Business Thread -->> What do you want from a program?

[Rochard]

It's a simple question: If someone was to open up a new program or improve on a new program, what would you like to see included? Which features do you like best from the affiliate programs you currently push?

I'll send out some free GFY swag to the person who has the best answer.

Here's a picture from Girls Hunting Girls just to keep things interesting.

[avalanche]

1. Great Customer Service
2. Tons of Promo Content
3. Tons of Galleries
4. Awesome Customer Service
5. Regular Updates
6. More Great Customer Service

[DamageX]

Understanding the customer and possess the ability to sell.

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Affiliate managers and reps who treat their affiliates like KINGS... not because we send them tons of signups or anything, but because we make or break that program... nobody wants to push a program where the rep is telling them what to do, and treating someone who has sent 1 signup less then someone who has sent 100 signups... equality...


bottom line, GOOD AFFILIATE REPS!!

[Love Sex]

youve been since 2001 you should be able to answer this your self.
do i win

[DamageX]

and treating someone who has sent 1 signup less then someone who has sent 100 signups... equality...

Last time I checked someone sending 1 signup is really not equal to someone sending 100 signups. Programs need to look after their bottom line, it would be utterly stupid of a rep to spend LOTS of time with the little guy who can only send a few signup per months, instead of spending lots of time kissing up to the whale who can do 40-50/day. This isn't a democracy, this is business.

That being said, an affiliate rep can be very good even if he/she doesn't spend A LOT of time with the little guys, but is at least responsive to their support requests.

[Rochard]

youve been since 2001 you should be able to answer this your self.
do i win

I have a list of answers already; I'm looking to see if I'm missing anything. I'm looking for things like RSS feeds, blogs, TGPs that affiliates can send to, etc.

My goal is to stun everyone. Get ready.

[Wizzo]

I personally LOVE programs that redirect all their traffic to MayorsMoney!

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Last time I checked someone sending 1 signup is really not equal to someone sending 100 signups. Programs need to look after their bottom line, it would be utterly stupid of a rep to spend LOTS of time with the little guy who can only send a few signup per months, instead of spending lots of time kissing up to the whale who can do 40-50/day. This isn't a democracy, this is business.

That being said, an affiliate rep can be very good even if he/she doesn't spend A LOT of time with the little guys, but is at least responsive to their support requests.

yeah but who knows, that little guy could all of the sudden blow up and be bigger then the big guy, then what? you think they would send all their signups to a company that wouldn't bother helping them out because when they were little, wasn't sending alot of signups or someone who treated them just as equal?

[TurboAngel]

1. Great Customer Service
2. Tons of Promo Content
3. Tons of Galleries
4. Awesome Customer Service
5. Regular Updates
6. More Great Customer Service

I'll add payment to epassporte and every week would be nice.

[DamageX]

yeah but who knows, that little guy could all of the sudden blow up and be bigger then the big guy, then what? you think they would send all their signups to a company that wouldn't bother helping them out because when they were little, wasn't sending alot of signups or someone who treated them just as equal?

Who said anything about not helping them out? I just said it doesn't make sense to treat a little guy and a whale as equals. The chance of a little guy becoming a whale isn't that big, while the whale stays a whale. You need some common sense.

[fris]

good trailers

good ads, like banners, etc, i find a lot of programs dont have good promo tools designed.

paysite descriptions. for each site like a couple sentences would make it easier for blog people and people creating pages.

rss feeds of course

downloadable content

hosted tgp/mgp so you can send traffic and get back.

good thumbs for the galleries.

free hosting would be a plus, even tho i dont use it, but i would know people who do, say if they want a listing on thehun and they dont want to host it.

pic/movie of the day plugin

cant think of any others right now.

[DatingGold]

haha I was gonna say free schwag.. but thats what you are giving away.

