I’ll be honest, I’m a little late with this one…  We wanted to put together some of our favorite JEBCommerce posts from 2009.  The start of the year has been so busy and crazy, it’s taken me almost two months to get around to this :)  But here are our favorite posts, some still very timely.  I hope you enjoy!  (all titles are links to the actual posts)

• Our Affiliate Appraisal Preview Call: On Tuesday, November 3rd, Jamie Birch and Stephen Robinson hosted a 20 minute preview call showcasing how our Affiliate Audit service can help advertisers increase the performance of their programs today.
• Stephen Robinson’s first article in Feedfront
• Downturn requires more analysis and accountability: Widespread budget cuts in 2009 and demands from top management to do more with less have forced corporate marketers to step up their accountability/measurement efforts and improve collaboration with other organizational departments, according to a recent survey from Marketing Management Analytics (MMA) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).” - MarketingVox
• Changing the commission rate of your affiliate program: I think everyone understands that nothing is constant, change always happens and many aspects of an affiliate program fluctuate, adjust or need to be altered for the program to remain healthy and at times, to remain at all.  The commission rate is the first thing looked at by the controllers, directors and executives of a company when the economy takes a hit, or the company’s performance slides.  “How can we control costs?”  “How can we become more profitable?”  “Are we paying our affiliates too much?”
• JEBCommerce testimonial - Zappos
• A Conversation with Paul Nichols: Today I spoke with Paul Nichols, you may remember him from his eBates days.  Paul now owns and operates PublisherFocus, a consulting agency geared to help affiliates grow their business.  So in a lot of ways, he provides services similar to JEBCommerce, but to affiliates not merchants.
• How do I get started - Question of the Week
• 10 Reasons to Hire an Outsourced Affiliate Program Manager

10 Reasons to Hire An Outsourced Affiliate Program Management Company:

At JEBCommerce we get this question quite often.  We do include a run down of this answer in every presentation we give, but we felt it would provide more utility in a PDF download you can read at any time.  The 10 Reasons to Hire an  OPM (outsourced program manager), as they are commonly called, is below and available for download at your convenience.

Read about the cost savings, increased sales and profitability performance, exposure to a larger group of affiliates and more by downloading our PDF below.

10 Reasons to Hire and Outsourced Affiliate Program Management Company (PDF Download)

There has been one wide gaping hole in affiliate marketing since I can remember, I’ve been involved in the space for almost ten years. That hole is the offline/online bridge in respect to multi channel merchants. From an affiliate manager perspective, we know that sales are being influenced, at the very least, and and at the most being placed directly resulting from affiliate online relationships.

Online affiliates are promoting brands and products and as an industry we have only been able to effectively track the results that happen online.  But we all know that that isn’t the only result of our affiliate partnerships. Customers research on the web, stop by the store in the mall and use catalogs to shop. Where did they start their path to purchase, where did it end, and did only one of those channels influence the sale?  The networks have been unable to bridge the gap effectively.

In the past I have personally, and I have seen, launched and managed programs that have enabled phone tracking of commissions, but even there we have leakage.  It’s possible in all the networks to do this, I’m not sure why more don’t.

Here is an interesting, although a bit outdated (2007), article on Search Engine Land, reporting on the Yahoo ROBO Study.  It measured the influence of search and display advertising on offline behavior and I believe is still relevant today.  ROBO stands for Research Online Buy Offline.

“Search marketing has a greater impact on in-store sales lift, three times that of display advertising. When consumers in the study were exposed to search only, on average they spent $16 in the store for every $1 they spent online. However, the number of consumers reached via search is much smaller than display, creating a relatively small pool of pre-shoppers with a relatively high propensity to purchase in-store.

The study pointed out that customers “exposed to online retail marketing campaigns were more engaged and spent more dollars in physical stores than otherwise. There was an overall revenue lift of 43 percent from these engaged consumers; 88 percent of that revenue came in local store purchases.”

