I'm a merchant, when do I approve affiliate sales?

[aj7877]

Hi,

I'm new affiliate marketing and had a question. I'm a merchant and have recently had 2 affiliate sales through my program.

Just wondering when it is appropriate to approve the sales?

I've got the pending sale set at 28 days since we operate a 30 money back guarantee for our products.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

I've never managed a program on ClixGalore, so I don't know if it works differently - but here's how it works on CJ.

There is no 'approving' of sales. They automatically register as a sale as soon as the order is placed. However if the customer returns product in 15 days or whatever, then you just reverse the sale back out.

 

[Rob_TID]

Approve them when the transaction has taken place.

clixgalore has an option to approve automatically. I strongly suggest you do that. If something gets returned or is fraudulent, you can always reverse it later by sending them an email.

 

[aj7877]

Just curious as to why I should auto approve sales?

 

[bkind]

Just curious as to why I should auto approve sales?

If you are not on auto approve it suggests to me as a affliate that you the merchant has no faith in your product and in fact expect return numbers to be high.

Brian

 

[Linda Buquet]

Just curious as to why I should auto approve sales?

Because the second a sale happens, the affiliate did their job and made a sale!!! That's why!
They deserve to get the feedback through the reporting system that a sale was made.

They also need to see total sales, vs total returns so they know which merchants have bad return rates or are possibly skimming sales and ripping them off.

PLUS seeing the sales come through can motivate them to work harder for you. Let's say a new affiliate makes 10 sales the 1st month and sees them come in at real-time. This gives them positive feedback that what THEY are doing is working and that YOU can convert!

If you held sales for 30 days to be sure they would stick - that good affiliate could drop you on day 28 thinking you aren't converting.

Last but not least - tracking sales in real-time is how it's done 99% of the time on the big networks. It's what affiliates expect and if there were "best practice" standards in our industry that would be on it.

 

[Rob_TID]

Just curious as to why I should auto approve sales?

Because there are people on that network who make millions of dollars in sales annually.

Most of the time, they won't even look at your program if the sales aren't auto-approved and your auto-redeposit option isn't turned on.

 

[aj7877]

So basically, I've got a much better chance of attracting high performing affiliates if I auto-approve sales?

 

[Rob_TID]

That's about the beginning and end of it, yes.