[arock10]

free backrubs, I get sore sitting in my chair working on sites all day

[WiredGuy]

1) Link to join page (which means no exits too)
2) Let me use my own creatives
3) High payouts (minimum $35/su)
4) Low trial price, lower the better
5) Don't ask me for traffic

WG

[Rochard]

Last time I checked someone sending 1 signup is really not equal to someone sending 100 signups. Programs need to look after their bottom line, it would be utterly stupid of a rep to spend LOTS of time with the little guy who can only send a few signup per months, instead of spending lots of time kissing up to the whale who can do 40-50/day. This isn't a democracy, this is business.

That being said, an affiliate rep can be very good even if he/she doesn't spend A LOT of time with the little guys, but is at least responsive to their support requests.

This is not true if your interested in long term.

I remember knowing someone who sent maybe one a sign up a day from TGP traffic. After a few months it became two or three signups. And it kept going up frm there until this person opened up his own program. If he was blown off when he was sending one sign up every other day, some good money could have been lost - not to mention a lifelong friendship.

[Rochard]

good trailers

good ads, like banners, etc, i find a lot of programs dont have good promo tools designed.

paysite descriptions. for each site like a couple sentences would make it easier for blog people and people creating pages.

rss feeds of course

downloadable content

hosted tgp/mgp so you can send traffic and get back.

good thumbs for the galleries.

free hosting would be a plus, even tho i dont use it, but i would know people who do, say if they want a listing on thehun and they dont want to host it.

pic/movie of the day plugin

cant think of any others right now.

Done. (Serously.)

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

This is not true if your interested in long term.

I remember knowing someone who sent maybe one a sign up a day from TGP traffic. After a few months it became two or three signups. And it kept going up frm there until this person opened up his own program. If he was blown off when he was sending one sign up every other day, some good money could have been lost - not to mention a lifelong friendship.

exactly, and i know 2 people who went from small time to big time in a hurry...

[Murderous]

Room & Board.

[Paparazzi]

free wires us > eu

[Rochard]

Room & Board.

Not gonna happen. What else?

[$5 submissions]

Viral content with AFF ID tracking. As vital with adult as with mainstream.

[Zuzana Designs]

I think many programs lack promo tools like galleries that need to be tested first to assure good ctrs

Provide logos and fonts for the sites for designers to use when creating any promo tools

Hosted blogs with the affiliate ref code, and written with someone that knows SE

Lots of fresh content zipped and ready to go with multiple thumb sizes for tgps

Tours that update with the new content that is released on top to result in better convertions

Free Hosting that you can use your own domain for submitting with zero over head

Geo Tracking links, fansigns, etc

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

urls like this: .com/aff/id/whatever.html and not, whatever.html?aff=id&id=3553 because they suck with traffic scripts and that...

[DamageX]

This is not true if your interested in long term.

I remember knowing someone who sent maybe one a sign up a day from TGP traffic. After a few months it became two or three signups. And it kept going up frm there until this person opened up his own program. If he was blown off when he was sending one sign up every other day, some good money could have been lost - not to mention a lifelong friendship.

1. Who said anything about blowing them off? I just said it's not logical for a rep to devote as much time to a small affiliate as to a big one.
2. How many of those people do you know? What you just said sure as hell doesn't happen to every small-time webmaster.

[TreasureBucks]

big fat paychecks

[AllStar]

This is not true if your interested in long term.

I remember knowing someone who sent maybe one a sign up a day from TGP traffic. After a few months it became two or three signups. And it kept going up frm there until this person opened up his own program. If he was blown off when he was sending one sign up every other day, some good money could have been lost - not to mention a lifelong friendship.

Very Smart!

[jayeff]

Programs need to look after their bottom line, it would be utterly stupid of a rep to spend LOTS of time with the little guy who can only send a few signup per months, instead of spending lots of time kissing up to the whale who can do 40-50/day.

A rep's job should be to increase sales. In this context, the protection of existing sales needs to be the job of the program owner/exec.

