Affiliates are often asked to put themselves in the position of the merchant (or their agency) and take into consideration what they want from the relationship. For this blog post if you’re not an affiliate, climb into our shoes for a change and see whether you think differently.

Let’s say you have some content on your site. You have a link to Retailer X that you’ve given them for free. You’ve never misrepresented that retailer and you have a (hopefully) decent reputation. The retailer also has never complained about that link and in fact they (and many of their peers) seek you out to use the service you offer.

Retailer X then launches an affiliate program. This means that you can potentially monetise that link on a paid on performance basis. You’ve now gone from officially earning nothing to potentially picking up a few bits and pieces sales wise.

Now, you know that it’s unlikely that big potatoes are going to come your way from this relationship. However now that you’ve got Retailer X as a “favoured link” it means that they get extra promotion, possible newsletter coverage and inclusion in your offers/codes sections as well as, provided you have time and the offer is good, stuck in front of your community.

So the question is this, bearing in mind that your focus is quite simply generating revenue for your business, so that you can continue giving your users the free service they enjoy and offering many sites a free service they enjoy….

… would you leave the link as “free” or stick on the affiliate link and go for the hope to earn from it option?

Now let’s flip that over to the merchant (or their agency). They’ve now gone from paying definitely nothing to potentially paying something for a few sales that they may or may not have gotten from the traffic you’ve sent. Sadly no one will ever be 100% sure.

Should they be upset or bothered by your actions?

Is it right for an affiliate to try and monetise their free traffic to a merchant site?

This is a follow up to my last post – Will Our Conversion Rate Ruin Your Affiliate Program – II and the comments within. Whilst I don’t like arguing with merchants publically (honest guv) sometimes needs must as no one else will fight our battles in AM. In this case a number of interesting points have been raised which are worth exploring, so thanks to those who have commented.