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Good morning ladies and gents,
This is my first post. I did read the forum rules, but am not sure where this post should go. If it’s in the wrong place, or just isn’t beneficial to the forum, feel free to delete it.
I just created my first serious attempt at an affiliate program. I haven’t started promoting it yet though, because I have some concerns about its In-House nature. For a variety of reasons, I think In-House is the best solution, but I’m really worried that about 40-50% of affiliates will immediately dismiss it because of trust issues.
So my question is, is there a way to convince people that an In-House program is legit? Perhaps a certain payment structure or being tracked by an “affiliate police” type of service? I have nothing but the best of intentions, but since I’m not part of a well-known network I can fully understand why people would feel uneasy joining.
Thanks for any help.
I have lots of trust issues with aff programs, but the fact that they may be in-house is not one of them.
@Dominique 235920 wrote:
I have lots of trust issues with aff programs, but the fact that they may be in-house is not one of them.
This raises a great question… (Thanks, Dom :p)
What attributes must a program carry in order to gain your trust? What makes a program worth-while (and worthy) for an affiliate to partner with for the long haul?Interesting – very interesting!
We’re listening…..Thanks – Marcia
Be transparent, be available and quick to respond to issues, always pay on time and have statistics that work
@JillO 235961 wrote:
This raises a great question… (Thanks, Dom :p)
What attributes must a program carry in order to gain your trust? What makes a program worth-while (and worthy) for an affiliate to partner with for the long haul?I’m actually more worried about the short haul. Not because I don’t care about the long haul, but because I don’t think an affiliate would go anywhere (at least not due to trust issues) after the first couple of payments were on time. My great concern is, how do I get somebody to pull the switch and try the program?
@Caseym 235984 wrote:
Be transparent, be available and quick to respond to issues, always pay on time and have statistics that work
Agree 100% that that’s how you keep an affiliate. But how do you get him to sign up in the first place?
It’s more than just the commission percentage, I’m sure.
@PatLine 235986 wrote:
Agree 100% that that’s how you keep an affiliate. But how do you get him to sign up in the first place?
It’s more than just the commission percentage, I’m sure.
With me, there are a few factors.
1 – Have they been around long with no major issues
2 – Do they come highly recommended from people I trust
3 – Do I know anyone who works there (especially with NEW programs)Commission % isn’t as important to me because 100% of nothing is nothing. Eventually most programs end up paying about the same.
That being said I would suggest that you continue doing what you’re doing. Visit the affiliate forums, be helpful, be friendly and eventually people will begin to trust you and will sign up. It won’t happen overnight so think long haul. Something else you can do is go to igaming affiliate conferences and meet people face to face. Not only will you pick up some affiliates, you’ll also learn how to make your program better.
You can’t really ‘make’ people trust you. But you can be patient and LET people trust you. However with the website you have right now I doubt this can happen for a few key reasons:
The website has almost no images, mostly text and it’s not even telling me what I am promoting. Look around the top affiliate programs, and you would see they all have pretty similar websites. I will feel a lot more comfortable trusting something similar to what I already trust.
I can’t create a link before I sign up, and yet that’s the very first thing I see on the page. In my opinion a good affiliate program page has some all right logo of the brand, key features outlined nicely with pictures and everything, perhaps even screenshots at the backend and a login/register fields at the top.
Percentage doesn’t matter for me either, conversion is what counts. Can you convert traffic well and is your product worthy? Those are the questions you should be asking yourself. If the answer is ‘yes’ then trust will come as a result of it.
There’s no shortcut either, you have to have been around to gain speed. I doubt any affiliate program became big in a month or even in a year. A good way however to promote yourself will be sites like this one and other affiliate communities, where a lot of us are gathered and will see you banners.
Believe it or not an extremely modern and fancy website will at least make me, give you the benefit of the doubt. The rest will follow depending on the performance and the statistics. After all, every affiliate working with you will be asking ‘What’s in it for me?’ ‘Why should I drop brand X and promote your brand Y’ 50% commission on itself isn’t enough, in fact seems too high.
