In reflecting on our own affiliate activities this week, I was struck by just how much care and feeding an affiliate program needs. Now perhaps our situation is a bit unusual because we're actually running six different programs through two different networks both Commission Junction and ClickTrade . But other programs have the added complexity of 10,000 product SKUs or two dozen categories of merchandise or some other unique feature. No matter what the specifics of your program, there are quite a few levers any affiliate marketer controls. The key to your activities is quickly figuring out what moves the needle.
Affiliate marketing works the same way.
Forrester went on to peg the average program at 10,000 affiliates. These numbers are a good start, but our team breaks activity down even further. After going over your total base of affiliates, look at how many actually have a live link up and running. Experience has shown that as few as ten percent and as many as 70 percent of your affiliates actually add links. Maybe 30 percent is a good average to use.