(potentially?) controversial topic - Sponsors vs Affiliates

[CorbinFisher_BD]

Brian, I think it has a lot to do with the tone of the post that started this thread -


You list how much work the sponsor does, then tell us that in your view, affiliates don't do much more than "throw up a banner on their site". You imply that affiliates just get lucky, getting sales that you would have made anyway, simply because a surfer "happened to click" their ref code.

That was a reference to a specific breed of affiliates that do just that - no more than throw a banner up and leave it at that. I went in to more detail in response to Steve's (Desslock) post asking specifically the kind of affiliates I was talking about here:

http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...t=20765&page=5

about 1/4 of the page down.

Of course there are affiliates that do more. But I was talking about the affiliates that do nothing but what I described above - of which there are many!

It wasn't a generalization about all affiliates, it was using those specific types of an affiliate as examples of affiliates that I feel are of lesser value than others.

That not all affiliates are created equal.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

We've been discussing this extensively on another board and I do have a question - what of the affiliates who sign up, never send a sale, but who send a number of referred affiliates and make referral $$ each month? Will they be cut because of their own lack of traffic, or will they be kept because they have sent you productive webmasters and are promoting you in that sense?

Hey Carrie,

Volume/sales #'s will only dictate a certain portion of which affiliates are retained. Others retentions will be determined by a multitude of other factors, including something abstract (or at least immeasurable as far as stats and straight up numbers go) such as branding value, our relationship with that webmaster, the type of site they have and the kind of traffic they cater to (even when it's not a huge amount) and other things.

This is about developing strategic partnerships, rather than indiscriminately and without discretion accepting affiliates. A webmaster that refers other webmasters could be an extremely valuable strategic partner.

[CorbinFisher_BD]

without having all of those things, raised payouts, hosted whatevers, etc (including the moon on a stick) potential affiliates arent even going to look at a program because that is the mindset that we [the industry] have bred in to affiliates these days, they want high payouts, they want hosted whatevers, they want instant payouts, they want, want, want...

Precisely.

I've received some rather venomous private messages on this board in the past, even, when someone was interested in promoting us and wanted free content and I told them I could not provide them with that. Or told them I could not continue to provide them with free content because, after letting them have it for several months, I didn't see enough of a return from it.

Like we don't have a right to be very careful about how, where, or by whom our content is displayed.

We've never offered FHGs from the get go because I've always felt they risk diluting the value of a site's content. You get people running to the boards to thrash ya in a post about how you wouldn't give them free content and they're then joined by a chorus of "Goodness! Any sponsor that is not willing to do anything and everything to help affiliates doesn't deserve sales!".

"Goodness! Any sponsor that is not willing to do anything and everything to help affiliates doesn't deserve sales!" - Do a little digging and you can probably find dozens of times that statement - or a statement to that effect - has been said on this board alone.

We are not willing to do anything and everything to help 1400 affiliates get sales because, quite frankly, what they might be requesting and demanding could actually hurt us more than help us. For a select group of affiliates, however, we can offer quite a great deal because we're able to look at them and easily see any investment with that affiliate will produce great returns.

[tigermom]

I actually happen to agree with most of what you said Brian and Lee, once you were more clear on which kind of affiliates you are referring to. It's how the thread started though that made me react the way I did. It also had to do with your initial statements that made me think you were going for nothing but hard cold numbers there. I am glad to see it's not the case. I'll email you with a few more questions though

[Carrie]

Precisely.

I've received some rather venomous private messages on this board in the past, even, when someone was interested in promoting us and wanted free content and I told them I could not provide them with that.

Not even 5 sample assorted pics? (As you can tell, I've never been inside your webmaster area, .)
I've signed up for lots of sponsors, gotten inside of their webmaster area and found they had no content available at all (not even 5 pics). The tours were fantastic and right on-target with their niche and I would have needed some of their specific content to do it right. With no pics at all, it was either email them and wait for a response, or move on... always I just moved on. When I have the opportunity to build (ie no kids around) and a specific idea burning in my head, waiting means the project gets put onto the eternal backburner, never to return.

What's really frightening is getting into these webmaster areas and finding notes like "we're reworking all of our content to comply with 2257 and will have some up for you when that's done". Makes me think the stuff inside the member's area isn't legal, and sometimes the date on the note is over a year old so it tells me they're really not interested in getting things fixed.

