This document discusses strategies for targeting value-added affiliates. It defines non-value added affiliates as those who cannot affect purchasing decisions or build brand loyalty. It recommends identifying value-added affiliates who drive new customers through original content and communities. Methods are presented for evaluating affiliate traffic quality and identifying low-value promotions. Case studies demonstrate finding niche audiences and bloggers to promote new products. The document stresses attracting affiliates that create new customers rather than just existing ones.

1. Targeting Value Added
Affiliates
Affiliate Summit West, 2012
Robert Glazer
Founder, Acceleration Partners
Angel Djambazov
Owner, Custom Tailored Marketing

3. Why Value Added Affiliates?
Affiliate marketing is the 90-10 rule
The goal for affiliate marketing should be new customer acquisition
A large portion of the industry does not understand affiliate
attribution
Affiliate sales are inflated 200-300% across the board
This inflation is due to merchant pressure but does not reflect real
sales.
To understand the importance of value added affiliates, you need to
understand why many affiliates today are not value added

4. What’s a Non Value Added Affiliate?
Most affiliate sales are not generated by unique or incremental
new customers and are not de-duped against other channels
Companies are paying commission levels designed for new
customer acquisition to a large group of affiliates who are just
attracting their current customers, especially those who are
already in the cart
When a well known affiliate program puts that their conversion
rate at 12% on marketing materials, it’s clear that they don’t
understand where sales are coming from. World class retailers do
not have close to a 12% conversion ratio.

5. How Does Double Counting Happen?
• You have a lot of players on your marketing team who are
working with consultants or employees in each of these areas
SEO Affiliates & Affiliate Manager PPC Consultant
Consultant
Email Marketer Re-Targeting Sites Display Ads

6. When 1+1+1+1+1+1=2
• Everyone is taking credit for the same sale
• When it is time to report, each channel acts like the others do not
exist
PPC: Email:
$1M $1M
Re-
Affiliates:
Targeting
$1M
Sites: $1M
Total
Company Display
SEO: $1M
Revenue: Ads: $1M
$2M

7. Follow The Clickpath
• This is how conversions happens in reality
• Many low value affiliates are always at the end of this chain
(often a customer already in the cart), taking credit for the
whole sale
Organic Paid
Affiliate
Search Advertising
Or like this:
Organic Paid
Email Display Affiliate
Search Advertising
So how much is that conversion really costing
you?

8. See What Analytics Can Show You
Email:
PPC:
Social
Affiliates:
Display &
Retargeting:
Incremental Affiliate
Sales
Organic
Search

9. Who is a Not a Value Added Affiliate?
Affiliates whose methods cannot be understood (where there is smoke,
there is fire)
Affiliates who bought prebuilt template affiliate sites
Trademark bidders and poachers (PPC and SEO)
Cookie stuffers and sites that try to get forced clicks (coupon sites are
big offenders)
Certain coupon sites. Can be especially true if your company is the
only one selling a product/service with no direct competition
Toolbars or other software where the ability to uninstall is difficult or
impossible. No intent by the user
Affiliates who take orders from value added affiliates

10. Example of Non-Value Added
Forced click &
incorrect
expiration
Not a real offer
Six month
expired offer

11. Methods to Identify Low Value or Fraud
Research new affiliates and their promotional methods
Look for sudden spikes in traffic, transactions or conversions
(8%+ is suspicious for non coupon sites)
If network displays referring url, check this frequently with new
or high volume affiliates
Compare first referrer to last referrer cookie
Beware of conversions that come through proxies or thin sites
with very high Alexa rankings (no human traffic)
Use resources like BrandVerity, AffiliateFairPlay, RiskIQ, and
Fraudlogix

12. SAS Clickstream Tool

13. Who is a Value Added Affiliate?
Ability to affect a purchasing decision or vendor, not
after the decision has been made
Ability to develop brand loyalty in a new audience
They have the traffic or mindshare that you want
75%+ new customer referrals
2%-3% conversion rate
Promotion is often at the product level

14. How Do I Find Value Added Affiliates?
Need to think outside the box
Approach like business development or sales
opportunity. Create target list, outreach and follow-up
Approach like a consumer would. Who uses this
service/product, who benefits?
Who sells complimentary products/services?
Do they create content? Do they create community?
Do they have a major reach (Facebook, E-mail, etc)?

15. Tactics
Research tools
o Who has the SEO or traffic you want? (SEM Rush, Alexa)
o Third party software (ie syntryx)
Deep dive into your analytics to see what sites referred quality traffic
in the past
Follow-up on natural links, people who did blog posts, reviews etc. to
ask them about becoming an affiliate
Reach out to your best customers
Use social analytics tools that extend past your site’s analytics
(Radian 6)
Real personal 1-1 outreach (phone, email, affiliate events, etc.)