Have some sort of spacing and underlining in your footer. Right know I am just guessing which word has a link and which doesn’t as there’s no roll over effect nor any underlining. I am trying not to be too harsh here, but since you want honest opinions, which will most likely help you in a way, if you choose to listen, I’d tell u that bold text is not fun reading. In fact I was looking for a way to scan all of the information of the front page but I gave up. And I am one of the least picky people when it comes to design and information.
Lose the casual language as well. An affiliate can mostly likely talk like that, but I believe a serious affiliate program should stick with formal language nothing like “Need a custom landing page or banner or whatever?” “Email me (the owner)” etc.
Now while I am writing I keep on reading and now I am confused “is NOT a gambling website. We are fully compliant with United States and State of Nevada laws. No gambling takes place on our website and we do not endorse gambling in any way, whether legal or illegal. The “Sportsbook” page you see on our site is a fantasy sportsbook where everything being “wagered” is play money”
Again… what are we promoting here and if it’s not a gambling website, what’s our gambling traffic good for? In fact why would be this thread in the gambling section?
And last but not least, PAYPAL payment? Come on they are famous for not liking any sort of payments from or towards people that have anything to do with gambling, it doesn’t matter if they comply with the law or now. And your affiliates will be paid 30 days after they have made the money. “the delay exists to protect ourselves from PayPal disputes, chargebacks, etc.” how convenient, for you that is. The only companies that can get away with such are delay are Google and their Adsense program and perhaps some of the bigger brands that take about 15-20 days to pay.
What happens if Paypal freezes my account for such payment? Are you gonna be able to pressure them, I doubt it. I’ve dealt long enough with Paypal to ever wanna send or receive anything there. Direct Wire, Moneybookers or Neteller that is of course if you are dealing with gambling affiliates. Once again if this is not towards the gambling affiliates I am missing the point of the thread being here.
And to finish up “We have the right to hold your money for up to 90 days before paying you if we suspect that you are referring fraudulent visitors to our site, with or without proof.” This is another big no no, and if someone read the whole page, and got to this part at this point they will most likely hit the [x] button.
Since when do I have control over my visitors, and their activity on the referred website? Big companies either ban the fraud or limit their access. They do not hold all of our money for 3 months.
So to finally answer the question, to gain the affiliate trust, you need to completely get a site re-design, get rid of everything I have pointed out in terms of payments and start participating in the community. Good luck hope anything I have written serves you well. If not discard and move on.
Thanks xecutable! Definitely not easy to read, but very much appreciated. Without constructive reviews it’s impossible to make improvements.
All of the comments that you made about payments I can implement no problem. I said NET 30 to protect my own ass, but for someone who doesn’t have a relationship with me I understand how it’s just as much of a gamble for that person as it is for me, so I should be the one absorbing the risk.
As far as design goes, it’s certainly a controversial design. Some people love it and some people hate it. I can live with that. There will be some minor improvements to reduce the clutter, but I very much doubt that I’ll be doing a complete redesign.
“Again… what are we promoting here and if it’s not a gambling website, what’s our gambling traffic good for? In fact why would be this thread in the gambling section?” – people who are interested in Line.com are gamblers. It’s just that there is no gambling taking place on Line.com itself.
You should also submit your terms and conditions to affiliateguarddog. It’s free and you will get feedback.
I do care about percentages, but not introductory ones, just long term ones.
You must let us see exactly what we are promoting. I have no issues with it not being an actual gambling site – I expect lots of sites to show up that are in a legal sense “not gambling”. I welcome these and that may also explain the 50%, since there will likely be lower deposits. For me, I am more likely to add a new site of that nature than a new regular gambling site. It may be experimental, but I like offering my visitors a large variety of choices. If it doesn’t work out, I can always take it down.
I don’t have an issue with using paypal for such sites in general, although personally I dislike Paypal and would prefer a wire or check.
