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2 Brief Introduction - This white paper will help you understand basics of Affiliate Marketing, Brief History, Advantages of Affiliate Marketing, Pricing for some major networks and 8 tips to better manage your affiliate program. A Brief History of Affiliate Marketing As the story goes, affiliate marketing all started at a cocktail party. Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com ( was chatting with a party guest who wanted to sell books on her Web site. This got Bezos thinking. Why not have the woman link her site to Amazon s and receive a commission on the books that she sold? Soon after, Amazon introduced the Amazon Associates Program. It was a simple idea. Amazon Associates would place banner or text links on their site for individual books or link directly to the Amazon s home page. When visitors clicked from the associate s site through to Amazon.com and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. With that thought, Bezos created Amazon.com s affiliate program in July But Amazon wasn t the first company to initiate an affiliate program. According to Brad Waller, VP of Affiliate and Business Development for EPage ( the affiliate program for EPage started in April As documented in The CDNow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet, CDNow s affiliate program predates Amazon s by more than a year. In November 1994, almost a full year before Amazon.com even launched its Web site, the venerable CDNow ( began its buyweb program. With its buyweb program, CDNow was the first to introduce the concept of an affiliate or associate program with its idea of click-through purchasing through independent, online storefronts. Terms useful in Affiliate Marketing - Affiliate - An Affiliate is webmaster or website owner who promotes certain products or services on his/her website through banners and text links. In exchange an affiliate receives commission from advertisers for putting up ads on his/her website. Merchant A Merchant is any business which sells products or services online. Merchants pay an affiliate certain commission based on sales or leads generated.

3 Affiliate Network Affiliate Network acts as a broker between a Merchant and Affiliates. One of the primary functions of affiliate network is to track clicks and sales for a merchant and to keep track which affiliates generated the clicks/ leads or sales. We recommend some of these affiliate networks :-Commission Junction, ShareASale, Clixgalore What is Affiliate Marketing? Broad Explanation Affiliate Marketing is a form of internet marketing in which an Affiliate advertises Merchant s Products or services on their website. In return they get paid for any leads or sales generated. The best part is that it s a Pay for Performance model. Merchants pay affiliates only when they see a lead or a sale. However, if you are working with certain networks like Commission Junction, they have high setup fees. They also charge a monthly minimum (irrespective of whether you get sales or not). Hence it s pretty important to decide whether to do affiliate marketing in house or use a network. What are the major benefits of affiliate marketing? 1) Target broader audience Doing Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per click will help you target certain audience. However, you can target a broader passive audience by using affiliate marketing. Many affiliate marketers are expert internet marketers. Hence their sites are either ranking very well in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN or they are marketing experts. Some run highly successful industry specific newsletters. If you find such good affiliates, the end result will be that your products/ services will be targeted to a broader audience. 2) Brand awareness Most affiliates prefer running your banners on their website. This will help you create good brand awareness. 3)

4 3) Keeping your eggs in different baskets Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results keep changing as search algorithms change. Pay Per click traffic is getting expensive day by day. Investing now, in affiliate marketing will help you build an alternative source of traffic. This will help you most when either your SEO results are hit or when PPC traffic becomes too expensive for you. 4) Some affiliate links help in SEO Some affiliate links help your overall SEO efforts. Link building is very important for SEO. However, make sure to double check whether the software or network you are using has this feature. 5) Pay for Performance - You only pay when you see leads or sales or other actionable form of results. Hence affiliate marketing is Pay for Performance advertising. Should you do Affiliate Marketing In house or use a Network? In Affiliate Marketing the entire tracking is done by the software at the Merchant's end or by a third party. However many times Merchants are confused whether they should do Affiliate tracking in house or outsource it to third party Network. -Pros and Cons of doing it in house and using a Network. Advantages of doing it in-house 1) No set up fees with third party networks which can be quite expensive. For example, network like commission junction charge $3000 as set up fees. 2) No commissions to the networks. Generally network charge 20 to 30% of the amount paid to the Affiliates. Hence if you pay $100 to affiliates you have to pay $20 to $30 to affiliates. 3) Some networks like Commission Junction or ShareASale have minimum monthly costs (even if there are no leads or sales generated) 4) Full control over the Affiliates and hence final authority on validity of leads.

