So now you have all of your offers ready, the offers posted and are getting traffic, however you are not seeing the results you had hoped…why is this? Have you ever looked around the web to make sure you have a compelling offer?

Often times when you are pulling offers from newsletters, data feeds, or the affiliate interface you are getting the same offer that is available to everyone who is an affiliate of the network. Depending on how big the network is, this offer could be heavily promoted and diluted. It’s always wise to do your homework before you start promoting a coupon to see how the offer competes in the market and determine how wide-spread the offer is…the last thing you want is to be just another affiliate promoting the same stale offer.

The Holy Grail of coupon affiliates is the coveted “exclusive”. “Exclusive Offer” is also one of the most over-used, thrown-through-the-mud, and abused terms in the industry. One of my favorite explanations is “Well, it’s exclusive to our network”. Sure it is, but you also have 100,000+ affiliates in your network…that doesn’t sound very exclusive to me!

So how do you know your “exclusive” is truly exclusive? Depending on what kind of exclusive offer it is, there are websites out there that can help you check. If you have an exclusive offer that is the lowest price, I recommend checking www.froogle.com and www.pricegrabber.com. Froogle.com is still in Beta, so it can be a little challenging to navigate sometimes, but between the two sites you can typically determine if you have the lowest price. If you are running with multi-product bundles, conducting a few simple Google searches should quickly tell you if your exclusive bundle is available elsewhere.

One thing that is often overlooked with exclusive offers is the automatic assumption that it has to be the lowest price. Does it? Not necessarily. Depending on the product and the network you are working with, you can get exclusive “bundles” of multiple products from the same merchant or even multiple merchants. The key is finding the right product mix and the right discount level for multiple products. One advantage of exclusive product bundles is that you increase your AOV (Average Order Value). I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a few high AOV sales in a month rather than have to rely purely volume.

Rick Gardiner
Manager, Affiliate Development LEC
oneNetworkDirect