Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog » Blog Archive » Affiliate Marketing Tips

Aug
5

Affiliate Marketing Tips – How to Win the Vendor Affiliate Wars

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Home Business, Internet Marketing, Make Money Online; Tagged as: Affiliate Marketing, affiliate marketing tips, affiliate marketing training, learn affiliate marketing

One of the most heated threads in a very long time is taking place at the Warrior Forum right now as I am writing this. It’s only a matter of time before it gets zapped, but for now, it’s really causing a ruckus. I’m talking about the vendor affiliate wars. Haven’t heard of them? They’ve been going on for a long time believe it or not. This article will briefly fill you in on the main complaint by affiliates and show you how to get around the problem.

Okay, here is the complaint in a nutshell. The affiliate sends traffic to the vendor’s sales page, except the main page is actually a squeeze page where the vendor collects emails. From there, the vendor sends the prospect to the sales page AFTER collecting the email. With me so far? Great! The problem comes when the vendor, after collecting the email, sends the prospect a followup that doesn’t once promote the product that the affiliate is trying to sell but instead tries to sell them a different product.

Can you see where this would get affiliates a little upset? Now, the vendor’s argument is that if the prospect didn’t buy the product on the initial visit then the affiliate didn’t do his job in promoting it and shouldn’t get credit for the sale anyway. Therefore, the vendor has a right to try to salvage something out of the deal, even if it means promoting another product. The affiliate claims that the vendor should at least send a few followup emails trying to promote the product in question before promoting another one.

Thus we have the vendor affiliate wars. And trust me, they’re not going to go away anytime soon. So great, what do we, as affiliates, do about this?

Honestly, the only thing we can do is simply boycott selling any products of vendors where they collect emails first. But wait…don’t vendors have the right to collect emails? I mean, isn’t this what we are taught in marketing 101…to build a list of prospects? So then how can we, in good conscience expect vendors to do this when we’re doing the same thing?

So what then IS the answer? It’s simple. BEFORE promoting the product, opt in to the vendor’s list yourself. See what kind of followup emails they’re sending. If they’re still promoting the product in question, then it’s safe to promote it as an affiliate. If not, simply don’t promote it.

Simple solution, right?

The best ones usually are.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

4 Comments

4 Responses to “Affiliate Marketing Tips – How to Win the Vendor Affiliate Wars”

Yadira August 6th, 2009 at 10:07 am

I usually don’t send traffic to the affiliate sales page, I create my own squeeze page in order to promote the product myself, with a link directly to the payment page.

If they don’t buy the product I can promote another similar product to my list.

I mean it’s my own effort (and money) on create the traffic to promote some product, why to leave it to the affiliate?
Nancy Boyd August 6th, 2009 at 10:36 am

Hi Steve,

Thanks for offering a reasonable solution to this problem. I haven’t seen Michel’s thread yet but I’m wondering if having your own landing pages is part of the solution too. After all, you DO need to build relationships with your prospects and the best way to do that is to get them on a list that you use to provide them with value, as well as opportunities to purchase things that will help them.

So the way I understand it, if you offer an affiliate product, here is how you’d set it up:

– have your own squeeze page (with your affiliate links coded into it but cloaked)
– get them to opt in (offer a free report or some incentive)
– once opted in, they are redirected to the vendor’s page.
– they will be asked to opt in to the vendor’s list.
– at the vendor’s page, they have the opportunity to purchase the product. AND they will likely be hit up with an upsell or cross sell item, regardless of whether or not they purchase.
the initial product.

Here’s where you can have some leverage, regardless of what the vendor does from here on out.

– Start sending your new prospect an autoresponder series promoting the original product. Keep the focus on the eventual sale. If the product is any good, and if it’s something the prospect wants and needs, it’s likely a sale WILL be the ultimate outcome.

Seems like the issue here is who gets credit for the sale.

Are you saying that vendors are removing cookies if the prospect doesn’t buy from the initla contact? If so, that’s surely a blatant ripoff and an ugly practice that in the long run harms everyone.

On the other hand, if it’s only about how the vendor chooses to market to their “own” customers (leaving aside for the moment how they got the leads in the first place) then that’s something that might well be in the interests of the vendor — SO LONG AS the original credit goes to the affiliate who sent them there.

And honestly, why shouldn’t the affiliate get the credit for ANY resulting sale? Seems like they should.

But that’s just how I see it. Unless I’m missing something?

Great discussion. Thanks,

Nancy
Peter Tremayne August 6th, 2009 at 10:52 am

Hey Steve,

First off, great to see you opening the door to allowing coments on your blog. I hope you don’t get spammed to death!

Regarding the Affiliate v Vendor war, I just think vendors will shoot themselves in the foot if they don’t look after their affiliates.

At the end of the day, the vendor will have a subscriber for ‘life’ (or as long as they remain on their list) and can back end other promotions after they’ve attempted to plug the original product.

Seems plain daft to try anything other!

Cheers,

~ Peter Tremayne
Pro-Blogger September 24th, 2009 at 7:25 pm

Yadira mentioned creating her own squeeze page for the product….is that legal?