For years I’ve read posts on forums from people wanting to know what the best network is, where the best affiliates are and always wanting the cheapest option an how to go about setting up as a merchant. I’ve been given the task of preparing a new merchant launch so thought id put together a mini guide to, hopefully help any future merchants seeking a bit of advice.
I would say that the very first step is to decide what you need. If your looking for a network what do you want from them? Are you looking at them as a tracking platform, do you want to draw on their affiliate base or are you looking for a lot of support, account management and their expertise in really making a success of the programme? What do you need reporting wise, do you need to see lots of detail or are you happy to just see the money come in? You need to jot down everything you need from the network and put together an RFP (Request For Proposal) and send this to all the networks you can think of, have heard of or have got your selection down to. Give them a good period of time to reply.
This does 2 things. You give yourself a bit of time to think, its all too easy to contact a network asking about one thing and before you know it your faxing back a signed contract. There’s no rush at all, a rushed launch can basically mean re-launching months down the line or thinking that affiliate marketing doesn’t work – and it does.
With this time you have before you receive replies get a banner set created, talk to your IT team about the integration and basically prepare yourself for a ‘go live’ situation. Get budget allocated, prepare the launch and the launch offer as well as a mini advertising campaign to get affiliates on board, think about commission structures and how you will reward your top performing affiliates. Also make sure you find some affiliates, I know you don’t have a programme yet but there’s no hard in making first contact with some sites in your sector to get a feel for the market, what are they currently being offered, what do they look for and what’s it going to take to get them on board.
Still very much in the preparation stages at the moment, learning all the time and taking on board what affiliates want. The main aim is to ensure that when the new site launches its doing sales, via affiliates on the first day. If it doesn’t something in the set up has been done wrong.
