Presentation slides form the IDM affiliate management one-day course.

1. Affiliate Marketing
Turn clicks into cash with a successful,
sustainable affiliate marketing strategy

2. Goals For Today
• Understand the principles of affiliate marketing
• Define how affiliate marketing fits within the
marketing mix
• Structure an affiliate programme that adds
genuine value to your company
• Monitor the right data from your affiliates
• Spend budget efficiently by asking the right
questions to suppliers

3. Who Am I?
• 16 Years Affiliate Marketing
Experience
• 1996 – First sale through
Amazon
• 2002 – Set up 1st merchant
campaign
(thebeautyroom.co.uk)
• 2006 Sold iPoints.co.uk to
Maximiles
• Currently manage several
high margin retail
campaigns

4. Welcome – Who are you?
Exercise 1 - Affilaite marketing in your organisation
• Company
• Position
• Affiliate Marketing, Experience
• What are your looking to get out of today?

5. Introduction To Affiliate
Marketing
9.45am-10.30am

6. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of
performance-based marketing in which a business rewards
one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought
about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.
(Wikipedia)

7. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing
Leaflets
Print Display
TV
There is no risk (in theory!)

8. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing

9. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing
Online Sales Affiliate Sales
2008 £43.8bn £3.82bn
2009 £49.9bn £4bn
2010 £58.8bn £4.6bn
2011 £81bn £5.2bn
Figures ignore lead based programmes, adult
industry and gambling sectors
Affiliate Marketing accounts for 7% of online
business
Data Source IMRG, and Econsultancy.com

10. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Affiliate Types
• Affiliates Fit into 3 main types
– Content Affiliates
• People visit due to the content provided by the affiliate
– Arbitrage
• Buy traffic as you or to landing pages specifically aimed at
your or your products
– Professional Affiliates
• Affiliate links are the content

11. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Websites

12. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Websites

13. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Websites

14. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Websites

15. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Affiliates

16. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Content Affiliates

17. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing – Arbitrage

18. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing – Arbitrage

19. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

20. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

21. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

22. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

23. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

24. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

25. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

26. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Professional Affiliates

27. Exercise
Types of Affiliate
10.30am-11.15am

28. Break & Exercise
The Holiday Purchase
10.30am-11.15am

29. Planning a fully integrated affiliate marketing
programme
11.30am-12.15pm

30. Integration
• Brand Control
• PPC
• SEO Risk
• Setting Budgets

31. Planning an Affiliate Programme
Understand your current marketing strategy and plan where they will fit in.
• Content Affiliates are generally issue free
– Creative
– Copy
– Thinking out of the box
• Shop whitelabels
• Exclusive suppliers

32. Planning an Affiliate Programme
Conflicts
Management & Staff
Technology
Wild West
“Next year we’ll reintroduce affiliate marketing, but as it should be. No silly commissions
being paid to grubby little people in grubby studios growing income at our expense,
getting in the way of genuine sales” Nick Roberston CEO ASOS 2007
To make affiliate marketing work you must plan it and implement it properly or it will be an
expensive lesson.

33. Working alongside other channels
A balanced affiliate programme should account for 10-20% of online transactions
•Brand Traffic
– Type in traffic
– Search engine
•Email Marketing
– 3rd party
– Newsletters
•Search Engine Marketing
– Paid listings
– Natural listings
•Advertising
– Banners
– Paid Content
•Social Media

34. Planning an Affiliate Programme
Understand your current marketing strategy and plan where they will fit in.
• Arbitrage Affiliates need rules!
– What advertising are you doing?
– What is the cost and value of your advertising?
– Staff cost – salary & training
– Can the affiliates do a better job?
– Can the affiliates do a better job on part of the campaign?
• Ultimately a Google keyword has a value and a cost. How can you maximise this?

35. Affiliate Marketing Technology
11.30am-12.15pm

36. Technology
• Tracking
– Network
– Direct
• Data Feeds
• Ad serving
• Attribution

37. Introduction To Affiliate Marketing –
Tracking Solutions
• Third Party Network
• Own tracking solution

38. Technology
• Links
– Cookies
– Flash Cookies
– Browser cache
– Tracking references for affiliate
• Cookie Windows
– Standard is 30 days
• Confirmation Page
– Javascript
– Image pixels
– Pass order details
• Reporting Tools
– Orders
– Validate/Cancel Transactions
– Assign commissions
– Real-time

39. Network or Self Managed - Networks
• There are 25/30 UK networks and growing rapidly
• Many networks aren’t profitable
Do your Research!
• Affiliates won’t work with all networks or directly with
you – Talk to them
• Can the network handle your reporting needs?
• Does the network have the technical infrastructure?
• Is the network cost effective?
• What are your competitors doing?
• Overseas Reach