Give major affiliates a small edge because it is expected, but don't lose sight of the reality that a dollar from you is worth exactly the same as a dollar from any other sponsor. Many sponsors have already dug themselves a pit, responding to "whales" by paying them too much. They may have got away with it because a lot of webmasters who should know better, are blinded by payout rates just as much as newbies. A smart affiliate knows that his/her bottom line is affected much more by a site's saleability and his/her own efforts, than whether the payout rate is plus or minus a few points.

It is far more effective and cheaper to let solid sales take care of the strictly financial aspect of your relationship on their own and introduce intangibles which are not so easily duplicated. The most effective target is the affiliate's ego (which BTW is what giving them that financial edge is really about, more than it is about the dollars involved).

To this end, keep major affiliates away from reps as much as possible. There are exceptions, but most reps are low-level employees with limited experience and not usually allowed to exercise much initiative. It should be obvious that the average rep has little if anything to offer the most experienced and successful affiliates.

Instead the program owner (or in a corporate organisation, a senior exec) should be the one to deal with major affiliates and that contact should be proactive, not merely responsive. When a sponsor contacts an affiliate, notes about that affiliate and his/her stats should be to hand, sometimes along with a suggestion or idea that is presented as if it were thought up just for that affiliate. Remember personal occasions such as birthdays and use some imagination when sending gifts. Try to meet face-to-face (one-on-one when possible) once in a while. And always have your ears open for any undertone of discontent. Etc. The point is to establish a special relationship that the affiliate will think very hard about before abandoning.

This industry wastes far too much on parties and the like where everyone is thrown in together. Just like a dollar is a dollar, Jack Daniels tastes the same no matter whose bar it comes from, so very little of what I was writing about above is achieved by such events (truth be told, their purpose is probably often one-upmanship vis-a-vis other sponsors). At the same time, many sponsors don't invest nearly enough in reps and employ people who cannot do much more than trawl ICQ. They should be using reps who achieved at least modest success as webmasters.

A good rep's first job should be to make live contact - phone, ICQ or whatever - with every new affiliate, or at the very least every new affiliate who begins to send traffic. This contact is to decide whether that affiliate - it doesn't matter whether a newbie or an experienced webmaster - shows a spark which could be developed. If not, move on. Otherwise the rep's whole job should be to actively help "live" affiliates, not simply by pointing them to his hosted galleries and the banner page URL, but with broad as well as program specific advice and assistance.

Done properly, this would not only generate more income, but it also creates in affiliates' minds the idea that here is a program that is different from the rest.

[Stephen]

This isn't a democracy, this is business.

That being said, an affiliate rep can be very good even if he/she doesn't spend A LOT of time with the little guys, but is at least responsive to their support requests.

right on

[hoob]

^I think we have a winner^

2 posts above

[Doctor Dre]

Atreating someone who has sent 1 signup less then someone who has sent 100 signups... equality...

Sir, you don't make sence there. Bigger affiliates need to be well taken care off ...

[Lance69]

Best thread I've read in a while guys.

[Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Sir, you don't make sence there. Bigger affiliates need to be well taken care off ...

yes, but who says small guys should get treated any less?

[Rochard]

1. Who said anything about blowing them off? I just said it's not logical for a rep to devote as much time to a small affiliate as to a big one.
2. How many of those people do you know? What you just said sure as hell doesn't happen to every small-time webmaster.

How many of these do I know? Most of them.

The earlier example was a guy who has his own program. Another one thanked me when he bought his first car, saying it was money he made off of Lightspeed Cash.

Every affiliate starts small.

[studiocritic]

Not using their affiliate software as an excuse for poor reporting capabilities.

I want to be able to see the following:

- 1st page raw
- 1st page uniques
- 2nd page uniques
- Join page uniques
- Join page submissions
- - - Sales
- - - Declines
- - - - Scrub
- - - - CVS
- - - - NSF

[studiocritic]

Also, stats exported in an XML feed.. so I can import them into my systems in semi-realtime.

All of my PPC for my own sites is managed automatically, based on profit margins, etc etc. That stuff is very important.

Also, the ability to get a list of IPs that converted, along with their referrer.. also in an XML format.

