Tricia Meyer, Author at Tricia Meyer

Data Feed Accuracy: Who Is Responsible?

February 5, 2013 by Tricia Meyer

Rely on the data feed and you may get punished by the merchant!

I use the coupon feeds from the networks to populate my site, Sunshine Rewards. I import them into my admin panel and then someone on my staff runs a quick check on them for duplicates and blatant errors. We run that check as a courtesy to our members so that we aren’t publishing deals that are bad or do not exist. It’s time intensive, but we have a pretty good process. However, if a coupon that comes through a data feed is not accurate, who is responsible for fixing it, the merchant or the affiliate?

An Angry Merchant

On January 26, I received an email at 8pm on a Saturday night from an angry merchant. The email clearly went to their entire affiliate base (at 8pm on a Saturday night) and stated:

“Good Evening, The Affiliate Exclusive X offer has been cancelled. Unfortunately there are many publishers that posted the offer early and the photo team has decided to pull the plug on the offer. We apologize for any inconvenience. X Affiliate Team.” (emphasis added)

This was the second time I had received such an email from this particular merchant. Although I wasn’t working (did I mention it was a Saturday night??), I immediately went to our page to see if we were one of the publishers at fault. Sure enough, the deal was listed on our page. I immediately removed it.

However, as I went in to remove it, I noticed that although the text of the deal said that it started on January 27, the database field for start date was January 26. I checked all of the other coupons that we had for that merchant, and they were the exact same. The start dates the merchant entered into the “start date” field were all one day earlier than the text.

Who Should Scrub the Coupons?

I emailed the merchant back explaining the situation and said that I did not believe that any of the affiliates posted the deal early intentionally or to get a jump. Rather, most of us use the coupon feeds and do not have the time to manually change every start date when the text and the fields differ. I never received a response.

I try to be pretty balanced when it comes to merchant and affiliate responsibilities, but in this case I think that the affiliates have every right to post the deals as they are sent to us. Yes, we can scrub all of that data and change the dates. But consider:

Most merchants are doing it right. Why should we have to spend all of that extra time on merchants who just don’t use the system right?
We don’t have time to manually add every coupon. That’s why we use the coupon feeds to begin with.
There isn’t an ROI for most of us to pay for a coupon service or an employee just to scrub the coupons that the merchants are adding incorrectly.
With thousands of coupons coming in every day, we are not always going to catch merchant errors even when we do manually look through the coupons.

I’m curious as to what other affiliates think about this and, even more, what merchants think about it. Do other affiliates manually check and change every coupon? Do merchants/affiliate managers/OPMs know how to use the system properly? If not, would they hold affiliates responsible for posting the incorrectly coded coupons a day early?

(I intentionally withheld the name of the merchant here because I don’t think they are doing a bad job with the program overall. I just think they are missing the boat on this one issue. However, I see many other merchants who consistently enter the wrong dates into the feed as well.)

My Lucky 7 Moments of Affiliate Summit West 2013

January 18, 2013 by Tricia Meyer

Since 7 seems to be a lucky number in Las Vegas and I consider myself a pretty lucky person for having attended Affiliate Summit West 2013, I figured that I would wrap up my favorite 7 experiences for my readers. In reality, I could probably have included at least 50 different things that made the conference worth it for me this time. But I don’t have all day and some of you don’t need to know all of them anyway!

(These are definitely in no particular order. And I don’t take many pictures, so you will have to create mental images for yourself.)

1. The Daniel (Rudy) Ruettiger Keynote and Meeting Him

Historically I have not attended more than about half of the keynotes. The more Affiliate Summits I attend, the more likely I am to go to the keynotes despite how busy I am because 1) they are truly motivational, and 2) you often get to meet the speakers after their presentations. I had been looking forward to hearing Rudy since the moment that it was announced. And he did not disappoint! As a fellow Hoosier, I appreciated his stories about our state. As a big football fan, I loved seeing the clip of the movie. But more than anything else I was moved by the story of someone who was a true underdog in every way but managed (more than one time) to see his dreams come true. When I met him for a picture afterward, he was incredibly personable and gracious with everyone. It’s a moment that I will never forget. And we’ll be watching the movie as a family again this weekend for sure!