Wow, a 43% in revenue lift from users engaged in online advertising.  Merchants - are you incorporating any of these assumptions when evaluating your affiliate program?  At the very least we should be doing that.  I’ve seen many affiliate programs close because they can’t see if it is driving incremental sales and I am willing to bet this connection was not explored.

The online industry tends to segment out campaigns and their costs and performance too much.  We put everything in silos; affiliates, offline, retail, phone, catalog search.  Heck we even break out branded and non branded search with very little analysis on those two channels combined effect on purchasing behavior.  We forget about the “path to purchase” and how each exposure influences sales.  With engaged customers generating more revenue, we need to be looking at behavior across channels.  In a best case scenario, the affiliate channel would get some level of credit for those sales and the affiliates some sort of commission on those sales.  Maybe a smaller piece of the pie as the profit is now split between channels, but something.  At the very least, we need to be taking this into account when evaluating all these channels.  Maybe the catalog isn’t doing as well without a strong search and affiliate campaign?

Comscore also released a report in August of 08 that said users exposed to search and display ads online were 82% more likely to purchase offline.  That is extremely significant.  Looking to increase your offline sales, a strong search, affiliate and media campaign may be the way to do it.

BizReport.com reported here that “According to Katrina Doney, Director of Deloitte Growth Solutions, increasing numbers of consumers are using the Internet to research and compare products, prices and store offerings. “Results of the survey show that online research is important regardless of whether or not the consumer is buying the product on the Internet,” said Doney, adding that consumers continued to frequent bricks and mortar stores to receive “good old fashioned service”.” This was taken from Deloitte’s 2008 Survey on Consumer Behavior.

Ah, the offline/online bridge many times is “good old fashioned service”.  So which channel gets credit for that? The way it stands in most organizations it is the store, but they only facilitated the closing of the sale, search or an affiliate could have started them down that journey.

Here’s some more food for thought on the offline/online problem.  An Australian search marketing company, Outrider, commissioned a report (conducted by Research International) that showed 80% of Australian consumers researched products online prior to buying them.  Here are some very interesting tidbits from their research:

• 1/3 of consumers start their online research at a search engine
• the majority using a search engine first conducted a generic or non branded search

“”It is all about how consumers behave and marketers must embrace the new purchase decision cycle from the earliest stages of their media planning. What is fascinating is the lack of barriers between online and offline now - one does not exist in a vacuum from the other and consumers are more and more adept at operating in both worlds” said Research International Strategy Director Jonathan Sinton.”

I won’t get into the branded/non branded keyword issue, but I plan on having a guest author delve into that more later.  But Jonathan Sinton has it dead on.  We don’t exist in a vacuum, none of our campaigns do.  Why do we then evaluate them this way?  Why don’t the networks, who are probably in the best situation to solve this problem, figure it out?  It’s in the merchant’s best interest.

Having worked at a catalog company for several years, I quickly learned that analysis of performance was extremely vital to success of any company.  What campaigns are performing well and even what segments of customer perform well for a given message are things we went over time and time again, but no consideration was given to how customers reacted across channels.  At least not regarding affiliate marketing and search specifically.

This is an area we really need to look at, for everyone’s sake.  It may mean that some affiliates are deemed to be sending no incremental sales and others a very high number, but that sort of transparency is needed.  What say you?

In the previous two posts in this series I outlined the change in consumer behavior as they look for more sales and discounts this holiday season as well as the migration of their purchases to online coupon sites. It’s a bit obvious that as the economy goes down, consumer change their behavior and spend less on the products they buy. More and more merchants will be discounting more (this is also a good time for manufacturers to find greater efficiencies so their products cost less).

I polled the top coupon sites in our affiliate industry on their traffic over the last year as well as consumer behavior. The results were very interesting and backed up the reports from the last two articles. Was it incredibly scientific? I’m not sure the questions were perfect or the size of the field surveyed was complete enough, but it does give us some good data, in my opinion.

