Part 4
Customer Acquisition and Merchandising:
What You Must Know To Open Locked Doors of Profits
With Your Affiliate Program

"The only purpose of advertising is to make sales...Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses."

Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising

It is not easy to cut through the bull of affiliate programs and get to the facts. Too many programs are making the same mistakes, and making the industry look bad.

On top of this is the ignorance of many companies of how to put their affiliate programs into action. Imagine sitting in the corner of some big company, with a book and the goal to sign up tons of affiliates. Your goal is to build a business, but management is looking for quick fixes.

As they say, no one got fired for buying a banner ad, but affiliate managers are stuck out on an island. Affiliate programs should be part of an overall, integrated Internet marketing initiative encompassing banner advertising via CPM and revenue share, email marketing, search engine positioning, and every other form of advertising a company undertakes.

In this issue, we explore what is working and what is not, by focusing on the two most important factors of affiliate marketing; customer acquisition and merchandising. As they say, the rest is commentary.

Peace,
Declan