Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Affiliate Strategy To Avoid Problems
Prepare for Problems
The big news this week is that the DirectTrack system went down with a massive failure. Over 300 affiliate networks were affected.
It is a timely reminder that no system is failsafe and just about everything will have a problem at some point in time. This time its affiliate network but next time it could be your hosting company, payment processor, advertising account or any number of web services that are affected. So here are some of the things I have done to help reduce the problems that a failure could cause.
Diversify
By diversifying you spread your risk so not everything is down at the same time.
I use several different affiliate networks, and they are on different systems so some are DirectTrack, others use Hasoffers, and others like Shareasale have unique systems. You can view a list of Affiliate networks
I also use a wide variety of affiliate programs direct with the merchant so there is no affiliate network involved at all. I also try a wide variety of products and topics so I dont get caught too badly if there is a sudden change in law as has happened a few times in the past few years.
I use several different web hosting accounts and all with multiple domain options so I can easily change hosting for a website. Some are in different cities, data centers so risk is spread. I use 4 Web Host, Lunarpages, Domings.com and a few other smaller ones.
I also use several domain registrars, probably too many as sometimes it hard to manage, but it does help reduce the risk and I can easily see who has the best rate.
In general I think its worth looking at all the essential services you use and then seeing if there are ways to diversify and minimize the risk. It may take some time now but you will be thankful you did when the inevitable system failure happens.
The big news this week is that the DirectTrack system went down with a massive failure. Over 300 affiliate networks were affected.
It is a timely reminder that no system is failsafe and just about everything will have a problem at some point in time. This time its affiliate network but next time it could be your hosting company, payment processor, advertising account or any number of web services that are affected. So here are some of the things I have done to help reduce the problems that a failure could cause.
Diversify
By diversifying you spread your risk so not everything is down at the same time.
I use several different affiliate networks, and they are on different systems so some are DirectTrack, others use Hasoffers, and others like Shareasale have unique systems. You can view a list of Affiliate networks
I also use a wide variety of affiliate programs direct with the merchant so there is no affiliate network involved at all. I also try a wide variety of products and topics so I dont get caught too badly if there is a sudden change in law as has happened a few times in the past few years.
I use several different web hosting accounts and all with multiple domain options so I can easily change hosting for a website. Some are in different cities, data centers so risk is spread. I use 4 Web Host, Lunarpages, Domings.com and a few other smaller ones.
I also use several domain registrars, probably too many as sometimes it hard to manage, but it does help reduce the risk and I can easily see who has the best rate.
In general I think its worth looking at all the essential services you use and then seeing if there are ways to diversify and minimize the risk. It may take some time now but you will be thankful you did when the inevitable system failure happens.
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