Much has been written about that mythical creature the “Super Affiliate” however Affiliate Marketing is a partnership and everyone involved should be working towards a common goal to this end I am going to look at:

6 Effective Habits Of Super Merchants*

*Some of the activities mentioned may have been outsourced to Affiliate management companies and agency’s but for continuity I am going to bracket everything under the “merchant” banner.

1) Improve Conversion Rates

Affiliates can get the prospective customers to merchant websites, often this traffic will be pre-qualified and highly targeted, however, it is up to the merchant website to make the sale.

Usabilty tests, eye-tracking, multivariate tests are all ways of identifying problems and the results can be used to improve conversion rates, not only of affiliate traffic but natural traffic too.

Resources: Pick up a copy of Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug and read Google Website Optimizer – 108 Free Tips | Conversion Rate Experts for some fabulous ideas on the subject, inncidently I recommend affiliates read these to as the methods can be used to improve click through rates.

2) Affiliate Friendly Website Updates

A massive bugbear of mine is when a merchant announces their great new website and then ends with “our url structure has changed please amend ALL your affiliate links”, don’t get me wrong I am all for merchants improving their site navigation to make it more user friendly but if the coder can’t add a simple line to the .htaccess file which puts in 301 redirects from the old structure to the new its a bad job.

By the way having redirects in place makes sense as it is also search engine friendly, Google may have indexed your old page but without a redirect to the new one it will just hitting a whole load of broken links and 404 pages which isn’t going to do your rankings a lot of good. Effective 301 redirects can only be good for sales.

This article on the Blue Chip Vacations Affiliate Blog Site relaunched after usability study covers a few of the things I have mentioned on site usability and affiliate friendly website updates.

3) Effective Communication

We live in the communication age, Email, Phone, Text, instant messenger, Twitter, Facebook and Skype are just some of the methods that merchants can use to get in touch with their affiliate, a word of warning do not swamp your affiliates with a constant barrage unless that’s what they have asked you for.

Do your homework, does the affiliate what updates from you daily, weekly, monthly or just whenever something of interest crops up, do find out how the affiliate likes to be contacted, I personally prefer email with a quick convo on messenger just to make me aware if the content of the email warrants it.

Categorise affiliates too some want voucher and offer information, while others want content ideas, some require both. Have separate mailing lists.

Oh and when sending emails avoid the big graphical ones where the text is on an image as they are impossible for affiliates to work with. Also deep link emails where possible and add the affiliate tracking if you can, most UK affiliate networks have provision for this just ask them if you don’t know how.

4) Provide Useful Content

Content affiliates are always on the look out for fresh content, while it is logistically impossible to provide every affiliate with bespoke content it often pays to look after your top performers.

Super merchants also let affiliates know about new products, best sellers, press coverage, press releases anything really that can get the creative juices flowing.

Oh and when sending emails avoid the big graphical ones where the text is on an image as they are impossible for affiliates to work with. Also deep link emails where possible and add the affiliate tracking if you can, most UK affiliate networks have provision for this just ask them if you don’t know how. (yes I know I wrote this twice it’s important for affiliate productivity).

5) Keep Product Feeds Up To Date

More and more affiliates are using product feeds thanks to services such as the fabulous Easy Content Units, I could rabbit on all day about the reasons for keeping them up to date but it has been covered by Jason Dale here Merchants, Are Your Product Feeds Leaving Affiliates Hungry? very wise words, I have a lot of respect for Jason and he is a live contender for affiliate blog of the year at the a4uawards.

6) Make Your Affiliate Incentives Winnable

Affiliate incentives which reward your top performers are all well and good but they are not going to get you new affiliates, from time to time introduce an incentive that anyone can win, put everyone in to the draw that makes a sale, puts up a banner, writes an article etc., this may well motivate new affiliates, stagnant affiliates and fringe players as well as your good performers too.

This article isn’t about teaching merchants to suck eggs I wrote it purely as an exercise in pointing out that affiliate marketing is a two way street, simply having an affiliate programme will not make you an instant millionaire, but being proactive and helping affiliates to help you will set you well on the road, just ask some of the merchants who swear by the affiliate channel.

Update 10/02/10:

A great blog response to this from Matt Bailey of i-level Can we all become Super Merchants?

