Affiliate Programs - waste of money??

[101sales]

I've been looking around the web for affiliate programs - you know like commission junction (but much cheaper)...

Has anyone had any experience using affiliates like these to sell your services?

EDIT!!!

um, um, whoops - wrong forum :D

Please move me....

[suppleSupport]

Originally posted by 101sales:

um, um, whoops - wrong forum :D

Please move me....

Done :)

[Deb]

For us I couldn't say that the Affiliate Program necessarily greatly increases the sales but it does have value that surround the increase concept as by encouraging more of our clients to link to us within their web sites and our clients are pleased to receive 'discounts/credits/paybacks' for recommending us which increases their satisfaction levels and our chances of being recommended.

Some of our clients are making a nice chunk of change off of the affiliate program which of course keeps them happy too.

We were using CJ up until just recently. CJ really started to go down the tubes over the past several months and the expense finally became high enough to where we could no longer justify the program. We have just now switched to an in-house affiliate program and so far the transition rate (of clients switching from CJ to our new system) has been quite positive. For this reason I do believe our clients are happy to have the affiliate program and that's reason enough for me to work toward keeping it alive.

In short, I think an affiliate program is an excellent added feature for existing clients, but I'm not so sure it would work as well for establishing the initial client base. If you already have a decent number of clients, they may very well thank you for adding an affiliate program and it may help to increase your sales. If you do not already have a decent client base, then I think using a different method of marketing with your funds may be wiser.

A nicety however, is that if you keep it in-house the expense wouldn't be too high since if it doesn't generate sales, it doesn't cost too much to maintain. If it is generating sales then obviously those sales balance out the costs. Going with a third party such as CJ will have just the opposite affect since even without sales you have a hefty monthly fee...

Overall I'm on the fence with the affiliate programs. They def have their good and bad points. If you work at it though the good can outweigh the bad.

[Kawartha]

Just reading your comments about CJ. Not sure exactly what you mean about your inhouse, how that works with the type of biz model you have. I'll re-read it after.

My reason for posting is that I am launching a site in a few months that will have a niche membership subscriber base. What I want to do- and have initiated contact with selected companies- is find a few eco-socio responsible companies in their fields and offer exclusivity Affiliates Sponsor opportunities to market to our demographic.

I would like to have that 'community' in place of course BEFORE launching the site. Not so easy to convince though.

Exclusivity would have a price...exactly how to calculate that, I'm still working out.

I don't think I instinctively like the affiliate programs offered due to they are copies for many sites and I'm not sure if you could select or pick and choose which company to keep and what to leave out from the affiliate program. Do you have to accept the 'lot'? Is it a package kind deal?

[Deb]

I don't think I instinctively like the affiliate programs offered due to they are copies for many sites and I'm not sure if you could select or pick and choose which company to keep and what to leave out from the affiliate program. Do you have to accept the 'lot'? Is it a package kind deal? You have the ability to pick and choose. Ours is setup in such a way that we manually approve the requests. This way we can attempt to 'weed out' anything we wouldn't want to be advertised with. We also have two types of Affiliates ... "The regular affiliate" and the "QuestAffiliate". QuestAffiliates are site owners that host with us and as such earn a higher commision as well as receiving 'extra banner/text/link' options.

Most 'standard affiliate scripts' allow for this type of control. It's just a matter of how you choose to set it up.

[Deb]

Not sure exactly what you mean about your inhouse, I refer to inhouse as things we operate ourselves as opposed to third party solutions. CJ == they handle the majority and it's a third party. Inhouse == we host and handle it all ourselves...

[101sales]

Thanks Deb for you interesting insight. :D

[proxy]

Affiliate programs are not a waste of money at all. As long as you are %100 sure you have
(A) A website with alot of traffic, more then enough to work out finances, say 1 in 6 customers sign up for affiliate only %25 of your affiliates will actualy use the gateway. We run an affiliate program and so far it has payed off fine, around 1 out of 7 of our customers are affiliates and only around %50 of them bring profit but when they do they pay nicely.

[NexDog]

Deb, may I ask what affilate script you use?

[inogenius]

I think an affiliate program can be a great boost to get customers, and to retain customers. They get a little incentive for inviting more in, and you get more customers, while keeping the others happy.

I do offer an affiliate program to some of my larger customers in order to keep their hosting bills a bit lower, however if a smaller one asks they can join in too. I don't use an affliate script, rather I just have a referrer field in my signup form. It encourages word of mouth advertising, and we all know that's the best kind.

[markcw]

Affiliate programs should be looked at as as alternative to advertising, getting new customers, getting orders and growing your business.

How much per customer would you pay? About as much as an affliate would get on one payment? Would you spend the same on advertising as on the CJ program?

At CJ your odds of getting alot of people to signup and advertise your program are much greater than starting your own affiliate program. You will need to watch who is signing up!

Converting from CJ is easier because you have a payment track record for sales and become a trustworthy site. However, if payments decrease when you swich from CJ, expect to lose affiliates too.

I am doing ok on the other side of the fence using affiliate programs almost exclusively for some sites :)

[UH-Matt]

CJ is the ultimate. Setup is expensive but it almost guarantee's you LARGE amounts of signups. Ive seen companies get flooded with sales and outgrow themselves due to CJ.

[IceIsHot]

Well from an affiliates point of view...

Whether it will work or not depends on your conversion rate.
I am affiliated with some hosts through CJ and also some independents. Some hosts get over 20 sign ups a month from me and others get none (I am slowly weeding out the ones with none).

Now, if I were to affiliate with you, and you couldn't convert, I would strongly suggest you take a look at your business model and adjust accordingly. I send about 100 visitors a month to each host that is listed on my Web Hosting Comparison. If you can't convert at least some of those visitors to sales then you know what... Do not, I repeat, do not offer an affiliate program.

BTW Once you decide what to do, if you get the affiliate program, let me know and I will review your site for inclusion on my site. If you don't get an affiliate program I also offer an alternate way to get listed. If interested... Let me know.

Oh yea, most of my independent hosting companies use AffiliateWiz as their affiliate program.

[jshen0630]

Check out your competitors, if you are not as competive as them,
don't offer an affiliate program. From my expericences with CJ,
most of the sales are coming from a few compatitive advertisers.

[hostthebest]

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