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As promised in Part 1 of this 2 part series I’m back with 3 more strategies and easy-to-implement tactics.  One strategy I mentioned that generated some email was providing feedback loops to affiliates.  Too radical for some apparently but let’s clarify a bit.  You do take hands off the wheel a bit but in a balanced manner.

According to Paul Moss, formerly of Insurance.com and now of lead generation group Trouve Media…

“Before doing anything you have to give everyone feedback loops… letting them know what traffic is doing well, what traffic is performing poorly. Give them as much feedback as you can, either through pixel tracking or marketing source code tracking.”

He continues, “Allowing all of those opportunities… to tie it back into their Google spend or their Yahoo spend… and then once you give them all of the transparency to the data, you have to price them according to their own performance.”

Moss says you still need to hold all affiliates accountable to their own performance but, “you continually tell them what traffic is performing well and driving up their marketing allowable… tell them what traffic is performing poorly and driving down their marketing allowable… and hopefully… they adjust the mix. They’re always going to adjust the mix according to volume.”

In the end he says, “The key point is the sharing data as far down the funnel as you feel comfortable with. ”

Let’s jump back in with one of the most controversial topics of all time — how to work collaboratively (not competitively or with “co-opitition” in mind) with affiliates in search marketing.

Develop and communicate a clear, well-reasoned search marketing policy to affiliates.

1. Audit your affiliate program for confluence with paid (PPC) search advertising efforts.

2. Understand value driven by affiliates across various categories based on audit results that demonstrate “triggers” of sales transactions.

3. Create business rules that negate and approve affiliate commissions based on logical rules that are shared openly and pro-actively with affiliates.

4. Understand where your search engine optimization “sweet spot” is by identifying where you want to spend time, energy (money).  Assign “long tail” search terms/keywords (those able to generate less referral volume) to affiliates for their monetization efforts.

Says Moss, “Search engines have algorithm on what they feel is going to provide value to the search engine user and they rank those sites accordingly. From my perspective of having a product. I know that I can sell it best but I’ve got only X amount of core competencies. I want my affiliates to capitalize on areas that aren’t my core competencies or create more depth.”

Indeed, wider affiliate distribution — something I’ll be talking about more with a panel of experts at eComxpo in January 2009 and at SES Chicago coming up in December with the likes of experienced experts, Jeff Ferguson of Napster and Kris Jones of Pepperjam Network (more like empire lately!).  I hope to see you there.

Experiment with social media & content-focused affiliates.

1. Scale your most precious resource, Time: Use new tools, such as Syntryx, to rapidly prospect for qualified affiliates.

2. Provide affiliates with access to helpful, innovative Web 2.0 linking technologies like Linkshare’s FlexLinks or Amazon’s various tools ranging from “SiteStripe” to Widgets.

3. Give affiliates access to product data, coupons and other content via flexible, RSS (real simple syndication)-enabled technologies.

“We’re offering merchants the ability to maintain ‘on sale’ and ‘deal of the day’ RSS campaigns for affiliates to publish on their sites,” says AvantLink’s Gary Marcoccia. “And to take it one step further the affiliates can promote ‘subscriptions’ to the same RSS feeds.”

“The key in generating feed subscribers from their site (in addition to, of course, sales), is affiliate IDs being embedded in links from the deal feeds… for as long as they are in use,” adds Marcoccia.

Consider creative, new approaches to paying and bonusing affiliates based on performance.

1. Throttle up payouts among performers who drive volume at a reasonable cost considering channel confluence issues, etc.

2. Throttle down payouts among under-performers who’ve been given a fair chance but are not performing on a quarterly basis.

“Proactively give fee increases where it’s merited, and decreases where it’s not merited,” says a very level-headded Moss.

“But, make sure that before you give a fee increase that you have enough data to ensure that you have the best chance to be a sustainable price point… if not giving it a little bit of room to grow. Otherwise, people don’t respond well to fee decreases and that’s when they’re going to start shopping their traffic.”

“The loyalty response that you’re going to get from proactively raising somebody’s fee will create a loyalty that you won’t get anywhere else. Combine that with creating a genuine friendship and genuinely getting to know the people, genuinely caring about them, understanding their business.”

Stay tuned for more actionable tips and interviews with experts in a variety of performance-focused Web marketing strategies.  As always I welcome your feedback!

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Jeff Molander is a leading Web marketing expert, author and speaker.  He is CEO of Molander & Associates Inc., and can be reached at jeff_at_jeffmolander.com.