High Commissions for Affiliates-Good Marketing or Poor
High Commissions for Affiliates-Good Marketing or Poor
As an affiliate marketer you're always on the hunt for the best products with high commissions for affiliates. But can you guarantee the product is high quality just because the commission is great?
Probably not, not unless you test it, which is what all affiliates should do though many of them do not. Those that do however, buy the product through their own affiliate link in order to get the product at a discount. Is this legal?
Well, many merchants fail to ban their affiliates from doing so, thus affiliates feel no reason to feel guilty. After all they need to test the product in order to promote it, and the merchant did make a sale.
There's a battle going on between merchants and affiliates. It's an unspoken one and has, for sometime, been kept very civil for quite some time, but I feel that everyone is beginning to lose their patience.
Offering high commissions for affiliates was a unique selling point a few years ago. If a merchant wanted to have their product stand out they told their affiliates that they would receive a commission of 50, 65, or in many cases now 75 percent on commission.
Affiliates took to this like ducks to water and merchants soon found that in order to get affiliates they had to offer high commissions. It became less of an option and more of a required sales strategy. However, offering high commissions for affiliates did not urge the affiliates to work any harder to sell the products. The 20/80 rule still exists- that is 20 percent of your affiliates are taking in 80 percent of the commissions. Some say it's even less than that, the number seems closer to six percent. What are all the other affiliates doing? Are they lazy or just inexperienced?
Products with high commissions are still high end products and high end products are hard to sell. Many affiliate marketers have little or no sales experience. Thus convincing someone that your 97 dollar ebook is like sliced bread (they can't live without it) will be challenging.
Some may opt for seedy tactics like spamming or stealing commissions to make sales. Should merchants still reward them for this? Does someone deserve a 50% commission to tarnish your name and put your business on the line?
Should merchants lower the commissions? By doing this, they may not be able to attract the good marketers out there. Savvy salespeople are going to want to be heavily rewarded for the efforts they are putting into sending you traffic, building your list, and creating sales.
What about all the merchants out there that can not afford to give their affiliates 65% commission, or feel no need to. Is it fair for a merchant to offer a high commissions for affiliates on well priced product that is an easy sell?
Are we at a crossroad? The internet has made it difficult to go backwards; merchants can not suddenly decide to offer 40% as the new high commission payout. Likewise affiliates can not expect merchants to make the selling process easier so they can all be top sellers.
What do we do? Do we let things be and have each side quietly grumble to themselves? Merchants on one side wishing they didn't have to offer so much for a product that took them months to create, and affiliates on the other hoping that the commission rate will go up even more since they are pouring themselves into a product that they didn't create.
Is there a resolution? We can't make both parties happy, can we?
High Commissions for AffiliatesGood Marketing or Poor - To learn more about this author, visit Jeff Casmer's Website.
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Why is it that some affiliate programs offer you 50% commission or greater to promote their products or services and others give you a meager 5% affiliate commission?
As an affiliate marketer you're always on the hunt for the best products with high commissions for affiliates. But can you guarantee the product is high quality just because the commission is great?
Probably not, not unless you test it, which is what all affiliates should do though many of them do not. Those that do however, buy the product through their own affiliate link in order to get the product at a discount. Is this legal?
Well, many merchants fail to ban their affiliates from doing so, thus affiliates feel no reason to feel guilty. After all they need to test the product in order to promote it, and the merchant did make a sale.
There's a battle going on between merchants and affiliates. It's an unspoken one and has, for sometime, been kept very civil for quite some time, but I feel that everyone is beginning to lose their patience.
Offering high commissions for affiliates was a unique selling point a few years ago. If a merchant wanted to have their product stand out they told their affiliates that they would receive a commission of 50, 65, or in many cases now 75 percent on commission.
Affiliates took to this like ducks to water and merchants soon found that in order to get affiliates they had to offer high commissions. It became less of an option and more of a required sales strategy. However, offering high commissions for affiliates did not urge the affiliates to work any harder to sell the products. The 20/80 rule still exists- that is 20 percent of your affiliates are taking in 80 percent of the commissions. Some say it's even less than that, the number seems closer to six percent. What are all the other affiliates doing? Are they lazy or just inexperienced?
Products with high commissions are still high end products and high end products are hard to sell. Many affiliate marketers have little or no sales experience. Thus convincing someone that your 97 dollar ebook is like sliced bread (they can't live without it) will be challenging.
Some may opt for seedy tactics like spamming or stealing commissions to make sales. Should merchants still reward them for this? Does someone deserve a 50% commission to tarnish your name and put your business on the line?
Should merchants lower the commissions? By doing this, they may not be able to attract the good marketers out there. Savvy salespeople are going to want to be heavily rewarded for the efforts they are putting into sending you traffic, building your list, and creating sales.
What about all the merchants out there that can not afford to give their affiliates 65% commission, or feel no need to. Is it fair for a merchant to offer a high commissions for affiliates on well priced product that is an easy sell?
Are we at a crossroad? The internet has made it difficult to go backwards; merchants can not suddenly decide to offer 40% as the new high commission payout. Likewise affiliates can not expect merchants to make the selling process easier so they can all be top sellers.
What do we do? Do we let things be and have each side quietly grumble to themselves? Merchants on one side wishing they didn't have to offer so much for a product that took them months to create, and affiliates on the other hoping that the commission rate will go up even more since they are pouring themselves into a product that they didn't create.
Is there a resolution? We can't make both parties happy, can we?
High Commissions for AffiliatesGood Marketing or Poor - To learn more about this author, visit Jeff Casmer's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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