One of the things I learned from working at and with several large, national, multi channel retailers, was the concept of same store sales.  Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complex metric that I came up with, it’s only something I have found useful when managing affiliate programs.  Whether retail programs, lead gen programs, business-to-business programs or others, it comes in quite handy.

Same-store performance is a concept used by retailers and investors to evaluate a retail company’s performance.  It compares sales of stores that have been open for at least a year in that organization.  From investopedia:

This statistic allows investors to determine what portion of new sales has come from sales growth and what portion from the opening of new stores. This analysis is important because, although new stores are good, a saturation point–where future sales growth is determined by same store sales growth - eventually occurs.

So why should you care?  As an affiliate manager it is important for you to know where your sales are coming from, how your current partners are performing and what percentage of your sales growth comes from new partnerships.  And like the description above, at some point, your program’s sales growth will be coming from your current affiliates as your program becomes saturated with all the appropriate affiliates.

You need to be able to measure if your program is growing by new partners, or existing partners.  Your plans, promotions, offers and strategy will be dependent on this measurement and will change as you move from new partner growth to current partner performance growth.

JEBCommerce wasn’t able to attend the Affiliate Summit in NYC this year.  We very much wanted to, but we are working on some big things here, launching a few new clients and hiring new people, so a journey across the country was not in the cards.  If you haven’t attended an Affiliate Summit and are still on the fence, do it.  You won’t regret it.  Our entire team will be heading to ASW10 in Vegas next year.  We won’t be missing that and we hope to meet you there as well.

Fortunately for us, more than 50 attendees have posted their recaps of the event online.  Our team went through and found recaps from people such as Ian Fernando, Zach Johnson, Clickbooth, Missyward, the Martells, Murray Newlands and more.  We’ve listed many of these recaps here.  It sure sounds like everyone had an awesome time, and lots of business was done and networking took place.  If I missed your recap, just send an email to jamie@jebcommerce.com and I’ll add it today.

Revenews’ CT Moor’s Recap

Stephanie Lichtenstein’s Recap

Affiliate Summit East Slide Shows

James and Arlene Martell on Webmaster Radio

MissyWard.com

Murray Newsland’s Recap

ClickBank’s Recap

Affiliatetip’s Recap

Buy.at’s Recap

Eric Nagle’s Recap

Vinny Ohare’s Recap

HelpMeDrive’s Recap

TheChrista.com’s Recap

Ian Fernando’s Recap

AdHustler’s Recap

Affiliate Marketing Fanatics’ Recap

Nerdy Affiliate’s Recap

Mike Chiasson.com - Love his welcome to NY moment.

TrishaLynn.com

CashTactics.net

ShockMarketer

Super Affiliate Twins

DailyConversions.com

InternetMarketingWorldCup.com

I put this little video together this morning after driving my favorite vehicle to work.  Yes that is a two-tone, 1973 Scout II.  Unfortunately it runs about as good as it looks at the moment.  Watch the video and then please share with me your story.  Do you feel like you have a good idea of where your program stands?  Are you ready to tackle all your obstacles and opportunities through the end of the year?

Last month our Director of Affiliate Relations, Stephen Robinson, was featured on the MediaTrust blog, Relevantly Speaking.  Stephen discusses some of the major concerns big brands have in the performance marketing space and how companies and individuals help with these.  Great interview Stephen!

Are you an ideal affiliate manager?  We have been working with affiliate programs since 1999 and at times, we made some mistakes.  I know, for those of you who know me personally, that is probably hard to believe (said with my most sarcastic voice), but it’s true.

Many of these mistakes come from simply not knowing what an ideal affiliate manager is, what characteristics she/he has and what she/he does for affiliates.  This past year as we developed the MyAffiliateCoach Program, we asked many affiliates and veteran affiliate managers what characteristics the ideal affiliate manager exhibits.  It helped us create our very first training module - the Ideal Affiliate Manager.  Here are a few of the characteristics that many brought up:

