Walk through 5 tested ideas that merchants employ to get the most of their affiliate channel, motivate idle affiliates to start selling again, and accelerate sales. Experience level: Beginner, Intermediate Target audience: Affiliates/Publishers, Merchants/Advertisers Niche/vertical: Affiliate management Michael Ni, CMO, Avangate (Twitter @mikeni)

1. 5 Ways to (Re)activate Latent
Affiliates
Presentation for Affiliate Summit East 2012
Michael Ni
SVP Marketing & Products

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What We Will Go Through Today
Add To Your Quiver – Ways to (Re)activate Latent Affiliates
Facts / Figures on Affiliate Market
Affiliate Motivations
Typical Reasons Why Affiliates Become Latent
Focus. Segment Who You Should Activate
5 Approaches to (Re)activate Affiliates
Getting Started

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Who are you?
1. Merchants not using affiliates for now
2. Merchants looking to grow their current
active affiliates number
3. Affiliates looking to see what to ask for
from merchants to become more active 

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Easier to Feel Behind In Your Use of Affiliates
Affiliate programs are the
3rd largest marketing
budget behind PPC and
email …

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Easier to Feel Behind In Your Use of Affiliates
Consumers that shop via affiliate links
spend $7 more than the average
consumer … And online shopping
through affiliate referrals are 43% more
likely to convert than average
Affiliate programs were
the 3rd largest marketing
budget behind PPC and
email
US affiliate marketing spending will reach $4.5
billion by 2016 and will increase at a compound
annual growth rate of 17% from 2011 through
2016

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Some Even Plan
Where
Many companies still keep their affiliate
programs on the slow track

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Assuming You Have Them
Keeping Them Active Is Key
Saves time: you already know who to focus upon …
More profitable: lower costs, ability to restart profitable
revenue quickly
 Acquisition, education, systems setup, and pure attention done
 Already existing customized promotion materials for them
It’s easier: you already have both the relationship and the
data on the affiliate you can use to keep them happy
 Already existing relationship – at least via a welcome email from your part
 Known selling patterns, audience, the products they promote and are
successful with

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Taking Vs Holding Affiliates (Reservations)…

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Back to Basics
Remembering what affiliates look at when choosing products
to promote
 Payout to affiliates – vs. competitors
 Products / Brand – marketing pull
 Conversion rate stats – EPC, conversion
rate, network ranking
 Retribution model – per sale, per lead
 Recurring revenue opportunities –
including loyalty programs
 Relationship – subjective, but there
Affiliate Benchmark Survey, 2011

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(Re)activating Starts With Knowing
Understanding Why Some Affiliates Become Latent
Why become inactive Drivers
They’ve shifted to a different
product or service
• Better T&C’s, conversion, brand
• Product price / position / quality
• Less competition for that product
Slow ramp-up
Takes a while until starting to promote products
• Lack of education / understanding
• Lack of time / capacity
Google Panda Penguin
Search engine updates impact their traffic / SEO
efforts – Google is known for doing this
• Poor content on affiliate website
• Affiliates who relied too heavily on SEO
“tricks” – keyword stuffing, hidden text,
questionable backlinks
Out of the business
They simply don’t do this anymore – it’s only
natural that this might happen
• Personal choice
• Entrepreneurs by nature
• Attractiveness of your segment vs others
Missing the tools to promote
Banners, discounts for coupon affiliates, widgets,
product feeds, videos
• Lack of conversion
• Match to the tools they typically use
• Lack of understanding on how to use
existing tools / current platform

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Sales / Leads drops
Drops in tier status for those using tiers, falling back
Clicks drops along with sales / leads also dropping
Conversion rate drops with no changes in purchase flow
Relative sales drops compared to peers
Number of days without any sales / clicks
Does not adopt additional products
Monitoring For Latent Affiliates
(Re)activating Starts With Knowing

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Re-Activating Starts With Knowing
Focusing Your Attention – Whether Activation / Re-Activation
Revenue Impact
Ease
of
Activation
Content
Websites
Local
Affiliates
Niche
Affiliates
Price
Comparison
Coupon
Websites
High
Low
Hard
Easy

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Shooting Them Is Not an
Option …
“You have to come out sometime …”

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… but you can try this instead!
COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR AFFILIATES

