“Cultivates the serious and honest”, from the headline of this post. I love that statement pulled out of the Affiliate testimonial below. Take a look at the rest of what Blake from favorideas.com says about our partnership. Thanks for all your continued support and feedback, Blake!

Affiliate marketing is still kind of a wild west, last frontier way of making a living. For that reason there’s plenty of wildcat stuff on the fringes: cookie-stuffing affiliates, slippery merchants and sometimes, (ouch) exploitational networks. Anyone whose daily bread starts overlapping significantly with their affiliate income gets quite an education in these things. I took some lumps with various networks when my business first took off, but thanks to AvantLink’s timing in entering the marketplace, I got spoiled pretty early on. When the staff aren’t being helpful, responsive and even touchy-feely (ever get a call from a network rep when they’re actually at top of a ski slope on a holiday? Thought not!), they’re invisible. Actually, they’re better than invisible, because over the months and years I’ve developed this delightful sense that they’re battling for my rights behind the scenes. I have a lot of trust in AvantLink, something that would be naive on my part with many networks. And even when I ask for something a little out of the ordinary in terms of data to work with, they advocate for it.

I don’t cheat merchants, and all I want to do is get my business done. Because Avantlink has a value system that excludes the squirrelly and cultivates the serious and honest, I don’t worry about getting paid for the legitimate sales I send. Nor do I feel like merchants are constantly worrying about me pulling one over on them. Most of the time, I don’t think about how much I appreciate this environment until I have to do a little business somewhere else; then it all comes back.

Blake Kritzberg
www.favorideas.com

Affiliates,

As we are nearing the end of summer and peak season is approaching we have something that we hope will interest you affiliates out there. The-House.com is offering a nice incentive to affiliates for the month of September. The sales contest will take place from the 1st through the 30th and the first five affiliates to generate $1,000.00 in sales will receive the added bonus of $100.00!

We hope all of you will take advantage of this opportunity and want to say thanks for all of your hard work so far this year.

Check out the ABW announcement as well.

Best of luck to all of you!

Mark Kalbach
activesports@avantlink.com

Time for another Affiliate Marketing Best Practices article, but this time it’s an article for merchants. Disclaimer: It’s been a while since I’ve managed an Affiliate program, so correct me if I need it. But I think the primary concepts and techniques for effective Affiliate management may just be timeless.

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Just as Affiliate marketing has evolved and matured, so has the roll of Affiliate Manager (AM). Today’s managers (and the merchants they work for) have to understand the process of building a quality program. And a process it is, especially if the program is new. It takes a lot more these days than launching in reputable networks. There is too much competition among merchants for the top Affiliates. Retailers, maintain a program that’s more compelling and higher converting for Affiliates, and you win. You attract the most talented marketers who consistently bring you new customers and large sales volume. But how can that be done? And what resources are available?

Over the years one thing that has remained the cornerstone of effective program management is consistent communication with Affiliates. So email your Affiliates. Email them collectively with big news or with a monthly newsletter. Email them one-to-one and support them, offer ideas, talk shop. Over time effective communicators build solid relationships and get honest, constructive feedback. Both of which empower Affiliates to drive more sales.

Options for program management include hiring in house, hiring a management firm or using a network. AvantLink recently rolled out a very competitive Managed Solution service level for merchants. And there is a strong proof of concept in what we’re doing. The fundamentals are rooted in business and branding strategy, and any web-based business can benefit from them. Especially web retailers with Affiliate programs, and Affiliate marketers themselves.

For communication, traditionally AM’s used email, instant messaging, and telephone. And more recently Twitter. That’s all good. But consider these additional channels for engaging Affiliates, link building and growing your Affiliate program brand; all at the same time.

1. Wordpress. Start a blog dedicated to your Affiliate program and nothing else. Distribute your monthly newsletters as blog posts, make a post about new banners, new products, and of course sales and promotions. Think critically about the subject line, and use a good link strategy. There are many reasons why you should use Wordpress for your blog, but that’s for a different article. Take a look at the Backcountry Affiliate Blog to see a working example.
2. ABestWeb. Sponsor a branded, sub-forum on ABestWeb.com. This is the largest Affiliate community on the web, and every inbound link from ABW is gold. Essentially, what you post to your Affiliate program blog, you can post to your ABestWeb category. Tweak the subject line a bit, and don’t re-purpose the content exactly from your blog. The extra 10-15 minutes you take to rewrite the article is well worth the effort. Check out Altrec’s sub-forum on ABestWeb to see an example.