1. Communicative:  I remember when my boss at Coldwater Creek received my personalysis test back the second week I started there.  She had it in her hands laughing at the top of her lungs.  I had thought I’d done something so bad that it was funny to fire me.  I wasn’t expecting her to show the entire team my results.  I was heavy in communication and heavy in strategy.  These were the two things she felt most important in an affiliate manager and they were my highest scores.  Being communicative is vital to a good affiliate manager.  You have to be able to reach them, converse with them and communicate, not only your companies goals, objectives and value proposition, but also with them on a personal level.
2. Strategic:  As I said above, my boss at Coldwater Creek felt this was the second most important characteristic and those we interviewed this year echoed that sentiment.  A good affiliate manager needs to have a handle on the landscape and be able to create and execute projects at a strategic level, planning how things are going to work, working with affiliates to identify new ways they can be successful and helping them do more today.
3. Impeccable Follow Through:  I’ve heard this time and time again and it is probably the most often recited issue with affiliates “that affiliate manager has no follow through”.  “Do what you say you are going to do” - I’ve heard that one many times too.  When you don’t follow through on what you promise and what you say you are going to do, each time that whittles away any trust you have built with affiliates.  Following through as promised, or more than promised, strengthens your reputation and your relationships every single time.

In our first module we cover more than 11 characteristics of an ideal manager, those above are only a start.  What do you think?  What are the most important characteristics of an affiliate manager for you?

If you are interested in learning more about our affiliate manager coaching and mentoring program, please visit MyAffiliateCoach.net.

I just got off the phone with a very close friend of mine.  I’d venture to say he is in my circle of best friends.  Definitely in the circle of trust, without a doubt.  We’ve known each other for over ten years now and actually our families spent the last weekend on vacation.

We had talked this weekend about a colleague of mine, former employee, that saw the other side of the affiliate fence and not only jumped over, but is now enjoying a nice financial benefit as well as the freedom that comes from being your own boss in affiliate marketing.

I think that story really pequed his interest.  The reason for his call was to find out how one gets started as an affiliate.  “Jamie, how did he do it, how could I make some extra cash by being an affiliate. Just how is that done?”

I love those types of questions.  In it yields so much hope and promise and optimism.  An opportunity is just waiting to be discovered and taken.  It’s a great place to be and I love walking people through it.  It’s one of the reasons we started an affiliate manager coaching program, I love to teach.  I really do enjoy seeing people take something they have learned and be successful with it. But anyway, enough about me, this blog post was to be some sort of answer to his questions.

What are you passionate about?

That was my very first question to my friend.  Since we knew each other so well, we walked through several different things he loves to do and his wife loves to do.  There were several different things they were passionate about, knew a lot about, and would love to teach others about, or simply add value to the search process for those things.  After talking a few of them through, I think we not only identified one that has great affiliate marketing potential, but one in which an online seminar or educational program would work very well for him.  So, if you are asking how to get started, start by listing out the things you are passionate about.

Here are some things I’m passionate about, love to do, or simply know a lot about, for example purposes:

• Family - I’ve got a bunch of kids and spend most of my time not spent in the office, spent with them
• Camping - Love it
• Huntin’ & Fishin’ - If I could spend my time in the woods, that is where I’d be
• Music - I so wish I could play the ax like Slash or the acoustic like James Taylor, just sayin..
• Gardening - My wife and I have a pretty big garden and love every minute spent in it and eating the harvest

So there are some of my examples.  We are actually working on a site that encompasses  few of those into one, but that’s a story for another time.

Who is your audience?

After he had more ideas than he could shake a stick at, we moved on to the next important thing, who are you trying to attract?  I recently was working with Matthew Scott of Strategic Incubator on our coaching program and this was one of the first things we did.  We identified every type of target.  We looked at who they were, what they were like, what they did and why would they need the information/product/site I was trying to build.  So I walked my friend through this briefly as well.

Identify your target market in a comprehensive and detailed manner.  Once you know who they are and how they got to the point of needing what you are thinking of building, then you can create that perfect, value added property or product and roll up affiliate marketing into it.

How can you add value?

Now that he had some great ideas, and he is working on identifying his audience, he, and you, can begin to brainstorm ideas on how you can add value to that person and become a great resource and destination for them.  So just jot down some things that you feel would be of benefit.  A great place to start is to search for those types of things.  You’ll really want to identify a gap in what is being provided already.  Adding value within a niche, value that isn’t being added already, service that isn’t being offered, is going to make you stand out and make success even that much easier.  So go ahead, jot down some ideas and search around and see what you find.

