49Above Marketing Group Blog

Affiliate Marketing Q & A with Sarah V. Bundy

Friday, May 8th, 2009 | Industry Interviews, affiliate marketing

As you may know, 49Above founder and leading director Sarah V. Bundy is an Affiliate Marketing expert. She is very well known and highly respected in the industry. Over the years, she’s made connections with high profile industry leaders and learned a great deal about affiliate marketing. 

Because affiliate marketing is still relatively new, we’re always bombarded with questions about it. To answer some of the most common ones, we’ve interviewed Sarah V. Bundy: 

What is affiliate marketing?

Very simply, it’s a form of online marketing, similar to having an online sales force, where affiliates receive commissions based on performance. By joining a merchant’s affiliate program, the affiliate promotes a product or service and receives a commission based on the desired action being completed, like a sale or form completion.

Only a small percentage of businesses are incorporating affiliate into their marketing mix. Why is this? 

Affiliate Marketing is still either a new or unknown concept to many businesses. The businesses that have incorporated an effective affiliate program into their marketing mix earlier on are usually technically more advanced or more up to date with the trends of online marketing. They have done the research to see how they can lower their costs and increase their sales through a performance based marketing model and thus turn to affiliate marketing. Now, lots of businesses are starting to hear about how effective it is now and are looking for expert guidance or management, which is smart.

 But it’s becoming more popular.

Yes. Businesses are seeing results from this very lucrative marketing channel. Their costs decrease as their sales increase leaving room for higher margins or more incremental sales. For any business owner, this is an attractive model to follow. 

It’s also becoming mainstream, so the more businesses that find out about it, the more want to give it a try. The affiliate marketing industry, though still small, is growing. There are now several affiliate marketing conferences held annually worldwide making it easier for people to learn what they need to about getting involved in the industry.

How do you know if affiliate marketing will work for your business?

At lot of it will depend on your product, your price, how much flex room you have with your margins, your ability to deliver your products quickly and efficiently and the quality of your website. Affiliates want to join programs that have a high commission payout, a high average order size, good tools and an attractive conversion rate. They also want to be taken care of so having a dedicated affiliate manager is key.  

Something else to consider is whether your target market IS online or not. You need to know where your demographic shops. If they’re not online, you might want to consider keeping your marketing efforts away from an affiliate program for now. 

Will websites that sell only one product work for an affiliate program? 

Yes, they can, it depends on the affiliate program and the product. Will every affiliate program work? Not necessarily. You will need top quality affiliates who know how to get results active in your program. If you don’t then it might be worth spending your marketing budget on other online strategies or seeing what you can do from an offline perspective. For the most part though, you could potentially have an affiliate program for anything. 

How do you get started? Do you need external consultation?

If you don’t already have experience in affiliate marketing or know the industry well, I would recommend doing your research by talking to several OPMs (Outsourced Program Management Companies or Affiliate Managers), attending conferences or asking questions online. You can sign up for free affiliate forums where people in the industry hang out to work together,

keep up to date with industry events and issues and help each other. Otherwise, we would also be happy to help anyone who has questions.  

A good forum to learn from is ABestWeb where you will find merchants, affiliates, networks and OPMs and Affiliate Managers to communicate with. Each manager has their own style. I recommend doing your research to find one you like, feel comfortable working with and that has a history of producing solid results. 

 When should you expect results? 

An affiliate program takes time to launch and build. You need to build tools such as banners, text links, datafeeds, coupons and more while sourcing good affiliates to join your program. 

Once these affiliates are signed up for your program it’s a matter of getting them set up, active and fully participating in your program. From there you want to continue to maintain your strong relationship with your affiliates, provide them with new information and tools to help them sell better. Also, look for fraud or misconduct in your program and help train the less experienced affiliates so they can get results too. 

A realistic timeframe for launching a successful affiliate program is between two - four weeks.

It usually takes about 6-12 months for an affiliate program to really get rolling and become profitable, however you can start to see results within the first 3 months of the program being live. Just keep in mind that the returns are usually going to come around the six months mark. 

Generally about 5-10% of your affiliates will generate about 90-95% of your affiliate sales revenue, but everyone is important and can contribute something. Also, you never know when someone who’s new ends up boosting their sales over the course of the year so they become one of the top perforating affiliates in your program as well.  

My recommendation is be patient and keep recruiting top performing affiliates who want to work with you. Improve your program so it is more attractive and performs better for affiliates. 

If the tools they need are not available to them then it’s the job of the affiliate manager to get them what they need fast, before they lose interest and move onto another program that’s not yours. Be consistent and focused, open to change and suggestions from your affiliates and keep pushing forward.

Why is choose 49Above?

The team at 49Above has been in the industry for over 10 years. We have great connections and have maintained friendships with some of the top performing affiliates in the world.

We understand the industry and we have a solid track record of producing exceptional results for the programs we manage. We have brought a 1500% increase in sales to one program and had a 98% close rate at a conference for another. 

We love the affiliate marketing industry and try to be involved as much as possible, helping people understand the benefits of having an affiliate program, speaking at conferences, hosting Podcasts and we continue to work to support and make the industry better. 

Additionally we offer great packages to our clients who are looking for an “all in one” online solution as we also specialize in Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, Pay Per Click (AdWords) Campaign Management, Social Media, and Website Usability and Analytics. 

We are the only company in North America that we are aware of who can service all of these strategies fluently in German, Spanish, English and Persian with more languages being added each year. This allows our customers to have an experienced and fully “all in one” marketing team who can reach growing markets which others cannot. 

Most importantly, we are fun to work with, passionate and extremely hard workers. We take pride in what we do and bring that to the table with each of our clients we work with, no matter who or where they are. Our focus is on getting the best possible results for you.

To find Sarah online, visit her blog or follow her on Twitter.

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