Survey Results

90% of respondents have seen an increase in traffic to their coupon site since the economy started its downward spiral.  54% have seen traffic grow by 25%, and 18% saw in increase of over 100%!  But that may not be entirely the economy as one respondent pointed out: “Some of the increase could be due to normal Q4 increases and some to Google algo changes but overall things are up over most of 2008.” There may also be natural increases on an individual basis due to offline advertising and other factors, but the trend is still important to take note of.

90% of respondents have heard from their site visitors specifically that they are changing their shopping behaviors to shop more at coupon sites because of the crumbling economy.  As one respondent commented: “Absolutely, more users are asking about how long such services as coupon sites have been around. As if they have been missing something. Also, in general a new consumer that refuses to purchase without getting a coupon or at least knowing they got a good deal.”

Not surprisingly, 100% of those participating in the survey said that having your brand on a coupon site does not diminish the brand’s perception in the eyes of the consumer. I expected this exact response from this group (coupon sites). Their reasons for this should not be discounted (get it, discounted, we are talking about coupons, discounts and sales  lol):

• “I think there are very few merchants that this applies to. Great customer service and quality products are what distinguish brands.”
• “But just like not all brands are equal, not all coupon sites are either.”
• “The economy has dictated for a merchant to be successful they need to think about pricing.”
• “People come to my sites to try and get a better deal, they associate MY brand with discounts, not the store’s.”
• “Almost every company offer deals. If you’re company is very high end, then you can offer gift with purchase in place of a traditional coupon. This is what a retailer like Tiffany does.”

I asked if they have seen a shift in demographics of users to their site.  Most did not collect this info, but of the ones that did, this was the most intriguing answer: “it seems order sizes average a bit smaller and higher-end brands are not moving as well.” One would expect that luxury brands would not be doing well as consumers shift their behavior to discount items or at least to shopping with only a coupon or during sales.

So maybe you have read this and want to work with coupon sites but you don’t have the ability or authority to give site wide, standard coupons.

Coupons don’t have to be site-wide, large discounts.  Charles Brown, Co-chair of the Promotion Marketing Association’s Coupon Council stated in a CNN.com article in October: “It’s an individual company strategy. Some may be promoting discretionary items that might not be purchased if a consumer is economizing.” As some merchants are brand sensitive to couponing, not wanting to offer coupons that they feel may discount their brand, there are other ways to take advantage of the trends outlined.  “I think that what we’re seeing is a behavioral change in the consumer that could have lasting effects. If you shift buying patterns and enjoy benefits of doing that, you will likely continue in that pattern,” he said. “For the marketer, it’s an opportunities to bring in more customers and get them to try new things.”

• Offer coupons where you don’t lose margin.
• Offer coupons on products that are not moving or are in your clearance section.
• Simply use the products in your clearance section as the content for your coupon partners.
• Many merchants offer at least free shipping, that is enough to work with these sites and can add quite a bit to your bottom line. (It’s not perfect but may enable you to offer them something to get them started)
• Loss leaders - does your company stock products that they lose money on solely to gain the customer?  Promote these products to your coupon affiliates.
• Offer a small discount on your top items.  Product specific coupons are great ways to gain customers.
• Offer one-time, new customer only coupons.  I haven’t seen anyone do this right yet, but it’s been attempted.  To make it work, your shopping cart must be able to identify the customer and whether they have been shopping with you before.  All in the cart.  That can be difficult.

Coupon affiliates - what other ideas can you give to merchants?

Overall, I hope this series has shown that you can’t outright dismiss the importance of this group of affiliates.  They drive an incredibly amount of sales, many are incredibly responsive, professional and really good people.  Many of them I consider close friends and leaders in this field.  Often times you can engage these affiliates in your couponing strategy and they can provide you with some great information and ideas.  Afterall, they work with your competitors and they know what converts.  They may prove to be very valuable partners.

What do you think?