2. Presenting On My Panel

You would think that after presenting year after year it would get boring or that you wouldn’t get nervous every time. Not so for either! My presentation was entitled Coping With Affiliate Marketing Challenges and we addressed some major issues that our fellow affiliates are facing to stay in business. It was my second presentation with my dear friend Todd Farmer and my first with my mom, Cindy Ballard. I felt a little badly that our moderator Sandrine Thompson got stuck with us because we are a bit like wildfire when we get together! But she managed to keep us on task. I love sharing what I know and learning from fellow panelists and consider myself fortunate that I was allowed to bring this idea to fruition and present it.

3.The ShareASale Party

So many people say that they do not attend the parties because they are at the conference to work and not play. I think in affiliate marketing it all blends together. Yes, I enjoyed my drinking and dancing time immensely on the rooftop of the Paris Hotel. But I also 1) introduced some new affiliates around to get them connected to helpful people, 2) spent time reconnecting with the ShareASale staff, 3) met new affiliates and merchants (including HootSuite and BookIt), and 4) strengthened bonds with affiliate marketing friends. All of those add to the value of the conference. And it was an awesome party.

4. Breakfast and Lunch

That’s weird because it just sounds like I like to eat (which I do). But in reality those are two of my favorite times of the day because I always end up spending an hour or so with both a couple of old friends and a couple of new friends. I make sure that I am never at a table by myself or with all people that already know each other. It’s great to bring just 1 or 2 new people into the group so that we can all get to know them in a quieter, low-key setting. It’s a HUGE benefit of the VIP pass.

5.Tim Ash

I’m just going to create one big category here for everything awesome about Tim Ash. I had never met Tim before but had heard that his closing keynote should be very good. I am so glad for those rumors! Tim gave a presentation that hit every important point–the big picture of how things work, how they apply to affiliate marketing, and what we need to be doing to take advantage. He used fun images and was charismatic. Later that night I had the chance to meet him and he was just as sweet and smart as he had appeared to be on stage. Now this morning I am seeing all the pictures on Facebook that apparently he took the time himself to take during the conference. I appreciate it because, as I mentioned before, I took so few myself. Find Tim. He’s awesome.

6. Networking Time

It doesn’t actually count as a “moment,” but it’s my list so I can include what I want. Where else in the span of 48 hours can you meet with your mom (Cindy Ballard), your best friend (Ashleigh Ball), your absolutely-fabulous-in-every-way business partners (Todd Farmer and Eric Nagel), a rep from Disney, hundreds of old friends, hundreds of brand new friends, the inventor of Baby Einstein, the author of a new best-selling book, the Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association, thousands of business owners, and multiple Elvis impersonators? You may only get in a quick hug or might have planned a half hour meeting. The people are there. You just have to put yourself out there to spend time with them.

7. The Inside Jokes

A big part of attending Affiliate Summit is in the memories that are made that you just can’t explain to everyone else (and for the most part do not want to). We will talk about some of them on Twitter and Facebook for months to come and at conferences for years to come. Some of my favorites this year included: Captain Stubing, Tainted Love, people who wear flesh-colored body suits, Schweddy Balls, Fun Fact!, Smack…and Rub, dirty beer pong…what am I forgetting??

Wrapping It Up

I can’t say that I spent much time in the Meet Market or the Exhibit Hall, but it was not for lack of trying. There was just too much to do! They were both very busy, however, which means there must have been a lot to see in there. The Twitter hashtag for the show (#asw13) was both useful and entertaining. There were countless other parties, happy hours, and events going on both private and open to everyone. If you go to Affiliate Summit and find yourself with “down time,” you are not looking hard enough for things to do.

Here’s to planning for ASE13 in Philadelphia!

Combine Tools to Streamline Work and Reach Customers

January 17, 2013 by Tricia Meyer

I’ve been a full-time affiliate marketer for 7 years and during that time I can never remember feeling like there was enough time to do everything that I want to do. Part of my problem is that I am always coming up with new ideas that I want to try out. Knowing that 1) my merchants are increasingly sending more daily deals, and 2) my customers are always looking for them, I wanted to find a way to reach as many of my members as I could in different ways while also allowing for non-members to find my deals.

I started brainstorming how to make it happen without a lot of programming. I have a programmer on staff but I didn’t want to invest a lot of time in something that I wasn’t sure would even have a lot of return. I liked the concept but couldn’t justify creating a whole new system to make it happen. That led me to looking at the existing tools that I was already using to see if I could use them in new ways.

