Affiliate programs on multiple networks: A longtail strategy

Companies who do their business online aren’t entirely different from those who do theirs offline as far as using sub-brands to position products would go. Honda uses their Acura brand to position their luxury vehicle division, Toyota uses their Lexus brand and, online, Six Apart has their enterprise blogging platform in the form of Movable Type and their hosted blogging platform for professionals and small businesses in the form of Typepad.

The question is, for online merchants planning to launch affiliate programs, which route should they take?

Single, Masterbrand affiliate program or multiple programs for sub-brands / Masterbrand program across multiple affiliate networks?

In some marketing circles, there’s been a long-established canon that sub-branding doesn’t do anyone any good. And, while I find this naive, over-simplified and not without a lot of exceptions, affiliate marketers seem to be one of those communities who embrace this as a universal truth.

Argument: Having multiple affiliate programs for different sub-brands or working with multiple affiliate networks cause a lot of confusion and raises a lot of concerns on network quality. Parasiteware and cookie-stuffers, if not controlled in any of a brand’s multiple affiliate networks, make the program generally unattractive to more discerning affiliates.

My take: First, there is value in working with multiple affiliate networks in the sense that affiliates have their own personal preferences in terms of which affiliate network to work with. One affiliate might be in Commission Junction but not on LinkShare or the Google Affiliate Network. Another might be working with Pepperjam and LinkConnector but not with buy.at.

However, in my experience, there is a little confusion that goes on when you launch a program with another affiliate network. Affiliates usually think that the reason you’re launching a program on another network is because you’re closing down the one on the network they’re in.

Some affiliates know that this is a common merchant practice but it is important for you to respond to any questions of this nature and assure your affiliates that your program is healthy in the network it is on and the reason why you’re launching a new program is because you are simply broadening your program’s distribution channel.

Launching a program for one of your company’s sub-brands, like launching a master brand on multiple affiliate networks, is a long tail strategy. Doing so, instead of capturing affiliates who are exclusive to one network (as it is in launching a master brand on multiple networks), and usually because of new price points and specialized product lines, allow you to capture niche affiliates.

As far as parasiteware and cookie stuffers would go, as with any affiliate program, it all boils down to good affiliate program management. If your company’s affiliate program management team is as vigilant as they should be in keeping dirty affiliates out of the multiple programs they manage, then legit affiliates should have no cause for worry.