The Value of Transparency – how it can help take your business to the next level

So you want to take your affiliate marketing business to the next level? This industry is all about strategic partnerships, and it’s not hard to get to that level that will open up brand new opportunities for growth.

Transparency is a central component in building these strategic relationships. Being transparent simply means being open and honest about your marketing practices with your partners. Transparency is the key ingredient in creating trust, and any solid, strategic relationship has mutual trust at its foundation. This brings the relationship to a partnership level, where you and your AM are working to succeed as a team.

If being transparent just means being open and honest with your AM about your marketing practices, why do so many publishers have hangups with transparency? More importantly, why should there be no cause for concern?

·  Uncertainty about whether information will remain confidential — Many publishers are afraid to “give up” their marketing methods, results of their hard work and careful testing, retesting, and optimization. They fear that their AM will either pawn off their secrets to other publishers or rip their pages and steal them for themselves. Working with networks and other partners who do things the right way is the only way to ease your mind with these types of concerns. Clickbooth doesn’t allow AMs to do any internal promotion, so there’s no way we could use your hard work for our own personal benefit aside from growing your business as strategic teammates. Trust partners who don’t do any internal promotion and who promise to keep information confidential from other publishers, using it for your benefit only.

·  Uneasiness regarding compliance guidelines — Especially with recent industry developments, publishers sometimes find compliance guidelines a gray area. Some might not be sure exactly where they stand when it comes to our compliance guidelines, and that uneasiness can hold them back from sharing info about how they’re promoting offers. But even if your page does need a few minor changes to fit within the advertiser’s restrictions, it’s been proven time and time again that it’s better to work proactively with your AM to fix an element of your campaign than to be at risk of losing all of your traffic if you’re doing something that’s against the advertiser’s policies. This saves time, money, and effort fighting over something you could have fixed through open communication early on.

·  Underestimating the wealth of knowledge your AM can provide through a transparent relationship — All the hangups about being transparent are moot if you’re working only with partners you know and trust and if you understand the knowledge they can provide when you open the door to a relationship built on mutual trust and info-sharing. When you succeed, we succeed, so we want to provide you with more knowledge and expertise, but you have to open the door to reciprocal information sharing.

So what are some of these wonderful benefits and wealth of knowledge that I’ve mentioned?

·  Higher payouts – Simply mentioning that you’re running a specific offer through another network at X payout will open the door to making more money, since 9 times out of 10 we can match or beat that payout. Keeping your AM in the loop with your payouts is key and one of the easiest ways to cultivate instant growth.

·  Targeted recommendations — We have a bird’s eye view of the industry, but we’re also experts in specific channels of marketing and can provide knowledge targeted toward your business. This requires open communication about the key elements of your business. The more info I know about your data, sources, system for measuring metrics, testing process, and previous successes/failures, the easier it will be for us to work together and pinpoint solid opportunities for growth. Info sharing is the tradeoff for more targeted recommendations, which are more effective than shooting in the dark and hoping something works.

·  Priority access to capped exclusives — Exclusive offers are constantly being unveiled, and a very select amount publishers are given access right off the bat. First dibs on capped offers always go to publishers who are on a strategic partnership level and are transparent about how they promote offers. Working with your AM to discuss the details of how you plan to promote the campaign can get you moved to the top of the list when a hot new exclusive is launching.

These are just a few examples of using transparency to take your relationship with your network partners and ultimately your business to the next level.

Perhaps most important, the value of transparency lies within establishing yourself as a legitimate affiliate who does things the right way. It implies a level of integrity and accountability in an industry where dishonest practices are sometimes an unfortunate reality. Being transparent will set you apart from partners who aren’t doing things the right way and give you an edge on your competition.

Getting access to this plethora of information through a strategic partnership with your AM isn’t hard, but the keys to the kingdom do come at a cost — the down payment is the sharing of information by being transparent about your marketing practices.

Guest Post:

Katie Rose,  Affiliate Strategist