1st Blog in this series

2nd Blog in this series

Yesterday I explored the somewhat obvious change in consumer behavior as the economy continues to slide.  I was listening to the radio today and, I can’t recall which show, but they reported that the GPD shrunk .5% last quarter.  One more quarter of shrinking GDP and we are officially in a recession.  And that is driving users online in larger numbers and driving them right to coupon and discount sites.  Below is what I’ve found to back that up.

Consumer’s Online Behavior

In February of last year, as the economy worsened, ComScore reported an increase in coupon site traffic.  “The number of page views on Web sites that feature money-off coupons for all manner of consumer products surged 38%, to 281 million, in March from a year earlier, compared with 5% for the Internet as a whole, according to comScore (SCOR). Those visitors spent a total of 145 million minutes on the sites, a 37% increase. While the number of new users to coupon sites isn’t growing faster than the larger Internet audience, existing coupon site users are certainly becoming more active. “User engagement by deal-seekers appears to be ramping up,” says comScore analyst Andrew Lipsman. “As a general rule, something like online coupon site activity would increase as a result of macroeconomic trends.”“  Makes sense doesn’t it?  And from what I heard from my coupon affiliate colleagues, their traffic is up considerably as well.

“Visitors to Coupons.com, a decade-old site that lets users print coupons that can be redeemed in stores, grew 35% in the first three months of 2008, compared with the prior quarter, says the site’s CEO, Steven Boal.” Wow, a 35% increase in the 1st quarter over the 4th quarter of the year prior.  That is pretty significant.

Business week weighed in on traffic increases to coupon sites as well earlier this year.  Thanks to Michael Block for sharing this information:  “traffic to sites focusing on coupon offers has increased a whopping 38% from March 2007 to March 2008; compared with 5% growth for the Internet overall. They aren’t just going more often, people are spending more time on these sites - also up 37%.“  That increase was before our economy really got bad, or at least we realized how bad it was getting.

This summer, Hitwise released some very intrigueing data that shows the trend of more traffic to coupon sites continuing.  For the same week in June, coupon site traffic was up 56% over last year.  ““Rising gas prices and tightened budgets have many consumers using the Internet to help save money while shopping online and off. Retailers can entice purchases by making discounts available to price-conscious consumers as the cost of living continues to increase,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. “While discretionary income is shrinking for some households, consumers are still shopping online, but making sure that they find the best deals.”“  I think that is one of the key findings from this report.  Consumers are still shopping, but they are using coupons sites more and more to be sure they get the best deal.  The brands that are not there don’t get the benefit of this comparison and shopping.  US searches, during the same time, doubled compared to last year and that trend just keeps increasing.

In October of this year,  Entertainment.com announced in a press release:  “Entertainment.com usage has risen more than 50 percent in 2008 as consumers scramble for savings.” “Nationally, coupon usage has risen 72 percent in just the past six months, according to a consumer poll released in September by online marketing company Prospectiv.”

But wait there is more:

Lenka Keston of CouponWinner.com and SurfMyAds.com reported in eBizine.com on October 16th: “CouponWinner.com, a website that streamlines and publicizes the marketing capabilities of online coupons, has seen a 110 percent increase in traffic during 2008. The consumer is discovering the personal money-saving power of e-commerce, so retail companies need to explore new ways to monetize that power in order to stay competitive.”

There are more examples of this going on than I care to put here, otherwise this post would take four hours to read.  But it is clear that whether it is 37%, 56% or 110% increase, consumers still want to have a merry Christmas but are going to coupon sites in much larger numbers to do their shopping.

It is becoming increasingly important to participate on these websites and take care of these partners.  It’s not so much about branding anymore, it’s simply about sales.  If you are where the consumers are, they will shop with you, if not, well then a better placed competitor will get the chance to close the sale.

Tomorrow I’ll explore some ways merchants can provide creative coupons and some of the findings from my short and unscientific survey of the top coupon sites :).

