Creating some CPA-based relationships with a few publishers will provide you with an appreciation for what’s involved in affiliate marketing. The question is, when do you make the jump to a major network?

You’ll know the time is right when you require more advanced tools for productivity and scale. The publishers themselves also understand the value of networks, and some of the more successful publishers may not work with you unless it’s through a network.
You should know, however, that you don’t have to give up control when you partner with a major network. A hybrid model is possible where you retain 100 percent control and transparency over the program, but your internal resources are applied to the tools of an established network. This do-it-yourself (DIY) strategy means you still manage the program and communicate directly with the publishers, but you centralize the management of all your relationships using proven tools that are easy to use and cost-effective. The cost savings are delivered through very low fees and the streamlining of your daily activities, including creative asset management, commission structure, offer management, communications and reporting.

If you’ve decided that your company is ready to turbo-charge your DIY strategy by partnering with a major network, keep the following tips in mind:

1. Don’t compromise on transparency. If you already have experience managing publishers directly, you’ll have a good idea of what you want from a network in this area. Make sure you have full access to publisher contact information and the details about their site. There should be no restrictions on contacting publishers.

2. Evaluate your internal skill set. One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make when going down the self-service path to affiliate marketing is being unrealistic when considering the time it takes to nurture and grow an affiliate marketing channel. You also need someone that can spot trends in the reporting, yet can also roll up their sleeves and keep the program up-to-date with fresh creative and offers.

3. Understand the limits of your team. To help with seasonality and to plan for the unexpected, choose a network provider that offers flexible service options. For example, you may need help with publisher approvals at certain times of the year, or you might need help with creative around the holidays. A network with a la carte service offerings will likely be more cost-effective compared to signing a long-term, full-service contract.

4. Leverage the tools. In a DIY model, you can get access to the same tools that are used in the full-service model. You’re just using the tools yourself. Tap into them and you’ll learn how to be productive while optimizing publisher communications and maximizing link distribution.

Shadesshuttersblinds.com has been taking a do-it-yourself approach to affiliate marketing on the network of my company, LinkShare,  and has seen great success.

“It’s really about focus. You have to be strategic and at the same time devote the right amount of time to the tactical day-to-day requirements of running a well-managed program. At this point, I can’t imagine running our program without the advanced tools and reporting of a major network,” said ShadesShuttersBlinds president Louis Lyons. “Our program is growing faster and we’re able to respond to the needs of publishers more effectively.”

Not all advertisers will achieve success. To make the most of this approach, here are some best practices to consider:

• Devote time to the program: It’s easy to overlook the management and maintenance as well as the time required to foster strong relationships with publishers, but if you allocate your time effectively between communications, managing your offers and creative, and doing the right analysis, you’ll see a consistent rise in performance and results.

• Invest in resources: Include training your internal team and taking advantage of the collective experience of your network partner. Thiscombination ensures you’re not working in a vacuum and allows you to make the most of your investments. Select a network that has training options.

• Master the marketing principles: The basics of product, price, promotion and placement still apply when it comes to the online channel. Extend your marketing calendar to your affiliate marketing channel. Integrate your marketing messages to ensure consistency across all your channels while customizing your messages according to audience whenever possible.

• Keep up with the industry: Make sure your offers are current, compelling and competitive. Publishers have a lot of options. If your competitor is offering a better commission, then you can guess who they’ll promote.

While the self-service model on a major network isn’t ideal for every advertiser, it can be a way to cut costs while tapping into a very advanced yet easy-to-use set of tools for building a long-term affiliate marketing strategy.

How should I communicate with my affiliates?

1. Take a personal approach: Many mature programs include thousands of members, so addressing affiliates personally, wherever possible, would be appreciated. Your network should give you some way of personalizing any bulk emails, and it should supply direct contact details so you can send a custom message to select affiliates. Further, instant messaging tends to be a resource  utilized more heavily than the phone in the affiliate community, with many affiliates preferring it to email. Embrace this approach by signing up for a messenger service and adding it to your program description with an open invitation for affiliates to contact you.

2. Have a presence where affiliates hang out: Forums, round tables, trade shows and other industry events all attract high-quality affiliates. Try to make sure that you, or your network contact, monitor affiliate forums and blogs, as affiliates are a valuable news source about how your brand is performing.

3. Reach beyond your program: The network’s communication suite is not just a glorified email system. When you need to make a big announcement, use the network’s own promotional resources. Any reputable network will have its own newsletter, blog, Twitter and Facebook presence, and this can help amplify your message beyond the network, bringing in new affiliates.

