#Q4Prep – 4 Things Never to Do in Q4

This may sound obvious, but I’m not talking about having a website go offline, I’m talking about specifically with ShareASale – keep your balance above $0 so that your Affiliate Program stays online and Affiliates can continue to send you traffic and customers.

ShareASale offers “Auto-Deposit” which allows you to setup a balance that is comfortable for you to be added to your account, when it reaches a threshold that you set.  

For Q4, I highly recommend raising the threshold significantly.  If you usually deposit funds when your account gets to $500, for example, raise it up to $1,000.

Going offline in Q4 is not a mistake that you want to make, and with the tools available on ShareASale there really is no reason it should happen.

Unfortunately, we see Affiliate experimenting with traffic sources that can jeaporidize their account on ShareASale.

The most common is what is called “PPV Traffic” or Pay Per View.   PPV Traffic is just a fancy term for Adware, and is not allowed to be used on ShareASale. 

While it is common to go out and look for new traffic sources in Q4, pay close attention to what is being delivered.

Removing Affiliates from your program is a controversial subject on its own, but during Q4 this is something that should never be done.

Often, Affiliates prepare throughout the year for specific campaigns that are to take place throughout Q4 either due to margins/conversion or a specific holiday.

Don’t make the mistake of removing an Affiliate who could have plans for you in Q4!

Most retailers have Q4 freezes with regards to things like tracking pixels, confirmation pages, etc… This is common practice and if you aren’t already doing it you probably should.

However, there are other things to consider specifically with regards to the Affiliate channel, for example we have seen retailers switch Datafeed providers close to Q4, thus leaving a group of their  important partners in the dark when things didn’t go 100% as planned.

When in doubt, optimize throughout the year – but when it comes time for the busy Q4 shopping season … just leave it alone!