Affiliates: Is it worth offering you CASH Prizes?

There's a reason a lot of successful vendors offer cash prizes...

It's because they do work in enticing affiliates (when done right).

Several of the products I promote had cash prize offers for affiliate contests so I'd say it's worth giving it a try.

Regards,
Daniel

I would rather see you pay more per conversion but that's just me

Congrats on the upcoming product launch! And YES!!! Affiliates only promote other people's stuff to make money. So if you can incentivize them and give them even more money without doing anymore work, you'll get a boat ton of more sales than you would without a cash prize contest type of thing.

Just be sure to give them adequate enough notice so that they can get everything prepared for the big launch!

I hope that helps and good luck!

In a nutshell, yes.

Affiliates like winning contests and bragging rights.

Yes and No.

On the one hand, you'll attract newbies who care about $100, $500, $1,000 prizes. In my experience, an honest newbie may not send you large volume traffic, but the quality is usually very high; you're often getting those "lucky conversions" that may come through every few days, every week, every month, that represent people who were already sold on taking action long before the newbie got lucky and referred them. Trouble is, though I do have respect for newbies, when you have to manage a lot of newbie affiliates (a lot of affiliates, full stop), you're often making unnecessary work for yourself.

So, on the other hand, you have Whales; experienced affiliates capable of sending quality and volume. They tend to require more management from the get-go (often asking for custom creatives and whatnot) but, long-term, decidedly less management. One or two Whales? Often the equivalent of having several thousand newbie affiliates. And Whales? Not interested in cash prizes. I do remember a time when sponsors, as we called them, would offer Ford Mustangs and whatnot but the biggest incentives amounted to the same as it does today:

1. Program you can trust.
2. AM who knows what he's talking about.
3. A willingness to work with the affiliate.
4. Responsive AM.
5. High potential EPC.
6. Offers that upgrade in response to what the market wants.
7. Payout choices.
8. Multiple landers.
9. I could go on, but I think I'm just stating the obvious now.

It depends on the offer you and your partner are setting up. If it were me? I'd contact some Whales. Heck of a lot easier dealing with a handful of people. Just be nice and polite, obviously, and don't expect most of them to take you up on your offer, even when you're working out something special for them. You need some time behind you, really. But you might get lucky and pick up a few and their traffic will help you optimize, give you some history, and therefore help you next time you approach big-hitters. It depends, like I say, on the offer - but I'd look at high-profile blogs and forums, where you're typically getting quality traffic.

Finally, at this stage - concentrate most of your efforts on the product and the program. I really wouldn't worry too much about getting affiliates. If the product rocks? Affiliates will find you.

- Tom

I love the idea

I guess you need to make sure that you can cover the cost of the prizes, I know that seems to be obvious but make sure for example if you say

1st Prize 1000 that you have a criteria, suppose you have a person who gets first prize but only sold 60 copies of your product and brings in $600 in sales and then you have to pay out $1k

Ok many will say this will not happen but it could, it could

However I have seen people doing this as a lost leader - they make no money on the front end and might even lose money but they have a good backend in place that they know will recoup the money for them.

Regarding money vs prizes i think money is better, as with prizes you might run into the following issues:
1) shipping costs from USA for example to Europe might be huge
2) prize might get lost
3) prize might get stopped at customs and then the receiver might have to pay taxes
4) money can be transferred quickly after the competition ends - thus feel good factor for the affiliate comes quicker

just my thoughts

I was once on a JV page for a product. The product was produced and being sold by 2 people that worked together to make this product. They were having a contest with cash prizes for the top 5 affiliates. The current standings had both product developers at 1st and 2nd place. Needless to say I did not promote that product.

al

Yes.

There's many affiliates who won't even consider sending traffic without them.

(something to keep in mind)

What I've noticed is having cash prizes makes it more likely to get bigger name affiliates on board to promote your stuff.

As far as I understand, its done to attract the bigger fish out there?

Affiliate contests are a gimmick to suck in a lot of "little fish".

"Come on, run with the big boys!"

Marketers market, that's what they do. Your affiliates (or potentials) are just another market you are trying to convince to pay you. But, as affiliates are also marketers, you have to be good to sell them. Affiliate contests work like gang-busters on the aforementioned "little fish".

I'm what people refer to an a super affiliate and all I care about is how the offer converts and how much can I make. If someone has a better offer, than I'm going to promote it. So I would recommend that you use your money to offer higher payout's and produce higher EPC's, as that is what is going to attract higher producing affiliates.

After carefully analyzing dozens and dozens of successful CB products and from the suggestions listed here above, I've came to a conclusion that its a combination of things that creates a formula of success. And heres the breakdown:

1. A solid convincing product (that actually helps people and has a great conversion rate!)
2. Upsells (more money for affiliates)
3. Cash prizes
4. Promote the heck out of it attracting affiliates (I know if the product is good enough they'll find me without it)
4. Pushing the product yourself

Feel free to add or comment! I'd like to hear your take on it!