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5 Approaches to (Re)activating
Incentivize Actions to get them to
promote your products
Motivate big fish with performance
incentives
Provide exclusive conditions
Give them the right customized tools to
drive sales
Engage and Educate Affiliates

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Incentivize Actions
Increase Engagement With Incremental Incentives
• Tactics: (i) list your product(s) on their website,
(ii) feature you, (iii) use your optimized landing
page to direct their traffic resulting in increased
conversions
• Benefit: Get attention from affiliates
Payout a % for every
step they make to
promote your products
/ services
• Tactics: increase commission / cash bonus with
feedback on your products
• Benefit: (i) Valuable insight leading to shifts in
your strategy to maximize your revenue, (ii)
Affiliate investment in you and your products
Incentivize Feedback
• Tactics: share direct contact details, medium
term strategies based on est. affiliate committed
cash flow of rev from your products
• Benefits: Increased engagement, objective
driven affiliates
Reward those willing
to commit to promote
your products

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1. Incentivize Actions
VSO Software
VSO Software started out in 2002 specializing in burning applications,
the company has now established itself as a multimedia software editor
recognized worldwide. VSO Software is dedicated to producing high
quality software with easy to use programs for users of all levels.
Incentivize Actions - Increase Engagement
With Incremental Incentives

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30% default
commission plus
additional (up to 50%):
• Share a direct email
contact with VSO: +5 %
• Provide your IM contact
info: +5%
• Use our custom links for
tracking: +5%
• Promote a VSO
product on
your homepage +5%

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Use Performance Incentives
Promotions, Reward Tiers, and Cash Bonuses
• Tactics: the basics - cash bonuses, inc
commissions, better payment terms
• Benefit: Affiliates who can reach top tiers
shift effort to you
Reward your top
affiliates
• Tactics: reminders for the contest, cash
prizes, choice of prizes up front as a goal
• Benefit: Motivate low / medium volumes to
inc efforts. Top affiliates too.
Run sales contests
across your network,
but set tangible goals!
• Tactics: Set goals as “overall monthly
growth” to appeal to idle affiliates 
attainable lower tiers, newsletter send
• Benefits: Get affiliates to at least generate
quality exposure for your products
Run campaigns
targeted at inactive
affiliates

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2. Use Performance Incentives
Ancestry.com
Use Performance Incentives to drive peak
performance from key affiliates
With 7 billion genealogical records from across the globe
and millions of family trees, we are the world’s largest
online family history resource.

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Affiliate Tiers for Memberships
• 25.00% for up to $3,000 per month net
• 35.00% for $3,001 to $9,000
• 45.00% for $9,001 to $18,000
• 50.00% for $18,001 to $25,000
• 55.00% for $25,001 to $30,000
• 60.00% for $30,001 and above
Plus tiered gift memberships

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Affiliate contests with enticing prizes and cash
alternatives … although cash is always KING

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Use Exclusive Conditions
Provide Unique Value to Key Affiliates
• Example Tactics: (0) unique products, cross-
vendor add-on’s, limited qty, (i) special on their
website /newsletters, (ii) content & PPC affiliates
• Benefit: be preferred merchant with better
converting original, exclusive offerings
Exclusive products
/ bundles
• Example Tactics: (0) limited qty, rarely
discounted/rare subscriptions, (i) vanity codes,
(ii) perf incentives / tiers, (iii) coupon affiliates
• Benefit: be preferred merchant with better
converting original, exclusive offerings
Exclusive discounts
• Example Tactics: (i) prev selling top affiliates, (ii)
high potential latent affiliates, (iii) pitch special
promos for commits against prev proof points
• Benefits: Motivate targeted affiliates to be top
affiliates
… but, get a
commitment
before offering …

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Use Exclusive Conditions to drive sales, deepen
key affiliate relationships, build commitment
Top PC Performance and Security Player
IObit provides award-winning, comprehensive system utilities and security
software for superior PC performance and security with millions of active
users worldwide.

