Affiliate Commissions

I have seen some posts here on the forum lately with discussions about affiliates and affiliate commissions. I thought I would post my $.02 for what it's worth.

When I started in IM, I was an Amazon affiliate earning 4-6% depending on how good a month I was having. I moved over to being a product creator after I "did the math" and realized where the big money was being made.

I was still pretty green and I launched my 1st WSO and made a decision to offer 100% commission to my affiliates. I had none when I launched that 1st WSO and picked up a couple once it went live.

My biggest mistake was not giving 100% to affiliates, but not having a backend to monetize. I had no funnel at all. I nurtured my relationship with my subscribers and was able to make some money with follow-up selling.

As I gained more experience as a product creator, I got better and better with my products AND my funnels. For my largest WSO to date, I offered 50% across the entire funnel, 4 products in all.

During that particular launch, I was adamant about not bumping the commissions higher, but I had 1 affiliate in particular who requested 100% on the FE and after a long internal debate, I agreed.

This ended up being my #1 affiliate for the launch. Sure, I lost over $1000 in sales from the front end, but with my 50% conversion on the OTO, I could have lost $1,350 from those sales and over 100 subscribers. this does not include OTO 2 or 3 either.

As I look at my business, I see changes across many "free" platforms like Google, Facebook and others, but having some killer affiliates is worth way more to me than page one listings. A solid affiliate can send 1 email and make me 4 figures or more, I can't say the same for Google.

To really make an educated decision, you have to have a goal for your product:

• Subscribers
• Money
• Both

If you want subscribers, offer 100% on the entire funnel. This will attract many affiliates since the EPC's will likely be pretty high.

If you want cash, offer 50% across your funnel. This will attract affiliates and put some money in your pocket.

If you want both, offer 100% on the FE and 50% on the rest of the funnel. this will get a lot of affiliates since it is 100% and you can monetize with a strong backend offer.

Knowing what I know now, I would put at least 1 OTO into every funnel and use that to help monetize. I would also consider giving 100% or at least 75% to affiliates on the front end. This should make a nice balance for you and affiliates.

To our mutual success,

John