Distino Affiliate Program - Advice Required

Distino · #1 20-02-2009, 01:19 PM

Hello All,

Distino Of Melbourne (www.distino.com.au) have been running an affiliate program on Clixgalore for over 12 months but we don't seem to be generating many sales through the programs. We have it set up in the US and AUS and we even went for the gold membership within the US program which had little to no effect (other than costing a bit of $).

I get the feeling we aren't attracting enough quality affiliates (?) but we do have literally hundreds of affiliates who have joined our program. We offer 15% commission on all sales, we have datafeeds and many different banners available.

Through our own SEO efforts we have produced a successful online site and we are very happy with sales we generate .... but we want to get even happier!

I'm looking for some advice on why our programs are not successful through Clixgalore and what can be done to attract the Super Affiliates?

Thanks for your help and advice!

El Craigo · #2 20-02-2009, 01:32 PM

Hi Distino,

Welcome. Who are your competitors and are they doing well?

Are you making sales through your own site? (non affiliate sales)

Also, just to let you know the competition you're running on your site seems to be illegal, if it's a draw. I'd get rid of it, or get some permits.

Good luck with it,

Craig

Distino · #3 20-02-2009, 01:48 PM

Thanks for the quick response.

We consider our site to be quite successful and we certainly generate adequate levels of sales... you can always be happier though. All the sales we make are non-affiliate sales.

There are a couple of competitors with similar programs in Clixgalore however we offer a greater or equal commission.

Any advice?

P.S. Thanks for the tip on the competition... I'm amazed but I'll look into it.

newbie · #4 20-02-2009, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

Hello All,

Distino Of Melbourne (www.distino.com.au) have been running an affiliate program on Clixgalore for over 12 months but we don't seem to be generating many sales through the programs. We have it set up in the US and AUS and we even went for the gold membership within the US program which had little to no effect (other than costing a bit of $).

I get the feeling we aren't attracting enough quality affiliates (?) but we do have literally hundreds of affiliates who have joined our program. We offer 15% commission on all sales, we have datafeeds and many different banners available.

Through our own SEO efforts we have produced a successful online site and we are very happy with sales we generate .... but we want to get even happier!

I'm looking for some advice on why our programs are not successful through Clixgalore and what can be done to attract the Super Affiliates?

Thanks for your help and advice!

Distino - welcome.

This was a message we sent via CG last year:

8825 - Distino Of Melbourne Silk Ties - 60 item(s) 3/07/2008 6:44:01 PM

Everything is fine with datafeed except that he has only one category, "Clothing & Shoes"

I think he has misunderstood what the category classification is for.

Please ask him to at least separate it into Silk Ties, Cufflinks and Formal Collection.

============

This was the response from CG:

9/07/2008 2:46:07 PM merchant not available by telephone but emailed points you have raised.

============

current status: ten extra product items in data feed, still a single category, Clothing & Shoes

Do you sell many shoes?

bcl · #5 21-02-2009, 01:52 PM

The paypal cart would make any serious affiliate wary of your program. There's nothing wrong with paypal, it's just that all external payment systems raise the possibility that the customer will buy products and not return to your sales confirmation page which has the tracking pixel on it. External carts only work for affiliates if the customer is automatically returned to your site.

For an affiliate, the only way to test your tracking is to actually buy something and see how your paypal is set up, and then to do periodic checks in case it changes. As I don't wear mens clothing that isn't an option.

newbie · #6 21-02-2009, 02:49 PM

As usual, BCL and I are in complete agreement re PayPal. =))

It could be that you are getting many sales from affiliates but wrongly attributing them as organic because of the PayPal glitch.

That was not the reason I am posting though.

I just noticed this statement:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

All the sales we make are non-affiliate sales.

We are but one affiliate with 5 sales recorded via your CG affiliate program for around AUD$40 commission. No doubt there are many, many others.

The other thing I noticed is that your sales are set to auto-approve. If you change this to manually approve your sales, you can then take the opportunity to communicate with your affiliates via the "information" column.

Communication may have the consequence of getting more attention to your program than your current sales level would warrant (and hence more sales).

If you do not do things like this, the outcome is inevitable. A slow spiral down to the back-burner.

Distino · #7 23-02-2009, 12:32 PM

All very good help thanks.

Our Paypal shopping cart is set up so that the buyer is automatically returned to a confirmation page on our site. We understand the need for this as we also need to track our adwords and overture conversions.

