Should You Get Paid for Off-Line Sales?
I am personally a big supporter of affiliates getting paid for their efforts. I don’t know about you but getting 5% conversion rate from some of these merchants on CJ or LinkShare has been difficult to achieve for me. I am talking about brick and mortar offers of course. Let’s say you promote Walmart deals. If someone can just take 30 minutes and buy something from Walmart directly, why would they buy it online?
Amazon’s associate program has been successful as Amazon does not really have a physical presence. It obviously does help that Amazon is a price leader too, but in general, your leads can’t get the same deals that they can get from Amazon from their local stores. However, merchants that have physical presence can be extremely attractive to your leads. So you spend money on PPC and other costs, and you pre-sell folks just for them to go to the stores and pick up what you have spent money on to sell to these guys.
RevTrax is a new solution if you are working with brick & mortar merchants. I think if you are working with these guys, you need to be realistic about the situation. You simply can’t afford to spend money on folks and get a conversion rate of 0.5%.
The issue of off-line tracking in the affiliate marketing world is real, and a few merchants are issuing offline coupons to help affiliates get paid for their efforts. But all these solutions are not perfect. One way to get around this issue is by offering folks bonuses to buy thing from the online store. Another way to go is just to ignore these hybrid stores (which I don’t recommend). At the end of the day, you shouldn’t be shy about talking with your affiliate manager for a higher payout to offset the lower conversion rates.
One of the interesting things we’ve found with in-store conversions is that in several cases we’re seeing conversions for in-store as high as we’re seeing for online. That’s right, people are clicking online and using a printable coupon with conversions of 1%-5%. It’s surprising that people would be clicking and buying in-store at the same rate as they are buying online. However, the data supports this and shows that in some cases, the internet (and affiliates) are better at driving consumers in-store than they are in driving them to buy online. This cross-channel tracking is of value to both affiliates and merchants.
I am not surprised. Phone conversions are also another part of this business. You’d be surprised how much money affiliates and merchants are making by allowing folks to go online and then call. But phone conversions can be easily tracked.
The most under-reported trend in e-commerce is the impact of online ads on in-store sales. ComScore released a great study that showed that online ads generated $6 of in-store revenue for every $1 online. This shows a pretty critical need for merchants to track this revenue and attribute it correctly. It also shows why affiliates can make a lot more money with an in-store affiliate program.
The opportunity for sales falling through the cracks is high… I am still doubtful.
Sales falling through the cracks exists in the online affiliate space as well. How many times have we been notified of tracking errors from one of the large networks?
I agree with you Greg. And the funny thing is, some networks and affiliate programs actually don’t tell you about it. It’s a shame but affiliates don’t have too many rights