Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Using Affiliate Links Over AdSense

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A lot of bloggers use AdSense to monetize their sites, and you can definitely make good money from it. Sometimes you have content that is difficult to monetize in any other way and the AdSense links blend in to provide you some revenue.

However, there are definitely down sides to using AdSense to monetize your blog as compared to affiliate marketing. Here’s a great example that I ran into on one of my own sites this week.

When AdSense Doesn’t Work

I wrote a blog post a long time ago about Champagne of the Month Clubs. It was a great post when I had a merchant who sold Champagne of the Month Clubs and was worthy of promoting. Since the time I wrote that post, the merchant stopped selling the clubs and I was unable to find a good replacement that converted. Because of that, we added an AdSense block to the post.

In reviewing AdSense revenue the other day, Eric and I realized that we were making NOTHING from the block on the post despite a fair amount of traffic. How could that be? I went to look at the post and saw this:

In the middle of my post about Champagne was an ad for Sears Parts Direct. And not just an ad but a totally random picture of a part called a Transaxle that I am not sure that I have ever seen or would ever buy.

If you know anything about AdSense, you know that a big part of their ads involve retargeting. That is, they will show you an ad for a site that you were previously on. If it had just so happened that I was on a site that sold wine clubs the day before, I may have gotten lucky and seen a picture of wine here and it would have looked great and maybe even made me a couple of pennies. But as is often the case with retargeting, the ad that is on your page will have absolutely nothing to do with the content of your page or site.

Sometimes AdSense is just plain ugly!

There ARE ways to ensure that you get better ads on your site through AdSense, but that is a post for another day and involves a lot of things that, quite frankly, won’t apply to a lot of my readers. There are a lot of settings involved as well as ensuring that you have a good deal of traffic. I’m not saying never use AdSense!

But if you were just planning on throwing some AdSense around your site and making money off of it, you might want to take a close look at how much you are making versus how it looks on your site to decide if sticking with affiliate links would be better for you.

What Was My Solution?

In this case we decided that the look of our site and the feel of our review pages was more important than the few pennies we might (might!) make off of the AdSense. Our ultimate goal is to sell wine clubs, not make pennies on the dollar with display or clickthru ads. So I removed the AdSense, created a new custom image with Picmonkey, and we are negotiating with the replacement merchant to figure out how to make the affiliate links convert better.

What’s the point of all of this, Tricia?

First, you should be checking analytics. You know how many people view your pages. You know how much you are making per view using AdSense or per click with your affiliate links.

Second, like Jessie J says, “It ‘s not about the money, money money.” Okay, maybe it is. But when you look at the big picture of your site and how you earn revenue, you have to figure out whether certain ads are not worth the money because they are causing you to lose other potential revenue.

Lastly, I’m using my own site as an example, but I’ve seen the same thing on a lot of your sites. I see what you are posting to make money with and question whether it is worth it considering the overall effect of how it makes your site look and function. Look hard at your numbers and figure out if your particular monetization strategy is worth it.

Are you a fan of AdSense? Do you use it because it makes you a lot of money or because you don’t know a better way to monetize?

10 Unexpected Takeaways from Affiliate Summit East #ASE14

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After attending over 15 Affiliate Summits, you would think that I would not be surprised at anything. I’ve attended sessions, networking events, parties, and more for over 8 years. And yet every time I leave a show, I end up coming away with things I didn’t anticipate.

