Operating multiple affiliate programs can be an overwhelming task. The desire to get your brand & offers in front of as many affiliates as possible is often tempting, but it’s important to be vigilant about the risks of overwhelming your team & not having a unified view of channel performance.
Multiple factors such as time, resources, knowledge and management skills should be considered before setting up multiple affiliate programs. You may want to get as many campaigns live as possible, but if you don’t have the time or knowledge to effectively manage them, it will limit your chance of success and could result in thousands of dollars in duplicate payouts, skewed reporting and low quality partnerships. Diversity is important but quality over quantity is essential when building an efficient & scalable affiliate program.
Pro’s of multiple platforms:
Wider Reach & diversification:
Creating multiple affiliate programs allows you the ability to target a wider audience and mitigates the risk of being too dependent on a small cohort of affiliates.
The first step would be to identify which affiliate types you want to partner with – media buyers, influencers, content & review sites or coupon & cashback sites. Each of these affiliate groups may require different tracking, commission structures, attribution models & reporting capabilities so having multiple programs to support this at an affiliate group level could be instrumental in your success.
Platform Features:
Particular platforms may be better equipped to effectively manage your target affiliate types,
For example if you predominantly work with:
- Media buyers: You may need access to additional insights such as funnel metrics, commission payouts based on new v’s returning customers, postback access so media buyers can report in real-time.
- Influencers: If you predominantly work with influencers who post on social media & don’t use a tracking link, you may be better suited to a platform that will allow you to attribute discount codes to a specific partner.
- Large publications: Getting set-up on a platform like Skimlinks can open doors to get featured in editorial/PR placements across well known publications.
Optimisations & testing:
Operating on multiple platforms enables you to experiment and test different marketing strategies. You can compare the performance of your affiliate program across platforms and optimize your efforts accordingly.
Expanding your affiliate program can also give you a competitive edge. You may be able to target new affiliates that your competitors aren’t or target similar partner types that they’re having success with.
Cons of multiple affiliate programs:
Resource Intensive:
Managing affiliate programs on multiple platforms is labour intensive. Each platform requires significant set-up time & management, including technical support, vetting applications, building commission structures, adding assets, approving conversions & analysing reports.
Reporting challenges:
If you choose to have multiple affiliate accounts, it’s important to combine reports so you have a unified view of revenue, blended ROAS, CPA & EPC. Looking at each platform as a silo won’t give you an accurate insight into the overall performance of the affiliate channel.
For example if you’re managing bottom/middle of funnel partners (coupon & review sites) on one affiliate platform the CPA will be lower than the program where you are running your Top of funnel campaigns (paid media & content sites). If we look at the performance at a program level, we may be inclined to pause one, but in reality the blended CPA could be in line with your blended targets. .
Using additional UTM parameters across all affiliate tracking platform links can allow you to use Google Analytics as the source of truth, and see which affiliates drove first/last click conversions.
Effective Management:
Effective management is key when trying to scale an affiliate program. If you’re splitting your time between platforms, it could limit the quality time you spend with each partner. Investing time in understanding the funnel, commission structures & EPC of each partner group on each platform could be compromised due to a lack of resources. If you’re restricted with time, knowledge or management skills, it would be better to launch one platform at a time to ensure you’re building strong & long lasting relationships before investing in another platform.
Payout deduping:
Very often multiple affiliates can contribute to a sale and a user will click on multiple affiliate links before purchasing. Each platform triggers conversions independently & can’t deduplicate last click sales across multiple platforms.
For example, if a user clicks on a tracking link on Platform A and then clicks on another affiliate’s ad from Platform B, both platforms will trigger a payout. To refrain from paying two partners on two different partners twice for the one sale, you will have to manually review each conversion on a monthly basis & manually reject the partner that wasn’t the last click.
Platform Regulations:
Each platform has its own rules and regulations for affiliate marketing. Some programs have stricter rules against brand bidding. It’s important to make sure that the platform’s rules align with your own. If you’ve removed affiliates from your account on one platform, it’s important to put a process in place to make sure they don’t get onto another platform.
Cost:
The price of each Affiliate platform differs significantly based on the range of features it provides. Creating multiple programs will incur additional cost as well as require additional support from the finance department for invoicing & account funding.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, having affiliate programs on multiple platforms can be a powerful strategy for expanding your reach and diversifying your revenue streams. However, it requires careful planning, resource management, and adherence to platform regulations to reap the benefits effectively.
