they weren’t expecting and that doesn’t look genuine. Alright, that won’t cost you anything, but it potentially is losing you a sale.
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