When it comes to affiliate marketing, affiliates and merchants should have a common goal. Whether it is to increase sales or new leads, both parties should be on the same page to accomplish that goal. However, over the past year we have seen instances where merchants have made decisions regarding their affiliate program that have left affiliates saying, “Huh?”

Sometimes a merchant’s decisions can be so egregious that they’ll end up on an affiliate’s “Naughty List”. In fact, veteran affiliate marketer Tricia Meyer has written a great blog post about merchants who deserve lumps of coal for their actions this year. We would like to expand on that list with a few additional things we have seen merchants do this past year that would certainly qualify them for placement on an affiliate’s “Naughty List”

So merchants – Please take note of the things you can be doing to avoid being put on that list and getting lumps of coal next year!

1. Lack of Advance Notice:
Wouldn’t it be nice to receive an email that informs you of a new coupon that is going live next week, and if you can try to give it extra exposure? No, instead affiliates receive urgent emails that say, “OUR NEW COUPON IS GOING UP TODAY, CAN YOU PLEASE POST IT ALL OVER YOUR SITE ASAP?!?!”

Affiliates are busy business-people so merchants need give affiliates as much advance notice as possible so they can prepare their websites and marketing plans as needed.

2. No Promotional Details:
Some merchant’s not only fail to give advance notice, but further drop the ball by not giving the complete story about a new promotion. So, affiliates are expected to drop everything to promote this great offer, but are not told the coupon’s expiration date or that the deal is only available for 150 sales and suddenly that promotion must come down RIGHT NOW! Accordingly, the merchant shouldn’t be surprised when affiliates decide it’s time to move on to the next program.

3. Changing Commission Rates:
It is natural in the course of business that circumstances beyond a merchant’s control often necessitate change. However, cutting an affiliate’s source of income (i.e their commission rate) should be one of the very last steps a merchant considers when reviewing the long-term sustainability of their affiliate program. If a merchant decides to essentially reduce the affiliates income, the merchant should not be surprised when affiliates drop them like a hot potato to find a comparable program to promote. There was even one story of an affiliate’s commission being cut from 4% to 1.5%! I hope the affiliate said “Adios, amigo” to this merchant!

4. Putting a Program on Auto-Pilot:
There are far too many well-managed programs out there for affiliates to work with instead of working with a merchant who thinks they’ll a successful affiliate program by auto-approving every application received from China and Taiwan, from ToolBar/BHO affiliates, and PPC hacks. If an affiliate finds themselves in a program that suddenly appears to have no one steering the ship, the affiliate will look elsewhere to find a professionally managed program.

5. Vague PPC policies:
A merchant should have a Program manager that knows the ins and outs of PPC management and whether affiliates should be allowed to do PPC-Marketing. Any successful PPC-Marketer that a merchant works with should not be subject to constantly-changing keyword and PPC-linking policies. A merchant needs to set their policy after carefully considering the pros and cons of what keywords are allowed and which are restricted, then stick with and enforce it.

6. Keeping Outdated Links Available:
A sure sign of a program that needs professional management help is a program that has coupon codes for Christmas still available in mid-July. It is cumbersome enough for an affiliate to find the right link to use in the network interfaces, so merchants need to take the responsibility of removing dead and expired links from the networks.

7. Reactionary Decision Making:
When merchants react to situations they may not fully understand or don’t want to invest the resources to research, they often react with knee-jerk decisions that lead to terminated relationships with quality affiliates and ultimately, the death of their affiliate programs. Many times the decision to terminate their affiliates comes with little advance notice, rather the merchant sends an email which states something to the effect of, “Effective immediately, affiliates in the state of XYZ, are terminated from the XXX Affiliate Program”. Making snap decisions without doing proper due diligence leads to bad decisions which ultimately hurt a merchant’s relationships and the affiliate programs success.

8. Having Tracking Problems:
This has to be one of the most frustrating thing a merchant can do. An affiliate works hard to get a customer to their site, they market and pre-sell a product, a customer clicks over and YES, there is a conversion!!! Then, for some reason the tracking suddenly stops working and future sales do not get credited to the affiliates. Merchants that are not consistently reviewing their affiliate tracking systems for accuracy are doomed to fail.

9. An Unusually High Reversal Rate:
A sale was tracked and commission was paid, but for whatever reason the sale gets reversed. Yes, reversals are something every e-commerce site has to deal with, but a unusually high reversal rate will keep the smart affiliates from investing their time promoting the merchant. And merchants that fail to respond to questions about the reasons their orders being reversed will only further alienate their affiliates.