But, I would advocate at least having a *few* pics to promote with; there are different promotional styles. Like when I build an SE page, I usually put a nice 200x300 sample pic and wrap lots of good text around it. My need for a few pics doesn't automatically mean I'm going to go spam the TGPs or P2P networks, . (Although I do make TGP galleries from time to time if there's enough content or I can buy my own that'll fit the site. With sites getting more and more exclusive though, buying content gets harder.)

[CorbinFisher_BD]

hehe if they'd asked for 5 sample pictures that would have been something else entirely.

With these blog sites popping up left and right, the vast majority of content requests were webmasters asking for access to the site so they could post pictures with each update. So pretty much indefinite access to content. That's a big part of why we felt we had to step in and slow things down. A lot of affiliates were wanting unlimited amounts of content, seeing as they could pretty much get unlimited amounts of content and FHGs and video clips and this and that from so many other sponsors out there.

A few times, I tried saying "OK, but if you could only take like 15 or so pics per update that'd be great" the affiliate didn't much like that idea at all, said everyone else was giving them unlimited amounts, and needed unlimited if they were going to have any

So we did want to offer our affiliates more, but had to look at ways to do that while still retaining control over content distribution and not diluting our content or flooding the web with our stuff for free.

We will be launching CorbinPays.com shortly, which will be our webmaster resource site for our new and exclusive-access program that will have content for the select affiliates we will have, including:

- banners made specifically for individual affiliates (co-branded with us and them)
- content shot specifically for individual affiliates and provided to them to share with their surfers
- other free content to use on their sites
- a wide array of banners/graphics

among other things.

I definitely think you're right, Carrie, that affiliates obviously need resources from the sponsors and that'll help em both do well with the partnership. We just couldn't see how we'd go about giving as much as possible to affiliates without giving away the farm, so to speak. Until, that is, we decided to limit the number of affiliates and go controlled-access. Then, the problem was solved hehe

[markwolff]

Hey, Carrie, nice to see you here!

I've just posted something on another board, which is relevant to this thread as well, so I thought I'd repost here. The other thread was started over the fact that 20 new sponsors have opened their gates over the past weekend. It's addressing the phenomenon that so many people seem to think that a viable business model is buying tons of content, setting up a group of paysites (non-exclusive content on all), and launching an affiliate program with those, hoping to eventually make a buck with having lots of affiliates to promote them.

This is what I posted -
I think that when you rely on affiliates to promote your site, and you are working within a finite pool of affiliates, then this business model becomes real problematic over time. It's getting too saturated for program owners. And what happens next? they start competing over affilaites tooth and nail. They don't compete over customers, because they don't really have anything unique to offer as a paysite, just the same non-exclusive content others have. So, they compete over affiliates, assuming that the more, the better. And they start spoiling their affiliates. Free hosting? you got it! Free domains? you got it! Need us to write your blog posts for you and syndicate for you? Sure thing! Need more FHG's? more banners? how about we make banners specially for you? everything and anything is being given away to just any affiliate.

Then it gets to the point where some program owners get pissed off at having to spoil affiliates like that. Well, I think there's an easy enough solution. Just don't overpamper affiliates. Set your own limits, as a program owner, as to what you will or won't do for an affiliate. By all means, relate that to the amount of sales they drive, if you want to. Define some affiliates as Gold Affiliates, or whatever, and be in constant touch with these, offering the big players more help. With the others, let them bitch and moan about it if they can't promote your site without being provided 10,000 tools for it. I would say the single one thing a program needs to give affiliates is promo content. Even that is just if they have exclusive content that they can't buy anywhere and which truly reflect the product. Sort of like samples of the actual thing that we can show prospective clients. They don't need to be huge images and they don't need to be movies.

My advice to program owners would be this. Get real good paysites, something unique, something exclusive, something that actually converts well. Get good ratios. Promote your sites with no affiliates to begin with, polish your tours and get good convertions and good retention. Then, when you know you have a good product, and only then, start bringing in affilaites, slowly and gradually. Don't spoon feed them anything. Take serious affiliates, ones that know how to build their own sites, write their own blogs, create their own galleries, and lo and behold, maybe even create their own banners! The point should be to get affiliates joining you because -
1. Your site retains and converts.
2. You're honest and don't shave.

Thats it! No need for crazy payouts, Hummers as prizes or nakes girls at shows. Just get a good product that makes both of us money and be honest. Is all I would ask for.

Nice post, Tigermom i totaly agree with what you are saying, I just launched my affiliate program last month, to new webmasters after 6 years of building my sites, fine tuning my designs and tours, and building lot's of quality and unique content. I have decided not to offer FHG's and special prizes etc, but have lot's of webmaster content, banners, and TGP templates. Hey if you are not going to be promoting CF anymore, i would love to have more webmasters like you in my program, i welcome you with open arms.