Read my next post in this series.

This has been a pretty tough year for our economy.  It seems that every headline is worse than the last and every industry is asking us, yes us, to bail them out.  I’ve met, and know, so many in my area that are effected by the slumping economy, either with jobs lost or just general business downturn, it can be tough to swallow.

As we get geared up this week for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the beginning of the Christmas and holiday shopping season, I wanted to dive into consumers’ behavior and how it is changing over this difficult time.  My thought was that more consumers are, and will be, shopping with coupons and more and more web traffic is going to these type of sites, the coupon and discount shopping affiliates.  What I learned, the more I researched, was that consumers are doing just that.  They continue to spend, but not without researching their purchase through coupon sites.  They want to make sure they get a deal.

I have broken my findings into three posts this week in hopes to get you all ready for Friday.  The first post, today’s, is reporting what I was able to dig up on consumer’s behavior.  The second will be published tomorrow and discusses the trend of of increased traffic to online coupon sites and gives some ideas for unique couponing strategies.  The third will release some data from a survey I conducted by polling the top coupon affiliate sites on the net and provides some of my recommendations for merchants.  Coupon sites will be more important to your online distribution the farther down our economy goes and I hope you get a lot out of this series.  So let’s dive in…

Consumer’s Changing Behavior

As recently as a few days ago, Anne D’Innocenzo, an AP retail writer, reported this:  “Americans have slammed their wallets shut since the financial meltdown, and the future is looking downright scary for stores across the country and the whole U.S. economy.” Some more less than encouraging statements:

“The recent data has been startling: For the third quarter, consumer spending fell 3.1 percent, the worst performance in 28 years. Sales at established stores for October were the worst since at least 1969. The slump is continuing into November: Macy’s says it expects a decline of at least 10 percent this month.  Even those with appetites for Prada and Gucci aren’t immune. Among the hardest hit are luxury stores. Saks Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. reported same- store sales fell at least 10 percent. At Neiman Marcus Group Inc., the drop was nearly 27 percent.” But how is this effecting coupon use and what changes are consumers making to combat this downturn?

According to the Wall Street Journal, this year was the first year coupon redemption did not decline.  For the last 15 years coupon redemption has fallen each year.  As our economy prospered, less and less coupons were redeemed.  But not anymore.  Last year it held steady.  Does this show a general trend in purchasing behavior?  How does this relate to online retail?

RetailMeNot commissioned Harris Interactive in March of this year, prior to the economy really taking a downturn, to conduct a survey on consumers’ shopping habits during a recession.  In that survey they found that 54% of adults would decrease discretionary income during a recession and 63% of consumers WILL NOT make a purchase if they cannot find a deal.  From their press release: “Coupons are a household staple for many Americans–the survey found that the vast majority of adults (86%) have used coupons and/or discount codes while shopping. However, this figure may soon rise as the economic slowdown prompts many consumers to reevaluate spending behaviors and place a higher priority on budgeting and deal-seeking. More than one in three adults (37%) said that, during a recession, they would increase the use of coupons and/or discount codes; among women, the figure was even higher at 43% (vs. 31% of men). Retailers have an opportunity to bolster sales and preserve customer loyalty by rewarding savvy shoppers with discounted merchandise.”

In another survey done by Principal Financial, and reported by Inc.com, more than half of the respondents said they were cutting back on spending due to the economic environment.  That was in June, it’s only gotten worse since.  “That has many Americans eating out less, relying on generic brands and clipping coupons in efforts to save, the survey found.”

RetailMeNot again worked with Harris Interactive in October to release this report.  In it they confirm their first results (since we are arguably in the first quarter of a recession): “nearly half of online adults (45%) plan to spend less money on gifts this holiday season compared to last year given the current state of the economy and one in five plan to spend significantly less.“  They also reported that 19% will shop during Black Friday deals, 44% will shop at discount stores, and 37% will shop online to save gas.

