AD PROGRAMS

A review of the TopBucks/TopCash discussion forum at the West Coast Webmasters Conference

On a gorgeous summer’s day in an unusually sunny Vancouver, British Columbia, a small group of dedicated (and, in some cases, rather hung over) Webmasters gathered in a large conference room to discuss the finer points of operating and/or dealing with affiliate programs.AD PROGRAMS

A review of the TopBucks/TopCash discussion forum at the West Coast Webmasters Conference

On a gorgeous summer’s day in an unusually sunny Vancouver, British Columbia, a small group of dedicated (and, in some cases, rather hung over) Webmasters gathered in a large conference room to discuss the finer points of operating and/or dealing with affiliate programs. Heading up the discussion were two of my TopBucks colleagues, Allison, Kristin, and myself – all feeling equal parts nervous, anxious, and more than a little upstaged by the footage from the previous night’s party running on the video screen behind us as the discussion began.

The first order of business was to stop the video, not because I object to having twelve foot high close-ups of bare breasts scrolling by over my shoulder as I address a group of people in a conference room, but simply because we thought it might be hard to trump explicit sexual content with anything contained in the hastily scribbled notes I had jotted down in front of me. (You tell me which is of more interest to the average adult Webmaster; a pair of bouncing, silicon enhanced breasts, or an analysis of exposure-to-click ratios for banners vs. blind text links?)

Once we had the floor to ourselves, we began with a short discussion of selling traffic by the click vs. selling it on a per signup basis, and the revenue ramifications of each. Allison made an interesting point for the newbies in the room, “When you’re first starting out, you might want to sell your traffic on a per click basis, just so that you can see some immediate return. That way, you don’t have to sit, wait and wonder if you’re ever going to make a sale – you’ll start seeing the money add up as soon as you start sending hits.”

For my part, I don’t think of selling traffic to per click or per signup programs as an “either/or” proposition; there’s no rule that you can’t sell traffic to both per click and per signup sponsors. As I told the assembled Webmasters at the show, one technique that has been very successful for me over the years has been using my best ad spots for my per signup sponsor banners, while incorporating blind text links in other spots on the same pages, all of which point to per click sponsors. That way, I get a second chance to grab the surfers who simply don’t respond to banner ads. (There are an increasing number of Net-savvy surfers who instantly recognize banners as ads – but they might not be as quick to disregard a text link that says “Free Teen XXX Pic”…)

We were asked how a Webmaster can know if he’s dealing with a reputable company or not, when choosing which affiliate program to use. The short answer is that you really can’t know for sure. You can post questions on the Webmaster boards about the prospective sponsor, but you have to take the replies with a grain of salt (if you get any serious replies, that is), because some of the people responding are bound to be simply spamming for the sponsor that they link to in their signature, while others will just use the opportunity to take potshots at an affiliate program they have a beef with (whether the beef is legit or not). Perhaps a better way to go is to contact Webmasters that you know and trust individually, either via email or ICQ, and ask them who they have had good/bad experiences with. Ultimately, though, the proof is, as they say, in the pudding; the best advice is to try sending traffic to a variety of sites/programs, and stick with the one that makes you the most money. As I said at the show, though, make sure you send enough traffic to judge the program fairly. If you send a thousand uniques to a site, and don’t see any sales, it doesn’t mean the site is a dog; a thousand uniques really isn’t that much traffic. If you send 10,000 uniques and don’t see a sale, then it’s probably safe to say that you should move on – keeping in mind, of course, that the traffic you send has as much to do with the resulting sales as the site you send the traffic to (in many cases, the initial source of the traffic probably has a lot more effect on the click:signup ratio than the site you send the traffic to does).

On the more general subject of how to run an affiliate program, we provided an outline of what we feel to be the most important things to keep in mind when managing your program. In my opinion, it’s crucial to make yourself available to your affiliates. Answer every email that comes in, even the ones that are just flame mails accusing you of shaving, spamming or any other sort of unseemly activity. Listen to the suggestions that Webmasters make – you never know when one of them is going to hit the nail on the head and supply you with the next innovation that will make your program stand out in the crowd.

As a whole, I found the exchange between our three-headed TopBucks panel and the Webmaster audience to be a congenial and useful discussion. There were no ugly accusations, no bickering or bashing – just an exchange of ideas, questions, concepts and suggestions that left me with some new ideas, and several more pages of hastily scribbled notes. Sure, there were moments of awkward personal revelations, but what fun is a panel discussion without at least a little tension? My only regret: turning off the party footage before we got to see anything with really juicy potential for blackmail value…

Quentin is part of the Marketing & Public Relations team for TopBucks and TopCash and can be reached at quentin@topbucks.com.