Getting affiliates to market your brand is one of the many ways to increase sales and leads. They have different marketing strategies, but even with all their know-how, they still need your support. You can help them out using affiliate program software.
Affiliate program software is ideal for affiliate management professionals because it allows them to monitor affiliates activities, sales, leads, and prepare payments and commissions. In other words, it helps manage your working relationship with affiliates across affiliate networks.
Finding the right affiliate program software might seem easy, as all you have to do is type the keyword in the search engine, but choosing from the first five results without making a thorough examination of key features is a mistake. Here are some things to keep in mind during your search.
Do a background check on the seller and the software. Avoid being scammed by checking out their online reputation, paying special attention to search results from forums and other sources of first-hand information. This is not the time to be lenient – if you see any negative feedback, move on to another software.
Look for the user information guide. Any software that does not have an instruction manual means trouble. Legitimate software should have detailed installation steps and navigation, product features, and a warranty.
Compare the price with the market range. Think about the features and the warranty, and whether it is worth the price. The cardinal rule is to trust your gut, but dont be cheap. Go for software that is a little bit over your budget if it has unique features and a good warranty. Some software packages offer long-term payment options, which is always helpful.
It might take longer to choose the right affiliate program software, but you will definitely be better off in the long run.
Nicholas Black is a digital marketing strategist, who specializes in making technology more accessible to companies, communities, and individuals through the Internet. Visit Affiliate CRM for smart tips, techniques and tools likeaffiliate program software tracking.
Best Practices for Creating Your Affiliate Agreement (Merchant ABCs Basics for Affiliate Marketing)If your company has an affiliate program or is considering starting one, this is a must read. *This is a transcription from a podcast roundtable discussion* This discussion includes affiliate marketing experts that have all spoken at Affiliate Summit, the largest affiliate marketing conference in the US.Eric Nagel is an experienced affiliate marketer that consults with merchants before he will run their offers. But we aren't here to sell you anything, we just want merchants to have better affiliate agreements so that both the merchants and the affiliates that want to promote them are aware of the do's and don'ts.
Affiliate and Consultant Eric Nagel joins experienced affiliate managers (OPMs) Vinny O’Hare and Deborah Carney in a very important episode of Merchant ABCs. Many merchants are not aware that if they don’t have an Affiliate Agreement in place they are giving affiliates carte blanche to do whatever they want to promote your affiliate program. Eric joined us today to help explain to merchants both new and existing why they need a properly created affiliate agreement. Affiliates want you to have an agreement so they have guidelines and so they know that your affiliate manager and company have thought about the many ways affiliates can promote the merchant’s site. Affiliates will also assume that once you have an agreement in place that you will enforce it appropriately.
“If you don't write it down, if you don't say we can't do it, then a lot of times we're going to assume that we can. Affiliates are very imaginative. We're creative.”
- Eric Nagel
Topics we cover are: Search Engine Marketing – both PPC and organic, Direct to Merchant Linking in PPC and social media, Domain names – including subdomains and subdirectories, Coupon site regulations, Loyalty site regulations, Email restrictions, Social Media links and posts, iFrames and other framing of the merchant site, Policy about adware, spyware, toolbars and other downloads, Prohibited Affiliate Website Content, Unacceptable Web Sites (Banner farms, PLR sites etc).