5 Advantages of joining Affiliate Network 1) There are many Merchants in a Network and hence many affiliates hang out at affiliate networks. Signing up with a big reputed network can give quick exposure to your program to hundreds or thousands of Affiliates. 2) Affiliate Network acts as third party mediator for any dispute and hence Affiliates trust networks. The level of trust varies with the network. This is very important for affiliates as signing up directly with merchant means that the merchant has final say. 3) Affiliates work with multiple merchants in a network. Hence they get recurring payments from networks. This helps them relax as they know the frequency of their next pay check. They are not sure if merchants will pay them on time or if they close down their program and not pay them for old sales. 4) No accounting headaches as networks take care of paying the Affiliates. Conclusion Affiliates do not like to join affiliate programs which are managed in house. This is because they do not trust Merchants to pay the money on time. Also, with a network they get a wide variety of programs to choose from. Hence we at ebrandz highly recommend using a network as it will help you gain better exposure to affiliates in relatively short time.

6 Brief Description of major affiliate networks and comparison table of their prices- Thousands of top-tier Affiliates are available here to help you maximize your revenue opportunities. Account manager is enabled with excellent real time sales tracking facilities. Both Pay-per-lead and payper-sales programs are widely supported. It is another popular pay-per-sale affiliate system with 10,000 digital products and 100,000 affiliates in the network. Affiliates are paid commissions from 1% to 75% on the sale of product. A popular affiliate system identified with real time reporting and on-time payment. You can choose any no. of pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead and pay-per-click programs from 1000's of Affiliates. It is a network with no set up cost and hence a cost effective network for small businesses. It supports Pay Per Click Pay Per Lead as well as Pay Per Sale Affiliate Program and has a good database of Affiliate websites. Affiliate Network Commission Junction Set-Up Cost Min. Monthly pay to Affiliate network Transaction Fees based on commission paid to the Affiliates Maintenanc e Fee Minimum Deposit $2,250 $500 30% or $0.30 $250 $3,000 Share-a-sale $350 $25 20% or $0.20 NIL $100 Clixgalore Nil Nil 25% or 0.25 NIL $75

7 8 tips to effectively manage your affiliate program Managing an Affiliate Program in a right way is extremely important for it s success. If you do not spend enough time on your Affiliate Program or do not manage it properly then you will get poor results. Affiliate account set up It is essential that the Affiliate account in the network is professionally created covering information like the commission paid to Affiliates, specifying the type of program whether it is a sale based or a lead based program. Track telephone sales Having telephone numbers on merchant website is one of the biggest concerns of affiliates. They feel that they lose out if the traffic they send call up merchant phone number and close a sale. To counter this either remove phone number from your website, use another site (without phone number) where you send affiliate traffic or use software technology which will credit your affiliates for phone sales. Attractive banners - You should create attractive text and banner links which appeal to both visitors as well as potential affiliates. Have multiple options so that you cover a large audience. Affiliate review and monitoring Every single Affiliate site in your program should be reviewed manually. Affiliate sites should not be automatically approved. This will ensure that unscrupulous affiliates do not join your program. This will also help you protect against click fraud.

8 Proactive Affiliate recruitment - You should proactively research your industry and find affiliate websites in your industry. The next step is to approach them and show them value proposition of joining your affiliate program. This is also a good tactic to target your competitor affiliates. Monitor transactions daily to avoid fraud The sales and the leads that are generated should be monitored daily. Hence if there are any problems with a lead or sale, you can communicate this to an affiliate. Keeping them informed will help build trust. One of the worst mistakes merchants commit is to void transactions after few weeks or months. This de-motivates affiliates and builds mistrust. Constant Communications with affiliates Communication with the Affiliates on a timely basis will motivate them to promote your website. Affiliates must also be informed when there is a change in commission rates, new coupon codes are introduced or new banners are available. This keeps lines of communication open between Affiliates and the Merchants. Regular periodic communications lends credibility to your program and affiliates will feel that someone is in charge of the program. A Monthly newsletter is also recommended. Replying to affiliate questions It is very crucial that questions and concerns of the Affiliates are responded to in a timely manner.

