What Makes a good Affiliate Program Great!?

Many affiliates, merchants and advertisers, visit this particular forum to stay up to date on new programs available that are determined worthy of mentioning. As a manager of our affiliate program I'm always biased with our program. However it's not my opinion that counts, it's yours. What one affiliate thinks makes a program good, may be completely for another, and yet entirely different for a manager like myself. I have been running our program for over 2 years now and I am always striving to improve the program. I am not asking you to review our program although you certainly may do so if your interested. What I would really like to know, from the advertising affiliates who use this board is what makes a program good and what makes a program Great! Also, in the same respect, what drives you nuts about affiliate programs? Any thoughts that you would like to share would be greatly appreciated.

One: If you say you are going to pay, pay. I don't care what horrible things happened to your data centre. If I don't get paid, I will rip down your stuff so fast you won't believe it and I will rampage. Fair warning.

Two: Keep in contact.. the whole "I will send you people, send me a cheque" is the basis, but keep contact personal and make me feel like I am an integral part of your overall success. Be lavish with praise and proactively help me be better. If you have a new product tell my why I should care, don't just tell me you have it.

Three: If you mess up with a customer, tell me. I want to hear it from you, not the customer sending me an email saying "Those people were jerks and you are a jerk for sending me there"... I hate that..

Four: Contests... Give me more!! Make me want to do better... complacency is a natural effect of salespeople (which an affiliate is).


Just some thoughts? Anyone else?

We can't complain if an aff prog asks for feedback and nobody says boo..

Mike

Here are some things that make an affiliate program good...
- Private Label / Co-brand
- High average commission $ per sale/action
- If the program has a toll free number on their web site, the affiliate must still get the commission
- Long cookies at least 30 days
- A company that does not compete with their affiliates

Yep, I hate seeing those toll free numbers on affiliate websites - they should replace them with email addresses.

Here are a couple more to add to Gail's list....

* links to sites that are owned by the same company but do not pay commissions

* affiliate links on the affiliate program site - that's a real joke if you ask me

This is excellent! Thank you all so much for your feedback. I encourage all of you to "speak" your mind, your gripes, your accomplishments, joys, and disappointments. I am very open to hearing everything and working hard to make sure our program is the very best it can be. Thank you so much for your response and your candid remarks. I really appreciate it.

My favorite affiliate programs are those that do NOT have the funky easy-to-spot links with affid=12345 or whatever in them. I signed up for one yesterday that made me smile. The link is just plain... www.wherever.com and anything going to that site from mydomain.com is automatically detected and credited.

Gosh!!

wherever.com is the website of a furniture designer team. Good free link.

LOL. too funny. and i use that (wherever . com) all the time in examples. never even thought about it before.

Some things that make a good affiliate program is:

8-) high commission payouts,
8-) payouts that are done monthly or sooner
8-) payouts that are done by PayPal, E-gold, MoneyBookers, Check, etc.
8-) Low payouts or No Minimum Payouts
8-) Payouts done on time
8-) Good products that the affiliate can easily sell,
8-) etc.

Thanks! There has been a lot of really great feedback on the boards regarding what you like and dislike about programs. Here's another challenge for you. I would venture to guess that the majority of you are promoting for programs right now. Please don't tell me who you promote for, but I would like to know what you would change about the programs you promote for. Also, I've heard that the preferred term is "Partners" not affiliates. Would you say that is true or are you indifferent?

Ok everyone! I really appreciate everyone's feedback on this topic. In case you did not notice, in the last sentence of my previous post, I asked a question. This is now a poll... Affiliate or Partner.... Which do you prefer? Inquiring minds (namely mine) wish to know. Hope you all had a great weekend and happy belated Mother's Day to all of you out there.... Any other feedback you'd like to share about what makes a good affiliate program Great!!! would be wonderful. Thanks.

Hummm, when I am looking at programs I look for the word affiliate. Maybe cause it's a habit. And maybe cause less is expected from an affliliate then a partner. A partner seems to me to be involved in more aspects of the business.

You all really like being contacted by people running the programs you are in?

I don't. I just want them to send the checks (or direct deposit) on schedule...I'm really anal about that kind of thing.

I talk to one of my affiliate managers a couple times per month. We have a great exchange of ideas. They tell me about new products and I either find traffic or rearrange one of my sites to give them exposure. I also told them that I could sell their stuff on ebay - and that is working well.