After that it is really up to you.  This wasn’t really a “three easy steps to affiliate marketing success” type of post, but if you start here, you’ll develop something that people will love to go to, tell their friends and you’ll be building a business that won’t be too worried about paid search costs, overall marketing expenditures and Google’s next update (can someone say Florida - I think I just dated myself).

What do you think?  Am I off my rocker?  Did I miss the boat?  Do you have a story to share along these lines?

A very typical phone call we receive, and probably at least one each week, is one from a new merchant looking for immediate sales through affiliate marketing.  We love to get calls from new prospects and enjoy meeting new people and learning of new business models.  It’s one of the reasons I love this industry.  There is always something new going on.  If it wasn’t like that, I’d probably would have taken that job at Jeld Wen out of college and not the “Search Engine Guru” position I ended up with .

Many of these callers have the same basic profile:

• they have a brand new site
• they just started selling their products
• they need sales

Does that sound like you?  We all need more sales, and more often than not, an affiliate program is a great way to increase your bottom line.  But is it right for everyone?

The answer is pretty simply, no.  It hurts a little to say that, as an outsourced affiliate management agency, we make our living launching and managing affiliate programs.  But, we’ve been doing this a long time and have launch and managed huge programs for large brands, as well affiliate campaigns for mom and pop stores and everything in the middle.  So we’ve seen that it is not always the best thing for you to do.

When we have launched affiliate programs for companies that are brand new, with no track record, we have found a few things that stand out and helped them become successful.  I’d like to share a few of them with you:

• Affiliate marketing was not their ONLY method of marketing.
• Their expectations were realistic, it takes time to build a strong program.  (for more info on expectations of a new program, see our blog post titled When should You Expect a Positive ROI from Your Affiliate Program)
• They had a long “runway” - meaning they had funds to run the business for quite a while, giving their affiliate program and other programs time to produce results.
• Their product was not only good or clever, but really filled a need that consumers had.
• They had active management - well us really
• Clear and concise rules.
• Solid standard creative.
• They were not only willing to test new things, they had a modest budget for paid placements.
• They could do coupons, discounts and promotions, not only site wide but also by category and individual product.
• Great educational content for affiliates.

Those last two have been big ones.  Having a great and clever product, and one that you could offer a discount on, opened these merchants/advertisers up to many new affiliate relationships.  Offering them solid, comprehensive and unique educational content allowed affiliates to really inform the consumer about this new product and new advertiser.  Without that, you are really just relying on a banner to entice the click.

Now, the ones that had failed?  They showed some common characteristics as well.  You can basically take that list above and write down the opposite of each one.  I’m sure many of you have worked with programs both big and large, what did you find that made one successful and the other not?

AffiliateBenchMarks is looking for affiliates, agencies and advertisers to fill out their 5 minute survey on the affiliate industry and your views of it.

We’ve filled out this survey in the past, as have our clients, and the data you receive from it is fantastic.  We highly recommend you take a few minutes and fill this out.

Here is more information from them:

All we need from you is a few minutes of your time for a quick survey. Take the survey now or Read on to learn more… 

With your help 2010 AffiliateBenchmarks research study will be the most comprehensive survey of affiliate marketers ever. Last year we surveyed over 3500 affiliate marketing executives, providing real insight into this secretive space. 

That’s why we’re reaching out to you; the study only works if we get the opinions and perspectives of as many professionals as possible. As an incentive, if you complete the survey before July 16th 2010, you will receive a copy of the final report absolutely free. 

What you can gain from the 2010 study? 

- Which advertiser types produce the greatest revenue. 

- The best of all tried and tested routes to drive traffic to your affiliate page. 

- The benefit of better run campaigns as networks, agencies and advertisers read the findings of the study. 

- The opportunity to have your voice heard and contribute to a greater understanding of affiliate marketing. 

- A multidimensional look at the relationship between affiliate marketing and other online marketing channels. 

We’ve made improvements from the 2009 study 

- Our study is now simpler. We removed some questions and streamlined others to ease the burden on busy affiliates. 

