A while back in a little article called "Will It Convert", I talked about the need to check out a paysite before you sign-up for their affiliate program. In a nutshell what I suggested in that article was that quite a few sponsors' sites are so poorly designed that it is almost impossible to convert any of your traffic into sales.
That is not something you will find with the big sponsor sites. The big guys know what sort of tour will convert and they make sure that their site designs keep the surfer focused on reaching the join page in a mood to lash out and spend some plastic dollars.
The sites I was referring to are the smaller sponsor sites. These sites are often found in the amateur niche and their tour is often very amateurish too. Instead of being focussed on getting the surfer to the join page these amateur sites have lots of little links that the surfer can click on that will take him away from the join page. Every link that offers the surfer a chance to step off the straight and narrow pathway to the join page is another chance to lose that surfer. Even the opportunity to join a site with a genuinely unique focus or totally exclusive and exciting content is not enough to keep a surfer focused when confronted with lots of interesting little side links.
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"Sponsors require us to provide them with all sorts of personal details when we signup as affiliates and yet so few of us take time to check out our sponsors." |
Not all amateur sites are like that, there are many that keep a very tight focus and help their affiliates get sales. Unfortunately there are many that are not as tight and focused and those sites are just a waste from an affiliates point of view.
This time I want to take what I said in my previous article several steps further. This article was sparked by a rather shabby attempt to drum up affiliates for an amateur site. The attempt was made on a message board by one of the principals who came in and asked what it would take to get affiliates to promote his wonderful amateur site.
What he really meant, and what did come out later was that he thought his site was just wonderful and he was sure that if he could get affiliates to promote it then everyone would be rich.
When I looked at the site, the front page contained over thirty links to other websites. Every link was just one more place to lose a surfer. The enter link was obscure enough that I couldn't find it at first and there were four images on his front page that produced the dreaded red X. Those red crosses were still there three days later even though they had been pointed out to the webmaster on the first day.
The font size was very small, the background color was boring, the page loaded slowly on dial-up and the list went on and on. That was enough to put me off completely.
However, there was a lot more and it took another webmaster to look deeper than I did and that is something that all of us should do. Many of us seem to forget that this is really a serious business and it should be treated in that manner. Sponsors require us to provide them with all sorts of personal details when we signup as affiliates and yet so few of us take time to check out our sponsors.
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I know of some guys who won't sign up with an affiliate program if they cannot call the phone number listed on the website and speak to the people who run the program. There was once a time when I thought that was being a little pedantic but I'm now becoming persuaded that it is not such a silly idea after all.
Anyway, back to our spammed affiliate program. Another webmaster took the time to look much more deeply into the site. The first thing he did was view source and have a look at the meta tags; surprise surprise, they included well-known CP terms. As we all know, terms like that are banned in many places so what does that tell you of the people who run the program in question?
Then our intrepid investigator looked up the Whois details to get some background on the domain and the principals. You too can look up a site in Whois - just go to:
Apart from those details, Whois also tells you which hosting company carries the domain and it was not one that our friend was familiar with so he looked further.
He went to the hosting company's website and looked at the fine print and found that this wonderful sponsor was running an adult site on a host that specifically states that it will not host adult sites.
Now all those things add up to a sponsor that I wouldn't touch with a very long pole but most of them were not obvious at all. It is quite possible that a site like the one he was promoting may attract affiliates but I strongly doubt that those affiliates would see much return for their efforts. And I am always wary of a sponsor who breaks so many written and unwritten rules as the one in our example did.
If sponsors want to know all they can about us when we want to signup as affiliates then it is quite reasonable and makes good business sense to check out the sponsors as much as we can too. Even one question mark should be enough to make you back off and take your traffic somewhere else.
There are plenty of sponsors with great programs and unique sites to promote so there is just no need to sign up and promote one that is even vaguely questionable.