Getting Your Affiliate Program Started
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This document provides instructions for setting up an affiliate marketing campaign with nam/offers, an affiliate network. It outlines the 5 phases of setup: 1) completing paperwork, 2) preparing campaign assets, 3) campaign setup in the tracking system, 4) campaign launch, and 5) ongoing campaign management. The goal is to launch the campaign within 48-72 hours. It includes details on setting up tracking links and pixels, as well as guidelines for creative assets. Appendices provide examples of different tracking link formats and accepted pixel types.
Getting Your Affiliate Program Started
- 1. Getting Your Affiliate Program Started with nam/offers
- 2. Introduction This guide introduces you to nam/offers, and provides step by step instructions on launching your affiliate program with our affiliate network. You spoke to the nam/offers advertising team, and are now getting familiar with the setup guide to launching your campaign. On the call, you learned about nam/offers — screening process, approval process, and ongoing affiliate management systems — that mitigate risk, and maximize quality. If at anytime you feel the need to throw your keyboard… Or have no idea what’s going on in this guide, forward the guide to your technical team, or contact your advertising rep at nam/offers. Last thing… If at anytime you feel the need to throw your keyboard… Or have no idea what’s going on in this guide, forward the guide to your technical team, or contact your advertising rep at nam/offers. This goal of this guide is to set expectations, and provide clear instructions. Scroll down for the table of contents… and thanks for choosing nam/offers!
- 3. Table of Contents About nam/offers ______________________________________ p. 4 Our Team ______________________________________ p. 5 Account Executive ______________________________________ p. 5 Affiliate Controller ______________________________________ p. 5 Affiliate Manager ______________________________________ p. 6 Chief Operating Officer ______________________________________ p. 6 Chief Technology Officer ______________________________________ p. 6 Data Analyst ______________________________________ p. 6 Designer ______________________________________ p. 7 Finance Department ______________________________________ p. 7 Human Resources ______________________________________ p. 7 Marketing & PR ______________________________________ p. 7 Programmer ______________________________________ p. 7 Setup Instructions ______________________________________ p. 8 Paperwork ______________________________________ p. 8 Campaign Preparations ______________________________________ p. 10 Campaign Setup ______________________________________ p. 11 Campaign Launch ______________________________________ p. 12 Campaign Management ______________________________________ p. 13 Appendix A ______________________________________ p. 15 Appendix B ______________________________________ p. 17 Appendix C ______________________________________ p. 18
- 4. About nam/offers Frederik Drejfald, Peter Hasselbalch, and Michael Rich (2 Danes and 1 Canadian) cofounded nam/offers in December 2010. The team entered performance based marketing after success with fortune 1000 & INC TOP 5000 companies on branding campaigns. The vision of 2 Danes and 1 Canadian included creating the #1 performance based affiliate network for emerging brands. As well, contributing to the affiliate community by creating Affiliate Expert Academy — a training resource for Affiliate Marketers. More “bloodthirsty” entrepreneurs joined the team — introducing new ideas, skills, and systems to create the ultimate team. 4
- 5. Our Team Entrepreneurs is the word that sums up nam/offers. We’re a distributed team, meaning spread across the whole planet: US, Canada, LATAM, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Consider us self motivated, trend setting entrepreneurs. Below is a list of the positions nam/offers fulfill today, Account Executive Develop, and manage relationships with advertisers - assisting with campaign set up, launch, and optimizations. Affiliate Controller Review affiliate applications — speaking to each affiliate on the phone or Skype to ensure the affiliate is experienced. 5
- 6. Affiliate Manager Develops, and maintains relationships with affiliates — a real time matchmaker who connects affiliates with offers. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Oversees ongoing business operations within the company — making it easy to review performance in each department. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Keeps up to date with technology, and latest trends to ensure advertisers, and affiliates have the top software, and systems. Data Analyst Monitors trends in the advertising industry — discovering emerging niches, and keeping nam/offers ahead of the curve. 6