4. Request feedback: Don’t be afraid to solicit information from affiliates. This will allow you to make smart decisions about which partners are suitable for specific campaigns, and how much to compensate them. Ask affiliates about how they intend to promote your program and get vital stats on their number of monthly visitors, page views, email database size, etc.

What should I communicate?

Affiliates will expect regular (but not constant) updates on new campaigns and promotions. The golden rule here is that when you do send affiliates new marketing material, do so in a way that cuts down on the work for them. Deep link everything that is promotional and avoid sending general information about your brand strategy. The place to provide an overview of your company is the program description or within introductory materials.

Beyond regular promotions, ensure affiliates are fully informed on any changes to these six crucial aspects of an affiliate program:

1. Changes to Terms and Conditions: It is particularly important to communicate any changes in the paid search policy, cookie length or kinds of affiliate activities you permit. A reasonable notice period should be given before the changes come into effect, and feedback should be welcomed.

2. Changes to the commission structure: Changes in commission, whether up or down, should always be communicated, as this might require affiliates to change their forecast or budgets. Many affiliates work their campaigns back to an EPC and commission (along with conversion rates and rejected or returned offers) impacts this calculation. Where it is necessary to lower commissions, solicit input from your network contact to identify and address any potential problems.

3. Site downtime: Everyone recognizes that potential for site downtime is unavoidable. However,where it is scheduled, make sure this news is communicated to affiliates in advance. These actions build trust and allow affiliates to plan accordingly. Avoid making affiliates feel like an afterthought if other channels are made aware and they’re left in the dark.

4. Affiliate suspension: Affiliate links will break if an affiliate is removed from a program without any warning. This causes a poor user experience and will stop potential customers from reaching your site via that affiliate. Suspending an affiliate from a program should only be carried out after contacting them, explaining the reason for their suspension and inviting feedback.

5. Modifications to the site structure: Similar to affiliate suspensions, making changes to your website might impact affiliate links and could cause error messages. Aside from damaging affiliate relationships, this could cause your company to lose customers and revenue.

6. Offer start and end dates: It is increasingly important to ensure affiliates are advertising the correct information on their sites so that consumers do not feel misled. Providing start and end dates for discount codes, sales or special offers are not only helpful for the affiliate, they prevent detrimental action from unhappy consumers.

Affiliates can feel hurt about a company’s decision to lower a commission, or eliminate a popular method of promotion. What’s more, a simple misunderstanding via email can turn into personal attacks on you, the affiliate manager, in forums or through unsavory email messages to your boss.

Below are just a few scenarios that you might face, and suggestions for addressing them. These are not absolute cures; however, consider them as tools for repairing your relationship with your affiliates.

Scenario 1: You lower the payout of your affiliate program, because your budget is not big enough.

Solution: If it’s absolutely necessary to lower your payout due to a small budget, then do so. But remember that reducing all the affiliates in your program to a lower threshold is not the best alternative.

Not all affiliates are the same. Top performers that send through a high-quality volume of traffic and sales shouldn’t be equated with someone who just learned about affiliate marketing yesterday and needs more time to optimize their campaigns. Try offering a tiered commission, so that your partners are compensated based on their performance.

If tiered commissions aren’t possible then at least segment a handful of top performers into a higher commission group. Give them a friendly phone call to notify them of this benefit. Also explore rewarding lower-tiered affiliates with a bonus if they have achieved a high threshold.

Scenario 2: You abruptly kick out affiliates from your program because they don’t make any money.

Solution: Ask yourself whether or not you clearly communicated your performance requirements to your affiliates. Did you send them an email threatening to remove them from your program? Affiliates can’t all be super performers from the start. Take a step back and evaluate your relationships with the partners in your program.

Forums and popular blogs are filled with negative comments about “break-up tactics.” If they’re talking about you, make a public statement and admit your error. There’s nothing more humbling to an affiliate when they see an affiliate manager or program representative admit their mistakes.

Offer the chance to those affiliates who felt they were wrongly removed to contact you personally to discuss the problem. Also, a peace offering isn’t a bad idea; what better way to show your willingness to work together again than offering a promotion.

Scenario 3: A new affiliate uses your forbidden keywords in their PPC campaign and didn’t realize it. You decide to blacklist him or her from all your affiliate programs.

Solution: I have seen merchants get extremely irate when they discover that an affiliate has used forbidden keywords in a paid search campaign. However, I have also seen newbie affiliates genuinely forget to scrub their keyword list upon, say, switching their campaigns from Yahoo to Google. Sometimes merchants also forget to make forbidden practices explicit.

Unless the rules are blatantly communicated, it’s best to halt blacklisting affiliates. Make sure to communicate the rules clearly rather than have them simply listed in your terms and conditions.

