The Many Types of Affiliates
Having worked with a wide variety of affiliates, I’ve noticed that pretty much everyone falls into 5 distinct categories:
The newbie that’s interested… but too scared to try
Affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone and it can be difficult to get started. However, you have to get started at some point if you want to give it a shot. We have a bunch of affiliates that are always asking us what’s working and what they should try. Then they ask how they should advertise, which we are happy to explain. Then… nothing. A few weeks go by and they contact us again asking for different offers. If you aren’t willing to give anything a shot, this might not be the industry for you.
The newbie that can’t make anything work
This is unfortunate because the last thing we want to see is someone burn their money. It takes money to make money, especially in this industry. We try to encourage this group to keep trying and, more importantly, keep optimizing instead of switching to different offers. Even a $100 can get you a decent number of clicks and enough stats to help you figure out what you can do to improve.
The average affiliate
Decent volume, good conversion rates (often times higher than the high rollers since traffic is more controlled). These affiliates just want to be treated well and kept in the loop regarding any new offers or changes in terms. They make a decent living doing this and we are happy to work with these hard working individuals. Oftentimes we become friends over AIM chats and help them grow to be part of the next group.
The elite high-volume high rollers
Obviously, our favorite bunch. These guys turn on traffic before we even hang up the phone. With high volume comes high demands, which we are happy to meet. Weekly same day wires, 24/7 customer support, and better payouts are the perks of being in the top 2% (which generate over 90% of conversions). The biggest issue with these guys is getting the advertisers to pay us fast enough and the inevitable caps we hit. While conversions are great, not all advertisers are capable of handling 100,000 conversions in a week. We like these problems. Very much.
Other Networks
Often times we have direct and exclusive offers that aren’t easy to get. In addition we design and host most of our offer pages, constantly optimizing to improve conversion rates. Other networks have their own base of affiliates that would like to run our offers. We work with dozens of other networks to allow them to run our offers. Our margins are thin because we want as high a payout as possible for the end affiliate, but we enjoy working with legitimate, well-established networks that know what they are doing.
and finally…
The Scammers
The allure of easy money inevitably attracts these good-for-nothing fraudsters that give affiliate marketing a bad name. This is why we review and approve each affiliate on a case by case basis and also approve them on a per-offer basis. It’s very important for us to know who we are working with. If we send fraudulent leads to advertisers, it’s us that has to answer to them. One bad apple can ruin a great offer. Scammers, we’re not the network for you!
What group do you fall under?
