Arthur Freydin’s Blog

Online marketing, gadgets, business, and thoughts.

Despite popular opinion, an affiliate program does not run by itself. Your affiliates need consistent communication from you to remind them why you’re such a great advertiser and why they should push your offers above your competition’s. Affiliate newsletters are a great way to maintain an open line of communication and should be sent out regularly.

First let’s talk about when and how often to send out your affiliate newsletters. Mondays and Fridays are bad for affiliates. Send out your newsletters on Tuesdays – Thursdays – it’s as simple as that. As far as frequency, that’s really up to you. If you have the bandwidth, send them out once a week! If you are the only person managing the affiliate program, send them bi-weekly or once a month if you’re really short on resources.

Now let’s get to the items (in no particular order) you absolutely need in an affiliate newsletter:

1. Top Converting Products & Categories
   Every ecommerce affiliate newsletter should be sharing top converting products & categories (categories should usually be two levels deep. i.e.: instead of Bath, it should be Bathroom Sinks). There is a very handy report in CJ (and every other network I’m sure) that provides performance stats by product. Use this report to obtain the top converting products for your newsletter. If you don’t have enough statistical data in this report, pull your top converting products from your web analytics or internal sales tool. Worst case scenario, just take a good guess at which products perform well on your site.
2. Coupons & Promotions
   Most affiliates live and die by whatever promotions & coupons you are running on your site. Affiliates like FatWallet, CouponCabin, Slickdeals, and Retailmenot will absolutely love you for providing this information. Just remember to always keep your profit margin in mind and make sure that the coupons you provide do not throw your profitability out the window. Look for another post in the future that will detail what types of coupons & promos affiliates long for.
3. About Us Section
   Always keep in mind that you are always accepting new applications from affiliates and your affiliate base is always increasing. New affiliates are reading your newsletter every time so you will need to target these as well. Let them know right off the bat why they’re going to do business with you over your competition. This section should detail your great conversion rate, commission structure, average order value (AOV), tracking period, and why your customers choose you over any0ne else. Get your affiliates excited about promoting you!
4. Top Performing Creative
   Once again, this section is crucial for first time readers as well as for more seasoned affiliates that have received tons of affiliate newsletters already. First-time affiliates will use this section to kick-start their efforts with top performing creative while seasoned affiliates can use this to make sure their efforts are in line with other top performers and will adjust their promotion methods if necessary.
5. New Creative
   This is a great way to keep your program fresh & updated. New creative should be posted monthly and should always be promoted in your affiliate newsletters. Examples of creative include new categories, sales, and other promotional messaging such as free shipping & closeout centers. Look for another post specifically on program creatives in the future.

So there you have it. This should provide a great jumping off point for you affiliate newsletter efforts. There are tons of great affiliate newsletters out there by hundreds of advertisers. My suggestion is to create a publisher account on whatever affiliate network you belong to and survey the competition. Chances are that you will find lots of great ideas in your space.

We all know how potent affiliate marketing can be to almost any type of online business. Retail can almost immediately profit from an affiliate marketing program and it’s evident by the sheer number of retailers that have a program. I recently launched an affiliate program for an online retailer and saw sales start pouring in as soon as the third day – talk about results!

Here’s the question I have for you though – my non-existent audience. What are the barriers for a niche online entity like Real Estate or Commercial Leasing if they want to get into affiliate marketing? Does Linkshare have a larger share of lead-gen advertisers than Commission Junction or Performics? If I want to stick with Commission Junction, how far do I have to go to train would-be publishers in marketing techniques and business practices? I just can’t see that there are as many publishers that are knowledgeable in retail than there are in lead-gen for real estate or similar verticals. Who do I target?

My gut tells me that if I want my niche affiliate marketing program to take off, I better be ready to recruit & educate. Not only will I gain the publishers, but I also give myself the ability to train them and make sure they are doing exactly what I would like them to do.
I may also want to research Performics, Linkshare and others to see if they have a larger share of these “niche publishers” that I’m looking for. Signing up with a service that already has a publisher base waiting for me can mean saving months of engaging and training uneducated publishers.