Explain the details through your welcome email to new affiliates, on your sponsored forums, in your affiliate program description and anywhere else affiliates are likely to read about you. Let’s be honest, terms and conditions aren’t always a guaranteed way to prevent prohibited activity.

As you can see it helps to establish a communication strategy for attracting and maintaining quality relationships. Make it part of your affiliate program’s objectives to start sending out clear and transparent messages in your affiliate program.

If your internal objectives are only about earning as much money as possible in your affiliate program during the next three months, then you need to rethink those objectives. The message you convey publically has to convey the same message in-house.

If you are seeking conversions of 8% or more from affiliates with a relevant website with organic traffic, it’s important to communicate this in the beginning. An explicit description of the type of partners you want will attract more niche affiliates.

In addition, if you’ve decided to message your affiliates about changes to your program, make sure it’s across multiple platforms. Assuming that affiliates will check their email or your terms and conditions is a misjudgement. Have a lateral flow of communication across your program and Facebook pages, and on Twitter.

There is no magic method for handling difficult scenarios with affiliates, but as an affiliate manager try to re-evaluate the way you treat your affiliates. Remember it’s easier to attract bees with honey than with vinegar.

The 2010 Affiliate Summit West had the highest attendance of any Affiliate Summit and the Jan. 9-11, 2011 renewal in Las Vegas is expected to surpass it with a sell-out crowd.

Whether you are an affiliate, merchant or agency, Affiliate Summit is the top opportunity to network with the most successful and stay on top of the latest in affiliate solutions and technology.

Many of the new solutions are related to integrating social media into affiliate marketing efforts. If you attend Affiliate Summit you should consider extending your stay one more day to attend Influence People’s Social Media Marketing Las Vegas the very next day, Jan. 12, 2011.

In a recent survey done by SmartBrief and Summus Limited and profiled in Social Media Examiner’s post on Social Media Trends, businesses surveyed indicated where they are with their social media strategies:

“It takes time for companies to incorporate social media effectively. The data identified a 2-year mark where businesses begin to gain confidence in their social media activity.”

Social media proficiency is critical to affiliates, merchants, businesses and agencies alike. These two coinciding events can put you on the fast track to increased success online.

You can save 10% off any level of Affiliate Summit West pass by using discount code ASW11GROW10 and 10% off tickets to Social Media Marketing Las Vegas by using discount code AdotasAll.

With Affiliate Summit West expected to sell out soon and there being a limited number of Early Bird tickets to Social Media Marketing Las Vegas, if you want to attend you will want to buy soon.

Follow the buzz about the events and find posts, videos and who is attending on Twitter using hashtags #asw11 and #smlasvegas.

For David’s Cookies, affiliates are key to boosting our company’s sales. Like many consumer-oriented businesses, the holiday season can represent the lion’s share of the company’s annual profits and David’s Cookies is no exception. In fact, in recent years we’ve seen our sales increase almost 700 percent in the last six weeks of the year. To sustain continued growth and expand our buying audience of individual consumers as well as corporate gift sales, we invested in a performance marketing program.

Through our affiliate program, David’s Cookies is able to quickly scale our team of online marketers to support the holiday season without requiring the traditional training, management or overhead associated with seasonal employees. Through the added army of online marketers, we can more easily be front-and-center delivering targeted offers at the right time to buyers. With the flexibility to test out marketing campaigns and evaluate program success in near real-time, we can also make adjustments immediately, which is especially important when every minute counts during the holiday shopping season.

What’s amazing? Affiliate programs are based on a pay-per-performance model. As a result, the profits are more immediately realized by the publishers which further incentivizes them to drive more traffic to our website. An additional benefit of our performance marketing program is the ease of building partnerships that are mutually beneficial to all parties in the network.

While there are many benefits to a performance marketing program, it’s not as simple as joining a network and waiting for the profits to roll in.

One of the first and most important decisions is to determine which performance marketing program, or programs, to join. While there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of options, determining the best program that most closely aligns with your business goals can be challenging. Since advertisers and publishers typically join between two to three different performance marketing networks, here are three questions you should ask yourself to assess which performance marketing network and program options are best for your business needs.

1. What evaluation criteria does the performance marketing network use to determine who can join the network — when it comes to both advertisers and publishers?
2. What is the cost to join the network? It’s true that you get what you pay for yet don’t let cost be your sole determining factor. A recent blog post on Affiliate Tip further underscores this point and outlines the dangers of low cost of entry/low return programs.
3. What’s the process for getting new publishers and retailers up and running with a performance marketing program? While many organizations wisely steer away from introducing new marketing approaches during the busy holiday season the team at LinkShare promises that advertisers and publishers can be fully up and running with their performance marketing program within two weeks.

