Affiliate Marketing from the Company Side. Experiences?

[CrazyChris]

Hello everyone.

There seems to be a lot of posts on here talking about AM from the affiliates side.

I have about 3 months experience from the business side of AM, with my own product, and have been relatively successful (about $16k rev, of which about 35% is profit, and it is my first ever business venture).

I'd love to hear from others with business side affiliate marketing experience.

How successful have you been using AM?
Have you had any troubles or problems running AM offers?

Thanks for your time everyone!

 

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[JonnyC]

CrazyChris

Congratulations on your success so far! I was wondering if you could please share your thoughts on using AM for physical products. I'm launching a product right now with 78% gross margins, about 50% net after all costs (fulfillment and inventory). Is that typically enough margin to support bringing on affiliates down the line?

 

[CrazyChris]

CrazyChris

Congratulations on your success so far! I was wondering if you could please share your thoughts on using AM for physical products. I'm launching a product right now with 78% gross margins, about 50% net after all costs (fulfillment and inventory). Is that typically enough margin to support bringing on affiliates down the line?

Hey Jonny,
I'm currently selling physical products using AM.

My thoughts on using AM for physical products? hmmm.
It depends very much on your product mate. Are you currently shipping your product? Would you product likely be banned from entering different countries?

%50 net seems like plenty to me. Of course you understand that you will be sacrificing margin in order to get AM sales; but if it's sales you would not have had before....

 

[eliquid]

Depends on certain factors.

Most of the issues raise in the form of fraud, which is less if a physical product or a CPS model.

When you get into digital or recurring/CPA/CPL models, the fraud seems to be higher.

 

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[CrazyChris]

Depends on certain factors.

Most of the issues raise in the form of fraud, which is less if a physical product or a CPS model.

When you get into digital or recurring/CPA/CPL models, the fraud seems to be higher.

Thanks for the reply eliquid!

Have you personally experienced fraud while running AM offers?

 

[Vigilante]

One of the obstacles I would want to be well educated on is franchise laws, that vary by state. Each state will have different requirements so that you don't get nailed as a franchiser, and you're going to need to be well studied on that distribution aspect as your business grows.

Maintain your integrity, and being at the top of a MLM would be pretty sweet. As long as your business doesn't evolve into selling false dreams to unsuspecting noobs, you could have a good run.

 

[CrazyChris]

One of the obstacles I would want to be well educated on is franchise laws, that vary by state. Each state will have different requirements so that you don't get nailed as a franchiser, and you're going to need to be well studied on that distribution aspect as your business grows.

Maintain your integrity, and being at the top of a MLM would be pretty sweet. As long as your business doesn't evolve into selling false dreams to unsuspecting noobs, you could have a good run.

Hmmmm, I'm Australian, so US laws shouldn't have much of an impact on me. Maybe they will affect my affiliates. You have got me thinking about the laws here though.

False dreams to unsuspecting noobs? Haha definitely not, I'm full of integrity!

So vigilante, want to make millions a day in passive income? Simply pay me $1,000 for this starter pack! ;-)

 

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[Basilius]

Interestingly enough the biggest success I had with promoting CPA offers over PPC was the one with physical product. I tried the ones with email or zip submits, but couldn't make it work.

I steered away from AM to focus on creating my own product in order to do something worthwhile and build an audience that I build a relationship with.

 

[JonnyC]

Hey Jonny,
I'm currently selling physical products using AM.

My thoughts on using AM for physical products? hmmm.
It depends very much on your product mate. Are you currently shipping your product? Would you product likely be banned from entering different countries?

%50 net seems like plenty to me. Of course you understand that you will be sacrificing margin in order to get AM sales; but if it's sales you would not have had before....

Gotcha. I am not shipping it, using FBA exclusively in US.

I think it's a fair compromise, with regards to the margin vs more sales. I'll look into the specifics, thanks a lot!

 

[CrazyChris]

Gotcha. I am not shipping it, using FBA exclusively in US.

I think it's a fair compromise, with regards to the margin vs more sales. I'll look into the specifics, thanks a lot!

Ahh okay.

If you can figure out how to limit your affiliates to only sell in the US, then I say go for it!

 

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[CrazyChris]

Interestingly enough the biggest success I had with promoting CPA offers over PPC was the one with physical product. I tried the ones with email or zip submits, but couldn't make it work.

I steered away from AM to focus on creating my own product in order to do something worthwhile and build an audience that I build a relationship with.

Sorry mate, from your response I'm unsure as to which side of AM you have experience with?

 

[Basilius]

Sorry mate, from your response I'm unsure as to which side of AM you have experience with?

I was promoting someone else's products (CPA offers) as an affiliate. Better?

 

[CrazyChris]

I was promoting someone else's products (CPA offers) as an affiliate. Better?

Ahh yeah.

Thanks, but not really what I was looking for

 

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[Clayton]

What network or software do you recommend?

 

[CrazyChris]

What network or software do you recommend?

I just use Shopify as my ecommerce platform. I can't code at all, so an eCommerce software package was important for me. I like Shopify a lot, it's simple to understand, customisable enough and their customer service is exceptional.

For the affiliate side, I am currently generating sales reports (from Shopify) at the end of each week and paying my affiliates from that. This method works alright for me as I only have a small number of affiliates at the moment. However, I plan on using refersion.com in the near future so I can scale up the amount of affiliates I have.

 

[MEAH]

This method works alright for me as I only have a small number of affiliates at the moment. However, I plan on using refersion.com in the near future so I can scale up the amount of affiliates I have.

Just wanted to say Refersion is awesome and Alex gets back to you right away if you have a support question. I love the platform's UX/UI and being that it was a small start up makes me want to keep giving my money to him. Works perfectly and integrates with both shopify and my woocommerce store!

You can even scale up as your number of affiliates grow

 

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[CrazyChris]

Just wanted to say Refersion is awesome and Alex gets back to you right away if you have a support question. I love the platform's UX/UI and being that it was a small start up makes me want to keep giving my money to him. Works perfectly and integrates with both shopify and my woocommerce store!

You can even scale up as your number of affiliates grow

I see feedback like this, everywhere I look haha. Which is fantastic!

MEAH do you use the post-purchase affiliate registration channel at all?

 

[MEAH]

MEAH do you use the post-purchase affiliate registration channel at all?

haven't implemented it as of yet but from all I know its awesome!

 

[CrazyChris]

haven't implemented it as of yet but from all I know its awesome!

Ahh okay. Would you mind keeping me updated as to how it goes?

 

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[MEAH]

Ahh okay. Would you mind keeping me updated as to how it goes

yes absolutely.. I just dont see myself implementing the Post-purchase side any time soon.

My affiliate sign up is working fine without it

 

[CrazyChris]

yes absolutely.. I just dont see myself implementing the Post-purchase side any time soon.

My affiliate sign up is working fine without it

Would you mind sharing any details of your business?

 

[CJC3392]

Probably a dumb question but how do you track the sales from a specific affiliate? ie. how do you know that a sale was generated from a certain affiliate?

 

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[CrazyChris]

Probably a dumb question but how do you track the sales from a specific affiliate? ie. how do you know that a sale was generated from a certain affiliate?

This is what refersion does!

Currently my methods for tracking affiliate sales are extremely...primitive.