BDE Consulting | Affiliate Marketing Services

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Affiliate Marketing

Online affiliate marketing is the practice of website (A) compensating another website (B) or group of websites (CDE) to refer their (BCDE) visitors to the other website (A). Online affiliate marketing is a subset of internet marketing but tends to be the step-child of online marketing as it has had some fairly controversial history during its 10+ year history. Affiliate marketers are often considered the pioneers of online marketing and consist of thousands of small business owners (usually 1 - 3 employees) that spend copious amounts of time on their website to help drive traffic to other sites by way of search engine optimization, merchandising, niche content writing, web analytics to rapidly determine successes and failures, and early adoption of new technologies to stay ahead of the sites they are driving traffic towards. Affiliate marketing is one part of the online marketer's online marketing triangle: search engine optimization, paid search, and affiliate marketing. A website that doesn't have an affiliate marketing campaign to target sites that can help drive traffic are at a significant disadvantage.

In-house Affiliate Marketing

The advantage of an in-house affiliate marketing program is predominately brand management, long-term relationship building, and a significant search engine optimization advantage. With an in-house affiliate program, a company can more selectively choose which sites are accepted into their affiliate program. A company can target affiliates that are more closely related to their own site, brand image, and more affectively qualify the quality of the leads that are likely to arise from these types of online affiliates. Additionally, because the company is interacting directly with their online affiliates, a more loyal and undiluted relationship is created. Rather than bouncing offers through an outsourced affiliate manager whom then re-communicates the offer to the affiliates, an in-house affiliate marketing system creates direct communication between the affiliated websites and the company. Due to the smaller percentage of in-house affiliate programs versus outsourced programs, the affiliates tend to feel more appreciated and brand loyalty occurs more easily. Furthermore, the benefits of an in-house affiliate program are very significant in regards to search engine optimization. The large outsourced affiliate marketing companies use linking methods that direct links either through a java script system (which search engines can't currently follow) or point to their own domain names and then redirect to the appropriate site. This bouncing/redirecting of links either results in a complete loss of inbound link credit (aka, Page Rank value, link juice, etc.) or a significant diminishment of the inbound link credit. Considering the search engine algorithms of today are highly reliant on a system of inbound link 'voting', losing or diminishing the inbound link value of potentially thousands of inbound links is very significant.

Outsourced Affiliate Marketing

Advantages of an outsourced affiliate program are also quite compelling. Primarily a company will receive a large network of potential affiliates immediately upon signing a contract with the outsourced affiliate marketing company. The ability to market to these potential affiliates has already been refined over the years and the number of affiliate 'signups' will most likely be quicker than what a company would receive via an in-house managed affiliate program. Additionally, the outsourced affiliate program comes with visibility to the competitive landscape. The outsourced affiliate program manager will help a company to offer the correct tools, linking methods, reports, and technologies that are working well for other companies in the network. An outsourced affiliate program also doesn't require nearly the resources that an internally managed affiliate program requires. There is no need to have a dedicated in-house employee to manage the affiliate network or recruit new affiliates, plus a company's internal information department resources and accounts payable resources are minimized.

In-house Affiliate Marketing versus Outsourced Affiliate Marketing

As a general rule, if a company already has an in-house affiliate marketing program that has been functional without problems for over a year, it is generally best to hire additional resources to grow the in-house affiliate program. This is due largely in part to the search engine optimization advantages, relatively low-cost that can be expected to improve the current program, and the long-term advantages of an in-house program. Conversely, if a company is engaging in affiliate marketing for the first time and has relatively little experience with affiliate marketing, it is generally best to utilize an outside affiliate marketing company. There will be little to no losses in search engine optimization generated revenue because there will be little to no inbound links as of yet from targeted affiliate websites. Most importantly, a large network of potential affiliates will be at the company's fingertips upon signing a contract with the outsourced affiliate marketing company.

How We Can Help You Achieve Your Affiliate Marketing Goals

Your company and situation is unique. Making a decision regarding affiliate marketing is a serious one that should be looked at in significant depth. BDE Consulting has been actively managing affiliate networks since 2001 and can help you to analyze your particular situation and company to make the proper decision. We have been involved with affiliate marketing as both the affiliate and the company recruiting affiliates. We have experience with all of the major outsourced affiliate marketing companies as well as extensive expertise with in-house managed affiliate marketing programs. We charge only $100 per hour with no minimum fees. You are only charged for the time we spend evaluating your particular situation and we will provide detailed time stamps to prove it. Email us about your specific situation. Most often times we can help you to make a fully-informed decision with only a few hours of consulting. It will probably be the past few hundred dollars your company ever spent.