Once the performance marketing network has been selected, the advertiser, publisher and performance marketing provider equally share the responsibilities to manage and ensure the success of the program. From retailers, here are some tips for proactively addressing and avoiding three of the most common challenges that face new entrants when they join a performance marketing network.

1. Motivating publishers. Many publishers participate in several affiliate networks so how do you make sure that you remain top of mind? One way to do this is to carefully assess the costs associated with your company hiring additional holiday marketing staff through a traditional model versus the cost of temporarily increasing the revenue structure for publishers in a performance marketing network. Depending on the percentage of cost savings gained through a performance marketing program, an advertiser can redirect a portion of those costs to their affiliate publishers.

For David’s Cookies, by increasing the revenue share for publishers by a few percentage points for six weeks, we have seen sales increase by as much as 300 percent. Along with boosting revenue share, an online merchant can also consider providing additional bonuses as well as free quality merchandise. We’ve also found that generating special offers for strategic partners helps to strengthen the relationship, increase traffic and boost sales.

2. Ensuring quality content. It’s no secret that many people read online content and blogs because they provide information and insight that is consistently current, accurate and engaging. When there are hundreds or thousands of publishers promoting your company’s offerings, you want to be able to maintain some control over how and where your company appears online. This is yet another reason why it’s worthwhile to join a higher quality performance marketing network because they carefully evaluate publishers before they are accepted into the program and consistently evaluate their progress and activities.

3. Successfully executing a performance marketing strategy. Since nobody knows your business better than you do, the most successful performance marketing programs can’t happen without commitment from the advertiser. While the infrastructure may be in place to succeed in terms of joining a quality performance marketing network and having a widespread team of publishers promoting your products, without dedication from the advertiser, the program will not yield the highest possible results.

To make the most of your investment in a performance marketing program, it’s important to build a relationship with the account manager at the performance marketing network. Since the account managers are equally dedicated to your company’s success, they’re an important ally and resource. Going beyond providing an in-depth analysis of the program status, they can also generate ideas, help with market testing, provide strategy and make recommendations for tactical execution of plans to further cultivate your online presence and avoid potential missteps.

While end-of-year activities can be all encompassing, prioritize the relationship with your performance marketing account manager to make the most of the holiday season.

For David’s Cookies, participating in a performance marketing network has proven to be a valuable investment that helps drive revenue and brand awareness for our company. Since we joined the LinkShare network eight years ago, we have been able to grow our direct to consumer sales by double-digit percent increases each year.

The defendants allegedly used fake Facebook pages, fake accounts and/or apps to offer “enticing, but non-existent products and services” that actually forced users to spam their friends or used their data to sign up for subscription mobile services.

MaxBounty in particular is accused of misappropriating the Facebook logo and using Facebook pages to gather user data through fake offers for free iPads and gift cards. In one cited case, the marketing company is accused of offering a $250 discount card for MAC Cosmetics when users completed a three-step process, but then redirected them to third-party offers site Superb-Rewards.net.

In an email promising no disruption to current advertisers and affiliates, CEO JP Suave (Is that really his name? He doesn’t have a brother named Rico, does he?) called Facebook’s charges inaccurate. He noted that MaxBounty serves as a traffic broker and statistical tracking system between affiliates and advertisers; it does not control the content on affiliate websites, the type of campaign or the location of affiliate web pages.

“MaxBounty has a reputation of not allowing spam or deceptive advertising practices by its affiliates on social websites,” he continued. “In the past, we have removed affiliates from our network who had engaged in such unacceptable campaigns.”

But apparently the company’s bad-seed purge wasn’t thorough enough — for Facebook’s liking, anyway. Can MaxBounty really be held accountable for violations committed by its affiliates?

By the way, Facebook is on a winning streak when it comes to anti-spam cases. Last year the social network won a $711 million judgment against “Spam King” Sanford Wallace (who has been permanently barred from the site) and in 2008 it won an $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital.

Aol hopes Buy.at’s 70 employees like their new home, with a big field to run around in and plenty of birds to chase…. Maybe Digital Window could send some pictures back to Aol… No, that would just make things harder.

The rumored price tag is $150 million, which would be $25 million more than what Aol paid for Buy.at back in 2008. According to Aol, Buy.at has been highly successful in the marketing services arena — Reuters has the company’s annual sales at 40 million euros — and would be better off [sniff] being owned by a group in that space.

According to a release, Digital Window — the majority of which is owned by German media group Axel Springer and Swiss communications group Publigroupe — and Buy.At will form the UK’s largest performance marketing group.

