It isn’t unusual to see affiliate recruitment emails, newsletters or other pieces of merchant-affiliate correspondence come from email addresses dissociated from the actual merchant on whose behalf they are being sent out.
This often happens when the program is being managed by an OPM (outsourced program management) agency, and at times also when the merchant doesn’t really understand the value of having a dedicated, properly-set-up email address for their affiliate program.
I believe this subject to be of extreme importance. Hence, this post.
Here’s my 3-point advice regarding email addresses:
1. Set up a dedicated affiliate program support email address, a generic address to which affiliates can always turn to.
2. Have it follow affiliates@[merchantURL] pattern, also setting up a forwarder from an affiliate@ (singular form) address to your main one. Flee from AffiliateMgr@[merchantURL] or any other non-conventional ways to word your email address.
3. Stay away from free email services when corresponding with your affiliates. Trust me, those don’t add credibility.
In my past experience, I have seen email addresses help improve affiliate engagement and increase response rates, and every time I registered such improvements it was because I was following the above-quoted 3 principles.
Whether you’re reading this as an affiliate program manager, or as an affiliate, your feedback is appreciated (as always). So, if you’ve got something to add to this, do not hesitate to use the “Comments” area under this post for this.
Thanks for the tips, Geno. From the perspective of an affiliate manager, what are your thoughts on allowing affiliates to use an email address from our domain? What sort of value or harm might be caused by allowing a third party to use the primary domain/brand for affiliate email marketing?
Honestly, I have never heard of such a practice, Michael. I can, of course, see how in certain situations (where you trust your affiliate entirely) it can enhance the affiliate’s marketing efforts (read: yielding higher conversions); yet in others (e.g. if an affiliate engages in spamming) it can can also cause a sever damage to the merchant’s brand. My gut feeling is that it isn’t a good idea.
Thanks Geno, I was of a similar opinion. Seems like there is a lot of potential for damage to the brand if you let affiliates run wild with email marketing, especially if they’re using my domain. Even allowing them to use their own email address to market your products can be harmful, but I suppose you have to trust them to some extent. I appreciate the response!
My pleasure, Michael. That was a good question.