  • I benefited a lot from my own session. That seems weird, but I probably benefited as much from the work I put into my own session as the people who attended did. First, I learned from Vanessa and Eric. They are both really smart, connected people. But second, I had to “practice what I preached.” You can’t be an expert on networking without actually DOING it. Over the last 4 months as we put together the presentation, I found myself really upping my own game and trying new tactics to see how they worked. I feel more connected now than ever before.
  • I actually like raw fish. I know that’s really random. But someone suggested at a dinner that I try it. I was skeptical but trying to be a good sport. And it was good.
  • People still are not taking advantage of some of the best opportunities at the conference. I sat by myself at a table in the VIP Snack on Sunday for almost 45 minutes. I was completely ready to meet new people, offer advice, make introductions, etc. Yet hardly anyone came in compared to the number of people with VIP passes. Even if you aren’t eating, it is a nice, quiet place to network.
  • A lot of people still don’t understand the benefit of networking before selling. They go right in for the pitch of their company without really having a conversation with you. If it were speed dating or a pitch session, I would understand. I’m talking about places like parties and meals. I am immediately turned off by people who sit down next to me and start pitching me right off the bat.
  • There are some REALLY awesome karaoke performers in our industry—including harmonica duets, back-up dancers, and Al from DealTaker’s wife!
  • After almost 10 years in the industry, I can still walk in a room and know almost no one. I attended a dinner with probably 50-60 people and I only knew around 5 of them. These were people in my same niches who worked with the same networks I work with. It just goes to show how much the industry continues to grow and how vast it really is.
  • Booth babes still exist. I thought we were past that. Apparently not because 2 cute girls approached a group of guys in the Exhibit Hall and awkwardly said to them “Do you do..um…internet…uh..marketing?” (Like they didn’t even know what that meant) The guys replied that they did and started to hit on the girls. The girls shoved flyers at them and took off for the next unsuspecting group of guys.
  • Giants Stadium is really cool. Even when your team loses the game. And people who take you to the game just to be nice are even cooler.
  • Too many people still do not know what the Performance Marketing Association is. Ask any lawyer what the American Bar Association is and they can tell you the basics. Ask performance marketers about the PMA and most will look at you funny. I know we are a young organization, but we still have a long way to go in educating and getting buy-in from the people in our industry. If you do not know what it is or are not involved, please talk to me!
  • No matter how many Affiliate Summits I attend, I still learn something new, meet new people, and come away energized after every single one. You may think that there is a point of diminishing returns on attending, but there shouldn’t be if you make the most of everything that is available to you there. I’m signing up with a new CPA network, picked up a few new merchants, made some new friends, secured commission increases for the holidays, and secured some PMA memberships. That’s on top of solidifying current relationships with OPMs, merchants, and fellow affiliates. Not to mention coming home ready to kick some butt in the 4th quarter!

Was there anything about Affiliate Summit East 2014 that was surprising to you? Did anything unexpected happen for which you are grateful?

(photo credits: Thanks for the random pictures, Kim Rowley, and for tagging me in them on Facebook from FMTC!)

EPC Zero? Affiliates Beware

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I was looking through some stats for one of my niches today on CJ. When I notice that we are not making much money off of a merchant that we have a lot of traffic for, the first thing I do is go into the network to see what their overall stats look like for other affiliates. What I saw for the merchant in question shouldn’t have surprised me given our lack of sales.

The 3 month EPC (Earnings Per 100 Clicks) for the merchant was $3.41. The 7 day EPC was ZERO. That’s ZERO commissionable sales in the last 7 days across ALL of their affiliates.

If it were March and the site sold Christmas trees, I might not worry. But I know that the EPC for their competitors that I promote is anywhere from $5-200. Houston, we have a problem.

There are a number of reasons that the EPC could be zero, none of them good for the affiliates.

  • Tracking is broken. Perhaps tech made a change to the site and didn’t replace a necessary tracking pixel. You would be surprised how often this happens.
  • The site itself is down. With a smaller merchant, the site could actually be completely down and you are still sending traffic. This is rare but has happened.
  • Products are sold out. It’s possible that all of the products are sold out. We had this happen once with a Daily Deal site. They just flat stopped putting deals up on the site, although the site was still up.
  • The site isn’t converting for some reason. Did the merchant make a change to the site that is making it undesirable to the customers? Did they change the shopping cart in some way that is making people abandon the cart 100% of the time?
  • The SKUs in the network are wrong. For some programs, the merchants only pay for specific SKUs on their site. If the merchant changes the SKUs of the products they are selling but does not update them in the network, there might be sales but they are tracked at 0% commission.
  • The merchant is “stealing” the sales. Has the merchant instituted some kind of pop-up deal on the site that overwrites the affiliate cookie by giving the customer a better deal if they click on it?
  • The products just aren’t any good. It’s possible that the site is fine but people just don’t like what they are selling.

