Note To Merchants – Why I Prefer Carrots To Sticks

I’ve spent the last week or so feverishly working away at promoting Buyagift in a bid to be in with a chance of winning a place on their 2009 Affiliate Incentive road trip to California. Full details of how you can win one of eight places have now been announced (you’ll find them on the Buyagift site) and the chances of me being able to top any of the categories looks pretty slim. My initial goal is to get the five sales needed to get an entry into the Prize Draw, then get another five sales, and another five sales, and see how far that takes me.

The fact is eight people WILL be on their way to California next year with Buyagift. It’s a fantastic incentive for affiliates to promote the company and I’ve no doubt it will result in bumper sales for Buyagift in the run up to Christmas. And it’s no exaggeration to say that it has had me jumping out of bed in the morning to get to work promoting their products.

Not to be outdone, Prezzybox have launched their own winter promotion, with the top prize being a five star All Inclusive 7 Night Holiday to the Hilton Ras al Khaimah Resort in Dubai.

Indeed, Prezzybox have trumped Buyagift by setting sales targets and guaranteeing prizes to everyone who meets them. So if you deliver £15,000 of sales you WILL be going to Dubai. Sell £30,000 and you can take someone with you. And there are other prizes from MP3 players to skiing holidays in Europe for those who reach lower sales targets. Again, I’ll be spending time this weekend thinking of ways to incorporate Prezzybox into my websites in a bid to win a trip to Dubai.

Maybe I won’t be going to California or Dubai next year, but both are juicy orange carrots that have certainly got me working. And I’m sure that’s true of affiliates up and down the country too. It’s exciting to work with merchants like this.

It’s very clear from the short time that I’ve been more focused on affiliate marketing as a revenue stream that some merchants truly value and appreciate their affiliate network. This is self-evident by promotions such as the above, but this appreciation can also be measured by things like the number of e-mails you receive from merchants detailing new products and current offers, the quality of the banners provided, increased commissions and discount codes.

It’s also pretty clear that some merchants don’t value their affiliate network at all.

You never hear from them for one. When you are dealing with multiple websites and have hundreds of merchants to choose from it can often be a case of out of sight out of mind. And then there are merchants who provide banners that are often out of date, contain spelling mistakes and generally look amateurish. Even worse are merchants who have a website that needs a PhD in computer science just to place an order.

And within the group of merchants who don’t appreciate – as in understand – what affiliates can do for them are those who think hitting you with a stick is the answer.

These are the ones that you don’t hear from for months and then out of the blue they send you an email saying that they are removing inactive affiliates from their program. This threat is usually accompanied by asking you to contact them to detail exactly how you will be promoting them in the future in a bid to boost sales and remain an affiliate. Like I’m going to waste my valuable time doing that.

Earlier this week I received such an email from The Whisky Exchange saying:

“Unfortunately some affiliates have not been as successful as others at creating sales, Because of this, some affiliates will be removed from our affiliate program. Id like to thank you for your services towards The Whisky Exchange and wish you all the best in this busy christmas period!”

It didn’t actually say whether I had been removed or not, but to be honest I couldn’t have cared less. If I’m not creating sales for The Whisky Exchange that means I’m not earning either. And at the moment I’m too busy tring to promote merchants like Prezzybox and Buyagift.

Why would a merchant want to remove affiliates anyway? Who is to say an affiliate who barely registers on the sales scale today isn’t going to be a super-affiliate tomorrow?

Do they pay the network per affiliate signed up or something? Because if not these ridiculous “removal of affiliates” emails need to stop. They just get people’s backs up. Excuses like it costs time and money to manage a large number of affiliates is frankly bullshit. How much money and effort does it take to copy extra affiliates into a regular email newsletter?

To be fair to The Whisky Exchange, another email arrived the following day, apologising for the first email and asking for it to be disregarded. They also said they will be introducing some new ad banners and there was vague talk of a bonus scheme during Christmas.

What merchants need to understand is that affiliates are not donkeys.

Yes we respond favourably to carrots, but since most affiliates are also independently-minded entrepreneurs, sticks aren’t going to work.

Not now. Not ever.