- We’ve added a short survey for advertisers/merchants to collect some information on their challenges and views of affiliate marketing. 

- We added a short survey for agencies/OPMs/consultants to collect some information on their view of the industry. 

- We have even more partners who have agreed to distribute the survey and ensure that 2010 will be the largest affiliate research study ever produced (a title currently held by our 2009 report). 

- The 2010 report will feature more indepth analysis than ever before.

You get back what you put in 

As in previous studies, any participant who answers every question (not just the ‘required’ fields) will receive the full survey results and participants who answer all of the required questions will receive a copy of the executive summary. With your help, we can meet our goal of illuminating the affiliate marketing industry. 

PLEASE NOTE: The survey will close on July 16th at 5pm EST.

I saw this response on ABestWeb a while back, and apologize that I don’t have that thread included here, sorry.  This person responded to a termination letter they received because they had no clicks or sales in that particular program.  His response is a perfect reason why you don’t remove affiliates based on inactivity.  I have differing views on this, but for now, let’s explore his response:

Question from an affiliate:  “Why would I have links up that produce no clicks, much less sales?

Answer: To make my site much more extensive in scope to produce repeat visits. Lots of variety (diversity) as opposed to a just an extension of a single merchant or small group of merchants. I have one niche site with over 25 merchants, all within the niche. Would be nice if they all produced sales, and maybe they will someday if I can ever get the traffic. But for now they don’t. Yes, this waters down the selling power for any one merchant but its what I need to do in order to have an edge. Otherwise, it’s one sale and done.

This is another reason for going with SAS. Very few merchants drop you for low activity.”

I won’t address the comment on ShareASale (SAS), because I don’t think this issue has anything to do with any network at all.  Affiliate managers look at these affiliates with no clicks and no sales as just sitting there doing nothing, maybe using resources they could allocate towards producing affiliates (activation campaigns), and simply accounts they need to get rid of to “clean up”.

In my history I have performed many activation campaigns that ended up with removal of hundreds of affiliates, if not thousands because of in-activity.  And now running an outsourced affiliate management agency for some years, I can say that we haven’t removed affiliates simply because they haven’t generated clicks or sales yet.  Why?

It’s pretty simple.

(I like lists, can you tell?)

1. Many affiliates, and many good ones at that, join many programs each month.  And any affiliate is welcome to correct me.  They apply to an affiliate program with an eye for what “could be” and what they could do with that advertiser.  It’s a moment filled with promise.  Affiliates are very entrepreneur minded, so they have many of these moments every day.  I’m like that too, but I rarely get to them all.  But, with proper education, some brainstorming and relationship building, they and you may find the time to take the partnership to the next level.  But it may take a long time for it to work out, but it could.  No reason to limit the future opportunities.
2. It’s a waste of time.  I’d rather work on growing current producing affiliates, creating new offers and promotion and work on “moving the needle” rather than kicking out affiliates.
3. You get a bad rap.  Reputation can really be everything in the affiliate industry, and removing a potentially well known, vocal and successful affiliate isn’t worth the tarnish of your brand.
4. Like the reader says, many affiliates need the breadth of product to become their product.  It may not work out well for you in that particular instance as their shoppers are purchasing elsewhere, but it may be going the other way on another site.

I’ve worked with thousands of affiliates, both online and offline over the last 12 years.  I can count tens of examples of affiliates lying dormant in a program only to seemingly suddenly start producing sales out of nowhere.  Why?  Besides the reasons above, sometimes it just took them two years to get to my program.  Why remove this possibility when the cost for not removing them is so low?

Multi-channel retail affiliate programs are unique, complex and require different tactics, strengths and processes than other programs to be successful. They are a different animal altogether from lead gen, business to business and online only programs. You have to worry about things like new-to-file acquisition, channel cannibalization and margin contribution allocation. Here is a quick guide to some of the important things you should be doing, looking at, monitoring, or working towards when managing a multi-channel affiliate program.

We’ve prepared a pdf of 4 things you can be doing to optimize your retail affiliate program.  This could also be good for affiliates to understand fully what multi-channel retailers are looking for from their affiliates.

Optimizing Multi-Channel Affiliate Programs