16. Tactics Cont.
• PR and announcing your program (ABW)
• Set up creatives and data feeds by category to attract new
verticals (i.e. wedding, gifts, etc)
• Use 3rd party tools to extend creative reach
Trade associations
Promotions or contests for high value referrals
Implement new technology to open doors (i.e. pay-per-call)

17. Example #1:
• Professional Photographers
• Wedding Service Providers
• Mom Blogs
• Storefronts (integrated with SAS)
o Professional Photographers
o School PTA
o Non-Profits

18. http://www.tinyprints.com/storefront/jennycrugerphotography
http://www.tinyprints.com/storefront/laef

19. The Results
• 900 Storefronts in the first year
• On target for $1M in revenue
• Major new product initiative for the company
• Less than 20 beta non-profits and PTA’s raised
almost $125k in Nov/Dec
• Our Storefront members are doing all of the selling
and marketing for us. They are giving customers a
compelling (non discount oriented) reason to choose
us over a competitor.

20. Example #2:
• Photo enthusiast websites (ie: Pentax forums,
Nikon Forums)
• Professional photographers
• Scrapbookers, genealogists, yearbook creators

21. Example #2:
• Blurb book authors
• Affiliate widget for people to promote their books and show
preview pages http://www.blurb.com/affiliates/bookshow
• Mom blog contests and giveaways
• Free book offer, then a contest to win $75 for blogging and
talking about their book. Blogger chose winner and 50 sites
participated.
• http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2011/12/giveaway-blurb-planner.html
• Blurb’s marketing team is leveraging affiliate base for
new product launches (ie Instagram photo books, day
planners, Facebook books)

22. Example #3: Sparkling New Hot Products
• Affiliates with a niche audience can sometimes identify
hot products that you may not know are best sellers.
o Onlineshoes and Nursemate

23. Example #3: Sparkling New Hot Products
• Affiliates with niche audience can sometimes
identify hot products you may not know are best
sellers.
o Onlineshoes and Nursemates
o Jones Soda

24. Example #3: Sparkling New Hot Products
• Affiliates with niche audience can sometimes
identify hot products you may not know are best
sellers.
o Onlineshoes and Nursemates
o Jones Soda

25. Example #3: Sparkling New Hot Products
• Affiliates with niche audience can sometimes
identify hot products you may not know are best
sellers.
o Onlineshoes and Nursemates
o Jones Soda

26. Example #4: Blogger Outreach
• Abe’s Market natural and organic retailer with a wide variety of
divergent products from small manufacturers. Challenge was to
move them beyond coupons in a way that spoke to that diversity
while highlighting the Abe’s Brand.
• Outreach to Mom Bloggers via
a) Product samples
b) A fee plus structure
c) A monthly editorial calendar. Invited bloggers to come put forward various
promotions that were right for their audience (i.e. Gift card giveaways).
• Provided baseline training in affiliate marketing for those
unfamiliar with the channel.

27. Example #4: Blogger Outreach
• Challenge with The SafeCig was personalize
social good message critical to new owner’s
brand focus. Key to that was telling personal stories.
• Searched for and found a blogger who had a large engaged
audience, whose ideals aligned with the owner’s, and who was
bravely willing to share her story.
• Liz Strauss has helped evangalize the brand
via EmpireAvenue, Facebook, Twitter, and
at shows. She also wrote an extremely
moving unprompted personal experience
that made SafeCig owner James Cameron
tear up.

28. Make Your Program Attractive
To Value Added Affiliates
• Low quality affiliates will drive away value added affiliates if
their clicks are always hijacked.
• Have a strict T&C and enforce it. If it looks like open season
for PPC bidding etc., it will drive quality affiliates away.
• You don’t need 200+ coupon sites in your program. Too hard
to police.
• Create policies, terms and technology that rewards the
desired behavior
o Custom coupons that reward original site that posted if scraped
o Mid-cart checkout rule

29. Example
MID-CHECKOUT COMMISSION REDUCTION & OVERWRITE RULE
Tiny Prints uses a dynamic pixel system that may make changes to the standard commission in
the case of a mid-checkout referral, which is defined as a cookie that is set within the last ten
minutes before purchase. Given the extensive personalization required for most of our orders,
the average visit to order time is usually days or hours, not minutes. By reducing our
commission on these types of referrals and by closely monitoring the quality of traffic we
receive from each affiliate, we will be able to pay out higher commissions for driving new
customers and traffic. This logic also gives full credit to the first referring affiliate in the case that
a second affiliate enters within this last ten minutes.
Scenarios
• Two affiliates outside of ten minutes before sale, normal "last in" logic applies
• One affiliate outside of ten minutes before sale, one within. "Last in" affiliate will
receive 2% lowered commission and first affiliate will receive full commission.
• Single affiliate within last ten minutes, 2% commission will apply
• Two affiliates within last ten minutes, last in will receive the reduced 2% commission.

30. Summary
• Know what’s valuable and what’s not for your business
• Focus your program on new customer acquisition and measure
attribution
• Put a premium on new customer creation
• Make sure your affiliate team has the sales, marketing and
business development skills needed to grow your program
• Have terms and conditions that discourage low value affiliates
from joining your program in the first place
• Remember, anything that seems too good to be true in affiliate
marketing usually is

31. Questions? Contact
Info
Robert Glazer
Founder, Acceleration Partners
rglazer@acceleration-partners.com
Twitter: @affiliatemgr
(t) (617) 264-0334
Angel Djambazov
Owner, Custom Tailored Marketing
customtailoredmarketing@gmail.com
Twitter: @Djambazov