How do you convince Super Affiliates to promote your products?

Wooing a Super Affiliate over drinks and dinner with offers of significantly higher-than-advertised commission rates and exclusive landing pages will definitely get their attention.

And showering them with free product samples (especially if they’re expensive) is fairly effective too.

However, wining and dining alone will not guarantee that the heavy hitters will join your program.

Even if your product is a fabulous fit for the affiliate’s audience and your commission rates are more generous than your competitor’s, no Super Affiliate will send copious amounts of targeted traffic (read their highly valued subscribers with whom they’ve worked hard to develop loyal and lasting relationships) to your site unless it first passes their Merchant Site Test.

The Merchant Site Test  evaluates many aspects of the site from both the affiliate’s and a visitor’s perspective.

I personally start with factors that will affect a visitors’ experience, and keep the following questions in mind as I peruse a merchant’s site for the first time.

Does the site load quickly or does the server bog down under graphic-laden pages? If there is a Flash homepage, is there an obvious ‘skip intro’ link or am I forced to watch the video to the bitter end? Is the site attractive and professional in appearance or are there broken links, graphics, and scripting errors? Is the sales page comprehensive and well written; or is it fraught with spelling and grammatical errors or ‘holes’ in the sales copy?

I also check to see whether the site uses excessive newsletter signup popups or advertising fly-ins. Do site preview popups such as Snap Shots block my view of the text each time I cursor over a link? Does a new window open every time I click a link? Although I may understand a merchant’s motivation for using such tactics, I am more concerned that visitors to the site will find such intrusions confusing and/or annoying to the point that they are likely to exit the site and kill any chance of a sale.

Appearance, functionality and copy rarely pose problems with professionally designed and maintained sites. Nor are they an issue for Clickbank affiliates who can code links to send traffic directly to the order form.

However, having to bypass a merchant’s homepage means that pay per click arbitrage isn’t an option for some affiliates, while others will have to write sales copy rather than a product review. Although some affiliates may be willing to make that effort to promote one exceptional product, most will pass on the program if the merchant offers a diverse or large selection of goods.

Another significant factor to evaluate is search functionality.

Visitors must be able to search for and find what they want quickly and easily.

For example, does a clothing site let visitors drill-down to choose between designers, color and function; or does a click on the ‘Dresses’ link slowly load a page that displays fifty thumbnails of cocktail, evening and wedding dresses?

If visitors can find products with ease, good affiliates will then confirm that the order process is functional, intuitive and secure.

• Does the site post a ‘Hacker Safe’ logo and a privacy policy?
• Are shipping policies and prices easy to locate or does a customer have to go through the entire order process to determine the cost to ship to Canada or if GST and PST will be added to her order?
• Can the customer ship to an address different from the billing address?
• Can she have that dress gift-wrapped for her cousin in Amsterdam?

What happens if our customer has questions about either the product or her order?

• Is there a sizing guide?
• A customer FAQ?
• Does the site offer order tracking?
• Is there a contact link, Live Help badge or telephone number displayed on every page to offer support?

I’d be thrilled to see all except the last item on that list, as a prominently posted telephone number that encourages phone orders means that potential commissions will be lost through ‘traffic leakage’.

Traffic leakage occurs at any point on a site that allows visitors to leave the site without making a purchase through the affiliate’s link.

Affiliates that pay for  traffic are particularly sensitive to this problem, and most affiliates will not join a merchant’s affiliate program if there is any leakage at all.

Phone orders must therefore be tracked to the referring affiliate – which does not mean asking your customers from which site they originated. Merchants who aren’t equipped with the technical wizardry to track phone orders should allow affiliates to send their traffic to a version of the site that does not post a phone number and trust that their Super Affiliates’ promotional efforts will more than make up for any sales that may be lost by doing so.

Most traffic leaks occur when merchants link to other sites that may be of interest to their visitors or to partner sites with which they have reciprocal link agreements. Traffic leakage also occurs when a merchant with two or more online stores links to those other sites without compensating affiliates for sales from any and all of their stores.

The most offensive type of outbound link traffic leaks are affiliate or contextual advertising links (i.e. Google Adwords ads) from which the merchant hopes to profit. Most affiliates consider this practice more ‘traffic theft’ than traffic leakage and will not only not join the program, they will also warn other affiliates of the merchant’s commission-stealing practices.

Here is an example of one popular merchant that places advertising on their their sites… which is why I don’t direct paid traffic to their review page on my blog.

That’s not to say that as a merchant that you shouldn’t promote other merchant’s products.

You should.

But do it on the back end or from within the secure area of your site, only after your own affiliates have had a fair chance to earn a commission for sending traffic to your site.