I’m sure that there are even more than this, but ALL of these can be figured out by an affiliate manager worth their salt pretty quickly. The merchant can tell them whether sales are being made at all through other channels (which goes to the site conversion). They can also say whether affiliates are making sales but commissions are not working (SKU issue). The affiliate manager can make a test purchase to see if tracking is working.

Although it is true that stats are only one part of the story of every affiliate program, an EPC of $0 is a big red flag whether you are looking to join a program or are already working with a merchant. When you see it, contact the affiliate manager immediately and start running through the scenarios above to see if you can get to the bottom of it.

What do you do as an affiliate manager or an affiliate when you see a program with a zero EPC?

How To Say “No” to Affiliate Managers

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I am tired of having to explain myself to affiliate managers when I don’t want to join their programs. Ironically, I am typing this post while sitting right next to an affiliate manager, my mom Cindy Ballard. She’s tired of hearing me complain, so I’m going to express myself in a blog post.

In any given day I receive between 5 and 20 emails from merchants, affiliate managers, and OPMs asking me to add their programs to my site. I rank these in a certain priority order before I even respond:

  • Merchants I absolutely know I want based on brand reputation
  • Recommendations from people I really trust or who I will add anything for without question (like my mom)
  • Merchants I check out and decide that I want based on products, commissions, and the look of their site
  • Recommendations from people I know but only casually and who may not really have my best interests at stake
  • “Cold call” emails from people I don’t know at all but seem to have looked at my site
  • Spammy emails from people I don’t know who have never even looked at my site.

Based on where they fall in my priority list, I decide how quickly to respond to the requests. My dream brands get emails within 5 minutes. Trusted friends in the business usually get a response within a few hours. From there it only goes downhill to the bottom of the list which usually sit in my inbox about a week until I just delete them because I don’t know what to say or how to say it.

But affiliate managers are persistent. They use tricks like “Please Respond” in the subject line or “Can we set up a meeting on Tuesday?” to try to get you engaged. I feel guilty when I get these because I know that I do not want to join the program. So I let the emails sit even longer until I get the followup “We recently reached out to you and you have not responded” email. Sometimes I even get voicemail messages reminding me of the emails that they just sent.

How do you say “no” without feeling like a jerk? Here are some of my favorite tips.

  • Thank them for “reaching out” or “connecting” or some other social business lingo.
  • Use the word “unfortunately” at least once (Unfortunately we are not accepting new merchants at this time, adding new links, etc.).
  • Be honest. If you just don’t have time to add the merchant, say that. Tell them to follow up with you in a month. If you don’t like the merchant, say that it isn’t a “good fit” for your audience. If the commission isn’t good enough, tell them it isn’t “competitive” with other merchants you already have listed.
  • Promise to keep the merchant in mind for any future opportunities that you might come across. You never know when either the merchant actually WILL work for your niche or the affiliate manager might have a different merchant that does work for you. Don’t burn bridges!
  • Make it quick. You don’t have to explain yourself. Just give them a couple of sentences of acknowledgement so that they can cross you off their list and move on to other affiliates that they are more likely to be successful with.

Sometimes you will still get responses where they try to convince you that you are wrong. If that is the case, cut your losses and just delete the email or respond firmly “no.” But most times they will thank you for even taking the time to respond. People tend to ignore a lot of email. If you are one of the few people who respond thoughtfully with even a sentence or two, the goodwill generated will outweigh the 60 seconds it took you to respond.

Affiliate managers, can you help us out here? Try not to make us feel guilty, especially when you are only trying to get us to join the program for numbers and not really because we can make any sales. That doesn’t really help either of us. Be honest with us about how something would actually be good for us if you really want us to join. Try not to sound like a used car salesman who just wants to make the sale regardless of whether it’s the right thing to do. Affiliate marketing is not just about sales, it’s about relationships. We don’t want to have to avoid you when we see you at conferences because we can’t look you in the eye.

How do you respond to the different types of requests that you get? Do you respond to every email or just delete most of them?