The reality is that the best Affiliates won’t simply take your word for it. Especially if you’re not a nationally recognized brand. Any retailer can talk up how good their program is, and how well their site converts. Likely the first thing Affiliates will do before signing up with any program is Google “Merchantname Affiliate program” and see what comes up. So make sure there is more in the results than just the Affiliate program info page on your site. The more blog articles and forum threads about you, the better. But no thin posts or articles!

A couple of other examples of distribution channels AvantLink regularly uses includes the AvantLink category at the Rocky Mountain Affiliate Marketing Association’s (RMAMA) blog. We’ve also used PRWeb.com (see sidebar of blog) consistently over the years to get important news out. These articles also include very important links to our content. We try and take full advantage of any opportunity to pump out good news!

So to conclude, Affiliate managers who are competent communicators should align themselves with the distinct branding and content distribution channels discussed above. Not only will this open up more communication mediums (your Wordpress blog’s RSS feed, for example), but every bit of content being distributed will get picked up quickly by Google and the others. This is what builds your authority and positive brand in the Affiliate space.

Once prospective Affiliates get a sense that your program is an authority, and that someone is communicating effectively, it will in essence become a powerful recruitment or acquisition channel as well. The task of forming good, long-term and prosperous relationships just got easier!

Gary M

Note: Visit our Solutions page for more information on our Branding Package for merchants. With this package we offer merchants the distribution channels highlighted in this article, at a substantial package discount. The Branding Package may be utilized as a stand alone service, or encompassed in our comprehensive Affiliate Management Solution. Contact us for more information.

At this time we thought it would be appropriate to get into detail on our new Managed Solution service level we now offer merchants. We know what works, and what doesn’t, in terms of program management. Here are the key points and information on this full service management and branding package we offer…

Earlier this month we announced that as of July 1st we were providing Affiliate program branding & management services for two Active Sports, Inc. stores on our network. These two stores are The-House.com and Proboardshop.com, and both are high-converting sites selling popular brand name outdoor gear and apparel. It’s been so far so good, and you can bet the sales volume for both programs will continue to improve.

This is namely because the cornerstone of this unique proposition utilizes a branding strategy with proof of concept to not only effectively brand a program as the authority in their category (which naturally attracts and retains the highest volume Affiliates), but also provides an array of communication and distribution channels for sale details, coupon offers, promotions or otherwise general Affiliate and business news related to the program. This is all the content that is exactly relevant and important for Affiliates to have at their fingertips in a timely fashion, and on a regular basis!

Merchants, when you contract with AvantLink to handle day-to-day Affiliate program management and branding, you’ll be assigned a dedicated, experienced and focused program manager. The emphasis will be on incremental and consistent growth in AvantLink, and you won’t be pushed to any other network where you’ll invariably shell out thousands more to get started.

The keys to bottom line growth in the Affiliate channel include dedicated management, regular communications, program branding, and of course patience. Despite what you may have heard otherwise, building a strong Affiliate program for your business is a process, and it will take time. Especially if you’re starting from scratch.

Below are the two main elements included with our Managed Solution…

• A Dedicated Program Manager - An experienced individual with dedication to your bottom line success in AvantLink. This person’s management role will be a pro-active one with emphasis on the distribution of optimized promotional and news content through several high profile channels. Your AvantLink program manager will…
  • Review and approve Affiliate applicants, screening them for suitability and offering our expertise in properly integrating and using our tools.
  • Provide branding for your Affiliate program(s) through the posting of campaigns, specials and other vehicles (see below).
  • Manage the campaign and collateral materials in the merchant interface.
  • Discuss strategy and campaigns ideas on a regular basis.
  • Provide day-to-day relationship management for affiliates.
  • Manage correspondence with affiliates.
• Full Branding Package Utilization - A package with proof of concept that offers branding and communication opportunities above and beyond what managers can otherwise find in the network. We’ve partnered with Haiko de Poel, Jr., owner of ABestWeb.com, to offer merchants a substantial discount on several ABestWeb service levels. As well as access to some of the one-off services in AvantLink. Distribution channels that come with the Branding Package include…
  • AvantShare Branded Merchant Affiliate Program Blog - $500 value
  • AvantLink Featured Merchant Homepage Placement - $250 value
  • ABestWeb Sub-forum of a Category - $1,500 Annual Value
  • ABestWeb Merchant’s Blog Inclusion - $1,000 Annual Value
  • ABestWeb Run of Site Banner Rotation - $1,500 Annual Value
  • ABestWeb Recruiting Email - $800 Annual Value

