Advertiser Prep

Thanksgiving is arguably our favorite holiday, and it has only a little to do with it being one of two Thursdays we don’t publish. It’s that time of year when people see the light at the end of the tunnel, the home stretch of the year, a time that lifts people’s spirits giving them something in which to look forward. Everyone looks forward to it, certainly businesses. Retailers celebrate Black Friday, ecommerce sites await CyberMonday, and for those of us in the performance-marketing industry, this time of year doesn’t begin with any one day; it’s more like a three and a half-week sprint to make the most of a more commerce-minded consumer. By nature of the time of year, certain year-round offers do better now even though they don’t have any holiday significance. People need money for gifts so those offers providing liquidity to consumers will do better than their historical daily average. People overeat and start to think about losing weight as part of their new years resolution, so weightloss tends to pick up now and go strong into the New Year. What we all want – advertisers, networks, and affiliates – is to know what offer will result in a hockey stick shaped curve in revenues and profit. More than knowing what offer converts, many in the funnel really want to create that next offer, the new exotic berry diet, the next celebrity related body part, or for this time of year, the impossible to not be inexpensive gadget. Great offers rarely drop in people’s laps, though. Like the creation of the Tahitian black pearls, generally someone with a product comes across another with the ability to market it.

The thought of bringing a product to market is an exciting and almost intoxicating one. More than a few people have probably had a random conversation with someone who either directly or through a friend of a friend came across something that sounded like it could become an offer. If you as the marketer aren’t going to handle the entire funnel (e.g., payment, returns, customer service, shipping, etc.), it takes a special product partner with whom to work. Much of your work will take place before you can ever begin marketing, assessing your compatibility. We once found a great diet product two years ago that looked like a home run, but as we helped them understand and map out next steps, they just couldn’t quite grasp the pieces or commit to the process. From that, this is what we learned when dealing with potential products that have yet to perform direct marketing online:

• Operational Expertise and Attitude – Much of the process of dealing with a product that you think has solid potential might feel like you proving your worth to them, as though they might in the middle figure out your competition makes sense even though they don’t know your competition. The first part in the discover should also include your interviewing them an equal amount. Chances are they aren’t the only ones in a field, just the ones you happened to come across. You want to understand their field and how they rate, at least as much as you can. Do they know how to fulfill, to close the sale? Can they scale with the volume? Can they do this quickly if needed? Are they super brand sensitive with many restrictions, or do they have flexibility allowing for experimentation. Do they know their own metrics? Will they pay enough to make you successful? And, so on.
• Expectation Setting – In order to get people excited you often have to sell the dream, to talk about the potential that exists online. The money doesn’t flow instantaneously and not without them investing at some level. You work on a performance basis, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have some costs, especially if they don’t have the operational expertise. Even after you agree on terms and get ready for that first push, it doesn’t guarantee success, something they need to know. Think of how long some of the diet offers today have existed. When they first hit the market they didn’t take off. It took testing, familiarity, and a lot of luck. The advertiser should know it might not work, or at the very least that it might run into some setbacks. 
• Traffic Sources – Not surprisingly, those who don’t actively deal with Internet advertising can have a rather narrow view of how conversions take place. You can try and tell the story the product manufacturer / provider might want to hear or you can tell it like it is. Traffic will come from a variety of sources and tactics, many you won’t have heard and quite a few that you might initially find off-putting. You might not start or allow all of them in the beginning, but you might need them to hit a certain scale. Even if you decide to disallow certain tactics, they will probably happen without your knowing. In this case, it is far better to have at least explained what can happen so that if it does, it doesn’t seem like you fell asleep at the wheel.
• Budget – Only the rare product makes money on every transaction. If you analyze the ecosystem of dollars, the majority have some component of risk involved. Either it is a lead and the advertiser must convert it into a sale or it is a continuity program where they pay more than they collect. This means the advertiser must have an appetite for loss. They must commit enough to get a fair sampling, not so much that they go out of business, but not so little that you can’t get anyone to run it. You must also consider who will handle payments. Do they pay you and then you the affiliate, and on what terms.
• Tracking – In the past, this piece represented a big hurdle. If you have worked on the distribution side, say just running an offer, you can take for granted the act of pulling links and then checking stats. You need to do more than just have a way to track actions. You need to combine the marketing stats with the product stats. You need to make sure you can tie an action by a traffic source to the true value of the user. And, once you do that, you need to make sure that they empower you by sharing those numbers so you can manage the spend for both. Will they share the numbers? Do they have the internal tracking? Can they modify theirs to sync with the media related variables?

• Tweaking – The idea that you won’t get it right from the start came up in the expectation setting phase, but preparing for it makes the difference between just saying and being able to do it. Where is it strong? Where is it weak? Where does it work? Did you burn any relationships in testing? Who do you know that will help? Is the price to the affiliates correct? What about to other networks? How is it performing for the end advertiser? Do you need to price it differently for different traffic sources? Is it running someplace you didn’t expect? The list goes on. Most likely, you will have just as much work after you get going, so keep that in mind.

The magic of our space lies in the two finding each other, product and marketing, and the beauty of our space rests in just how little of that has happened, i.e. how much potential still exists.