[Lee]

I actually happen to agree with most of what you said Brian and Lee, once you were more clear on which kind of affiliates you are referring to.

Sorry i thought i was clear on that, the lazy webmasters that do nothing but take from a program.

I have to admit, now you have said why you didnt understand what the issue Brian and I had with these affiliates i understand why everyone was thinking that they were part of the 95% LOL

Regards,

Lee

[Squirt]

You seem to think your affiliates are lazy and overpaid?

No, i think pretty much all affiliates are lazy and over-paid. Granted there are some exceptions to that.

You only have to look around and see what affiliates are asking for these days to realize that they have become lazy..

oh keep backpeddling Lee ha ha ha :groovy:

[Lee]

oh keep backpeddling Lee ha ha ha :groovy:

Squirt,

I dont have to back peddle, most affiliates ARE lazy and ARE overpaid, that is a fact of life.

Regards,

Lee

[Carrie]

I almost never agree with Lee, but I do here. Most affiliates are LAZY. I wouldn't say they're overpaid; the ones who actually promote the sponsors do a *lot* of work and they deserve to get paid for that work.

But look at what affiliates have pushed for over the past couple of years...
Make for us...
- reg banners, odd-sized banners, magazine squares, buttons, skyscrapers, fpa's, hpa's - we used to everything but the reg/fpa/hpa ourselves, but it's just too much work now
- resized pics, that we use to resize ourselves
- gallery templates, that we used to make ourselves
- galleries, that we used to do ourselves
- freesites, that we used to do ourselves
- blog entries, that we used to do ourselves
- RSS feeds, so we don't even have to come to you to get the blog entries you've made for us. YOU update our sites! Yeah!
- Give us hosting, that is only $5/mo but we don't wanna pay for it.
- Buy us domains, only $9/yr but we don't wanna pay for that either.
- Get us epassporte cards, only $25 to set up (and we get $20 back) but that's just too much money. We could buy beer with that.
- Don't just give us videos to use, cut them up for us too.
- While you're at it, make the video templates and galleries too
- Pay us bi-weekly. No, make that weekly. No actually, make that *instantly*. And don't you dare take chargebacks out of our money.
- We know the payouts are the highest in history, but we also want "points". You know, like Marlboro points. Points we can cash in for even more money, on top of the highest payouts in history. Or cars. Or high-tech expensive toys.
- Oh, and even though these are the highest payouts in history, and you need to still make money somehow, we want you to get rid of your consoles. But only sometimes, not all the time. So invest tons of time and money rebuilding your backend so we can get rid of them when we submit to GreenGuy.
- Make us full-page "matrix" ads so we don't even have to put up our own screenshot thumbnails with our linking codes.
- While we're at it, how about you tell us what keywords we should be optimizing for. 5 minutes doing it ourselves is just too much work.
- You know what? Search engines are just too darn hard. Make a search engine for us that will automatically put our domains at the top and have ads with our linking codes.
- Come to think of it, buying a tgp script is too expensive, and building a fake TGP is just too much work. Build us a TGP with all of our links that auto-rotates, auto-updates, and has all of our links.
- Oh oh oh! Almost forgot. Stats. Logging in to view your stats, then logging in to view your competitor's stats is just too much work and takes too much time. So buy us free copies of StatsRemote. We know, it's only $20/mo and we could more than cover that with one signup, but why should we pay for it when you will?

I'm sure I could keep going, hopefully I don't have to.
Affiliates have gotten incredibly lazy, incredibly greedy, and they feel a sense of entitlement to all of these things and more. The bar to entry has been lowered so far, it's underground in the magma. The *only* ones who can stop this madness are the ones who started feeding the beast in the first place - the sponsors.

Cut the shit out, cut the fluff. Let those greedy webmasters go flocking to some other sponsor, let that other sponsor tout all of his "tools" (ie all the work he's done FOR them), let his program get oversaturated, let his signups drop into the tank.

I mean, does it *really* have to get to the point where the sponsor will completely build a site, host it, buy a domain name for it, feed it traffic, and send a check to a webmaster just because the webmaster signed up? Because it's getting damn close to that! Everything is there, all one sponsor needs to do is say "We'll put it all together for you. Just sign up, and we'll send you a check for no reason whatsoever. No work on your part at ALL. That's how much we love our affiliates!" Does it really have to get that far before the madness will end?