And thanks to Linda Buquet at 5 Star Affiliate Programs for helping to spread the word 6 Habits Of Highly Effective Affiliate Managers and Merchants

Only 40 or so days left of what is widely predicted to be the biggest online spending spree ever so if you are an online retailer make sure you get your fair share of the bootee.

Make it easy for your customers to buy from you…

I realise as an affiliate its not my place to teach merchants how to do their jobs however as a shopper who buys a fair bit over the internet I’d like to make a few suggestions.

1. Ensure that your shopping cart process is not too complicated. Christmas is probably the wrong time for usability testing but grab a random person and ask them to buy something.
2. Make sure ALL your payment methods work, you can guarantee the one method on the blink is the one everyone is trying to use
3. Do you really need your customers to register. Christmas is a time of impulse buying and many customers will never ever return, insist on them registering and you may just drive them away, no need to switch off registration completely, just offer a quick checkout route.
4. Make the most of your 404 and search traffic. If a user arrives at a page on your site which doesn’t exist or looks for a product you don’t sell, give them a few suggestions rather than a blank page to stare at.
5. Remember to up sell to your customers. Make suggestions which compliment the original purchase, McDonalds do it (you want large fries with that) and online Amazon are the masters of the up sell with every page having “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”

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Last week I mentioned how I like affiliate incentives which give everyone a chance to win well here is another from fashion merchant Blue Inc, (aff link) so if you are an affiliate no matter who you are, big or small, get a banner up, get creative and make some sales, you gotta be in it to win it.

INCENTIVE

Blue Inc Clothing have announced an Autumn 2009 affiliate incentive which gives everyone a chance. There are two chances to win – each with £100 prizes.

Prize 1

You very simply have to run some Blue Inc creative on the homepage of your site or review one of our products.

All you have to do is e-mail them (alex.h (@) p-media.co.uk) a screen grab and the url. Each e-mail they receive will get 1 entry into prize draw 1.

Prize 2

Drive over 4 sales across the months of October and November to gain entry into prize draw 2.

ABOUT BLUE INC

They are a fast growing fashion retailer – they have gone from 50 stores to just under 80 over the course of the year.

They have a full womenswear range being launched online during October 2009 and are evaluating stock market floatation in 2010.

Their affiliate programme is managed by Perception Media and available through Linkshare (aff link).

Filed away on this blog under good practices DFDS Seaways have recently launched an affiliate incentive which gives everyone a chance.

The first part is DOUBLE COMMISSION for all DFDS sales between now and 1st November 2009.

Secondly to add icing on the cake there is also an opportunity to win a fabulous Supercar experience day, where you petrol heads get the opportunity to drive Aston Martins, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and more.

Whats more its a competition that anyone can win not just the super affiliates (what ever one of them is).

How to win:
Position 1 – Affiliate that generates the most revenue during the incentive period
Position 2 – Every 1 sale = 1 Entry into draw to win
Position 3 – Best Content on 241 Mini Cruises (Follow Link Below to Submit URL)
Position 4 – 1 Place will be given away at a4uexpo on 14 October 2009

>> Click here for full details…

Friday was a good post day I received a couple of bottles of wine from my good friend and affiliate podcaster extraordinaire Fraser Edwards.

Fraser has recently acquired the websites www.redwine.co.uk and www.whitewine.co.uk in order to get the word out rather than mess about with business cards he decided to get a few bottles of Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc printed up instead and distribute them throughout the internet community.

So far I have enjoyed the Merlot here is my short review.

The dominant features of this wine are black cherry, blackberry, a trace of vanilla and just a hint of nutmeg, all in a well structured wine with soft tannins. It is the ideal type of wine to age, because it has a great deal of character plus satisfactory structure for lengthy development over time. You could if you wanted drink it directly with food, or lay it down for a few years to mature.

Actually those tasting notes are complete bollocks partly made up and partly plagiarism, while some of it may be true and it was an excellent bottle of red I’m no wine connoisseur more Ozzy Osborne than Oz Clarke in my drinking habits.

Incidentally Fraser is currently running a competition where you can win a case of wine this closes at the end of July 2009, look on the sites for more details or follow @whiteandred on twitter and re-tweet to enter.