10. Working with Parasite Affiliates:
With the amount of self-policing that occurs in this industry, if a merchant is working with affiliates that are the so-called “Black Hat” affiliates and does nothing about it, you can be sure affiliates will make it well known that the merchant’s affiliate program is one other affiliates should avoid.

11. Providing Very Short Cookies Times:
In e-commerce, comparison shopping is a given, meaning a customer that comes to a merchant’s site from an affiliate’s site may not complete the transaction after that first visit. Why penalize the affiliate with a very short cookie time because the customer decides to leave the merchant site in order to read one more review before completing their purchase? Merchants should permit the maximum allowed cookie time thereby giving the affiliate maximum time to earn a commission.

To sum it up, a merchant’s communications should be clear, thorough and should provide advance notice whenever possible. Secondly, a merchant needs to proactively manage their affiliate program to eliminate any pitfalls that come from program negligence. If a merchant does these important steps, they will have a much greater chance of maintaining successful relationships with their affiliates over the years.

Surely this list is not all encompassing and there are other things merchant’s have done over the year to end up on an affiliate’s “naughty list”. Please feel free to share what you have seen – with your input merchants can work towards improving their affiliate program for everyone’s benefit!

Happy Holidays and Happy E-Commercing!

It’s that time of year again when everyone is making a list and checking it twice to see who has been naughty and nice. This year the staff at MGECOM.com decided to share with you things we have seen affiliates do over the past year that has put them on a merchant’s “naughty” list. We share so you know what practices to avoid and can stay on the “nice” list to enjoy a long, productive and profitable partnership. (Note that this list is geared more toward affiliates just starting out in the business, however even our veteran affiliate friends may find a tip or two they can use).

So without further ado; we present to you our “List of Things Affiliates Should do to Stay off a Merchant’s Naughty List”.

1. Posting of Expired Coupons:
We know affiliates receive hundreds of coupon codes since they work with so many merchants. It can be hard to keep up with expired codes, deleted offers and dead links. If manually entering codes is too cumbersome, then you need to enlist the help of a coupon-feed service like Goldencan.com, ForMeToCoupon.com or CouponFeed.net. These services can be integrated with most backend admin systems to automatically display current codes and remove the expired ones.

Here is a great tip from one of our team members – “If a coupon has expired, but the affiliate has a large amount of original content around it, at the very least apply a strike-through font tag to show that the coupon code in question has been expired.”

2. Violating Merchant’s Pay-Per-Click Policies:
Affiliates should research the merchants policies before going through all the time and effort to set up a killer campaign and make a few sales, only to get busted and have those commissions removed because they used a trademarked term in their PPC campaign. Along the same lines is when affiliates…..

3) Day-Parting Pay-Per-Click Ads:
Affiliates that think they can make a quick cash-grab over a long holiday weekend when no one is looking are mistaken. The tracking software these days will find the PPC ads, report back to the merchant what was displayed and the affiliate will have all those ill-gotten commissions reversed. An affiliate who clearly communicates their PPC marketing strategy to the merchant will enjoy a long and profitable relationship with the merchant.

4. Applying to Programs with an Incomplete or a Poorly Designed Website:
Merchants are not going to approve affiliates that apply with one-page get-rich quick website, a banner farm (c’mon, its not 1988 anymore!) or a website that is lacking contact information. Affiliates that put a little time into the design and their plan in the beginning will find many more approvals from merchants.

5. Requesting Higher Commissions:
Unless an affiliate is a “super affiliate”, they should not request a higher commission rate until they have proven themselves in the merchant’s program. Pay for Performance means just what it says. Perform well and get paid for it. See Albert Pujols’ contract with the Los Angeles Angels for further explanation (yeah, that’s 9 digits in that contract).

6. Not Responding to Merchant Emails:
One of the key things we all learn in this business is that “Its about the relationships”. Affiliates that make it hard for a merchant to start a relationship will have a tougher path to success in the long run. If a merchant wants to talk to an affiliate about how they can work closer together to have success, the affiliate should go to the effort of replying to the email and begin a conversation.

