As you probably know, affiliates hate the telephone.
And rightfully so...
They promote your product or service, getting their visitors to click through to your Web site — only to lose their commission as the person dials your 800 number to order the product or service over the phone.
Plain and simple, if the visitor doesn't make it from the affiliate link all the way to the order complete page, your affiliate will never see a single red cent.
So it's no wonder the top affiliates on the Web won't even think about promoting a product or service unless the Web site has affiliate phone order tracking.
As a matter of fact, a recent post on ABestWeb — the world's largest affiliate-marketing forum, with over 34,000 members and over 680,000 posts — drives this fact home. Someone started a thread called ”As an Affiliate, I Hate...” Here's what it said:
As An Affiliate I Hate…
Post #12: Big 1-800 number on top; yet no indication of phone tracking in the program description.
Post #31: Prominently displayed 800 numbers on each page with 'Call to place order'.
Post #32: When those prominently displayed 800 numbers are also in the checkout process.
Post #94: When you notice that during checkout - they give the customer the option to call their 800# to place their order...
Post #98: Toll free ordering
Post #163: Giant 800 numbers |
And here is another forum that is ranked #578 by Alexa over at WebMasterWorld.com.
Losing Affiliate Commissions to
Merchant's Phone Number
Post #541081: Never use a merchant that displays a phone number, unless it is hidden. If they make it big and bold on front page, chances are the people will call the merchant, and you won't get compensated for the sale. I have even called as a potential client to the numbers they list, and they don't do anything to try to give the affiliate credit for the referral if they get a phone call.
Post #541088: But what do you say to your affs who just lost their slice after their visitor clicked through and then called and gave the slice to the phone rep?
Post #541090: Customer support is one thing, but if there is a phone number on the home page and the merchant makes no effort to get you credit, you are getting skimmed. Period. Sometimes you have to live with it, but when this happens look for another merchant with similar product. You may find your conversions will magically increase.
Post #541098: I agree that a prominently displayed phone number can be a red flag, but it's too simplistic to say "avoid such merchants". You need to look at the total $ output for a given traffic input.
Post #541106: One merchant we dropped the other day looked fine at face value. No obvious phone number, etc., But then when you actually do order, a page into the process is a big phone number with "please phone for current availability". To me, this stinks. Why have affiliates sending you customers if you're not willing to play ball? |
Before we go any further, allow me to introduce myself. My name's Tyler Sorensen and I'm the Affiliate Director of a top-notch (in a very niche market) affiliate program.
I also run another very successful affiliate program in my spare time. Over the past four years, these online businesses have done more then 2.3 million dollars in online sales — from a spare bedroom!
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But believe me, learning how to recruit the best affiliates on the Web is no walk in the park.
It took me years to figure out what it takes to make an affiliate campaign successful.
After being asked time after time, "What about phone orders? How do I receive the commission for those?" it finally hit me.
I had to have affiliate phone order tracking
in all of my affiliate programs.
Up until this point, my response had been "90% of our orders are taken online through our secure online system. Tracking orders by phone is a simple process. When someone calls our phone line to order, our phone representatives ask the question: "How did you hear about the product?"
Now that I think about it, did I ever look like an idiot with that response. Affiliates have hung up on me because they knew I was throwing them a line of BS!
Do you know how many affiliates wouldn’t
promote my affiliate programs because
I didn’t track phone orders?
And these were the affiliates I really wanted. The "Super Affiliates" that do 90% of your selling.
But let's face it, customers are skeptical and want to be able to talk to someone before they place their order. How many times have you heard, "I am glad to talk to a live person. I don't like placing an order over the Internet; can I place one over the telephone with you?"
People have a sense of security when they can talk one-on-one with somebody. The customer wants to make sure there is actually an office, and that this is not some offshore, money-sucking, fraudulent Web site based in nowheresville.
The trouble with the phone-ordering process is that the "cookie," or commission, is suddenly of no use and is ignored. If your Web site requires a phone call to place an order, then the only way an affiliate can get a commission is if you ask the customer what Web site they came from or if the URL has a code number in it.
And let's be honest, who's going to do that? Not to mention, what customer is going to remember the last six digits of a URL? (I bet you don't remember the last six digits of the URL that brought you to this page.)
Remembering a URL is unfeasible to ask of any customer, but is it unfeasible to ask a software program to track the sales for you?
Now, I have personally tested nearly every shopping cart, affiliate software program, and autoresponder system on the market, and I couldn’t be happier than I am right now with 1shoppingcart.com. It's the best third-party shopping cart and affiliate software on the market.
You're already a member, so I don’t need to waste your time by telling you all of 1shoppingcart.com's features and benefits (like the autoresponder system, ad-tracking capabilities, upsell capabilities, and the list goes on and on).
Having used many affiliate software programs on the market, such as AssocTrac, AffiliateShop, ClixGalore, and MyAffiliateProgram, I know that there's always been
One thing missing from the 1ShoppingCart.com
affiliate program and it's membership sites is the...
ABILITY TO TRACK PHONE ORDERS
I personally emailed the programmers of 1shoppingcart.com and asked them if it was possible to track phone orders for affiliates. In fact, here is the correspondence:
Ticket Details: Phone Tracking For Affiliates
Ticket ID: 501544
Department: Support
Status: Closed
Priority: Unassigned
Created On: 11 Jun 2007 03:21 PM
Last Update: 11 Jun 2007 06:40 PM
Conversation:
Tyler Sorensen Posted On: 11 Jun 2007 03:21 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------
Hi There,
I wanted to know if it was possible to track affiliate phone orders? What I am looking to do is display our affiliates ID next to our phone number. That way when a customer calls to order we can credit the deserving affiliates with the sale.
Thanks,
Tyler Sorensen
Kent McGovern Posted On: 11 Jun 2007 05:47 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Tyler,
At this time there is no tracking for phone sales, as the only way to track the sales would be to go through the affiliates link. You are able to manually add the affiliate to the order, after clicking on the name of the customer to bring up the order details you would click on 'Update Commissions' and choose the affiliate from the list.
I hope this helps...
Have I answered all of your questions today? If so, do I have your permission to close this ticket?
Tyler Sorensen
Posted On: 11 Jun 2007 06:40 PM
---------------------------------------------------------------
You answered the question and may close the ticket. Thank you.
Tyler Sorensen |
But I wasn't going to take no for an answer — because my paycheck depended on it!
So I went back to my former life as a computer science geek, and after days behind the computer, a lot of frustration, and 14 pots of coffee, I found the answer to my problems.
It's now possible to track phone orders through
1ShoppingCart.com, KickStartCart.com, MarketersChoice.com,
and other membership sites of 1ShoppingCart.com
What I developed I call the Affiliate Phone Order Tracking System. I will save you all the technical mumbo jumbo about how it works. The fact of the matter is, it works flawlessly.
Here Is A Real-Life Example...
In order to increase affiliate revenues, Rebuild Your Vision takes telephone orders during business hours. A customer who clicks your affiliate link will be provided with a "promotion code" for phone orders. This code is the same as your affiliate ID number. It is displayed next to Rebuild Your Vision's telephone number.
When a customer places an order via telephone, our customer representatives are trained to ask, "Did you receive a promotion code?"
When the order comes through, the representative writes down the "promotion code" (your affiliate ID) and immediately e-mails it to our Affiliate Manager, who credits your account with the sale you deserve.
First, if you were to click the direct link to the Rebuild Your Vision site,
www.rebuildyourvision.com (be sure to clear your cookies), and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look at ordering option #2, it would look like this:
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