- 7. Designer Develops websites, infographics, white papers, and other projects related to visual appeal — keeping our designs ahead of the curve. Finance Department Invoices advertisers, collects payments, follows up on late payments, and provides payment to affiliates. Marketing Manages communication between nam/offers, and 3rd parties — guest blog posts, advertisements, and press releases. Programmer Programmers develop proprietary technology — including our offerwall, advertiser hub, team dashboard, and linktrace. 7
- 8. Setup Instructions Below is an outline of the next steps to getting started — this includes campaign prep, set up, launch, and management. The process generally takes 48-72 hours from start to end. Phase 1: Paperwork It’s critical you provide all requested information in the paperwork. The paperwork is the foundation to your campaigns - missing details may slow down campaign setup, and create confusion. Contact your account manager with any questions. 8
- 9. 1) nam/offers IO The Insertion Order (IO) includes the company and campaign details - legal company name, accounting contact, payment terms, accepted media types, conversion requirements, etc. 2) Advertiser Terms & Conditions The Terms & Conditions set the rules which nam/offers and Advertiser must agree to abide by in order to use a service — including: ads, placement, payment, and termination. 3) Credit Application A Credit Application is required for new advertisers who are requesting NET terms, rather than prepaying for leads, or sales in advance. You must provide 2-3 trade references. 9
- 10. Phase 2: Campaign Preparation Prepare the campaign assets while the paperwork is being processed. This way, nam/offers can setup up the campaign in our platform, eliminating potential delays. Sometimes the paperwork is signed, and the campaign is live in the same day. Send the campaign assets to the nam/offers Advertising team. There are two items included in the campaign assets. 1) Affiliate Tracking Link The tracking link allows you to monitor results for each affiliate running your campaign in nam/offers, which is important for rewarding high quality affiliates, and pausing low quality. Each affiliate in nam/offers is given a unique subID — ex: 1275 and 7432 — and each time a conversion is recorded, your system collects the subID and clickID of each conversion. Check with nam/offers or your tracking software to confirm subID and clickID tracking is possible — these are important features. (See Appendix A for examples of tracking links from different tracking softwares, including a full breakdown of what each parameters means in the affiliate tracking link.) 10
- 11. 2) Creative Assets Creative assets include: banners on websites, sponsored ads in the Facebook newsfeed, email templates, landing pages, native ads, and the text ads found in search results on Google. It’s critical as an advertiser to provide multiple creatives for each advertising type. This way, affiliates can split a/b test multiple creatives to find what creatives works best for their traffic. (See Appendix B for a breakdown of creative sizes, and how many creatives to provide.) Phase 3: Campaign Setup This is the phase nam/offers creates the campaign in our tracking software. You may want to forward this section to your technical team, or if you’re heading up the affiliate program contact nam/offers for any guidance on finalizing the campaign setup. nam/offers forwards the campaign assets to our campaign management team who uploads the campaign — including details, affiliate tracking link, and creative assets. Once the campaign is setup, nam/offers provides a tracking pixel to the advertiser. The pixel allows nam/offers to track sales in our tracking software, and is placed on the “thank you” page after the lead is submitted or a purchase is made on your campaign. 11
- 12. Once the pixel is implemented, nam/offers confirms the pixel is setup correctly by sending a test (manual sign-up) lead, or sale. To do this, the test link provided with the pixel must be clicked. When the test link is clicked, a cookie is dropped onto your computer. This cookie is specific to nam/offers, and must be clicked in order for the pixel test to show up in our system. Once the test lead/sale is created, the user lands on the “thank you” page (where pixel is located), and the pixel “fires”. The pixel communicates to the cookie — confirming the lead/sale is from nam/offers. The conversion (lead/sale) then shows up in nam/offers tracking software. (See Appendix C for examples of accepted pixel formats from different tracking platforms.) Phase 4: Campaign Launch The paperwork is signed, campaign preparations completed, campaign setup finalized, and the pixel is tested. Your campaign is ready to be launched on nam/offers affiliate network. The next step is nam/offers setting the campaign from “pending” to “active” in our tracking software, enabling affiliates to see the offer, and review campaign details in the tracking software. 12