Anyway, the main thing is to explain exactly what it is you want to market.
You seem to have hit a nerve my friend.
Everyone has been cheated, duped, scammed and mislead at least once in their lifetimes. With the lack of government oversight and regulation in the US gaming market it will no doubt continue unabated until the gov changes their ‘head in the sand’ prohibitionist attitude. Apparently, the wrong politicians were paid off in the beginning. Now that ‘they’ got it shut off, they can’t get it started again.
But anyway. Your situation is easier and different than casino gambling. Your revenue and thus an affiliates revenue is derived from accurately dividing up a monthly payment. By using a third party payment processor like clickbank you can assure affiliates that they are getting the fair percentage of revenue they are entitled to. But unfortunately, not all clickbank merchants have good products and an association with them also has negative connotations.
The beauty and tragedy of internet websites is that most visitors do not really have a clue as to whether or not a site is legit or not. They can only judge by the quality of what they see. That’s how phishing sites can present themselves as the ‘real thing’ and get away with it.
That being said, I think your in house program is the best approach. The quality of your tips will determine whether customers stay with you. Correspondingly, the amount of affiliate revenue earned will determine whether they will continue to sell and promote you.
It is a totally different thing as to trusting a casino site to pay affiliates what they have earned.
If an affiliates income is based upon a percentage of deposits less withdrawals and chargeback’s, then a reliable trusted third party payment processor system would work for casinos. But when an affiliates income is based upon a percentage of ‘profits’ you by necessity are getting into the internal workings of the casinos accounting system.
One of the few relevant sayings I remember from my father is “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure”.
Independent audits are a good indication, but they guarantee nothing. The primary problem with those is that the casino is a client that selects and pays the auditor. If the auditor doesn’t do things ‘right’ they are replaced.
Paying a $10,000 or more licensing fee to some shadowy authority is also a good indication of honesty.
But none of that is the ‘holy grail’ of integrity, honesty and fairness.
I do not know about much about UK licensing nor stock exchange listing requirements, but it appears to me that regulation (and taxing) is the best hope for the industry.
Now that’s way off your subject, but I could not help myself.
And I personally prefer paypal.
I had considered ClickBank at one point. But, in the same light as what you said, anytime I’ve ever seen a ClickBank product I instantly assume it’s a scam, regardless of whether it really is or not.
I’ve also considered click2sell. Does anybody have any experience with that company?
Because of the flexibility I want to change prices, offer discounts, add products, etc, handling payments “myself” seems to make a lot more sense, except that I know trust is an issue.
I actually paid for a hosting service with them once. When the merchant messed up I complained and got a full refund for much more than I asked. So I have a good feeling about them vs clickbank (simply because they are not as well known).
Okay I updated my terms of service to what I believe to be affiliate friendly. The payments are still NET 30, and I think I will keep it that way until I get a better feel for things. I understand that weekly payments may give me a better shot at growing this thing quickly, but it’s not worth the risk. Right now this is a lifestyle business that is paying the bills, and it’s important to me to have a conservative approach and guarantee myself that I can keep paying the bills. If that means slower growth in the beginning, so be it.
I also updated the look of the page so hopefully it’s now easier to follow. But I’m sure there is still a long way to go.
On to the point of the post: I added one term/condition that I think is perfectly fair, but wanted to run it by you guys. On the page I list the 4 products that we sell. Then at the bottom I say this:
No Guaranteed Commission on Non-Listed Products or Services
The above products and services are the only products and services officially for sale through Line.com. However, it could feasibly happen that we sell something that is not on that list to someone. For example, somebody may purchase a text link from us or we may get hired to do web development work for someone. These purchase are not eligible for guaranteed commission, but we will compensate you whatever we feel is a fair value just to say thanks for your referral. Why? Because, taking the web development scenario as a perfect example, there are some products and services that will never come close to having a 50% profit margin.Is that fair? Can I exclude products/services from commission?