9 Conclusion - If you have an in house person who can manage affiliates then great. Otherwise, outsource this work to professional agency who will assign you affiliate manager. About ebrandz affiliate marketing services - ebrandz is a search marketing company specializing in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click campaign management and affiliate program management. A brief overview of our Affiliate Marketing Management Services - 1) Creation of affiliates page We write the Affiliate page content for you that describes your Affiliate Program, so that it gives an Affiliate a brief idea of the Affiliate Program that they are promoting. 2) Setting up the affiliate infrastructure We provide you with creative banners and tools that are required for the Affiliates to promote your program eagerly. 3) Submission of the Affiliate Program to Affiliate Directories and Forums We submit your Affiliate Program in most popular Affiliate directories and forums to get direct exposure. 4) Manual Affiliate Application review The Affiliate Applications in the network should be reviewed manually this helps to filter out the non relevant and fraudulent Affiliates 5) Recruitment of new Affiliates to personalized s to prospective Affiliates We help you to recruit the Affiliate websites that are relevant to your websites by putting related keywords in major search engines and by reviewing each and every site manually. This helps you to get the related and the performing Affiliate sites. 6) Replying to questions / concerns of the Affiliates We take responsibility of replying to the questions and concerns of the Affiliates in a timely manner. 7) Fraud Prevention We make your Affiliate Program free from frauds by daily monitoring the Affiliate transactions and voiding the fraudulent ones and also removing fraudulent and fake Affiliates from the system who are trying to take over dual Affiliate Commissions 8) Weekly Report and Monthly Reports Our Weekly and the Monthly reports reveal in detail the extent to which the Affiliate Program is exhibiting positive results.

10 Pricing Table: Comparison Table for Our Various Affiliate Services Total Monthly Cost SILVER GOLD PLATINUM TITANIUM Total Man Hours Hourly Rate $ 12 $ 11 $ 09 $07 Number of Affiliate Networks Account Set Up Banner Ads* Help in Conversion Code Setup Affiliate Website Research Click Fraud Detection Submission of Affiliate program to affiliate directories and forums Weekly Report Monthly Report Support Chat Support Telephonic Support ROI Calculation Campaign Tweaking Conversion Tracking Note: Fees paid to ebrandz do not include monthly minimum deposit that is required to be maintained with the network which will be directly payable to the Affiliate Marketing Network Banner Ads: Up to 2 modifications only. (gif or jpg format)

11 About ebrandz Inc ebrandz Inc is a New York based Search Marketing Agency which specializes in Outsourcing work to low cost labor destinations like India. Because of it s research and delivery centers in Mumbai, India, ebrandz is able to offer very cost effective Search Marketing solutions with service cost in the range of $10 to $20 per hour. ebrandz has been shortlisted by BtoB magazine as a recommended vendor in their 2008 Marketers Resource Guide. With 250 people, ebrandz is one of the largest Search Marketing Companies in the world with over 4 years experience in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click and Affiliate Marketing Services. ebrandz has executed more than 2000 successful Search Marketing projects, has over 1000 clients in US and has also partnered with close to 100 agencies across the world. Our teams in US and India work for Clients of all sizes: from small, innovative startups to public companies. ebrandz also works with small and large agencies and offers them Private Label Search Marketing Services. ebrandz Inc ebrandz 171, Madison Avenue, #1006 No 2, 3 Varun Amin Villa, New York, NY Dattatraya Road, Santacruz (W), USA. Mumbai , India. Phone: (Toll Free) Phone: sales@ebrandz.com sales@ebrandz.in