Affiliates Should Keep An Eye on Commissions

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When I first started adding affiliate marketing links to my site, I watched my numbers like a hawk. I could tell you every banner that was clicked through, how much money I had made that day, and how far I was from getting my first check. Of course, I was lucky if I was getting 1 sale a day and sometimes it took 3 months to hit a network minimum to get a payment!

Since then I have become more lax about watching when the money comes in. Even if I track my earnings regularly, I don’t always check important things like when a merchant last paid the network, when a network last paid me, and if all of the checks I DID receive were correct. That’s a big mistake. If affiliate marketing is your business, you need to treat it like one and be sure that you are receiving every penny that is owed to you. Here are some ways that you can ensure that you get what you deserve.

Choose Networks That Make Merchants Pre-Pay

Every network does their payment system a little bit different. Some invoice merchants at the end of the month and give them X amount of time to pay, which means you get it Y amount of time later. Other networks make the merchant put money into an account or put a credit card on file to cover the commissions at the time of the transaction. This is preferable!

I understand that merchants want to pay later. But for many reasons this causes problems for affiliates. As an incentive site, it is hard for me to wait for 90 days to pay out my members when they make purchases. Even as a non-incent site, you may be putting out money in advance for traffic or advertising that is hard to wait 90 days to get back (especially if you are a new company).

Even if you can afford to wait for the funds, you do not want to take the chance of getting burned by a company that goes out of business. We have seen numerous merchants file for bankruptcy. Affiliates become unsecured creditors under the Bankruptcy Code. This essentially means that we are about last on the list to see any money. Even if they end up paying pennies on the dollar to their creditors, the network will get their cut first. A lot of affiliates lost out when big brand names like Linen ‘n Things and Entertainment Book filed bankruptcy, and I am guessing that we won’t be seeing any money coming from Coldwater Creek for the sales we sent this month.

You do not always have a choice as an affiliate, but if you do have the choice, go with a merchant on a network where the funds are guaranteed to get to the network. Even if the network holds them for 30 days, at least you know you are going to get paid. My personal favorite for this is ShareASale because they are very transparent about the process and let you know if a merchant’s funding dips.

Watch When Merchants Pay the Network and You

If you end up going with a merchant on a network that does not require pre-payment, be sure that you are watching to see when a particular merchant’s money is being added to your account. Most networks will have a place in their system where you can see what each payment you receive represents.

Linkshare has an interesting report under “My Account” “Payment Info” “Advertiser Payments History.” You can see a chart of all of the merchants for which you have generated commissions and when they paid their invoices. Sometimes it can be a little bit alarming. For example, it is the end of May and 1800flowers has not yet paid its February invoice for some reason (although it paid March).

Hmmm…flowers…February…I’m guessing they owe a lot of affiliates a lot of money?

Impact Radius sends out an alert when a merchant owes you money and is behind in paying. At that point it is too late to do anything about the past money but at least you can decide it you want to continue promoting the merchant until they get caught up.

Also be sure that the network itself is sending you money when it is supposed to. I realized one time that Google had been sitting on my payments for 3 months because I didn’t have something tax-related updated in my account!

Stay Updated on Major Commission Drops

I know you receive 1000 newsletters a day, and many of us are guilty of not reading them all. But there are some that you NEED to be reading. Merchants are dropping commissions left and right. You may end up being lowered to 1% or even 0% in a program. Chances are good that the merchant isn’t going to call and leave a message on your home phone when they do it. Many of them are quietly slipping them by affiliates.

I like to keep bookmarked the thread “The Ever-Decreasing Commission Rate Downward Spiral” on ABW. You won’t see everything posted but most of the time people do tend to post the really egregious ones. It’s an okay backup if you happen to miss an email. The more of us who contribute to the thread, the more useful it will be.

As an affiliate, there is no one looking after your commissions except for you. You have to place a lot of trust in the networks with which you are working to make sure that they are looking out for your best interests, giving you the tools to watch your money, and creating some kind of accountability with the merchants.

Have you ever found yourself missing a chunk of affiliate revenue? What caused it? Were you able to get it back?