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Example / Offers
• Custom-Builds
• Exclusive Campaigns
• CNET – customized,
exclusive product
• MajorGeeks – partnership
for downloading products
to engage MajorGeek’s
community
• Exclusive Coupons

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Moved up from
3rd to 2nd hit
since last year
…they were a
better example
back in 2011

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• Retailer downstream traffic
from couponing sites grew
69% in the last 3 years -
Experian Hitwise
• 9 of the top 10 websites
that received traffic from search
queries that included the name
of a brand and either the word
“coupon” or “code” in it were
affiliate deal sites.
• Online coupon usage up 23%
in the months leading up to the
holiday season - Retailmenot.com

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Give them the right CUSTOMIZED tools
Engage their customers and make it easier for them
• Tactics: (i) have standard sized online
banners available to them, (ii) video
tutorials for products, (iii) landing pages
• Benefit: Grow traffic
Provide Flashy
Objects to attract
customers
• Tactics: (i) website widgets, (ii) product
feeds, (iii) marketing tools (cart tools, cross-
sells, etc.), (iv) landing pages
• Benefit: Shorter time-to-market, convert
Give them the tools
to sell
• Tactics: (i) strong real-time platform
reporting, (ii) special notifications
• Benefits: Grow conversion rate by adjusting
strategy depending on campaign results
Make it easier for
them to learn to
sell better

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Give them the right tools
Engage their customers and make it easier for them
Argos.co.uk - UK multi-channel retailer
www.argos-affiliates.co.uk
Present in the affiliate landscape since
2001.
Offers a dedicated portal for affiliates,
with lots of resources: how to guides,
creative resources (banners), PPC word
lists, webinars, etc.
The Right Tools
Argos provides a dedicated portal for affiliates, with a plethora of
resources: how to guides, creative resources (banners), PPC word lists,
webinars, as well as top 10 reasons to be an Argos affiliate 

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Engage and Educate
Do They Know What They Can Be Selling
• Tactics: (i) content affiliates to know/review your
product, (ii) support decision on what to
support, (iii) verify / targeted affiliates only
• Benefit: Drives rev w/ stronger affiliates, original
content/SEO, commitment, customer trust
Provide FREE
products to review
• Tactics: re-introduce or expand on existing
materials: (i) differentiators, (ii) comparisons,
(iii) tests, (iv) case study, (v) PPC that work
• Benefit: Support richer buying experience when
needed, support better SEO efforts
Provide library of
content & unique
selling points
• Tactics: (i) provide a giveaway w/ viral support,
(ii) provide free samples, (iii) platform
• Benefits: drive traffic / grow affiliate, can build
brand & trust, drive customer uptake & trial
… as well as give
them some
“giveaways”

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Engage and Educate
Digital goods companies can do this without
any effort whatsoever
ExclusiveSamples – running campaigns with
merchants giving away free samples –
for example: J.R. Watkins
Quit Tea – merchant giving away free
samples of quit smoking aid tea
Reviews
Engage and Educate
Drive Reviews

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Engage and Educate
Reviews

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Engage and Educate
Giveaways, Samples, Freemium … age old consumer approach

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(Re)activating Starts With Communication
Focusing Your Attention – Specific to Each Affiliate
Revenue Impact
Level
of
Effort
Communicate:
Pick Up The
Phone
High
Low
High
Low
Tools: Issue
Guns and Ammo
Perf Incentives:
Re-engage
affiliate
Incentivize
Actions: engage
long tail
Engage &
Educate:
Reviews /
Giveaways
Exclusive
Conditions

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Be proactive – don’t let your affiliates “cool” down once you get them!
Monitor (Create Automatic Alerts) and focus on the affiliates that matter
to you
Over Communicate – don’t stop at email – build relationships with your
key affiliates when they let you
Incentivize – reward them for every step they make to promote your
products, including performance rewards. Use exclusivity / vanity codes
and customized banners as a performance differentiator
Give them the right “tools” to promote your products / services –
understanding each affiliate’s specific needs helps you cater to them ..
.this is education, as much as customized tools
Ask for help from networks / OPMs – they can facilitate your actions and
make sure they get effectively used
Takeaways

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Q&A

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Want to Learn
More?
Come to Booth
#115 and win an
iPad

41. Avangate B.V.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 890 8080
Avangate Inc.
Redwood Shores CA., USA
Tel: (650) 249 - 5280
info@avangate.com
www.avangate.com
Thank You!
Michael Ni, SVP Marketing & Products