7. Auto-Responding to Every Email:
Next to “not responding to email”, is its ugly cousin – the auto-responder. It works like this: Every time a merchant sends an email to affiliate, the merchant gets an email back stating something along the lines of, “Great to hear from you! Your products are in such demand we really could use custom vanity code to sell even more for you”, or “Thanks for reaching out to us. If we can get a better commission rate, we can promote you even more!”. Please stop this affiliates, and go to the trouble of replying to email from the merchant.

8. Copying Content.
Everyone knows the Google mantra that “Content is King!”. That does not mean affiliates should simply go to the merchants website, copy what the merchant has written for their products and “re-purpose” the copy for use on the affiliate website. Duplication of merchant’s content is a bad idea, rather the affiliate that takes the time to write keyword-friendly copy will end up looking much better to Google’s algorithms, thereby ranking much higher (perhaps even better than the merchant!)

That is our list of things affiliates can do to stay on a merchants nice list, now and all throughout the year. We welcome your comments for other things that affiliates can do – and be on the lookout for our list of things merchants do to get on the affiliates “naughty” list. And, in the spirit of fairness – we will be posting a similar list of things merchants have done to end up on the affiliate’s naughty list!

We would love to hear from other Program Managers, Affiliates, and Merchants that have thoughts on other things affiliates can do to stay on the nice list this next year. Please feel free to comment below!

-the MGECOM.com Team

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have come and gone, but GolfEtail’s deals for these big shopping days are still live for one more day! Make sure you make the most of these promotions while they are still live. After today, they’ll be gone for good!

Black Friday:

Offer: 12% off all orders at GolfEtail.com for Black Friday! Use code: AMMGE-12P-BF11
Dates: Black Friday (through Tues., Nov. 29!)
Code: AMMGE-12P-BF11

Cyber Monday:

Offer: Get $10 off any purchase of $75 or more! Use code: AMMGE-10D75-CM11
Dates: Cyber Monday (through Tues., Nov. 29!)
Code: AMMGE-10D75-CM11

Black Friday is THIS WEEK! Customers will be out in full force searching for the best deals this weekend, and for those searching for the perfect gift for the golf enthusiast (think Dad, grandfathers, husband, brother, etc.), they won’t find a better one than at Golfetail! Already deep discounted name brand golf gear will be eligible for even bigger discounts this weekend. Read on to get the details on the offers for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday…

Black Friday:

For Black Friday we are running an offer that has never been offered before! A straight percentage off sitewide is available for all customers. That’s all categories and all products! Get the details below…

Offer: 12% off all orders at GolfEtail.com for Black Friday! Use code: AMMGE-12P-BF11
Dates: Black Friday (through Tues., Nov. 29!)
Code: AMMGE-12P-BF11

Cyber Monday:

We’ve never really promoted any Cyber Monday offers for GolfEtail in the past, and we’re tired of missing out! So for that reason, we’ve put together an awesome offer (that comes out better than the Black Friday offer at the threshold) for this day to get us in the game! Check it out below and let customers know! (Keep in mind that the Black Friday offer will also still be in play for this day as well!)

Offer: Get $10 off any purchase of $75 or more! Use code: AMMGE-10D75-CM11
Dates: Cyber Monday (through Tues., Nov. 29!)
Code: AMMGE-10D75-CM11

There you have it! You don’t need to know anything else! Get out there and promote these offers on these big shopping days! Want to get into the program in time to promote the best golf gear at the best prices in time for Christmas? Sign up today on LinkShare!

We know that all of our affiliates have unique ways of promoting ScanTxt and we’re excited every time we get to see these promotions in action. That said, we know that some of these promotional methods require a significant investment in terms of time and money and the current 25% recurring commission isn’t always the best way to recoup that investment quickly. So, with that in mind we’ve come up with another option…

As I mentioned, currently the standard commission offer is a 25% recurring commission (based on the monthly rate that a customer selects). However, right now, all you have to do is email us and let us know that you’re interested in an Upfront Bounty and we will pay you 100% of the monthly rate when you refer a paid account. What’s more, we’ll give you an additional bonus of the same amount if that customer stays with ScanTxt for 6 months!

Have an promotional method that would benefit from a payout structure that’s completely different? Let us know! We’re flexible and want to make sure that promoting our service is successful and profitable to you!

Our goal is to keep cost from ever being something that holds our affiliates back from promoting ScanTxt because we believe that once your promotions get up and running, you will see a significant return on you efforts. So, with these options, don’t let cost hold you back and if you’ve hesitated from joining the program in the past due to the payout terms, now’s the time to get involved! Sign up today to be a ScanTxt affiliate on SAS!