- 13. nam/offers also recruits affiliates through personal communication, our weekly newsletter with recommended offers, and through our publically listed offerwall for 3rd party affiliates to review. Some affiliates are hand selected by nam/offers affiliate managers, and other affiliates manually submit an application to run the offer including details on traffic source, daily volume, etc. Affiliates must provide satisfactory details to promote your offer. It’s important to nam/offers your brand is protected, quality assurance is implemented, and there is necessary processes in place inhibiting suspicious, and/or fraudulent activity. nam/offers takes care of the heavy lifting for affiliate recruitment. Phase 5: Campaign Management The final phase is campaign management — which is the transparent communication between nam/offers - sharing details on affiliates - and and advertiser, sharing the results of affiliates. It’s important clear expectations of what satisfactory results is shared with nam/offers before launching a campaign. It's easier to manage the campaign when all parties are on the same page. Communication is key to creating long term success. 13
- 14. Start by sharing the below details with nam/offers: How many leads on average it takes to create a sale? How much on average can be spent to create a positive ROI? This information enables nam/offers to set expectations (sharing what is considered satisfactory) with affiliates. It also allows both parties to review traffic reports collaboratively, rather than learning what is and isn’t satisfactory later down the road, only to discover potential surprises on traffic quality. Setting clear expectations is a must for long term success.. You also want to provide nam/offers with fresh seasonal creatives: Valentine’s Day, New Years, Christmas, Earth Day, Super Bowl… anything and everything significant to your brand. Being relevant (current events/seasonal) with consumers automatically supports your affiliate programs success. If you have any questions to the content, or need assistance with your affiliate program, please contact michael@namoffers.com to set up a call with the advertiser team. 14
- 15. Appendix A: Affiliate Tracking Link Examples Cake http://yourdomain.com/?a=3300&c=126998&s1={affiliate_id} &s2={transaction_id} A: Affiliate ID (nam/offers Affiliate ID) C: Campaign ID S1: subID (sub-affiliate) S2: clickID Hasoffers http://yourdomain.com/aff_c?offer_id=59&aff_id=1725&aff_sub={affiliate_id} &aff_sub2={transaction_id} OFFER_ID = Campaign ID AFF_ID: (nam/offers Affiliate ID) AFF_SUB: subID (sub-affiliate) AFF_SUB2: clickID HitPath http://yourdomain.com/rd/r.php?sid=10297&pub=101176&c1={affiliate_id} &c2={transaction_id} SID: Campaign ID PUB: Affiliate ID (nam/offers Affiliate ID) C1: subID (sub-affiliate) C2: clickID 15
- 16. LinkTrust http://yourdomain.com/click.ashx? CID=314396&AFID=372215&ADID=1492136&SID={affiliate_id} &AffiliateReferenceID={transaction_id} CID: Campaign ID AFID: Affiliate ID (nam/offers Affiliate ID) ADID: Creative ID SID: subID (sub-affiliate) AffiliateReference: clickID Offerit http://yourdomain.com/track/NjQuMi4yLjIuMC4wLjAuMC4wLjAuMC4w? _ocid={transaction_id}&subaff={affiliate_id} OCID: clickID SUBAFF: subID (sub-affiliate) Post Affiliate Pro http://yourdomain.com/?affiliates=NAMoffers&data1={affiliate_id} &data2={transaction_id} Affiliates: Affiliate ID (nam/offers Affiliate ID) DATA1: subID (sub-affiliate) DATA2: clickID Refersion https://yourdomain.com/l/a79.47497?subid={affiliate_id} subID: subID (sub-affiliate 16
- 17. Appendix B: Creative Sizes and Creative Amounts Advertorials (3-5 advertorial/presell pages) Banners (3-5 sets (set includes all ad sizes) CPV/PPV (5-10 creatives) Facebook Landing Page (3-10 landing pages) Mobile Banners 3-5 sets (set includes all ad sizes) 17 728x90 300x250 160x600 120x600 468x60 300x600 336x280 720x300 320x50 320x100 200x200 250x250 300x250 Newsfeed 1200x628 Carousel 600x600 Right Column 254x133
- 18. Text Ads (5-10 text ads) Appendix C: Accepted Pixel Formats 18 Headline: 25 Description Line 1: 35 Description Line 2: 35 Display URL: 35 Cake HTTP(S) iFrame HTTP(S) Image Server to Server Postback Hasoffers HTTP(S) iFrame HTTP(S) Image Server to Server Postback HitPath HTTP(S) iFrame HTTP(S) Image Server to Server Postback LinkTrust HTTP(S) iFrame HTTP(S) Image Server to Server Postback Offerit HTTP(S) iFrame HTTP(S) Image Server to Server Postback Post Affiliate Pro HTTPS iFrame Refersion HTTPS iFrame
- 19. “If you build it (affiliate program), they (affiliates) will come!” Michael Rich Co-Founder | Advertiser Director nam/offers X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX X X X XXX