The Washington Post reported that coupons are now coming back in favor.  “With wages not rising as quickly as the cost of basic necessities, coupons are back in favor after many years of steadily declining popularity, experts said.“  … “Were we not in this economy, we probably would be looking at a slight decrease again,’’ said Matthew Tilley, co-chairman of the Promotion Marketing Association’s Coupon Council and director of marketing for CMS. “There’s definitely an increased interest to use coupons for savings by consumers.’’

It’s being widely reported that consumers are shifting their buying habits.  As the articles I referenced above point out, more and more consumers are no longer purchasing a product without researching to ensure they have the best deal.  They are using coupons in larger numbers, purchasing items without them less frequently and generally planning for a prolonged downturn in the US and global economies.  But consumers continue to shop, that is the good thing.  They continue to plan to spend money this Christmas, but are doing it more wisely and making sure they have a discount prior to making that purchase.

But how does that relate to online coupon sites and merchants’ participation there?  I’ll explore how traffic to these sites has been increasing dramatically and how merchants can, and should be leveraging this shift to weather the storm in my next post tomorrow.

2nd post in series - Consumers flocking to coupon sites.

Last week I wrote about affiliate applications and tried to identify some things that affiliates need to avoid. I also tried to lay out some things that, as an affiliate, you should do in your account and your application to ensure the best chance of receiving a “your approved” email. I received some amazing great comments and really appreciate everyone’s input.

Scott Jangro commented from the affiliate perspective: “I’m a pretty successful affiliate, fall into zero of the categories you list, and do all of the things that you said I should. I still get rejected all the time. And many times don’t respond to emails. I don’t blame the AM. I know as well as anybody how tough it is to weed through all the noise to find the good guys. The application process that the networks offer needs a complete overhaul. A great start would be if they all offer a simple cover letter type field for the affiliate to explain themselves. We’ve got so much going on that the fields in the application process can’t possibly cover it.”

That got me thinking about all the modifications the networks could make to the affiliate application process and approval queue.  At the end of the day, the better and more efficient this process, the more likely the networks are to generate increased revenue.  I’m sure they are missing out on commission just in Scott’s case as I know he is top performer.

Overall, Scott’s recommendation is spot on.  Networks, if you are listening, an easy and major improvement to the application process would be to allow the affiliate applying to the program to include a note to the affiliate manager.  For example, I know that if I received an application from a site that was under construction, but it included a note from the affiliate that we met at the affiliate summit last year and their plans are XX, XX and XX, I would approve that application and the relationship would grow from there.  I know that allowing a note like that would do a lot to explain what the affiliate is, their plans and other information that AM’s would benefit from knowing and are not easily explained in the standard application and account info areas.

On the other side of that fence, ya know what I would love?  While I am approving affiliate applications, I would love the option of having several text or html email templates loaded in my merchant account that I could simply choose to send from the application queue itself.  AM’s, how many times have you reviewed an application and wanted to send an email asking for an explanation, more information, contact info, or a url, but either didn’t have the contact info or it simply got lost in the process?  I’d love to have the ability to load several different text or html templates into the account and have the option of sending one of those emails to that parcticular applicant.

Let’s get a little more specific to a  few of the networks.

Commission Junction:  While the overall process is pretty good, there still is a lot of room for improvement.

• Accept/Deny - One of the more frustrating aspects of the approval process is the inability to check an application as Approved or Denied.  You have to first go through the list and check all that you want to either approve or deny.  Then you click on approve or deny.  You then go through the list and check the others and do the opposite, deny or approve.  It would save, at least me, a lot of time if I didn’t have to add that step.
• Include their primary url in the application queue.  Every time I have to click adds time to the process and reduces the amount of time I am able to evaluate each application.  Being able to see the main url on the same page where you see all the applications, their EPC’s, Date Applied and more would reduce time spent on each application and increase the likelihood that each applicant would get the consideration they need.
• Contact info - I know this has been discussed in depth and to the point of exhaustion, but CJ, please consider allowing affiliates to show all their contact info to the merchants.  Phone numbers, emails, IM’s even Twitter accounts would help us all out.  Affiliates - if you don’t want to share your contact info, are you really a partner at all (that is an entire post itself)
• Include Make Offer an option for each and every applicant.

