Comments on: Is Your Website Leaking?

By: Miles Baker

Miles Baker — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:01:02 +0000

Either one, ‘webmasters’ or ‘affiliates’ works for me. I think you’re right about “webmasters” being less distracting, however ‘affiliates’ seems a bit more to the point.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:29:24 +0000

Good thread.

As a marketer, it annoys the hell out of me if a product doesn’t have the “affiliate sign-up link” at the bottom and I have to search for it.

BTW: How do you guys word your affiliate sign-up links? Some sites use “Affiliates” others “Webmasters” as anchor text. I was told that webmasters would be better because it doesn’t distract potential customers.

Any opinions on this?

Joseph

By: Miles Baker

Miles Baker — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 05:45:53 +0000

Hey Rick, to me it really depends on the product and the placement of the affiliate link. If it’s small enough that only people that are looking for it can find it, that’s okay with me, if someone wants to be an affiliate they are going to figure it out anyway. However, I suppose there is a fine line somewhere where it gets to be too big or placed too prominently on websites where it could interfere with sales. With certain products and niches most visitors won’t even know what an affiliate program is. However, with niches such as Internet Marketing it needs to be small and unobtrusive I think. As a merchant I keep my affiliate sign up page as a small link at the bottom or on the FAQ page for those that are looking to become an affiliate. Only if affiliates purchase from themselves could it pose a threat to your commissions and depending on the merchant payment setup they have it could easily happen with no affiliate page at all.

Overall, I think it’s important for sales pages to have a clear-cut focus for driving sales at their highest conversion rate, I think that’s the bottom line.

By: Rick Carruth

Rick Carruth — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 05:26:58 +0000

And my favorite, the dreaded ‘affiliate sign-up’ link at the bottom of the page. What’s worse than providing the web space so some marketer can use you to get more affiliates.

By: AffiliateWarrior.com Blog » Eliminate “Leakage” and your affiliates will go to the wall for you.

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 23:02:59 +0000

[...] Is Your Website Leaking? “Basically, leakage is any link on your sales page that leads your visitors somewhere where the affiliate will not get paid. The most common form of leakage I see on sales pages is Adsense. Now ask yourself, why would an affiliate want to promote your site if the visitors they send your way are going to click on links that profit you but not them? The answer is they wouldn’t want to and they won’t! Top affiliates simply don’t promote web pages with leakage.” - Miles Baker [...]

By: 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs, Google and SEO Blog

5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs, Google and SEO Blog — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:37:15 +0000

Leaky Affiliate Programs
Pro affiliates and merchants have already learned their lessons about leaky affiliate programs. However I’m amazed at the number of merchants that just don’t get it, so wanted to do a little piece to educate newer affiliates about leaks an…

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:21:08 +0000

Thank you for the good post. I guess, newbies are not aware of these causes. Web marketing is really tricky and there are people who take advantage of this. I guess proper information as this one will help change things.

By: Miles Baker

Miles Baker — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:41:08 +0000

Yeah, agreed. However I have seen this same thing on CJ which suprised me.

By: John

John — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 05:58:57 +0000

Then again, we’re talking about Clickbank merchants here.