In less than 24 hours and without any programming help I was able to create the Sunshine Rewards Daily Deal newsletter. My process was interesting both in terms of the general way in which I approached it as well as the specific results I have achieved.

Using Tools I Already Have

I have a forum that runs on vBulletin, and I have a subscription to AWeber. Surely there would be a way to combine the two such that when I post in the forum it could get piped into a newsletter? It turns out that it is quite simple. I created a new forum on Sunshine Rewards specifically for Daily Deals. I then set permissions such that only employees could start new threads. We enter each deal as its own post, including an image.

We took the RSS feed for that forum and created a new AWeber newsletter via Blog Broadcast that would pull from that feed once a day Monday through Friday.

We used a basic template to keep it simple. We also included a place for one “Featured” offer that would be available only in the newsletters and not in the forum. Now our members have the choice of finding the offers in the forum or waiting for the newsletters.

Benefits of the Project

With very little work we can use the same content in two places because we know that we have members that like receiving content in different ways. Members are getting the very best deals in one easy place. We have a new feature to use for leverage with our merchants in exchange for increased commissions or exclusive deals. With an average open rate of over 25% during non-holiday shopping (and higher during peak shopping times), we know that people are paying attention.

We asked for consumer feedback recently and it was terrific. We have very low unsubscribe rates and the list continues to grow well. Members like that they can comment on the posts to either get more information about the deals or comment on the deals if they have already tried them. The user-generated content is a nice addition to the deal. And the AWeber analytics help us to tweak which deals we are posting based on where we see interest (or not).

Brainstorming the Logistics

I am thankful that I have my Mastermind Group to help me come up with solutions like this. Even if you do not have a group like that, you can still get creative on your own. My best suggestion is to visit the AWeber blog frequently and see how other people are using the service. Think about your own problems and how their ideas can become your solutions as well. One of the biggest keys to being a successful affiliate marketer is learning how to make the most with what you have and spend your time wisely. Combing different technologies is a great way to do that.

Have you used AWeber in a unique way or combined it with other technologies? I would love to hear about it!

My Personal 2012 Affiliate Marketing Review

January 2, 2013 by Tricia Meyer

As 2013 begins and I start setting goals for my business for 2012, I need to take a look back at what was 2012 and see what worked and what didn’t. It was definitely a year for a lot of changes for affiliate marketers and I feel blessed to even still be in the game. That said, it took a lot of work and trying new things–some that worked and some that didn’t. So what was important for me in affiliate marketing in 2012?

Affiliate Summit (and Pinnacle Award)

I started off the year with a bang and high hopes. Affiliate Summit West 2012 rejuvenated me and helped me regain my focus after slacking off a bit. I was awarded the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Award for Best Blogger and decided that I had better keep up my blogging to prove that I deserve it. I did well with that for 11 months (let’s not talk about December). What could I have done better? Planned more blog posts for sure. Scheduled them out for December when I knew I would be too busy to write. In other words, I should have practiced what I preached. But it was a good way to start the year.

Pinterest took up a lot of my time early in the year. I wrote about how affiliate marketers could use it and even conducted an Affiliate Marketing and Pinterest Webinar. As expected, a lot changed with the site over the year. By the end of it, I was barely paying any attention. I’m glad I jumped on it when I had the chance to stay ahead of the curve. However, I’m not sure I got much out of Pinterest besides a few backlinks. [Read more…]

Commission Reversals: What You Need to Know

October 16, 2012 by Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Commission Reversals As affiliate marketers, we look at a number of factors to determine which programs we want to work with. Among these are obviously the type of products, the reputation of the merchant, the EPC, and how the program is managed. One other metric that is often debated is the Reversal Rate, shown only in some networks. The reversal rate can be an indicator of very good or very bad things, but you have to know what you are looking at to figure that out.

What is the Reversal Rate?

The reversal rate is quite simply the percentage of affiliate sales/leads that were reversed for any reason during a time period. I like that ShareASale shows both the 7 day and the 30 day reversal rate. You can see these even before you join the program.

Why Do Commissions Get Reversed?

Commissions can be reversed for any number of reasons. The most common is usually that the order was cancelled either before it was placed or after the customer received the merchandise. This would include orders where the credit card could not be processed. Orders can also be cancelled if they were duplicates for technical reasons or for fraud. Less commonly, a commission may be reversed because the customer exchanged the merchandise for a different size or color. [Read more…]