Linkshare:  I like their approval process as it allows you to designate each application indivudually as accepted or denied.  But there is still some room:

• include the url in the application queue.  Again, the less time we have to click around the more time we can spend growing the program.
• Comments - is anyone sure what that does anyway?  Does it send a comment to the affiliate?  Does it file the comment for later?
• As I stated above, allow us to email the affiliate right from there with several templates.
• An option to extend them an offer from this page would be great.

Overall, I think there are a lot of areas where we could make this more efficient and more effective.  The more time your affiliate managers and OPM’s are able to spend on growing the program and not trying to figure out who the applicant is or what they are going do to will lead to more sales and more commissions for all.

But I’ve only really touched on the affiliate manager side.  What changes would you affiliates like to see?

With the launch of any new affiliate program you get inundated with affiliate applications in the first week.  It is both one of the most exciting times for an affiliate manager as well as a frustrating time.  It’s exciting to watch outstanding affiliates that you know join the program but it is frustrating when you wake up to 200 applications on a Monday morning.

Along with the known affiliates applying to your program, there are hundreds and thousands of applications that come through that are either suspect, fraudulent or simply incomplete.  If you are an affiliate manager reading this, you’ll probably be nodding your head and maybe even have a chuckle.  If you are an affiliate that seems to receive more denials than approvals when you apply to programs, this article is just for you.  I’d like to highlight some of the things that managers see every day that you may be doing and need to avoid in order to get your applications approved.  So let’s get started…

