Awhile back, Dan Reinhold posted to an NPT Forum topic entitled “What Tools do Affiliates Like?”, and told a story about the mistakes he’d made in trying to get his new ebook promoted by affiliates.
Here is his post:
I’ll go one further and tell you what affiliates DON’T like!
Once upon a time not too long ago, I released my first ebook. Ahh, a thing of beauty it was (at least to me) and how it would change the world for all those starting home businesses!!
I was even so bold as to contact some heavy-hitter affiliates, asking/begging that they promote it. One “super” affiliate in particular showed genuine interest and actually agreed to promote MY little ol’ ebook. Knock me over with a feather or what…
What, pray tell, did this sales superstar receive as promotional materials in my haste and enthusiasm to maket this puppy?
> A very lousy sales letter that took over a month to make it merely bad.
> No image links
> No written promotional materials at the outset, although a couple of handy five-part ecourses were available after a couple of weeks.
I could probably go on, but as it is, my tears are making my beer overflow and it’s not even noon yet…
Consequently, darn few sales have been made to date and I blew my chance with a top performer.
Well, I’m planning the second in the series ( oh boy I do love punishment!) which will start with a notification page first and be built into something a whole heckuva lot more worthwhile before even being offered to anyone for promotion. Period.
O wondrous affiliate out there (and the others too), can you ever forgive me???
_________________
Dan Reinhold
www.WAHumor.comWhat’s so funny about working at home?
Come tell us!
I thought his post was humorous and indicative of the quality of his book which I’d read and quite enjoyed.
Thinking that I might be able to help him out and generate some publicity for his book, I took another look at his web site… you know, do that ‘due diligence’ stuff that affiliates do before we promote a product.
The first thing I noticed was that some of his text was mis-aligned and ‘breaking’ around table insets, like this:
In responding to his post, I mentioned the ‘breaking’ problem and included a link to the offending page.
I also suggested that if he wrote an article along the same lines as his post, I might publish it on NetProfitsToday.com.
He got back to me soon after with a great article, so I grabbed the Clickbank hoplink for his book and set off to do my third review of his site.
Hmmm…
My first impression wasn’t good as I saw my affiliate ID splashed across the address bar for all the world to see.
Having your affiliate ID stripped and your commissions stolen by other affiliates is a real threat which won’t put you on the fast track to ‘super affiliate’ status.
Strike ONE!
Throughout the site I noticed a lot of ‘distractions’ guaranteed to lead visitors away from the purpose of book-buying, including a forum and an opportunity to “Win Big!”.
When affiliates endorse a product, that product should be the primary – if not the ONLY – focus of the landing page to which their traffic is directed.
Strike TWO!
Ever hopeful, I clicked through to the ‘Reviews’ section which I expected would consist of reader testimonials – an always powerful sales tool.
Egads!
On that page he was ‘reviewing’ and promoting Ken Evoy’s products, including:
- Site Build It!
- Service Sellers Masters’ Course
- Netwriting Masters’ Course
- Make Your Net Auction Sell!, The Masters’ Course
Now I promote Ken’s excellent products as well, (click the links above 
) but you won’t find any mention of those, or any other merchant’s products at http://SuperAffiliateHandbook.com where I sell my ebook, the Super Affiliate Handbook.
You should never promote merchants who promote other merchants’ products on the same site, let alone the same page to which your visitors are referred.
This is especially true if you use pay-per-click advertising to drive traffic to your affiliate site in the first place.
BIG Strike THREE!
Actually, Dan lost me as a potential affiliate back at Strike ONE! but here are a few of the other problems I found in just under two minutes on his site.
- Dan’s affiliate link for Make Your Net Auction Sell! Masters’ Course wasn’t referenced properly and therefore didn’t work.
- The ‘look and feel’ of Dan’s site is somewhat ‘home-brewed’ as cell-padding is missing in various places.
- I found only one link on the entire site that suggested I could learn more about Dan’s book. Where did that link take me? To his newsletter signup form!
- I finally found a link ‘hidden’ within a graphic image of the book.
- That link took me to a “Page Not Found” error.
- Returning to Dan’s post on the NPT Forum, I saw that his main domain for the book is at
http://www.wahumorway.com/.
However, that link took me to an ‘Index of’ page, which is generated when there is no index.htm or index.html page for a site or a directory.
After more digging, I found the actual sales page for the book at
http://www.wahumorway.com/book1.html.
Other than the excessive amount of space taken up by bold blue headlines and the horrendously large ultra-black font throughout that page, his sales page is very well done.
If Dan is serious about attracting affiliates to sell his book, this is what I recommend:
- Dan should rename ‘book1.html’ on http://www.wahumorway.com to ‘index.html’.
- He should do the quick fix to prevent his affiliates’ ID’s from showing in the address bar which consists of creating a page that redirects to ‘http://www.wahumorway.com/index.html’.
- That redirect page gets listed as his sales page in the Clickbank interface.
He’ll then be ready to start recruiting affiliates to promote his book!
Once that’s done, he might want to attend to the ‘snag list’ above.
In summary, most affiliates won’t ever look past “Strike One!”. Not only won’t they promote your product, but the vast majority won’t take the time of day to tell you why.
To score a “Home Run” with potential affiliates (and avoid watering down your Beer!), find and correct each and every error on your site before sending out the invitations.
About Rosalind Gardner
Hi Rosalind,
Everyone should be so fortunate as to have you critique their site as you did Dan’s.
I just looked at his site and don’t think much has changed.
I guess he has one thing going for him. (He’s obviously a beer drinker).
Jim
Hi Rosalind,
I was really interested by this entry, in particular the part about preventing affiliate ids appearing in the URL.
I’m fairly new to this, so I just wonder if you can confirm my understanding of it.
If someone clicks on an aff link and gets taken to the sales page, clickbank creates a cookie.
If that person then removes the ?id=webvista2 from the URL, and then hits return, this will not in itself rob you of the commission,
as the cookie still exists.
Is this understanding correct?
Paul S
Hi Paul,
You are absolutely correct… and in the coming week (after I get back from the Underground) I’ll post a full explanation for CB merchants on how to hide their affiliates’ ID’s.
Cheers,
Rosalind
First off, crying in your beer is just plain ole’ alcohol abuse, and he should be spanked HARD!!!. Good to know when the time comes that I can rely on good objective critiquing !! though I guess its best to learn by mistakes except when they cost you HUGE !!!
Thank you for this article. It was a real eye-opener. Not putting distractions on your sales page is probably a mistake a lot of people make. I am looking forward to your more detailed explanation of setting up that redirect page for your affiliate program.
Thank you.
Kelli