End of Year Program Review for Merchant Advertisers

This is a great time to perform a comprehensive program review to ensure that your brand is set up for success as we head into the new year. By taking a step back to evaluate your current account information and strategies, you can identify areas of improvement and capitalize on new opportunities. Below are key pieces of account information and questions to consider during your review: 

GENERAL ACCOUNT INFORMATION

• Review Your Program's Account Profile. Ensure that your program's contact information and general company information is correct. See the following support article for additional assistance: 
  
  
  • Updating Your Contact Information

• Review Program User Log-ins. Deactivate any users who no longer need access to the program interface. See the following support article for additional assistance:
  
  
  • Creating and Managing Users
    

• Review Affiliate Program Details. Ensure that all information in your Account Settings are accurate including Account Profile, Program Terms and Program Description. See the following support article for additional assistance:
  
  
  • Edit Program Terms & Description
  • Custom Program Term Examples
    
    
• Review All Email Templates. Ensure that the program's Acceptance, Denial, and Recruitment email templates are up-to-date. See the following support article for additional assistance:
  
  
  • Editing Standard Email Template

COMMISSION RATES AND RULES 

• Are your program’s commission rates competitive? Ensure that your overall program rate is competitive to other merchant programs in the AvantLink network. You can review the program details for all merchants here: http://avantlink.com/programs

• Are your program’s tag groups and corresponding rules set up? Ensure that your tag groups and/or categories are created for all your affiliate types. Ensure that any tag group rules in place are still needed and up-to-date. See the following support article for additional assistance:
  
  
  • Organizing Your Affiliates Using Tag Categories and Tag Groups

• Is your datafeed and (if applicable) product commission rates accurate? 
  • Ensure all products and prices are accurately listed in your datafeed. Download your datafeed from the AvantLink interface, select 'Ad Tools' and 'Datafeed Administration'. 
  • If your program commissions by product, ensure that your Item Based Commission structure is accurate and meets your program’s goals. 
    
    
• Does your program have automatic batch returns set up properly for your program?

REPORTING & TRACKING PARAMETERS

• Has your program enabled AvantMetrics to track the instances when multiple affiliates take part in a sale conversion?
  

• Is your program tracking New Customer sales?
  
  
• Is your program tracking coupon code usage? If so, is your program employing necessary coupon code rules to meet your affiliate goals. These rules include:
  
  
  • Exclusive Coupon Code rules 
  • Restricted Coupon Code rules
  • Qualified Coupon Code rules
  • Wildcard Coupon Code rules
    
    

COMPLIANCE & AUDITING 

• Review Affiliate Audit. Review all active affiliates and their websites to ensure they are continuing to promote your brand appropriately.
  
  
• Review Affiliate Marketing Rules. Ensure you are up-to-date with all FTC Guidelines for Affiliate Marketers.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS

If you have any additional questions about the items presented or want more information about how to optimize your program, please email am@avantlink.com.