As you can see, the Merchant Site Test is comprehensive and Super Affiliates are picky to the nth degree!

If any aspect of the site misses the bar, most Super Affiliates will go on to consider a competitor’s offer and promote their products without so much as a TYBNTY (thank-you-but-no-thank-you) note for your time and treats.

And if you’re lucky enough to have a Super Affiliate take time from their busy promotional schedule (or lounge chair) to explain why they’ve chosen not to join your program, consider implementing their recommendations as soon as possible – and let them know as soon as the changes have been made.

Don’t stop there.

Visit a web developer’s forum and ask for feedback about your site. Ask your site visitors for their comments and suggestions as well. Check the affiliate networks for clues about what your competitors are doing right. For example, ask yourself how a merchant that pays only 8 percent commissions have an EPC that is triple that of the merchant who pays 12 percent? Do your own Merchant Site Test to find out why affiliates love to promote their program.

Getting just one Super Affiliate on board can substantially increase a program’s earnings.

The first Super Affiliate in a program will generally use this advantage to heavily advertise the site or product using pay-per-click.

As other Super Affiliates join the program and competition between affiliates increases, most will rise to the challenge and step up their promotional efforts using a diverse array of creative methods. Exposure to both the product and the affiliate program tend to increase exponentially at that point – which makes for very happy merchants and managers.

When you design your sales site with a view to building long-term relationships with your site visitors and potential Super Affiliates, you too can get that kind of happy – perhaps even rich.

This article was originally published in Revenue Magazine.

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Amit Mehta and I were exchanging some friendly super affiliate banter during the Affiliate Summit over whose site ranked #1 in the Google search results for the keyword phrase “super affiliate”.

Amit said his SuperAffiliateMindset blog ranked number #1 and I was quite sure that it was my Super Affiliate Handbook site.

Well, here are the graphic results. (And remember, we’re comparing a blog to a one-page site… the blog should win hands-down!)

Super Affiliate with quotes…

Super Affiliate WITHOUT quotes…

That’s OK, Amit. I still love ya.

Of course, in the long-run, it doesn’t really matter how either of us ranks on Google for the term ‘super affiliate’, because here’s what Wordtracker has to say about how many folks are really searching for the term…

Hmmm… a whopping maximum total predicted traffic of 9 searches for all of the major directories, search and pay per click engines today.

And here are the keyword phrases we both should be targeting.

BTW, I have no doubt that someone will respond with graphic images showing Amit’s site in the #1 spot. That’s OK, but my version of Google is better.

I made this little video for the Super Affiliate Handbook homepage but thought I should share it with you as well. It gives you a peek inside 9 of my affiliate accounts in real-time. Who says you can’t make money as an affiliate marketer?

Dan Ho has been a full time Internet marketer for over 7 years now. Up until recently, he was one of those Internet marketers who just quietly made money promoting non-Internet marketing related products and services and built up a multiple six figure passive income.

Over the years he also worked with people who were trying to establish a successful Internet presence (mostly people who wanted to succeed as affiliate marketers), and he saw patterns emerge regarding the the most common traps and/or obstacles that limit a person’s ability to succeed online, particularly at affiliate marketing.

Are your efforts as an affiliate being hampered by these common obstacles and mistakes?

1) Poor Affiliate Program Selection

Look, if you expect to succeed at affiliate marketing, you have to pick good programs. There are thousands upon thousands of affiliate companies to choose from. It would always boggle my mind when a client of mine would tell me what they were promoting because when I would look, I would almost always discover it was a low ticket item that paid a small percentage, and, worst of all, only paid one time.

My philosophy when it comes to promoting affiliate programs boils down to this: whenever possible, promote programs that pay lifetime income. You also want those programs to offer products that are going to be in demand for years to come. Pick products from merchants that have a professional design and good copy, leading to strong conversion rates. If the price point of the product isn’t high, make sure that it is a consumable product that will lead to frequent reorders.

In short, picking the right affiliate programs can mean the difference between making a pittance or making a fortune — with the same amount of effort expended in each case!

2) Technical Hurdles

For me, when I started, this was a big one. I didn’t know a lick about HTML, how to build a website, do website art/design, and so forth. Because of this hurdle, a lot of struggling or newbie Internet marketers will just sign up for affiliate programs and try to drive traffic directly to the replicating affiliate site that they are given. Of course, this is a massive mistake and one that will virtually guarantee you won’t make much, if any, money online.

3) Poor Presell Copy

From my knowledge, Site Build It! popularized the notion of “presell.” At the very least, I believe they coined the phrase. (I was one of their certified webmasters for years). It’s a very powerful concept. And to this day, a lot of people get it wrong. When such people promote an affiliate program, the copy on their site may come across as too salesy. This leads to a sell–>sell approach which backfires. A presell–>sell approach is what you need to succeed online. A presell is a way of writing about a product so that it reads like an informative review rather than a sales pitch.