Since being acquired in February 2008, Buy.at operated as a wholly-owned business unit of Advertising.com. At the time of the merger then-Chairman and CEO Randy Falco said the acquisition would enhance Aol’s Platform-A offerings, which had been built up during an advertising shopping spree that included Tacoda, Quigo, Advertising.com, adTech and Third Screen Media.

But Platform-A is no more, rebranded as Aol Advertising. CEO Tim Armstrong said the company is developing a new ad platform, with premium being the aim. Back in December, JP Morgan analyst Imrahn Kahn left a meeting with Armstrong convinced that Aol would knock Advertising.com off its inventory teat and only sell the top-notch slots.

In an email statement, Aol said it’s reviewing its assets in regards to how they relate to the company’s new core strategy. Does that mean we’ll see a full-on garage sale soon?

You might ask questions like “How do I get around language barriers? How does consumer behavior differ from American markets? More specifically, how is my target audience’s behavior different and how do I analyze and interpret that information?”

Lucky for you, affiliate marketing platforms are making it simpler for you to reach new markets. You’ll have to do a lot of your own prep-work, but choosing the right affiliate network can help you bypass some of the more costly and difficult barriers hindering your global reach.

Prep for Affiliate Success

Like all good strategies, let’s start at the beginning. Your first step is to choose where and to whom you want to market internationally. Europe, South America (especially Brazil) and Asia are all growing online markets — but they all have their own nuances, and you’ll need to get familiar with them before you move onto the next steps.

For example, if you want to market to your audience in Brazil, it’s important to know that Brazilian internet usage patterns primarily leverage dial-up connections. In contrast, Europe and the UK offer much broader online access patterns.

Don’t jump in right away. Do serious market research on how your international customer will differ from your domestic one. Just like with any marketing campaign, extensive background on your audience will help you speak to them effectively.

Tailor Your Products for International Consumers

The next step in preparing your international strategy is to apply what you’ve learned to your product. The campaign isn’t the only action item on your list; take measures to create products and services in the languages native to your expansion region.

Part of your research should revolve around figuring out what features your product offers that might be less or more popular with an international crowd. Once you do, you can add or remove features according to how they’re received in other countries.

In terms of internationalization, it’s unrealistic to think you can start from scratch with your product, so consider having a professional translate marketing materials as well as the product itself.

Finally, you want to have full control over how your product is marketed, so it’s important to build marketing collateral to support the affiliates selling your product. Optimized landing pages are a good example of this. By providing these materials for affiliates, you gain a greater degree of control over messaging and brand equity.

Finding the Right Affiliate Network

When you choose your affiliate network, you can automatically rule out networks that don’t have the tools, services and affiliate marketers with global reach. Some of the resources you’ll need to go international are present in almost every affiliate network, but you’ll need to give weight to some basic must-have features.

For instance, you’ll want to choose an online shopping cart with support for multiple languages and currencies. The cart should also have the right payment options for your specific target region; while a credit card transaction is standard fare in the U.S., bank transfers are far more popular in Germany.

Just because a network has the right capabilities doesn’t mean your affiliates have the right experience. Make sure the network you use employs affiliates that are already active in marketing to consumers in different markets around the world.

You’ll want to provide your affiliates with the right tools to get the job done, too. Create a one-pager unique to the desired international market. Include the product’s top features, translated keywords, localized messaging and a consumer profile/persona. Some affiliate networks take their service a step further and will even create this document for you.

In the end, marketing a product to a new region is less about translations than it is about understanding your customer. Know the shopping culture of your target audience and you’ll be on your way to expanding your brand’s presence into new international frontiers.

Applicable for both online and mobile display and search campaigns, the technology requires next to no integration, just a re-direct URL. Based on the analyzed data, Traffiliate simply serves up the most appropriate landing page. With its machine learning technology, DSNR claims that Traffiliate increases conversions by 30% to 200%.

The product is designed for large-scale and high-volume campaigns; DSNR tested the solution with its biggest clients, serving half a million landing pages daily.

The first experiment of the semester involves a disciplined ROI analysis to determine the tech with greatest potential to scale and have a significant business effect for advertisers, publishers and partners.

“MediaTrust Labs provides the ideal environment to translate the collective knowledge of our team into real products that drive success for our partners,” said Christopher Smith, director of product management for MediaTrust Labs. “We see an opportunity to lead the performance marketing industry in several key areas, such as campaign optimization via real-time conversion analytics; automation and traffic conversion tools; fraud prevention; and integrating offers across multiple media channels, payment methods and creatives.”

As the company has been developing this experimental approach for some time now, Smith promises Lab results within the first quarter of 2010.