Building Blocks to Motivate Affiliates

It would seem obvious that, as a Merchant, it is important to consistently motivate and encourage Affiliates to participate in an Affiliate program.  ShareASale has a number of tools that can help make this a much simpler process and can help make any program unique and stand out from the crowd.  Between segmenting Affiliates, setting up performance bonus campaigns, and unique commission rules, it’s easy to imagine the endless options for rewarding Affiliates.  

NEWSLETTERS

The most common medium to motivate Affiliates is via newsletter.  Sending targeted and personalized newsletters to Affiliates not only lets them know that this is a serious program, but depending on the content also keeps them informed of new product updates, seasonal promotions, competitions, or even monthly performance bonuses!  As a quick summary of Sarah’s earlier post “Presenting Your Best Self- 6: Newsletters”, ShareASale’s newsletter tool allows Merchants to communicate with Affiliates on a regular basis with a targeted, personalized message.  Using this tool, Merchants are able to select recipients based on a number of criteria ranging from Affiliate  “tag”, performance metrics, Affiliate state, etc.

Once the targeted Affiliates are selected, composing the newsletter can be done via HTML for a custom look and feel, or plain text.  Additionally, utilizing Macros enables more customization and personalization.

One use of the newsletter tool to motivate Affiliates is as follows:

Target Affiliate: All Affiliates “tagged” as Mommy Bloggers with commissions this month MORE THAN $50 and LESS THAN $200.

Purpose of Newsletter:  Send a new customer who buys product sku 385295 during the month of December to double the commission amount!! 

Segmentation

Segmenting a programs’ Affiliate base expands the customization capabilities exponentially.  Merchants can label or “tag” Affiliates from numerous places with in the interface, though the most common place is within the Affiliate List under a specific Affiliate:

After a tag is created, Merchants are able to filter reports based on tag, upload private creatives, build out commission rules, or (as we saw earlier) send out newsletters to a specific tag.  There are a number of other was to use tags, though using the above suggestions in conjunction with each other can help motivate Affiliates!

To filter and find Affiliate based on XYZ metrics (for example) go to Affiliate List and add a condition so that only Affiliates with commissions this month at least $50 and no greater than $200…or just click here: Affiliate List – Commissions between $50 and $200.  Refresh report and create new “tag” using the Mass Action feature:

Commission Rules

To execute this example campaign, the next step is to create an advanced commission rule.

IT IS ALWAYS RECOMMENDED TO WORK WITH OUR SUPPORT TEAM TO CREATE AN ADVANCED COMMISSION RULE…EVEN IF YOU ARE AN EXPERT!

Advanced commission rules are arguably the most in-depth tool that ShareASale has to offer.  This is where Merchants are finding ways to really make their program unique and competitive.  Offering a unique and competitive program will, in turn, motivate and excite Affiliates.  Motivated and excited Affiliates will tend to give higher priority to their Merchants.

Within the Advanced Commission rules, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different combinations to fine tune a commission structure.  Sarah wrote a blog post in February that highlights a lot of different options and the flexibility of advanced commission rules…it’s a great read for any Affiliate Manager…seriously: Personal Commission Rules Updated!

Referring back to the “motivation” example above, building the commission rule undoubtedly requires a more in-depth understanding of ShareASale…it is always recommended to consult with our Support Team to make sure the rule is setup exactly as it should be and won’t be overriding other rules.

However, assuming everything is OK and the program is ready for additional rules follow these instructions for the above example.

Go to the Advanced Commission Rules section and “Add a New Rule”.  Edit the name to reflect the desired campaign, set the commission amount, decide if the system should stop processing more rules, and then build the conditions.  In the example referenced throughout this post, the conditions are as follows:

-Product SKU list matches a specific value: Equals product SKU, apply only to matching SKUs

-Customer is a specific type: New Customer

-Transaction date matches a pattern: Between or equal to 12/01/2013 and 12/31/2013

-Affiliate has a specific tag: Content 

One quick note:  To setup this commission structure, Merchants will first need to setup a Product Datafeed with SKU-based commissions as well as New Customer tracking.  If this is not setup, contact our support team through the online ticket system.

The example below is in RED because the aforementioned variables are not setup in this particular account.  To remedy this, again, contact our support team through the online ticket system.

Now that the commission rule is set, Merchants can send out a newsletter in October or November letting Affiliates know that they will earn double commissions for selling a particular product in December!  What Affiliate WOULDN’T be excited and motivated by that!?

Try it out and let us know how it worked for you!  Most importantly, be creative with your program!  Motivate Affiliates and incentivize them…they work hard for you…reward them for their labor!