[Lee]

I mean, does it *really* have to get to the point where the sponsor will completely build a site, host it, buy a domain name for it, feed it traffic, and send a check to a webmaster just because the webmaster signed up? Because it's getting damn close to that! Everything is there, all one sponsor needs to do is say "We'll put it all together for you. Just sign up, and we'll send you a check for no reason whatsoever. No work on your part at ALL. That's how much we love our affiliates!" Does it really have to get that far before the madness will end?

Carrie,

Beleive it or not, there are sponsors out there right this minute that ALREADY do that LOL

We had a discussion about this [the sponsors doing everything and still paying their affiliates] a couple of months ago and the program owner basically told all of us, that we were crazy when we suggested instead of paying affiliates for all that work he was doing, he should pay himself, this sponsor just didnt seem to understand the logic that by paying all of his outsourced employees AND paying his affiliates for THEIR work, that he was losing money hand over fist.

Regards,

Lee

[tigermom]

Carrie, have you ever asked a sponsor for any of the things on your list? I sure haven't. As far as I can see, it's the competition between sponsors over affiliates that gets them that way. Nobody told them to babysit affiliates. If it's bad business, then don't do it. Instead, I see sponsors that do these things, at least some of them, then come crying that affiliates are greedy and lazy. Nobody forced them to offer these things in the first place.

It's just like with payouts. Why do some programs get up to crazy payments like $125 per sign up or offer 80% of revenue? because they feel they have to go out of their way to compete over affiliates, and that's because like our friend LB said somewhere else, this is becoming a top-heavy industry with too many programs relying on the affiliate model and competing over a limited pool of affiliates.

My point about the name calling still stands though. If you think most affiliates are lazy and greedy, then why are you trying to pull in those very affiliates by saying on your program that you have $44 PSU, tons of free content and promo tools. These are just the things to call in those noobs and "freeloaders" among affiliates. Just focus on hi-converting sites and friendly support, and make sure that the sites you have truly do convert and retain and are among the best in their niche. As a "good" affiliate, it's all I need to know. Give me stats about conversions (real ones too, not fake), tell me why your sites are the best, explain that you have exclusive content or how you cover your niche exceptionally well - those are the things to pull me into a program and actually promote it. I would be perfectly happy with sponsors that only pay 40% (I have those, I even promote a sponsor on only 35% on revshare), as long as the site actually converts and retains, and I trust the program not to shave in any way or form.

Note, that all of the above should be done prior to getting the affiliate to sign up and send you traffic, IMHO. Once you have someone promoting you and sending you traffic, I think you should honor your agreement with them and keep up the partnership.

[Carrie]

Someone somewhere asked for it, or they wouldn't be doing it. I've never asked for much; I barely contact my sponsors at all, .

I did go on a rant to sponsors about getting their RSS feeds right if they were going to bother doing them - does that count? :bow:

Browse around in a sponsor's support forum and you'll probably be shocked at what you find.

[shaun]

Ok - here is the bottom line for me.

I do not want to run an affiliate program. I want to run a pay site. I want to focus on developing brilliant content, on hiring the hottest models, on being at the top of google in my niche (I am, by the way....)

If I want to give away 50% of a sale to an affiliate, I would like them to be doing the work to make the sale. Sure, I will give them some content they can use - they can raid my cookie jar for movie clips and pictures, and I will give them banners and stuff...

But - why would an affiliate WANT me to dilute my time and concentration away from running my SITE???? It is the SITE that they are selling! If I am spending oodles of time building FHG's, free sites, new tours, etc... well - heck, I can list em on green guy myself! If I build galleries, I can submit em myself! It takes me HOURS to create a gallery, but only minutes to submit it!

The idea behind affiliate marketing, behind franchising is this: I give you a terrific product to sell. It is YOUR job to sell it. EVERY MINUTE and EVERY DOLLAR I spend on helping you learn to sell the product is a minute and dollar that isn't being spent on giving YOU a great product.

I KNOW how much marketing I do. I know how much money my marketing makes. So, if someone wants to resell my product, work regular office type hours, and to be serious about it - I would venture a guess that he or she could make a decent living - even if my sites were the ONLY product they were selling!

So - WHY should an affilate - a good affiliate who KNOWS how to work in this industry - even WANT me to spend that much time running an affiliate program rather than running a site? It is in every good affiliates best interest that I do what I do best - making a gret site, and in thier best interest to do THEIR job - letting everyone know about my great site and why they should join!