When Obox Themes launched in 2009 it was considered crazy to not have an affiliate program. Due to our tight launch deadline it wasn’t possible to get our program live. However when we did, it took off like a rocketship.
Since then our affiliate program has been a big success. Some months it’s driven more than 30% of our sales – not an insignificant amount at all!
Of course with any affiliate program comes the nasty side too. It goes without saying that the affiliate world has a dark underbelly and recently we’ve been overly exposed to it.
Over the last six months we’ve seen an increase in fraudulent purchases and over 85% of those have been directly linked to affiliates. So it’s time to get tough, clean out the bad and keep the good.
Today we are announcing, with immediate effect, that we are moving our program to invite only.
A thorough review of close to 1000 Obox affiliates has been done and those who’ve passed our checklist have remained and been notified as much.
If you feel that you’ve been ejected unfairly then don’t hesitate to contact us. If you’re an affiliate interested in joining our program then please sign up here and I will get in touch with you soon.
Lessons we’ve learned about affiliates since 2009
If you’re planning on creating an affiliate program on your site then here are some tips and lessons we’ve learned since the creation of ours.
Provide your affiliates with as much marketing material as possible
When you launch a new product don’t forget to send your affiliates all the marketing material you have created on your site. Send them blog copy, screenshots, banners and remind them of their commission rates.
Stay in contact with your best performers
These guys (and gals) can turn into your most powerful tool, make sure they happy, offer to help them and be open to negotiating.
Only payout commission after 60 days
Fraudulent sales are usually reversed in the first 45 days of a purchase. Delaying payouts will upset some affiliates but it is a simple way of weeding out as much fraud as possible. The last thing you want is to pay commission on a fraudulent sale.
The result of that is:
- You lose the revenue from the sale
- You are charged at least $50 for the chargeback (with 2checkout at least)
- You lost the money you paid the affiliate on that ghost purchase
Try vet suspicious accounts to the best of your ability
If names, emails and domains do not match up then contact that affiliate right away and ask for as much information as you can. We’ve had some affiliates with up to four (4) different names depending on their email address, paypal address, full name and contact name. These are instant red flags and they should be banned immediately.
Be sure to track every fraudulent sale
Every time you get a fraudulent sale you must make sure it does not track to an affiliate. If it does then flag that site and watch carefully for a second fraudulent sale. By the third one you should probably cancel the account. We also advise looking out for the following:
- Mis-matched IP addresses vs street addresses
- First and Last Names in full caps
- A consistent country producing fraud
- Different affiliate accounts with similar URL’s or paypal email addresses
We had to learn all of these the hard way, hopefully you can learn these lessons without having to endure them!
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