Attention affiliates: In case you’ve been living under a rock, Black Friday is almost exactly a week away! that being said, customers are already looking for deals and Easy Life Savings can help!

Customers who join Easy Life Savings get access to hundreds of online and printable coupons that will be able to be combined with in store and online promotions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This means MAJOR savings! Plus, customers can take advantage of this through Easy Life Savings’ 14 day trial. That’s just $1.99 for access to insane deals! If they sign up for a standard or platinum membership, that gets them full access to all services and offers in the Easy Life Savings portal and earns them a FREE $100 Wal-Mart gift voucher and a $100 grocery coupon card! These 2 perks alone more than pay for a few month’s membership fees and will go a long way coupled with the other available savings during this holiday season.

Now, all you have to do is let customers know about it. If you’re an affiliate a quick blog post or a featured placement a few days before Black Friday will help you capitalize. If you’re not an affiliate, what are you waiting for? Sign up today!

Hello Affiliates,

Welcome to the Holiday Shopping Season edition of the Somme Institute® affiliate newsletter. As you know the most important shopping season is right around the corner, and to help affiliates take advantage of this shopping season Somme Institute® has put together a Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion that is sure to generate affiliates some great sales.

Let me begin with the 40% Sitewide discount that is being offered on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With this promotion a 40% discount will be applied to all items on the Somme Institute® Website. You can see the promotion details and our current coupon offers below. Log-in to Shareasale to get the links.

The 40% Sitewide discount will be offered on the following days:

• 11/24: Pre-Black Friday
• 11/25: Black Friday11/26: Post Black Friday
• 11/27: Pre-Cyber Monday
• 11/28: Cyber Monday
• 11/29 Post Cyber Monday

Current Somme Institute® Coupon Codes

• Free Travel Kit with $150 Order at Somme Institute® Coupon Code: FPIRMT
• Free Ground Shipping over $75 Coupon Code: FSIR
• Somme Institute® 20% off Any Order Coupon Code: GDINTROSAS

Also I can’t forget to mention the extra incentive we’ve created for Affiliates. During November affiliates can earn up to an extra 5% on their commissions depending on how much they sale. Read the details.

November Affiliate Incentives

• Sale $200 or more – 2 % commission bump
• Sale $300 or more – 3 % commission bump
• Sale $400 or more – 4 % commission bump
• Sale $500 or more – 5 % commission bump

About the Affiliate Program

One of the things that makes the Somme Institute® Affiliate program so outstanding is that the average sale is $270, and sales occasionally exceed $700 per order. So with the 10% commission and 30 day cookie, Affiliates can do very well with this affiliate program. And if you factor in the extra 5% you can earn this month, Affiliates have a great opportunity to make some money with Somme Institute®.

And finally, Somme Institute® has provided Affiliates with a collection of great before-and-after images, text links and coupon offers to help advertise the Somme products. You can get them at Shareasale.

If you are not a Somme Institute® Affiliate, click here to sign up in ShareaSale.

We are here to help you succeed! If you have questions about the Somme Institute® affiliate program, contact us at sommeinstitute@mgecom.com

We will have more opportunities coming soon.

Good luck affiliates,

Darren

ScanTxt is the next generation of mobile advertising. Combining the standard text short-code with QR codes to drive traffic directly to online media, ScanTxt is taking the lead as an innovator is mobile advertising, especially as it relates to smart phones and media devices such as iPods, iPads and Tablets. Small businesses looking to break into this space have the perfect opportunity with ScanTxt’s free 30 Day trial and low monthly fees. They also get the amazing flexibility that comes with being able to host their own content and tying it directly to a QR code and/or short-code generated by ScanTxt. For more info about ScanTxt, check out the video below and read on to find out the benefits that ScanTxt affiliates receive…

ScanTxt affiliates not only get to promote a unique marketing tool, but they also receive the following perks…

• Recurring 20% commissions on all paid accounts referred.
• 25% Platinum Commission level once you’ve reached 100 referrals.
• A 45 Day Cookie Duration
• A Wide Open PPC Policy!
• Unique tools such as video links to help you promote.
• A simple 2 line lead form consisting of just Email and Password for trial sign-ups.
• Dedicated account management from MGECOM, Inc.

To start promoting ScanTxt today and taking advantage of these benefits, sign up now on ShareASale.