Which “approach” would be more effective on you? An ad by a laptop manufacturer extolling the virtues of their own laptop or a laptop junkie who did a thorough review, comparing and contrasting it to 10 other laptops in its price range, giving you its pros and cons?

4) Improper Keyword Research

The most painful consultations I’ve had over the years weren’t the clients who came to me just starting off. It was the people who already had spent a year or more working on a website, only to see it generating very little traffic and sales after all of that sweat equity. Almost invariably, I would discover the reason why: poor keyword selection! Look, keywords are the key to getting not only a lot of traffic, but more importantly, targeted traffic. And targeted traffic is what makes you money. It was very painful for me to have to tell those clients that, the good news is I discovered their primary problem, the bad news was that there wasn’t much they could do about the year or more of effort they had already put in.

Although there are other obstacles and mistakes that set many people back from achieving the success they desire online, the aforementioned are the most common ones I’ve come across.

So what’s the solution?

Based on my years of experience, back in May of this year a partner and I created a service called Mosaic Internet Success, which addresses all of these problems and obstacles.

I realized that people, who have not had much success online, or those who are just starting out, could avoid these costly mistakes if “I” actually did the vast majority of the work for them. This was a huge revelation and as little time as six months has proven itself with the massive successes of our current students.

Ask yourself these questions. Do you think you could greatly increase the chances of you succeeding online if an experienced super affiliate:

1. chose the affiliate programs for you (because he already makes a small passive income fortune from them himself);
2. have his technically able partners build you a presell site (including artistic design, domain registration, and hosting);
3. have all presell copy already written and provided for you for these affiliate programs; and, lastly,
4. did all of the keyword research for you?

What if your only “job” was to create/write the actual content for the affiliate programs and you didn’t have to worry about any of the above? And what if that training was already provided for you via video, audio, bi-weekly training calls as well as a private community forum that’s open 24 hours a day?

Do you think you could succeed then? Would you agree that this just might be the Internet “foundation” you need to begin building your future?

Until you try it for yourself, you’ll never know. Over a hundred people to date have taken me up on this offer and have been pleasantly surprised with their results, some even downright shocked. We’re talking people who had floundered online for lengthy periods of time and had never succeeded. And people who were just starting out and realized the immense value of having a good mentor from the get-go.

Why not find out for yourself by seeing if our affiliate training is the missing key to your success. Visit Mosaic Internet Success today.

What would it mean to you if your affiliate site was linked to from a site that had a link from CNN?

• Credibility?
• Increased exposure?
• More traffic?
• More conversions to sales, perhaps?

Well, it meant all of the above and more to Super affiliate, Colin McDougall. (That’s a pic of Colin and I at the Affiliate Summit in Orlando in 2006.)

Here’s what happened.

Colin was watching the evening news and learned that personal bank account information was being stolen at a point of sale debit terminal using blue tooth technology.

With an estimated 10 million Americans having their personal information stolen and misused in some way every year, Colin knew that visitors to his financial affiliate site would be interested in the subject of identity theft.

He also prepared a step-by-step worksheet to help those who suspect that they are victims of identity theft.

From those pages he promotes LifeLock, a product designed to prevent identity theft which is backed by a $1 million dollar guarantee.

After building those pages he sent his opt-in subscribers a newletter informing them of new identity theft pages, which produced a hefty number of sales.

But Colin didn’t stop there.

He then wrote and submitted a press release to PRWeb to announce the launch of its identity theft prevention campaign intended ‘to increase awareness and provide help for those who have been impacted by this crime’.

That press release was picked up by a blogger on BloggingStocks.com who refered to Colin’s site in his own piece about identity theft.

BloggingStocks.com is a finance related blog which is part of the Weblogs, Inc. network owned by AOL – and an authority site that is linked to by CNN.

This is where the ‘getting’ gets good.

By result of that reference, Colin was asked to do an interview for Code Red!, a radio show about personal security and safety broadcast from Washington, D.C.

Woohoo! Talk about a feather in the credibility cap!

Not only that, but increased exposure to his site meant more traffic, higher conversions and more sales.

If you visit Colin’s site, Crediteria.com, you’ll see that it isn’t the prettiest site on the web. But that doesn’t matter – what matters is that Colin gives his visitors good information and resources to solve their problems and concerns.

He also submits press releases on a regular basis which helps him build credibility and authority within his niche.

That in turn attracts more visitors to his site, newsletter subscribers and ultimately increased sales.

Ultimately, this is the perfect example of how a Super affiliate works.