Prepared by

Driving Performance Marketing

Director of eCommerceAll Inclusive MarketingJon Levine |

Affiliate Summit East | New York City | August 2014

@itsjonlevine

@itsjonlevine

Agenda

• About me

• Getting Off on the Right Foot

• Affiliate Decline: The Why

• Relationships & Communication

• The Nitty Gritty: Tactics You Can Use

@itsjonlevine

• Jon Levine, Director of eCommerce for All Inclusive Marketing

• Director of Marketing for several industry leading companies over the last 14 years

• Launched and managed affiliate marketing programs for different companies in multiple categories

• Founded and launched three successful online startups

• Featured speaker and panelist at ShareASale ThinkTank!, SFIMA, and Affiliate Management Days conferences and events

About Me

@itsjonlevine

Start the Relationship Off Right

• You can’t connect with someone you don’t know

• You’re going to have a program full of the wrong affiliates.

• Not bad people, just not a good fit

@itsjonlevine

Painting Into the Corner of Success

• Overcome resistance

• Take away failure option

• Only option to move forward

• Give them all of the tools needed

• No excuse but to succeed

@itsjonlevine

Loading Their Guns…

@itsjonlevine

Your Very First Touchpoint: The Welcome Email

• Contain items just mentioned, not links to them

• Already coded with their affiliate IDs

• Copy, paste and go

• I’ve done everything but click the mouse for you

@itsjonlevine

@itsjonlevine

Money, Money, Money

Get Active Get Money

Banner or Blog Post $5 Bonus

First Sale $10 Bonus

@itsjonlevine

Affiliate Decline: The Why

The SuperheroThe Everydayer

The Giver-upper

@itsjonlevine

Affiliate Decline: Money• Affiliates are in this game to make

money

• If they start out making money, they want to make more

• Money declines, they’ll try to figure out why

• Maybe try and fix the issue and maybe not. It depends if they deem it to be worth their effort.

• If money issue, specific tactics can be used

@itsjonlevine

Affiliate Decline: Competition• New competitors in their

space

• More hands in the pot means less money to go around

• Pulling back from specific channels due to increase costs

@itsjonlevine

Affiliate Decline: Method• Seen more in SEO affiliates

• Google makes algorithm change

• Rankings on SERPs start to plummet

• Effort on affiliate’s part to either refactor their content or add new — both time consuming

@itsjonlevine

Affiliate Decline: Life

• Situations in the affiliate’s life has changed.

• Maybe they had a baby

• Maybe an illness.

•They just can’t dedicate the time and effort they used to.

@itsjonlevine

Relationships

Cash is King Content is King Communication is King

@itsjonlevine

Analytics

• Congratulating affiliates starting to grow

• Recognizing specific milestones

• Lend assistance earlier in the process

• Nip potential issues in the bud

Either way, building relationships

@itsjonlevine

Make it Personal

• Everyone wants to feel special and everyone wants to feel like they’re part of a team.• Make your program personal to them. • When something is personal, it becomes less about dollars and cents. • You’re fostering a loyal relationship that help affiliates stay involved and grow• Keep them involved through some rough patches• More effort out of them because they want to be a part of something successful.

@itsjonlevine

Outreach

•Solid relationship with your affiliates

• If a decline starts, you can reach out

•Most importantly it’s genuine

@itsjonlevine

The Nitty Gritty: Tactics You Can Use

@itsjonlevine

Grouping

• Identify these affiliates and group them together

• Sending the right message to the right affiliates

@itsjonlevine

Straight Up Cash Money, Homie.

• Review your bonus structures. Are your bonus thresholds too high? This can discouraging some affiliates from even trying.

• Create a special bonus plan exclusive to this group with lower thresholds

• Turn back the clock. Tell affiliates in this group that you’re wiping the slate clean and that they can receive a first and second sale bonus again

• Put up a banner by this date and send me the page, earn a bonus

• Give the affiliate a specific goal and a timeframe to complete it. This helps to keep people focused.

Bonus Campaigns

@itsjonlevine

• Increase commissions for members of the group for a set period of time

• Offer double commissions on their first X amount of sales (more than one)

• Offer to pay increased commission on their highest sale of the month for the next three months (need to have a sale in each month)

Commission Increases

Straight Up Cash Money, Homie.

@itsjonlevine

Free Products or Services

• Especially good for ecommerce or specialty item merchants

• Incentivize them by allowing them time with the product to have a better understanding of it

• Offer them two, one for them and one they can use for a contest or giveaway on their own site

@itsjonlevine

Exclusivity

• Exclusive coupon in exchange for dedicated post or banner placement

• Exclusive banner or content

• Blog post that’s pre-written and pre-wired with their affiliate code

• Exclusive coupon for special customers for a new post or putting up a new banner

@itsjonlevine

Sales Contests

• Most traffic driven or most sales made within a specific time frame

• High-ticket-sounding items: iPad or cruise for two

• Give away merchant’s products or free memberships to their service

• Yearly subscriptions to tools affiliates use (Hootsuite, PopShops, etc.)

Prepared by

Driving Performance Marketing

Thank You!

Director of eCommerceAll Inclusive Marketing

Jon Levine

@itsjonlevinejon@allinclusivemarketing.com www.allinclusivemarketing.com