Advice wanted: How do I start my own Affiliate Program?

G

Goldfisher

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Apr 29, 2010
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I think affiliate marketing campaign is sensible to market my product.
I manufacture and sell a (cool), new product, and I think an affiliate campaign would help get the product out there. The product retails for about $59.95
Now I'm new at this so I'm not sure where to start, how much would you expect to get from, (me) such a program if your campaign revolves around a $59.95 product, ( how much should I pay)?
One problem I already see is since it's a new product the sales are just starting so finding people to sign up could be hard, am I right?
From reading on this site, I found sites where I can create my own campaign, but I was not sure how much I should pay per sale..can't I have a campaign and pay by click too? Do I even need one of those companies to represent my product campaign?
Internet marketing accounts for my sales now, I just need to get a broader reach........affiliate marketing might be the solution...
Is it reasonable? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.....
 


First and foremost, make sure what you have converts. In other words, do your own marketing / testing / optimization before you begin the process of launching an affiliate program. If you spend a bunch of time going out there and recruiting affiliates to market your product and they don't see a solid return on the time & resources it takes to promote a product, they won't continue and all that recruiting effort will be for naught. That's if you can even recruit them in the first place. Experienced affiliates will look at your offer, payout, creative etc and if they don't think it's commercially viable, you won't even get out of the gate with them.

Without knowing more about your product & niche it's difficult to give you any sound tactical advice. Are there competing products to yours? Do they have affiliates actively promoting? How are you differentiated? What would make someone want to promote your product vs. a competitor product?
 
So what you're saying is the affiliate marketers want proven sales, a product that "really sells". I have proven sales, and growing steadily, probably not at the growth expected by an affiliate, or at least not enough growth for a genuine all out campaign. So I wouldn't be able to have a big campaign.
Since affiliate marketers used creative ways to market I would think I could pay someone to run a campaign, and pay a flat fee, it could prove effective or maybe not, I'll never know unless I do it.
I think when I considered the affiliate marketing idea, I may have confused it with SEO, like blogs, and videos, articles, affiliate is you have a bunch of people doing it for you.
Nevertheless, I think using the experience of an affiliate marketer to run a campaign would be worthwile.
I guess my next question would be, if I were to post a job offer to have an affiliate marketer apply their skills to my product, what skills might be used, maybe I should be looking into learning that.
Do you think an affiliate person would run a campaign for a flat fee? If so, how much do you think I should be prepared to pay?
I'm really interested in getting my product out there.......
Thanks.....
 
Wait, you want to hire One marketer to run a campaign? You aren't really creating an affiliate program then.
 
Op if you own the product and are currently selling it is there a reason to keep it secret? Out what you have. There are people here that can give you specific advice instead of a guessing game back and forth.
 
Good question about the secrecy. I have no problem telling anyone here, in fact it kills me that I can't. What happens if you, (I) do mention it publicly then "Google" or a search engine picks it up, and then this thread ends up in search engine results.
 
So why don't you tell everybody? What does it matter if a search engine picks up on this thread? Is your product legal?
3A163CC0-3E40-6D19-7E5A-49D785FB8DB7
1.03.01
 
Only the sts section gets indexed you're ok.

1. Figure out what portion of your margin you can give up in order to introduce an aff program. Even breaking even or being very marginal is worth it if you can spread your brand name/outreach.

2. I think you should stick around here and read a lot, and LOOK at business models that do offer aff progs that are similar to yours (all the same shit really, you have an offer, you give affiliates great converting artwork/marketing materials, they sell, you ship), and investigate their aff progs.

3. You have a tangible product, and it comes w/shipping, meaning you'd be in a CPS model more than likely (you pay the affiliate a flat $ per sale they make, I wouldn't bother with leads or other model at this point, you have a lot to learn and can get taken advantage of quick with your eagerness). This would have to be either a high amount, OR your product is off the hook and converts at 1:20 or less with half decent traffic. (Ask yourself, if I send 100 absolutely targeted warmed up unique hits to your site, how many will conver to a sale?) < That's your conversion rate. 1:20 means affiliates can spend $x.xx to get 20 clicks and on average 1 sale.

Aff's just look for money, longevity, and transparency. If you can convert fast, pay on time, and stick around for a while - you'll do well.

**Note - if you're new, I'd stay away from networks for a while too - you can get fucked as an advertiser just as quickly as an affiliate with the CPA's.
 
jeffrey said:
Wait, you want to hire One marketer to run a campaign? You aren't really creating an affiliate program then.
Click to expand...
You would be recruiting an affiliate manager, not an affiliate. You might also look at the OPM (outsourced program management) route if you're serious about it. Basically, a consultant to help you get things off the ground, assist with recruiting, make overall recommendations about the program etc.
 
I really didn't expect the great response....thanks....Product is 100% legal, I really want to tell the name of it, without mentioning brand name or anything......you can google "RC Fishing Boat" , first site, #1 is the product and site.
 
Hmmm, that's a very unusual product.
Definitely stay away from creating an affiliate program for now. Hire one experienced affiliate marketer on a base + commission, and have him revise your site and perfect your marketing. There might be some successful young marketers up in Windsor going to the university there, so that might be a good place to start.

I'm not experienced with print advertising, but I think that this product would do better in print than online. There are many fisherman publications, and even more kids' publications to advertise in - what kid wouldn't bug the hell out of their parents for something like this? You could probably find a good print advertising partner by grabbing 10 kids' magazines, and looking for the small ads that run in all of them. Contact the company that's responsible and see if they're game for working on commission etc.
 
tvieira24 said:
You need a new website ;)
Click to expand...

Yep. You could probably get quite a few more sales from existing traffic by doing a redesign and some conversion optimization on your site.

zany zoroaster said:
Hmmm, that's a very unusual product.
Definitely stay away from creating an affiliate program for now. Hire one experienced affiliate marketer on a base + commission, and have him revise your site and perfect your marketing. There might be some successful young marketers up in Windsor going to the university there, so that might be a good place to start.

I'm not experienced with print advertising, but I think that this product would do better in print than online. There are many fisherman publications, and even more kids' publications to advertise in - what kid wouldn't bug the hell out of their parents for something like this? You could probably find a good print advertising partner by grabbing 10 kids' magazines, and looking for the small ads that run in all of them. Contact the company that's responsible and see if they're game for working on commission etc.
Click to expand...

Yep, it's definitely interesting. Do you have a sense of who your customers are at this point yet?
 
The plan, after the invaluable input here is:
1.) Site redesign
2.) Test affiliate idea by hiring one person, pay flat rate plus commission, if it works then go all out.
 
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