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