TPM In The News - How to Find Affiliates

May 14, 2008

When it comes to innovation and challenging the status quo with unconventional approaches, The Partner Maker comes to mind in the affiliate marketing community. As an example, we’re featured in Revenue Magazine’s article Looking for a Few Good Affiliates as a company that challenges the status quo.

In doing so, Alexandra Wharton spoke to The Partner Maker’s founder, David Delisle, who says…

“… he believes the “focus on the top affiliates” approach has done more harm than good for affiliate marketing. That’s because top producers are continuing to break away from being compensated as CPA affiliates (on pure revenue share). These affiliates are compensated for access to their audience, which consists mostly of repeat customers.

The result is that affiliates like eBates, Upromise and MyPoints look and act more like media companies than affiliates, Delisle explains. If merchants are interested in new-customer acquisition, they should be weary of these types of affiliates.

Delisle points out that when merchants focus only on the top-producing affiliates, they are ignoring the rest of the Web, and recommends marketers shift gears and pursue smaller affiliates in order to tap into the long tail.

The amount of smaller affiliates is positioned to grow, because today virtually anyone who uses the Web has a means to become an affiliate, with tools like PopShops – a product catalog ‘research tool’ where affiliates can find relevant products to their niche. It allows an element of discovery based more on relevant inventory to an affiliate’s niche and less on criteria such as commission structure.”

Thanks to Revenue Magazine’s Alexandra Wharton who does a great job getting to the heart of the affiliate recruitment issue.

Posted by jeff | Filed Under The Partner Maker 

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