40. Technology
• Reliability
– Links must not fail
– Links must be ‘quick’
– Browser compatibility
– Reporting tools uptime
– Cope with significant peaks and troughs
• De-duping
– Last click wins
• Approving/Decline Affiliates
– Brand protection
• Serving Banners
• Providing Products Feeds
• Customised Reporting

41. How To Choose Solution
• Cost
– Set-up costs
• Hardware
– Monthly fees
• Hosting Fees
– Override
• Support
– Experience
– Company Resources

42. How To Choose Solution
• Affiliates
– Base
– How attractive is your brand
– Can they trust your solution
• Wont sign-up
• Slow to test your programme
– All reporting requirements
• Speed of launch
– Setting up technology
– Setting up programme

43. How To Choose Solution
• Risk
– Traffic through third party servers
– You don’t own the data
• Control
– Ability to customise the programme

44. Network or Self Managed – Multiple
Channels
• Running 2 networks or network and direct
• Advantages
– Larger Reach
• Not all affiliates work on all networks
• Some networks have own traffic
– Improve relations
• Affiliates have preferred account managers and
networks
• Often prefer client contact
– Build on lack of company resources
• Disadvantages
– Cross tracking/Cost of technology
– Admin time
– Costs

45. Network or Self Managed – Multiple
Channels
• Disadvantages
– Cross tracking/Cost of technology
• Two commissions against one sale
– Admin time
• Checking sales
• Checking affiliates
• Uploading creatives
• Checking feeds
• Approving affiliates
• This can be automated
– Costs
• Multiple set-up costs
• Multiple monthly fees
• Cross tracked sales
– No longer as profitable for a network
• Networks want exclusivity

46. Network or Self Managed – Multiple
Channels
• Disadvantages
– Cross tracking/Cost of technology
• Two commissions against one sale
– Admin time
• Checking sales
• Checking affiliates
• Uploading creatives
• Checking feeds
• Approving affiliates
• This can be automated
– Costs
• Multiple set-up costs
• Multiple monthly fees
• Cross tracked sales
– No longer as profitable for a network
• Networks want exclusivity

47. Exercise – The network versus direct affiliate
programme
12.05am-1.00pm

48. Planning Your Programme Launch
12.05am-1.00pm

49. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Compliment your activity

50. Planning an Affiliate Programme
Understand your current marketing strategy and plan where they will fit in.
• Professional Affiliates – The ‘wild west’ and they use your content
– Voucher Codes – someone uses your voucher code, you give a discount and pay commission
to the affiliate
– Feeds
– Incentivises
– Customising deals

51. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Creative
• Do you produce
internally?
• Key size
– 468x60
– 120x60
– 120x600
• Issues
• File Types – Call to action
– Gif – No Urls
– Jpeg – No Phone Numbers
– Flash – Seasonality
– HTML

52. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Treat your affiliates like a
sales team
• Video Interviews with the
merchant
• Marketing guides that are
both merchant and
industry specific
• Branding guidelines
• Examples of offline
promotions and
advertising
• Additional creative
resource
• Seasonality Charts
• Frequently Asked
questions

53. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Data Data Data
• Product Feeds
– Product Names
– Product Descriptions
– Brands
– Destination URLS
Don’t worry about duplicate content
• Pricing Files
– Price
– RRP
– Delivery
– VAT
• Voucher Code Feeds
• Feed Types
– XML
– CSV
– Live – you are responsible for your data being correct

54. Planning an Affiliate Programme –
Competitors
• Already Have Programmes
• Commission Structures
• Cookie Lengths
• Consumer Offers
• Incentives
• Set-up
– Networks/Direct
– Do they use an agency
• Resources
– Affiliate Manager
– Regular Communications

55. Planning an Affiliate Programme - Affiliates
2 Top Level Groups
• Key Affiliates – drive 80-90% of your programme
• Long Tail Affiliates
• HitWise
• Cintrix
• Alexa
• Google
• Majestic SEO

56. Planning an Affiliate Programme

57. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Affiliates Will Come To You
• Define targets
– Who are your key affiliates
– Number of affiliates
– Traffic
– Conversions
– Sales
– Spend
• Define Tracking & Reporting Requirements

58. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• Reporting Needs
– What do you need to report?
• Internal KPIs
– Weekly/Monthly Reports
– Annual budgets
– Year on year changes
• Early warning system
– Budgets
– Stock issues
• Programme Optimisation/Monitoring
– Spotting dropped affiliates
– Poor Convertors
– New affiliates

59. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• What if it goes wrong?
– Too many sales
• Budget
• No stock left
– Too few sales
• Site doesn’t convert
• Affiliates wont put up links
– Commission too low?
– Competitors have better relations
• Affiliate take links down

60. Planning an Affiliate Programme
• What are you paying commissions on?
– Including Vat (check your VAT rates)
– Including Delivery
– Product variations
– Valid lead
• Are the Affiliates aware
– Offer text
– Communications
• Test Test and Test
• It will break
• You don’t want to reduce commissions
– However short term launch campaign works

61. Pre-Launch Checklist
• Programme “pitch” • Creative
• Terms & conditions • Tracking
– PPC / Brand • Data Feeds
– Incentives
– Vouchers
• Communication
Channels
12.45pm-14.40pm

62. Launching the programme

63. Things to avoid
• Phone numbers
• Broken pages (obviously)
• Banners to 3rd parties
• Poor site search
• Complex checkouts
• Forcing registration too early
• High delivery charges

65. Network Communications

66. Your own site

67. How do you compare?

68. Exercise – The Affiliate Viewpoint
2.00pm-2.45pm

69. Optimising Your Programme
Growing Sales
Growing Profits
2.00pm-2.45pm

70. Growing your programme
• Recruit more affiliates to the programme
• Activate more dormant affiliates
• Increase revenues from active affiliates
• Increase conversion rates
Also
• Reducing affiliates who work against these goals
• Fraud
• Low value-add

71. Segmenting affiliates - Size
Small Mid Tier Super Affiliates
Small or just inactive Regular communication Personal relations
Sticks or carrots? Generic communications Bespoke promotions /
How much help do they Exposure at larger events landing pages
need? Understand their USP’s &
Is your offer too complex? model

72. Segmenting affiliates - Type
PPC Content Vouchers Cashback
How to use to Effort needed to Tactical programme Tactics & placement
increase brand & create content & calendar How to swop from
generic volumes How to manage competitors
inactive codes

73. Optimised Programme
• Not all affiliates are equal
– Different conversion rates
– Different basket values
– Different volumes based on commissions
– More profitable customers
• Higher proportion of returning customers
• Not all affiliates are good for you
– Sales you’d have got already
– Picking up sales that other channels would have converted
– Having to pay large commissions to get the traffic

74. Optimised Programme
• The Buying Path
– People usually have multiple touch
points when buying
– Do you know every point each
customer touches
– Certain website start the booking
process
– Certain websites finish the booking

75. Optimised Programme
• Affiliate Marketing works on a last
click wins the commission
– But would the booking have occurred
without the first affiliate.
– What happens when you have other
channels involved.

76. Optimised Programme
• The industry is confused
– They want to apportion commissions but how….
– You have to pay Google per click and you have to pay tenancy regardless.
• Best Practice
– Include all your marketing channels and de-dupe to the last click
– Don’t include your brand search campaigns
– Don’t include your own newsletters.
– Watch your bookings closely to ensure affiliates are being rewarded.
If the affiliate doesn't’t earn enough they will reduce your exposure or drop you. Move
affiliate commissions to ensure they are happy. Some affiliates can increase volumes
if you pay them more

77. Optimised Programme
• Voucher Codes
– Paying commissions and provide a discount
– Customers who are ready to buy go and find a
code (you can track this with an analytics tool)
– But would the consumer have actually
purchased?
– Would they have used another retailer with a
code?
– Voucher codes are big brands now
– MyVouchersCodes.co.uk receive around 6
million visitor a month
– Strict programme terms
– Ensure you have your own page

78. Optimised Programme
• Incentive Sites
– No margin issue (although savvy shoppers can find a voucher!)
– Losing customers who are ready to buy

79. Optimised Programme
• Don’t Cull Affiliates
– If they are not active they maybe active later
• Sites Not Live
– Don’t reject them they may not come back
– Affiliates are busy, they may never come back
– Who is the next facebook or Instagram?
– Some of the smaller affiliates send the best quality customers
– Networks don’t always provide full details
• Affiliate have multiple sites
• Some site are large and not easy find your adverts

80. Understanding what your affiliates are trying to achieve

81. Exercise
Introducing Affiliate Marketing to the
organisation
11.30am-12.15pm

82. Case Study
Growing the Sweatband.com
Affiliate Programme
2.00pm-2.45pm

83. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
Sweatband.com
• Sports retailer targeting fitness enthusiasts

84. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
• Latest Affiliates

85. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
• The Stats
– Daily
– Weekly
– Month
• Targets

86. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
• Success

87. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
• Failure

88. Day in the life of an affiliate manager
• Failure

89. Case Study – William Hill Bingo
& Scottish Friendly
4.00pm-4.30pm

90. Case Study – William Hill Bingo

91. William Hill Bingo - Client
Objectives
• New Product launch of Bingo
• Branding, exposure and all at a good ROI
• Needed at least 2,000 players in a 3 month
campaign
• Banner Advertising, Residency deals, Pay Per
Click, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing and
MGM were all used in campaign

92. William Hill Bingo –
Pre-Programme Tasks
• Created Bingo Orientated Design
• Setup Main Customer offering
(£20 Deposit Match)
• Improved signup process
• Created and sourced prizes for
customer competition

93. William Hill Bingo - Setting Up The
Affiliate Programme
• Picking the right network
• Setting the CPA - Starting at £25
• Budget forecasting - as an overall % of current
business
• Starting as a invite only programme

94. William Hill Bingo – Commission
Structures
• Content/Paid Search Affiliates
– Higher Competitive CPA
– £10 Spend Restriction for Payout
• Cashback Affiliates
– 50% Cashback
• £20 CPA
• £20 Spend restriction
– 100% Cashback
• £10 CPA
• £20 Spend Restriction

95. William Hill Bingo - Incentives
• Higher tier CPAs
• Free iPods for customer incentives
• Cash Bonuses
• Higher tier prize - Trip for two to Monte Carlo

96. William Hill Bingo – Affiliate
Targets
• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN
• Hitwise
• Syntryx
• Affiliate Forums (A4u/CAC)
• Network newsletters
• Using Alexa rankings for priority levels

99. William Hill Bingo -
Communication
• Daily Communication with performing affiliates
• Variety of channels - MSN, Email, Phone
• Forum Posts
• Blog setup and management

100. William Hill Bingo - Reporting
• Managing duel network reporting
• Reporting across multiple channels
• Budget Management

101. William Hill Bingo - Results
• Results from campaign over first 6 months
– Affiliate campaign CPA of £50 and 65-70% of all player recruitment
– Final Banner / Residency CPA of £60
– PPC across Yahoo and MSN with CPA of £85
– Other CPA at £97
• Total player spend of over £3m
• Total recruitment of 4,000 depositing players
• Affiliate Marketing is the most cost effective channel while still delivering the volumes
required

102. Case Study – Scottish Friendly

103. Scottish Friendly - Client
Objectives
• Spend Millions on DM - Asked to prove that online marketing can be a
successful channel
• Promotion of two online application forms - Scottish Bond & Child Bond
• Ensure that all online advertising meets the FSA guidelines

104. Scottish Friendly - First Steps
• Create landing microsite around two online products
– Ensuring phone numbers only on contact page
– More focused on online conversion
– Separate tracking forms to ensure all leads track
• Testing and analysis of interactive PDFs used on site
• Strong range of creative including E-Mail with embedded affiliate links

105. Scottish Friendly - Launching the
Programme
• Setup of strong CPA (£95) - based on a mix of competitive programs and what
Scottish Friendly see as a profitable cost of acquisition
• Program launch independent. Due to price and flexibility
• Setup of initial validation scheme to protect against fraudulent applications

106. Scottish Friendly - Affiliate
Recruitment
• Recruitment aimed towards the following affiliates:
– Finance affiliates - sites ranking or bidding for Savings Bonds and
similar key terms
– Cashback affiliates - high CPA tends to ensure good volume of signups
– Email affiliates - Nature of setup ensures it’s seen as a sale cost and
not budget - unlimited leads available
– Niche Affiliates - Affiliates who are willing to build sites around
products and aim to rank on longtail terms

107. Scottish Friendly - Validation and
PDFs
• All leads verified via phone and bank details
• Affiliate leads validated within 7 days for non-incentive and 30 days for incentive sites
(due to 30 day cooling off period)
• Site uses Interactive PDFs to track all leads via affiliates
– Missed leads still charged to client - are then assigned to affiliate (if traced) or
put into a pot and split between affiliates promoting program

108. Scottish Friendly - Results
• Over 250 online applications within 3 months
– 8% Rejection Ratio
– Program led to 600% increase in online
applications
– Featured on high quality sites such as
Moneysupermarket, Moneyfacts and Fair
Investment

109. Useful Resources

110. Useful Resource
– IAB Affiliate Council
– Econsultancy
– www.affiliates4u.co.uk
– www.acorndomains.com
– www.abestweb.com
– www.stephenpratley.com
– www.internetmarketingblogs.co.uk
– Network Blogs (esp Affiliate Window)
– Evgenii Prussakov
• Affiliate Marketing in an hour a day
• A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing

111. Wrap Up
• The 5 Point Plan
• Personal Objectives
• Tutor Contact

112. Thank You
and good luck!