[Taboo]

some other great ideas & feedback here:
http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=623055

(too bad we can't merge threads)

.

[PhillipB]

A blumpkin from the General Manager of the program would be a good start...

[Kimo]

millions of dollars!

[martinsc]

urls like this: .com/aff/id/whatever.html and not, whatever.html?aff=id&id=3553 because they suck with traffic scripts and that...

[Holly Lez!]

A rep's job should be to increase sales. In this context, the protection of existing sales needs to be the job of the program owner/exec.

Give major affiliates a small edge because it is expected, but don't lose sight of the reality that a dollar from you is worth exactly the same as a dollar from any other sponsor. Many sponsors have already dug themselves a pit, responding to "whales" by paying them too much. They may have got away with it because a lot of webmasters who should know better, are blinded by payout rates just as much as newbies. A smart affiliate knows that his/her bottom line is affected much more by a site's saleability and his/her own efforts, than whether the payout rate is plus or minus a few points.

It is far more effective and cheaper to let solid sales take care of the strictly financial aspect of your relationship on their own and introduce intangibles which are not so easily duplicated. The most effective target is the affiliate's ego (which BTW is what giving them that financial edge is really about, more than it is about the dollars involved).

To this end, keep major affiliates away from reps as much as possible. There are exceptions, but most reps are low-level employees with limited experience and not usually allowed to exercise much initiative. It should be obvious that the average rep has little if anything to offer the most experienced and successful affiliates.

Instead the program owner (or in a corporate organisation, a senior exec) should be the one to deal with major affiliates and that contact should be proactive, not merely responsive. When a sponsor contacts an affiliate, notes about that affiliate and his/her stats should be to hand, sometimes along with a suggestion or idea that is presented as if it were thought up just for that affiliate. Remember personal occasions such as birthdays and use some imagination when sending gifts. Try to meet face-to-face (one-on-one when possible) once in a while. And always have your ears open for any undertone of discontent. Etc. The point is to establish a special relationship that the affiliate will think very hard about before abandoning.

This industry wastes far too much on parties and the like where everyone is thrown in together. Just like a dollar is a dollar, Jack Daniels tastes the same no matter whose bar it comes from, so very little of what I was writing about above is achieved by such events (truth be told, their purpose is probably often one-upmanship vis-a-vis other sponsors). At the same time, many sponsors don't invest nearly enough in reps and employ people who cannot do much more than trawl ICQ. They should be using reps who achieved at least modest success as webmasters.

A good rep's first job should be to make live contact - phone, ICQ or whatever - with every new affiliate, or at the very least every new affiliate who begins to send traffic. This contact is to decide whether that affiliate - it doesn't matter whether a newbie or an experienced webmaster - shows a spark which could be developed. If not, move on. Otherwise the rep's whole job should be to actively help "live" affiliates, not simply by pointing them to his hosted galleries and the banner page URL, but with broad as well as program specific advice and assistance.

Done properly, this would not only generate more income, but it also creates in affiliates' minds the idea that here is a program that is different from the rest.

Very well said best post in the thread!

Great thread Rochard

[Princess Ellisa]

Very well said best post in the thread!

Great thread Rochard

Amen Holly! I was going to say the same thing

[AtlantisCash]

ok; here is a good idea
program owners can promote enough alcohol to get drunk for theyer Clients

[Rochard]

ok; here is a good idea
program owners can promote enough alcohol to get drunk for theyer Clients

You shouldn't be posting when drunk. Go sleep it off.

[OG LennyT]

1. If you are having complaints/issues with tracking or ratios, please dont insult my intelligence by telling me its being worked on or developed for 2 or 3 months. (Many webmasters have backgrounds in programming/hardware/network, etc and see thru lies)
---------Fleshlight----ahem---see above---------------

2. I really enjoy getting emails with latest galleries with my ref id. Saves me time.

3. be generous with affiliates... have contests, send out a few hundred DVDs, have a get together besides the conventions (especially if based in large cities)

I have others I'm sure but these came to mind first

[TheSenator]

A program with simply all the actors full stage names and date of when the content was first put up on the site.