Interesting tip about the auto approve. We set it to auto approve so to not inconvenience the affiliate with delays while they wait for approval. When you go to get an affiliates's banner, don't you want to just get them immediately so you can continue with your task of placing the banners on your site? It would be interesting to get a few other affiliates' opinions on this.

I might need to change it manual approve as you've suggested though so that I can communicate things like the fact that we do have a sales confirmation page, etc. I'll give it some further thought.

Thanks again for your help and tips

newbie · #8 23-02-2009, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

All very good help thanks.

Our Paypal shopping cart is set up so that the buyer is automatically returned to a confirmation page on our site. We understand the need for this as we also need to track our adwords and overture conversions.

Interesting tip about the auto approve. We set it to auto approve so to not inconvenience the affiliate with delays while they wait for approval. When you go to get an affiliates's banner, don't you want to just get them immediately so you can continue with your task of placing the banners on your site? It would be interesting to get a few other affiliates' opinions on this.

I might need to change it manual approve as you've suggested though so that I can communicate things like the fact that we do have a sales confirmation page, etc. I'll give it some further thought.

Thanks again for your help and tips

I was not referring to automatic approval of new affiliates (although vetting of your affiliates is something every merchant should do).

I was referring to automatic approval of sales made via CG.

You are able to change your settings so that sales remain in a "pending" state for a duration of your choice up to 30 days. When you approve these pending sales you can add an informational message.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

Our Paypal shopping cart is set up so that the buyer is automatically returned to a confirmation page on our site. We understand the need for this as we also need to track our adwords and overture conversions.

That is interesting - I did not know that was possible. Is it a new thing and is there a link you can point me to?

bcl · #9 23-02-2009, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

All very good help thanks.

Our Paypal shopping cart is set up so that the buyer is automatically returned to a confirmation page on our site. We understand the need for this as we also need to track our adwords and overture conversions.

Thanks - good to know. You could put that in your program description so that any affiliate checking you out would know up front.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

Interesting tip about the auto approve.

We set it to auto approve so to not inconvenience the affiliate with delays while they wait for approval. When you go to get an affiliates's banner, don't you want to just get them immediately so you can continue with your task of placing the banners on your site? It would be interesting to get a few other affiliates' opinions on this.

I'm happy to put up with a slight inconvenience of waiting to be accepted into a program if it means that the merchant is managing their program carefully to protect themselves and their genuine affiliates. Automatic, 100% approval, of affiliates is a warning sign of a poorly run program.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

I might need to change it manual approve as you've suggested though so that I can communicate things like the fact that we do have a sales confirmation page, etc. I'll give it some further thought.
Thanks again for your help and tips

I think what Jim was talking about is automatic approval of transactions although not sure what you would communicate at that stage. Applying a window for transaction approval makes it easier for you to do cancellations and adjustments. Some merchants sit down and approve/reject transactions in bulk, others just cancel the ones that need it and leave others to autoapprove after a set number of days. No need to communicate anything at this stage - although some very polite merchants put a thank you message in. You need to put in a message when you cancel a sale just to reassure the affiliates that you have a valid reason for cancelling (eg fraud, cancelled sale etc)

Distino · #10 23-02-2009, 02:30 PM

All very good information thankyou and I have already made many of the adjustments as suggested. I also noted in our information with regards to the external shopping cart so hopefully that will help attract some of the bigger affiliates!?

newbie · #11 23-02-2009, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

All very good information thankyou and I have already made many of the adjustments as suggested. I also noted in our information with regards to the external shopping cart so hopefully that will help attract some of the bigger affiliates!?

Splitting the product list in your data feed into several relevant categories may help to attract some of those bigger affiliates. Your datafeed is categorised as "clothing & shoes" which is not helpful, given that you do not sell any shoes.

Distino · #12 23-02-2009, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newbie

Splitting the product list in your data feed into several relevant categories may help to attract some of those bigger affiliates. Your datafeed is categorised as "clothing & shoes" which is not helpful, given that you do not sell any shoes.

Thanks... I fixed that up earlier today and was not aware it was categorised in such a way. The new data feeds have been uploaded so hopefully that might help also.

Thanks again.

newbie · #13 28-02-2009, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Distino

Thanks... I fixed that up earlier today and was not aware it was categorised in such a way. The new data feeds have been uploaded so hopefully that might help also.

Thanks again.

You should check with your CG rep on this. All of the products in both of your data feeds are still listed under a single category "Clothing & Shoes"