Aligning with multiple affiliate programs

[wsyeager]

I'm new to the affiliate marketing arena and would like to ask a question before I develop my website.

Let's say there is a product made by company "A". Company "A" has an affiliate program to join to sell their product.

There are also 10 websites that help sell the product for company "A". These 10 websites also have affiliate programs to join to help sell the product for company "A".

When I set up my website to become an affiliate, I want to become an affiliate for these 10 websites plus company "A".

I want to supply links to each of the 10 websites plus company "A" once a person clicks on the menu item for a specific brand or product name.

I am not in the business to actually do any credit card processing. I just want to supply advertising to each of the 10 websites plus the website for company "A". Since all of the websites would point to a specific product made by company "A", what would be the best way to maybe have an image of the product, and links to each of the websites?

I think it would be impractical to have actual prices of the product, since company "A" can change the pricing of the product anytime they wish. Even the other websites that help sell the product for comapny "A" may have a different price.

I think the best thing for me to do would be to simply have an image of the product and a description. I want to find out the best way to display links to all of those websites, so the consumer can make a choice as to what link (for the specific affiliate or company "A") they want to click on.

This will increase my chances of making a sale just by the number of affiliate sites that I can link to for a potential sale.

Thanks in advance,

Bill

[Rob_TID]

By having the prices too, you can show which is the cheapest therefore possibly increasing the chances of a conversion.

[wsyeager]

Rob, if I show the prices, that means if I'm aligned with 10 affiliates marketing the same product, I would need to do the following:

• have the same image of the widget (on a row) displayed 10 times with a unique link to each affiliate or just one pic with 10 differnet links in each of the 10 columns.
• this means I will constantly need to verify the prices of the widget for each affiliate.

If this is the norm, then that's fine... I just want to get an idea of how this kind of relationship should be laid out.

[Rob_TID]

Yep, that';s about it.

If you are technically gifted and the merchants offer a datafeed, then you could keep the prices updates automatically. But that is beyond my knowledge of how to do (I would just hire someone for something like that)

[Linda Buquet]

Granted I'm in pain and totally out of it and should probably not even be trying to post but I dont get this.

"Let's say there is a product made by company "A". Company "A" has an affiliate program to join to sell their product.

There are also 10 websites that help sell the product for company "A". These 10 websites also have affiliate programs to join to help sell the product for company "A".

When I set up my website to become an affiliate, I want to become an affiliate for these 10 websites plus company "A".

Why would you want to be a sub-affiliate for 10 affiliates when you could work with the merchant and get full commish?

Plus it does not make sense to attract traffic to your site, have them click on a product, go to another affiliate site, then have to click again to get to the merchant. It's extra clicks and totally redundant. Plus why join all 10 anyway??? This makes no sense.

Plus the price issue is super easy. Even if you are pulling a datafeed you can always just show the product and description and then have a link to "click for more info" or "check for best price" or "buy now" that goes to the merchant site with the correct pricing. Note I said the link goes to the merchant NOT to another affiliate's site.

[Rob_TID]

As I understood it, he was talking about a product with 10 resellers.

Like a Sony Vaio.

You could buy it at sony.com or at resellers like buy.com, shopping.com etc etc who all have affiliate programs.

[Linda Buquet]

That's not what I initially got, but I see now that's probably what he meant.
I knew I should be trying to answer questions tonight.

[wsyeager]

Rob was correct in understanding my question Linda....

But thanks for the input. It's always good to play a "devils advocate" every once in a while to poke holes through a potential idea.

Thanks....

[wsyeager]

Rob and Linda, another thought came to mind....

Instead of having my website set up with 10 reseller links plus a company "A" link, would it not be best to have just one link to company "A"?

After all, I am not in the business to sell products, but simply to advertise.

One of the reasons I had my original thought of the multiple reseller model is that internet users would find more links to buy widgets than just the link for company "A". Since having these multiple resellers on my website to link to, I'd figure I'd have a better shot of getting a commission rather than just 1 link back to coampny "A".

What are both of your views on each of these models?

Thanks in advance...

[Linda Buquet]

Hi wsyeager,

Sorry, my back went out yesterday and I'd just gotten back from the Doc and was totally out of it so slightly misread. Still in alot of pain, but thinking a little more clearly so let me take another stab at this from the reseller angle.

My answer still holds through in the case of resellers for a couple reasons.

If we use Rob's example of Sony Vaio - linking to Sony would probably offer the highest conversions.

Any time you add another site/link/intermediary into the mix you stand to confuse or lose a customer.

Offering too many choices sometimes is not the best way to go.

However one strategy that could work is a price comparison strategy if it's a product that would lend itself to that and the resellers do sometimes have different prices.

Not knowing the product or anything I'm thinking either just go direct to "A".

Or pick the top 3 resellers and put a link to each saying find the best price or something to create a bit of a price comparison opportunity for the shopper. I just would not list all 10, at least based on what I know so far.

Realize some merchants convert better than others and some of those resellers may have shorter cookies. So if you have enough traffic that it makes sense you may want to test a couple different options.