[mfps]

heres how my thought process works.

step one:
do i like how the programs main page looks?
does it look like they spent time and money on it?

step two:
do they have sites that fit my niche(s) ?

step three:
does it look like they spent time and money on those sites?

step four:
join the program

step five:
how are the ad tools?
free hosted galleries?
can i bulk export hosted galleries in any format i choose?
does the sponsor provide long text descriptions?
does the sponsor provide thumbnails for the FHG?
does that size thumbnail work for my site(s) ?

if all of these questions are answered yes, skip to step nine.
if any are answered no, continue to step six.

step six
do i really want to promote this program?
have i talked to the affiliate rep or program owner?
do i consider them (the idividual, or the program) likeable or trustworthy? or are they just contacts?

if two or more of these questions are answered yes, continue to step seven.
if two or more of these questions are answered no, close window.

step seven
can i put together a decent looking gallery from a set?
does the set have watermarks?
can i build a watermark easily enough out of the site logo?

if two or more of these questions are answered yes, continue to step eight.
if two or more of these questions are answered no, close window.

step eight
generate link code.
build gallery.

at the moment, galleries that i build get fed choker gallery traffic (usually 3-5k hits) with the hopes of getting some good branding for my sites, and some click through to both myself and the sponsor.

example here.

additionally, these galleries sit on my sites in the 185x245 corners when i have advertising space available.

skip to step ten.

step nine
dump the handy free hosted content into my system.

FHG in my network end up as 90x120 thumbnails in the daily gallery tables.
i really like the idea of getting tons of content into the system quickly.
it makes it easy to get tons of exposure to these sites fast, and allows me to have ever changing fresh content in place.

step ten.
pay me.
im okay with $100 minimum payouts.
i like being paid by epass, but im okay with checks too.

other thoughts:
i think it is critical for a program to make things as easy as possible for the webmasters who choose to promote them.

now, im not a program owner. . .
but if i was running an affiliate program, my goal would be saturating the market.
i would want as many affiliates as possible spreading as much of my content as possible in as many places as possible.
i would want to be so oversaturated that i would be forced to close my doors to new webmasters except by invitation. . .

i can be really lazy when it comes to content, ive got a lot of other things to worry about.

it seems to me that a lot of programs take the attitude 'another lazy webmaster wanting the world from us'

but i wonder how many times those programs have been asked for the same 'world' by another affiliate.

in my opinion, if you get asked for it twice, you should make it available without having to ask.

it just seems unfair to make 100 webmasters do something for themselves when one person at the program could do it and be done with it.

in my opinion domains are like real estate.

i own land.

if you want to put a sign on my property, you need to make your sign.
if your sign sucks, nobody is gonna look at it.

if you want to put your sign on my property, you need to pay me to put it there.


thank you for letting me share

flames go here: john @ heres-some-porn.com

money goes here: advertise @ heres-some-porn.com

get my unsolicited opinion here: 314157890

-John

[bdld]

PPS, link to join, free hosting, geo targetted tools, .psd's of the header / logo.

[Holly Lez!]

Amen Holly! I was going to say the same thing

Muah! I love you girlie! Was fun hanging out with you! Let's do it again in Florida

[Rochard]

1. If you are having complaints/issues with tracking or ratios, please dont insult my intelligence by telling me its being worked on or developed for 2 or 3 months. (Many webmasters have backgrounds in programming/hardware/network, etc and see thru lies)
---------Fleshlight----ahem---see above---------------

2. I really enjoy getting emails with latest galleries with my ref id. Saves me time.

3. be generous with affiliates... have contests, send out a few hundred DVDs, have a get together besides the conventions (especially if based in large cities)

I have others I'm sure but these came to mind first

This is good, but...... Sometimes problems are too difficult to explain over ICQ, and sometimes programs don't want the truth to get out on GFY.

I like points 2 and 3.