
Ask HN: Has anyone used affiliate programs for marketing? - pjharrin
Has anyone used affiliate programs for marketing?
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rokhayakebe
Yes I use affiliate marketing at my day time job. Nearly 40% of our sales come
from affiliates. I am also readying to setup the same for my startup. I am
planning to offer 50% of our sales because we don't have any operating costs,
but in most cases the payout is around 30%. Note that to make your AM
successful you will need to constantaly come up with new offers, incentives,
banner ads etc... and communicate with your top earners. Make them happy.

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pjharrin
Does it work with SaaS model?

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rokhayakebe
I don't see why not. You just have to spend a bit more time recruiting the
proper affiliates.

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spolsky
We tried. COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME. Biggest waste of time in Fog Creek history.
All that time would have been better spent adding features to make our
products better to get more customers.

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jyu
"We tried. COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME." does not apply to everyone. Most likely
you weren't doing it right, and didn't try long enough to make it work.

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ruth
Define "make it work". It worked in that we sent out checks every month and we
got referrals, but it turns out the number of referrals were miniscule
compared to the time we were spending on the program. In addition, once we
stopped it we continued to get the same referrals. People tell other people
about our products because they like them, not because they are going to get a
dollar from the sale.

(50% of the affiliates only had one sale... to themselves).

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jyu
By "make it work," I mean accomplishing your original goals. Those goals were
probably something like "acquire hundreds of new customers per month that Fog
Creek otherwise would not have access to."

The easiest way to make it work is contact someone that has some working
experience with being a software affiliate, or is a part of an affiliate
network. In the same way that successful start ups need to understand what
users want, successful affiliate programs need to understand what affiliates
want. For instance, the majority of 1 sale affiliates could have been
prevented by having a payout limit of $X, where $X = (cost savings from 1
sale) * N, where N > 3\. That way, they need to at least convince 2 other
buddies to purchase FogBugz. Also, you were probably attracting the wrong type
of affiliates. Finally, you need to have a good idea of what each unique
visitor is worth, what each lead is worth, what each sale is worth so you know
the best price you can give to your affiliates.

It can definitely increase your reach/customer base, but it does take effort
to make it work.

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symptic
There's a lot to learn about affiliate marketing at <http://wickedfire.com>.
There are tons of affiliates to converse with and also several affiliate
network CEO's who post there. It's not uncommon for many affiliates here to
make more than $2,000 a day from AM, so it'd be valuable to pick their brains.

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goodkarma
I've been an affiliate, and am getting ready to launch our own in-house
affiliate program (using iDevAffiliate) to promote our own products and
services.

Feel free to drop me a line if you want to chat in more detail.

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alizaki
I'm looking for a few quality affiliates who can take my product in front of
the right people. Couldn't find an email --> zaki (at) timesvr.com

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auston
I have... Commission Junction, LinkShare, Share-a-sale. They work well - but
it's very important to create a good offer, 30-45% is good.

Also, good banners are important.

Each network has a different reach & size. Shareasale is small and Linkshare
is extra large while Commission Junction is right in the middle - but has the
highest quality members (in my opinion).

All in all - Affiliate Programs are only as effective as you make them, I
suggest you spend money on landing page optimization, retargeting & click
tracking in conjunction with Affiliate Marketing.

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omarchowdhury
Your best bet would be to partner with an existing affiliate network who
already have thousands of affiliates ready to promote your product. This is a
better approach because if you create an in-house affiliate program, you are
going to have to market that too.

Message me (AIM: ofchowdhury) and I can point you in the right direction.

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alizaki
Hi, i'm pretty interested in running our service on an affiliate network.
Don't use AIM though. Would appreciate a chat over email --> zaki (at)
timesvr.com

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tocomment
Some of you guys commenting here should make a few detailed blog posts about
this topic. You sound like you know a lot about it.

For my own question. Any thoughts if I could make any money with affiliate
marketing on this site: www.justoneclubcard.com

It only gets about 100 unique vistors per day but I figure it's pretty
specific.

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peregrine
I've done it but its really hit or miss. You need to be constantly updating
your offers, trying new niches, and pushing hard to keep a good relationship
with you affiliate manager. Their are times when you will feel scummy but your
wallet will be fat.

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josefresco
Not for my startup, but I've managed affiliate programs for clients, and am an
affiliate of several products myself.

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swombat
Yes.

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swombat
Hey, don't downmod me, downmod the OP. He's the one who posted up a closed
question that can be answered with a 2 to 3 letters... :-)

