How to Engage Affiliates After Q4 – Part 2

Welcome to part two of “Engaging Affiliates After Q4”! As you may recall, part one covered how a Merchant can utilize our tagging feature to execute various engagement strategies. In part 2, I will cover how you can use the 4 “I’s” to bring a more personalized approach to your Affiliate activation efforts.

The 4 I’s

 1) IDENTIFY – Affiliates that had a big impact on your program during Q4.

How? Utilize the Affiliate Timespan Report to generate the performance data by individual Affiliate for a specific timeframe (October 1 – December 31 since we are talking about Q4). This report will give you vital information such as commission, clicks, gross sale, the number of sales, and more, so it is easy to identify whom your top performers were during that period.  

Once you identify your key Affiliates, utilize the tagging feature to organize the Affiliates by promotional type. If you need help determining how an Affiliate might be promoting your brand, reference the Banner Performance, and Datafeed Downloads reports. The Banner Performance Report will show you which Affiliates are using specific creative types. So you can get a sense of which Affiliates use coupon links versus product links, for example. The Datafeed & FTP Downloads Report displays the Affiliates that have exported your datafeed during a given period. Any Affiliates that are actively accessing your product datafeed are most likely product-focused in their marketing efforts. 

 2. INVOLVE – Affiliates in the program thru creative collateral engagement.

How? The best way to engage your Affiliates is to offer them supporting material that is relevant to their marketing efforts. Two commonly used creatives are coupon codes and product links. Get your top Q4 performers more involved in the program by offering one of the following strategies.

Consider offering an exclusive coupon code to your top Q4 performers. Having a unique code increases the Affiliate’s loyalty to your program and helps the Affiliate stay competitive. You can further protect these codes by “forcing” exclusivity. This means that any transaction generated as a result of that code being used, regardless of the Affiliate, the commission will be created to the Affiliate that the code was created or intended for.

Note: Forced exclusivity requires the coupon code tracking parameter be added to the tracking pixel. If you are interested in adding this parameter, please submit a ticket and we will provide the implementation instructions.

If you have a product datafeed, you can offer specific commissions
based on the product that was sold.  If product level tracking is enabled, a Merchant can create a rule or special commission based on the product sold. This can be a creative way to bonus one of your top Q4 performers if you have specific inventory you would like them to focus on.

Note: Product Level Tracking requires an additional parameter be added to the tracking pixel. If you are interested in adding this parameter, please submit a ticket and we will provide the implementation instructions.

 3) INTERACT – with Affiliates through personalized communication.

How?  The Newsletter tool is an excellent way to interact with the Affiliate base.Assuming your Q4 top performers have been tagged (remember part 1?), you can reach out individually to these Affiliates using the available filters under the “Recipients” tab. 

Once you have your recipients selected to receive the newsletter (it will send to all approved Affiliates by default), you can further customize this interaction with your Affiliates by using the macros. The macros enable Merchants to embed links to specific creative, so it is simple for Affiliates to copy and paste the information they need to get started right away.

Example time! Let’s pretend I am the Merchant and I want you (my Q4 performer) to promote the ShareASale logo. By using two macros, I can have the image of the logo displayed along with your personalized Affiliate link.

Macros used:

!!BANNERID1234!!

!!BANNERID1234CODEDISPLAY!!

Will generate:

4) IMPACT – Use Advanced Commission options to solidify the Affiliate’s loyalty to your program.

How? ShareASale offers a slew of commission possibilities that can be refined to award a specific commission to your tagged Affiliates. This will have a tremendous impact on how the Q4 performers market your program. 

As an example, you can utilize the Advanced commission rules to award an increased commission for sales that are generated by your Affiliates with a specific tag.  This lets your VIP Affiliates know that you appreciate everything they have done for you over Q4, and you would like to award them accordingly.

Another option would be to set up a conversion line specifically for one tag that awards them commission regardless of any Affiliate click that might come after theirs. Traditionally in Affiliate Marketing, the last click wins. With ShareASale’s conversion line technology, you can set up a conversion line in such a way that if your tagged Affiliate is the anywhere in the clickstream, we credit the transaction to that Affiliate, regardless of if their click was last or not.

Note: Conversion Line is an advanced technology. Please contact the ShareASale Client Services team to learn more about your options. 

There you have it – the 4 I’s!  Make it your New Year’s resolution to incorporate these tips to help set your Affiliate Program apart and keep the momentum going with those Affiliates that were performing best at the end of 2015!