Keyen Farrell Demonstrates Helpful Tips For Incentive Marketing

by GuestBlogger on March 14, 2010

A few years ago, Keyen Farrell authored a guide to incentive selling titled Mastering Incentive Websites. In it, Keyen Farrell shared his observations of the industry and detailed the steps he took to form Topaz Financial, a network of Incentive Websites that ultimately drove more than 100,000 advertiser actions. Topaz Financial was also chronicled in the Spring 2006 Issue of Colby Magazine. As we have a tendency to head into a new decade, Keyen Farrell desires to share 2 items of recommendation that he hopes those that currently are in or aspire to be in incentive marketing, may notice useful.

Free Trials are The New Leads
Many years ago there was no shortage of advertisers needing to partner with incentive marketers on a pay-per-lead basis. It’s readily apparent that the pay-per-lead has gone the manner of the dodo. The few pay-per lead programs that stay grant payouts well below what is needed to actively promote them. Pay-per-lead offers have continuously been the inducement marketer’s Holy Grail since they allow conversion rates that are several times those of pay-per-sale affiliate programs. Furthermore, pay-per-lead programs provide additional consistency than pay-per-sale programs since the payouts are fixed rather than a proportion of a final sale. Mounted payouts are continually more engaging to users and convert at a considerably higher rate.

It should come as no surprise that in the Incentive marketing space, what matters at the tip of the day is conversion rate. Each component of an Incentive Web site, from the visitor funnel to the individual offers must be tuned to drive the very best conversion rate and ultimately the best revenue per visitor. In 2005 we experienced conversion rates as high as 20% on bound pay-per-lead offers.

As true pay-per-lead opportunities (assume lead generation) have evaporated, a connected model remains a viable supply of conversions: free trials. Most obviously, free trials involve no immediate money outlay from users, lifting conversion rates. Secondly, the purchase funnel is way shorter and more direct than nearly all pay-per sale funnels. Free trials are an provide type where the merchant’s goals are directly aligned with yours. The problem with pay-per-sale affiliate programs is that the purchase funnel is long and can be downright confusing to the user. Many pay-per-sale affiliate links can direct users to a landing page that is either irrelevant or too high in the purchase funnel. This is often usually an intentional merchant tactic since not all sales or actions could be needed to generate affiliate payouts. You ought to perpetually browse the fine print in the terms of each pay-per-sale affiliate agreement. Free trials are a key strategy to keep your incentive promoting competitive this decade, and as models of digital media distribution continue to evolve, the opportunities can solely grow.

Don’t Go In-House
If the volume of actions you drive becomes significant, it’s more than possible that the merchant can get to bring your relationship in-house. Removing the affiliate network from the equation leads to deep and immediate price savings for your merchant partner – since affiliate networks charge merchants as a lot of as 30% of each completed action, merchants can happily bump up your payout as an incentive to lure you in-house. My recommendation is simple: Do not do it. Whereas the prospect of higher payouts might seem alluring, in-house relationships can be fraught with hassle even among the most reputable merchant sets.

Affiliate networks offer a valuable service to you by acting as a powerful intermediary. If you have gone in-house and a merchant decides to bilk you, there’s no recourse. The merchant is only risking your relationship. Of course, if you’ve got a blowout month in which you are owed a giant commission check, an unscrupulous merchant might merely decide that the risk of losing your referrals is value stiffing you on the check. In an affiliate network, this merchant’s actions would jeopardize their relationship with that network’s entire affiliate base. Good networks can de-activate deadbeat merchants and fight for you if you’ve got been wronged. Some merchants can reverse or cancel more transactions than they must, and also the network could be a valuable arbiter of such disputes. You may possible realize that your network is raring to lend their ear when you’ve got issues. They recognize that the integrity of the network rests on a top quality publisher and merchant base. You can’t have a high quality network while not both. And do not forget, the network gets paid when you do! Therefore when the phone rings from your prime payer’s affiliate manager, say yes to the free schwag, but say no to going in-house!

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