With the launch of BeyondthePod.com I've looked into the value of affiliate marketing. For a new site with a unique business proposition, the best advice I've heard yet is to scrap affiliate marketing entirely. Good advice...but advice that works well in the short term but cramps the business over the long term.
BeyondthePod (BTP) doesn't/can't spiff for purchases of merchandise, but they will spiff for every lead on a user that BTP might get the opportunity pay cash for their iPod. So how do you incent an affiliate to send people to your site that you want to buy from?
From what I can tell, the BTP model would work like lead generation system and spiff the affiliate that generates the lead accordingly. In high enough volume this can be 10 bucks or more. Though in lower volumes, the program spiffs at a much lower dollar value.
So I took a look at a wide variety of programs. CJ is the monster in the market and as far as I can tell, CJ thinks of sites like BTP as bad business, and CJ does pretty much everything they can to not do business with us. I guess in some ways it would be like BeyondthePod implementing SAP--the folks at CJ want accounts like Levis and Coke not start-up brands like BeyondthePod.com. A lower bar version of this type of system is RevCube, but even RevCube is too full service of a shop for my needs today.
So I looked at CPmil stuff at Clickbank and Linkshare. For BTP the model could provide eyeballs but these programs either required that BTP use their commerce system or they couldn't support a lead gen commission structure. Plus a wide variety of folks warned BTP away from the spoofing that happens in these programs when you expose your self via CPmil models.
I've since revisited this...CPmil is not all bad. I think the click through would at least create a marginal affect on page ranks...but the reality that you're paying for non-revenue clicks with little visibility to the desired outcome of lead gen clicks or revenue is a tough sell in a hardcore, move-fast-to-the-bottom-line start-up.
There are new value-add "logarithm" companies like Turn.com. I think they are a no lose proposition, at least while they are in Beta (read: free), to see if they can auto-generate valid value-add affiliate partners. My guess is that the matrixed affiliate-to-offer matching will have better effect than the random grab bag that tends to occur in most affilate systems...but I'll throw in the caveat that it won't be that much better, at least not for new, unique players. I say this, hoping beyond hope, that I am wrong. I also hope that I can implement Turn without its Javascript interfering with Adwords and my affiliate program of choice's cookie/script. I'd like the results it promises...I'm just skeptical.
Shareasale looks like the tightest fit between flexibility, usability, and price for BeyondthePod.com. Of course until BeyondthePod decides to land a series of affiliates that understand how to create conversions in conjunction with the offer at BeyondthePod.com's site, BTP is likely to leech along and bottom feed in low traction affiliates. My guess is that BTP and the high value affiliates will find each other--good business finds good business.
The offer at BTP is incredibly compelling--but how likely is it that the link-and hope-strategists of the more general affiliate marketing world will ever take any time to grock what's at work? Not likely...
My guess is that the key affiliates for BeyondthePod.com will be a tight fit between the iPod economy and the iPod ecosystem of products, services, and social events. Somwhere betwixt the Gizmodo's and the iLounge's and iSkin's and the Podcasters and the PodRippers of the iPod economy a viable opt-in BeyondthePod affilate system will generate serious dinero for the right affiliate or set of affiliates.
I have my own private list of sites i think are a fit...but if you know of a site whose readers that would want to know they could get cash for their used iPod? Let me know...drop me a note in a comment...
Soon to go live, the BTP affiliates program, at http://beyondthepod.com/affiliates/
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