Again a question I’ve seen many new merchants ask, and probably a question that doesn’t have an answer. Every affiliate is unique. If I launched an affiliate programme and offered an incentive to win a trip to Lapland for 4 people this December im fairly confident I know the 2/3 affiliates who would go for it, and I mean make an effort and really push the programme.
The fact of it is certain incentives appeal to certain affiliates. Some affiliates aren’t that motivated by cash prizes unless they are really big, why? Because they have to pay tax on them, a top affiliate is going to be on 40% so lets face it if you offer them a grand for hitting a fairly bit target they only see £600 of that. However a holiday worth £1,000 actually saves them £1,000 – making sense now?
An affiliate that springs to mind here is Kieron whos a big PPC affiliates whos now starting to put a lot of work into building sites and SEO as well. Hes mastered PPC, moving into other areas and mastering them too basically. He get a lot of freebies, I’ve seen various forum posts by him and hate to think how many free mobiles, iPods and crates of Peroni this guy has but have a read at this post. An iPods very generic, and if you send one to an affiliate great, but chances are they have an MP3 player of some sort. A mobile again nice, but again who doesn’t already have a mobile? Both of these will come in at less than £300 in most cases, and to get an affiliate like Kieron on board, and dedicating his time to a programme id say £300 is a bloody good price!
However a smaller affiliate would more than likely prefer a bonus, if your not making that much from affiliate marketing and a £300 phone drops through your letter box, yes its nice, but that affiliates probably thinking £300 cash would have been a lot more use to ease the cash flow and for them to reinvest in their business.
So all your affiliates are different and you cant motivate them all with one blanket incentive, yep that’s the long and short of it. You need to learn who wants what and give it them. Or ask. Kieron states in his post that a Lamborghini Murcielago would incentive him no end well if he really wants one, it would take one hell of a number crunching exorcise. but im sure we could set some targets that would allow us to buy him one!