For pricing information on our Managed Solution drop us a line. We’re also happy to answer any question you may have on the unique value proposition of what we’re offering. You certainly don’t want to spend too much on program management, or otherwise adding your program to multiple networks. Both of which can put you in a very challenging position in terms of seeing an acceptable ROI for your Affiliate marketing efforts!

Gary for AvantLink

Just a quick post to highlight an upgrade to our Affiliate Recruitment tool. For those who may not be familiar, in AvantLink merchants have the ability to send out recruitment offers to Affiliates that have chosen to opt-in to these recruitment offers.

We do not disclose Affiliate contact information, however; until the Affiliate has applied, or is active, with a program. The recruitment tool uses an email form we provide in the management interface to send out offers to the email addys Affiliates have configured in their AvantLink account.

At the request of Krystofer from the REI Affiliate program, and some other merchants, David added a filter option that will allow you to select from among “Available recruits”, “Pending offers”, or “Declined offers”.

Hope this is helpful to the program managers out there!

Gary & AvantLink

Recently Dave MacLeay, a valued Affiliate partner on our network, was asked by an AM why he was migrating his links from the large network they had been on, to AvantLink (where this particular merchant just launched with us, too). Here was Dave’s answer:

Why AvantLink? In a nutshell: they have robust, reliable tools for datafeeds and reporting, outstanding personal customer service, and a great philosophy and approach to the business. They’re more flexible and nimble than any other network I’ve worked with, and are very responsive to new ideas from both merchants and publishers. Rather than trying to enforce a top-down, network-centric relationship, they really seem to understand that their role is to facilitate, enable, and support productive relationships between merchants and affiliates. (Ironically, that puts them in a stronger, more trusted position than other networks that try to control or limit contact between affiliates and merchants.) Because AvantLink is selective about who they work with, they’re able to provide customer service that’s head-and-shoulders above anyone else in the industry. Most of all, they just seem to “get it” — it’s about giving partners the tools and support they need to be productive and then getting out of their way. For all those reasons, whenever I have a choice of networks, AvantLink gets my business.

Dave MacLeay
Co-Founder, Publisher
Trailspace.com

There you have it. Thanks Dave, for your valuable feedback, kind words and support!

We’ve added a new merchant tool in the account admin interface that allows program managers to view a spam analysis for their Affiliate email messages. We included this functionality as part of the “Email Affiliates” tool so merchants can better gage whether or not messages they are distributing to their Affiliates will be caught in various spam filters.

Merchants, you can find this spam analysis tool by following these steps:

1. Login and click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu.
2. Click on ‘Email Affiliates’ from the tool list.
3. Notice the ‘View Spam Analysis’ button at the bottom of the form.

Once you configure an email message you can view the spam analysis by clicking that button. Results from the analysis will look something like this:

Your message appears unlikely to be filtered as spam (score: 4.10 out of 5.00). Scoring details:
+1.30 - BODY: HTML: images with 2800-3200 bytes of words
+1.70 - BODY: Message only has text/html MIME parts
+1.10 - HTML-only message, but there is no HTML tag
Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of this message being categorized as spam by your affiliate’s mail servers.

Note that you can also retrieve previously sent emails and run an analysis on those as well. Email your account rep if you have questions, or feel free to comment here.

Recent Affiliate testimonial sent to our support team:

This is why I think you guys are destined for greatness. Thank you very much for listening to and ultimately implementing my suggestions, I’m looking forward to being able to grow my sales volume with this new data. I can’t think of any other network I work with that would have done more than just respond with a canned “we’ll look into it” email. Kudos to you and your team, I’ll continue to sing your praises to every affiliate and merchant I know.

Warm regards,
Scott
Artisan Interactive Consulting

We’d like to thank Scott for his support, kind words and all the sales he’s generating for our merchants! (merchants, hint hint ;))