• “Make A Million” Shopping Malls - These are sites that someone purchases from companies that supply them an entire mall that will make them millions of dollars.  These sites are relatively cheap to buy and provide the purchaser with a complete website, they only need to reach out and join affiliate programs.  While these sites look good, I have never seen one of these make any sales for any of the programs I have run and I have managed over 35 across industries.  Most program managers recognize these with very little effort and deny these applications.  Like all things, successful endeavors take, hard work and initiative.  These sites sound too good to be true because they are.  My advice to anyone who has purchased this already, find a niche you know a lot about and start over.  I’ll write more about this in a future post.
• Blogs with no content - This is a sure way to get your application rejected.  I am sure that your new blog and your new theme hold within them your hopes and dreams, but having not one single post on your site does nothing to show affiliate managers who you are and what your site is about.  My recommendation - get ten posts on your blog, fill that first page.  After you have that done, I would make sure any customization or unique plugins that you plan to use are on the site.  Make it look unique.  We see hundreds of applications with the Wordpress default theme and no content.  Many times fraudulent affiliates use this method to get approved without raising flags.  Post your content, design it then apply to the affiliate programs.
• Different language sites - I see 20 or so applications a week for sites that are in Japaneze or other languages.  I am sure that they are great sites, but with no description in english I am not able to effectively review the site.  Most affiliate programs are no longer accept everyone and anyone, if it is too hard to evaluate your application it just gets denied.  In your affiliate account, be sure to outline your site and how you plan to promote merchants as thoroughly as possible.
• Geocities and other free sites - Sites that are hosted at Geocities, Tripod, Members.AOL.com or Freewebs will undoubtedly be denied in many programs.  Why?  Well, first off, I can’t remember when one of these sites generated any sales for any program and I can’t recall any of my colleagues saying that either.  Secondly, if an affiliate isn’t serious enough to register a domain name aren’t going to be serious enough to become a successful partner.  Some may not like me saying that, but it’s true.
• Modeling and Real Estate Sites - This seems like a pretty odd combination, but I have seen more applications from these two categories than any other.  If you are planning to do something outside of these areas but use those sites in your application, I would make sure the affiliate manager knows about it.
• No URLs - When your application shows no urls in your account, affiliate managers have no way at all to eveluate your application.  Merchants are getting much more sensitive to who they partner with, and not knowing who you are will surely lead to a rejection in quality programs.
• Google Adwords - Applications that list Adwords as the url for the applicant and only that url can be tough to approve for programs that do not allow paid search.  So if you do something else, make sure you list that too.
• Under Construction  and Parked pages - If your site is still under construction, that is a tough sell.  Merchants don’t want to partner with someone when they don’t know what their site will look like.  Maybe I have said that already :).  I have seen affiliates post a simple htlm page on their new domain that addressed the affiliate managers directly and gave a brief description of what they were doing.  I highly recommend this and I believe I have approved everyone of those applications.  The more we know, the more likely we’ll approve you.
• Banner Farms - These are almost 100% rejected.  What is a banner farm?  These are sites that have, pretty much, only affiliate banners.  They have no other content and no real benefit to the user other than a list of ads for merchants.  These are rarely approved and rarely generate sales for merchants’ programs.  They offer very little in terms of value add to the merchant as well as the consumer.  My recommendation is to spend more time developing your idea.  What consumer target are you trying to reach?  What value are you going to add to their shopping journey?  What are you going to offer that no one else does?  Answer those question then find a designer that can work with you.
• Get Rich Quick Sites - The same way you feel as a consumer when you see these sites are they same way affiliate managers do as well.  I haven’t seen these perform well.
• International Applications - This probably only goes for programs that is 99% domestic traffic.  Applications from third world countries, some Asian countries, Nigeria and some eastern block countries are suspect.  Why?  Past behavior and experience.  Many of the fraudulent affiliates have, in the past, originated from these countries.  If you are a legitimate affiliate, and don’t get me wrong, there are many from those countries, you may experience more rejections because of your location.  But  don’t fret too much.  You may be getting refused by a lot of affiliate programs but there are ways to get noticed.  You need to show affiliate managers that you aren’t interested in scamming, fraudulent behavior or abusing the program.  You have to establish trust as much as you can from your application.  Here are a few things you can do:  1.  Use your company name, if you don’t have one create one. 2.  Email the manager of the program you just applied to and let them know who you are and what your plans are.  3.  Use an email account associated with your website.  Don’t use yahoo.com, gmail, hotmail or other free services.  Having a email@yourwebsite.com email address is typical of legitimate affiliates and will help you get approved.

By no means is that list 100% complete, but it gives you a good idea of things to avoid in your applications and a few reasons why your applications would be rejected. Let me share some things I recommend that you do do in order to get approved (I included some of them above):

1. Complete Account Information - don’t leave any fields blank in CJ, LS, ShareASale, Google and others.  Fill out all the information.  The more complete the application, the more likely you’ll get approved.  Just the effort involved in filling out all the fields shows you are serious.
2. Contact Info - A little contact info goes a long way.  Include your email address and your phone number when possible.  Affiliate programs view affiliates as partners, if you can’t contact your partner, they aren’t really a partner are they?
3. Email the manager - You’d be surprised, but one of the number one things managers wish they got more of was contact from their affiliates. If you are really interested in working with someone, reach out to them, share your ideas and your plans and include your contact info.
4. Good Site Design - this goes a long long way.  With themes and Wordpress anyone can put together a pretty decent site.  Here are some themes I would look into:  One Theme, Woo Themes, Citrus Themes, Revolution.  Getting a good designer involved will lead to sales, but those themes and Wordpress will get you started with little cost.  If you need design let us know, we can help.
5. If your site is under construction, put up a simple html page that says what you are planning to do.  Affiliate managers love this and it will help you get approved and get insight and advice on your new idea.

Hope that helps!  What do you think?  Affiliate managers, did I miss anything.  Do you think I’m off on any of these items?  I’d love to hear what you have to say.