Stop Treating Your Affiliates As Enemies

There are too many Affiliate Program Managers, mostly with large companies, that have obviously never been an Affiliate themselves. And if that’s not the case, the company they work for has dictated guidelines for the Affiliate Program that is so restricting, that the program they build actually deters most of the top Affiliates from joining.

• Affiliates are your business partners.
• Affiliates are your online sales people.
• Affiliates are your company’s only method to reach into markets you can never touch.

Yes, there are plenty of Affiliate Scammers. The ones that will hide all their PPC advertising efforts on weekends and secondary ad networks, and will use your company’s url, which knocks your ads from showing, and will use redirect scripts too hide their efforts. But if you are serious about creating an online presence that will dominate your competition, you must filter through those, and create a program that pays and rewards the honest and good Affiliates that have built, or will build the content web sites that your company will not.

Even the Coupon Affiliates provide value by having your company represented in many diverse places, and reaching those clients that are always looking for "the deal".

Unless your profit margins are extremely small, which doesn’t describe most retailers, only offering 5% commission and a 1 day tracking cookie is a joke for the really serious Affiliate Marketers. In my opinion, Affiliate commissions should be at 8-10% most of the time with a 45 day cookie. Large companies don’t hesitate to pay up to 15% and much more to be on Shopping Comparison Networks and Amazon.com, so treat your Affiliate Marketing Representatives the same.