DISH Network & DIRECTV – Highest $ Plus 1,000 Contest - Brand New from Revenue Allies

[elephantgroup]

In May we offered a special $100 performance bonus for DIRECTV sales for affiliates that achieved 100+ sales/month. We were hoping to continue the offer through June as well, but will be unable to do so ... no matter, the guarantee $45 bonus per sales holds through June, so you can still earn a top tier commission ... on both DIRECTV and DISH Network ...

will be working on other bonus/incentives as we move forward.

Any questions or concerns, please let me know.

Thanks.

gds

[elephantgroup]

Just a quick announcement:

COMCAST High Speed Internet Service Program will be available shortly. (Launch date is 09/14/2006)
* $45 Commissioner per activation
* Commission will be paid on direct sales as well as sales that occur during a satellite television service sale (meaning, you could earn up to $190 commission on one sale.)

We are moving to a WEEKLY payment schedule for our affiliates that have elected to receive their commission payments through paypal! We will roll out this payment schedule in approximately two weeks.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me directly.

Regards,


gds

[Linda Buquet]

Very cool Gregory. I wondered how that offer was coming. Exciting stuff!

[elephantgroup]

Comcast Hi - Speed Internet Service will be launching AUGUST 14th (That's 08/14/2006)

// sorry about that ... must've started happy hour a wee bit early last friday ...

[Linda Buquet]

Hehe, you're not the only person to make a typo or a mistake on a Friday afternoon I bet Greg.

Hey I make them all the time and I don't even drink any more!
Maybe I should start again and my accuracy would improve!

[ntoll]

I'm sure I could email Greg about this but maybe others are curious about the email update we just received. In particular I am talking about the following paragraph:

"Performance Review
Please be aware that at the end of August, we will be reviewing the performance of all our affiliates. Those affiliates that have not demonstrated the ability to generate a consistent minimum level of sales (6 sales per month) will be moved into our Referral Partner Program. If you are interested in remaining an active affiliate, but need assistance in improving your sales volume, please do not hesitate to contact me with your questions."

First of all, what is the "Referral Partner Program"? I couldn't find anything on their site expaining that. It does not sound promising.

I've been a little concerned about this program. Of all the programs I belong to, I get the most click throughs from this one. I'll share some of my stats. My site is relatively new and serves a very small niche market for my local area. The number of hits I get continues to rise but is still only about 250 per month. In late June, they announced A mini site that was available so I set one up on my site. The only thing I changed was adding my affiliate number. My click throughs to Revenue-Allies immediately decreased but I got traffic to the mini site. In July, I had 22 click throughs from banners and text links on my site and 120 hits to pages in the mini site. According to my stats at Revenue-Allies, I have no sales. I have no way of tracking how many people have responded to flyers I have distributed.

I may be wrong but I think (other than the sales stat) those are pretty impressive stats. Almost 50% of my visitors click through. This tells me one of two things. Either I am not credited with sales that should be mine or their advertising is not effective. Isn't it my job as an affiliate to get the customer to the merchant's site? Isn't it the merchants job to make the sale? If the customer does not like what he sees, is it fair to punish the affiliate?

[Linda Buquet]

Hi ntoll,

I'm sure Greg the manager will be here tomorrow to answer your questions. Since I don't manage the program I don't have access to their stats and conversion rates and also don't know your site or anything. But you are right, it's your job to send traffic and the merchants job to convert it.

"I had 22 click throughs from banners and text links on my site and 120 hits to pages in the mini site."

I'm not sure this is really enough traffic or clicks to make a decision on. Most ecommerce sites - the merchant direct with their own direct advertising only get a 1-2% conversion which would mean it would take at least 100 clicks to get a sale.

I do know 2 things. Greg is a super high integrity manager that wants affiliate to get paid everything they earn. And they are using MYAP for tracking which is one of the best programs out there. Let's see what Greg has to say tomorrow. We both would like to see you make some sales. Hang in there til tomorrow, K?

[ntoll]

I'm still hanging in there. I think I am a glutton for punishment. Even though I am new to the affiliate game, I do know that it takes time to show results. I also know that my site gets extremely low traffic and will take longer to produce. I was just a little offended by the email and was wondering if anyone else felt the same way.

They suggested the mini site. It was designed by them. If you only count the people that clicked on the banners, that is almost 10% of my traffic.

[elephantgroup]

NToll,

You've expressed valid concerns, which I would like to address with you directly. Please call at your convenience, so we can look at some new strategies to address your specific traffic.

* About the Referral Program: This is an outgrowth of our internal Customer Referral Program and is typically utilized to allow customers to earn a bounty on sales they make through friends and family -- the payout is the same -- the only difference is the payment schedule, which is being adjusted to 60 days out after installation (currently, it's 90 days out.) -- The reason for this rolling 60 period is to minimize the risk of fraud/chargebacks, so we can pay legitimate referrals.

* About your Stats: Linda's right, the actual online conversion rate through the site is in the low single digits; however, what you've mentioned re: click-through stats, points to a different behavior. With a banner, the visitor has no choice but to click-thru to the merchant site -- with the mini site, there is a wealth of information located on the originating site, so it is not uncommon for there to be a lower volume of (hopefully higher-quality) click-thru traffic -- Additionally, we're seeing a significant % of people choose to call in to place their order off the landing pages (and mini sites).
This is where I would like us to focus some attention -- You and I will have to work together on this, but i'd like to be able to quantify/qualify the phone calls your site is generating.

Hope this has addressed some of the issues you raised -- if i missed anything let me know. And again, call me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss strategy specific to your market.

Linda, as always, thank you.

gds

PS: As long as you and I are working together to bring up sales volume, I have no issue in maintaining your affiliate partner status.

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Gregory, your comments make perfect sense. Glad you can work directly to help ntoll. Would love to see him make some good money with your program!