Starting an affiliate program could be a great way to increase revenue if you already have a product for sale.
But it’s not easy and there’s a lot of ways it can go horribly wrong.
Not to mention the fact that this industry is notoriously sleazy.
In this episode we share how to manage your own affiliate program, helping you think through things we’ve had both good and bad experiences with, including:
- Open vs closed affiliate programs
- How affiliate programs go wrong
- Corbett’s Clickbank story
- Barrett’s incredible rant about how his heroes let him down through affiliate BS
Enjoy!
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“An affiliate program could be good for your product. Here’s how NOT to be a douche about it!”
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Affiliate Software & Plugins
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- Impact Radius
- AffiliateWP
- WordPress Affiliate Manager
- Affiliates Pro – WooThemes
- iDevAffiliate
- ClickBank
- CJ Affiliate
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Ahhhhh, this couldn’t have come at a better time! I just started an affiliate program for my online course. I’m excited to dive into this episode. I’m not sure if you guys mentioned this in the episode (I guess I’ll find out), but Gumroad just launched their Affiliate beta. That’s what I’ll be using with my affiliates.
I’m curious about the Gumroad beta too, sounds powerful. I wasn’t able to find anything in a web search, any pointers would be appreciated :)
Dorian, you can test out their affiliate beta by going here: https://gumroad.com/affiliates
Wow, that’s HUGE!! Thanks for the heads up Kevin!
Ah, I suspected that the link that gave out might only be accessible for people invited to their beta. Thanks for the update, Claire!
So very helpful, thank you Claire..! Emailed Ryan as well.
(I’m launching my 30 Day Challenge today!! http://www.dorian-iten.com/accuracy :)
Yes, great timing indeed. Thanks for the great podcast! Impact Radius is new to me.
We literally just launched one at http://justaskbenwhy.com/affiliate-program-overview/
I’d be curious your opinion and that of your readers on the overall offer and attractiveness to affiliate marketers.
I was just researching affiliate marketing yesterday! Great timing guys. Thank you!
Brian, here’s the link to Gumroad’s affiliate beta. Let me know if it works for you: https://gumroad.com/affiliates
Brian, as Claire mentioned above, the link I gave you might not work for you. No worries though, if you’re interested in trying out their affiliate beta, just email Gumroad support at [[email protected]] and they should set you up!
Awesome, awesome, awesome episode guys! As someone who has had made a fair share of mistakes as an affiliate for a number of products, I have learned a lot not only from my mistakes but a ton from this podcast episode as well. The biggest insight that I have gotten from all of this is that no matter what approach you take to business it always comes back to defining what your audience wants and giving it to them. It truly is all about the relationships that you build.
I loved this episode. I have been building an affiliate program for a side project of my business. I am using idev for the management only since is model is closed and private. No sleezy types are allowed. I believe that affiliate marketing will stay around as long as we have bloggers that need things to talk about. I have a physical product that is unique and is a perfect fit for the Diy and SAHM Mommie bloggers. Building the back end was somewhat difficult and I have a project manager for this, but I learned the basics. My next step is to work on building the relationships as you guys recommended because I tend to act as that sleezy sales person and jump right into “Hey I have good stuff and you should want to share it with your world pitch” mode. Thanks Guys (which includes Steph of course) for all you do. It always seems to be perfect timing for what I have going on.
Loved this conversation. :)
I don’t think affiliate marketing is going away anytime soon, though It might fade into overcrowded background noise in certain stereotypically skeevy industries.
I’ve seen affiliate marketing consistently done especially well among fashion bloggers. Let me give some specifics.
Most profitable fashion bloggers make the majority of their income from affiliate sales, and they do it in a very authentic way. Readers know the clothing products links are affiliate links, and bloggers often make it clear when a brand has sent them free clothing or has endorsed a post. Even so, the bloggers only accept affiliate partnerships with brands they already wear and love. This keeps the level of trust their readers have for them, and helps the brand stay authentic, which is very important as you guys discussed in the podcast.
Unfortunately I don’t know how this translates into sales and exposure for the clothing brands themselves, but I imagine tapping into the right blogger’s network can be a huge deal.
And in this industry, since one brand carries a ton of different products, it’s a lot easier to get your brand in front of the same eyes multiple times without inducing the animosity Corbett saw from his sale bundles that got over-promoted. Romwe is a good brand example of this. There was a several month timespan a few years ago where suddenly every fashion blogger and lookbooker was wearing free clothing Romwe sent them and the brand exploded.
I think that the fashion industry sets a good example for how affiliate marketing can be done in the right way. And I think it aligns very well with all the takeaways from this episode. Namely, if you are a brand, find affiliates who might naturally promote your product without any affiliation, just like Chase was going to promote the backpacks. That keeps your brand authentic and hopefully taps into networks of loyal fans.
Great examples Jen! We totally overlooked the fashion industry in the conversation. You’re right, thanks for sharing!
Great convo ya’ll! Maybe it was covered and I missed it, but what software from this list gets the Fizzle stamp of approval for administrating a closed affiliate program on my own website?
Wow… I’m new to your podcasts. Gettin’ used to the tongue an cheek thing. But, this cast helped put a whole bunch of disjointed pieces on affiliate marketing into an understandable framework. From this point on, when doing my research… the perspective I gained from your experiences will be a big part of my working context. Thanks.
What do you think about this affiliate program. I’m thinking of him for a few days longer to seriously http://partner.quicktranslations365.com/