Existem Affiliate Management

Is network selection important for retail clients?

After reading several recent comments on the forum and after speaking to various affiliates I would like to answer some questions from my point of view as an affiliate management agency.

Which network should a merchant choose?

This is a great question, and I can only answer from personal experience.

Having worked with all major UK networks and having had good and bad experiences with each, I would honestly say that network selection is a very important factor when launching an affiliate programme.

Each merchant has different needs in affiliate marketing and each network will have its unique benefits to any given merchant. From a personal point of view if you have a retail client who is looking to get into affiliate marketing, you should choose a network that can support what they need:-

Products Feeds
Content Units
Relevant affiliate base

Other important factors to take into account are what are the communication channels like to affiliates, how easy can you communicate with affiliates, how supportive are your account manager’s at the networks.

If I was to go on personal experience, there are 3 networks that I would suggest to merchants who are in the retail arena as I have found all 3 of these to be very helpful and also have the facilities to successfully support a retail client.

Should a merchant have more that one network?

As far as I am concerned for any programme, the decision on which network and how many has to be taken on merit - if you have a programme which is performing well on one network but you find significant affiliates (or numbers of affiliates) that say we would like this programme on xxx network, then you have to take this into account.

I always recommend a new merchant to launch with one network and review this after a short period to make sure that the costs of affiliate marketing do not become a barrier. After this review we will then decide on whether a second network is a good idea. Sometimes we get existing merchants who already have more than one network, or new merchants that very definitely want more than one network from launch, which has to then be taken into account as well.

I personally believe that 2 networks for any programme can be beneficial for a merchant as they have potential access to more affiliates, as affiliates have their favourite networks for various reasons, therefore by choosing only one network can sometimes have a negative effect on a programme,

Also the functions that some networks offer are not good enough for some merchants, if you have a retail merchant you need to make sure the network they have or choose are able to provide all the functions that are needed.

I have to say that comments about kick backs is very poor reason and any management agency that chooses a network on these grounds is doing a bad job for the industry, we are all aware that kick backs are available from networks, but if you want to be a good successful management agency why would you put a programme with a certain network that either cant or wont support the programme just for a very short-term gain. From what I have seen the amounts for kick backs is not something that should affect a decision. Not only do you want to have a good reputation for growing good clean programmes - the benefit of choosing the correct network(s) that can maximise affiliate revenues is of great benefit by any financial criteria, client / network or agency.

I am in total agreement with other comments if you have more than one network you should always make sure that the each network offers a level playing field in terms of commission, tools and communication on each network.

If you would like further information please feel free to contact:-
Mark Russell
www.existem-am.com
0870 8031366
07971 199909
mark@existem-am.com