Carbonite Affiliate Program
Affiliate marketing is one of those things that on the face of it sounds really easy, stick a few banner on your website and make lots of money. Yes some people can do that but for many it isn’t really that easy and most people don’t. Why, consumers are wary of banner advertisements and the more your website has the less likely customers are going to click on them. Truth is, you are more likely to get clicks on your texts links than you are on banners.
Carbonite Australia launched its affiliate program nearly two years ago and since then we have learned quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t. We have several hundred affiliates promoting our products from all over the world (most are local).
When we looked at the program, we opted to join a network to help us market it rather then go it alone with our own private program. Going with ClixGalore has been good from an administration but also promotional perspective.
The most difficult part has been finding the right affiliates to work with. ClixGalore has advertised the program for us through its network and this has certainly helped us build our base of affiliates. However the most successful affiliates have been the ones who have put more effort into aligning Carbonite with their client base. These have been primarily IT online stores or resellers/PC repair sites.
Having seen this, I have spent considerable time personally recruiting website and PC stores with websites that I think could do well with our product. This has certainly delivered much better results for everyone.
These are the key initiatives that have worked for affiliates marketing Carbonite:
- By writing articles on online backup (our website is full of them for affiliates to use) and placing them on their sites, affiliates have found that the number clicks they are getting has increased significantly. This is particularly the case where a real story is included or a PC failure.
- Instead of just placing a banner advertisement (that we provide), some have opted to prepare a write-up on the product. This has usually included listing the key features and pricing and then adding the banners to this as well as text links.
- Direct email has also been very effective. Some have included our links within their email blasts to existing customers, offering them a free 30 day trial. With some affiliates who have a sizeable customer base we have even created special landing pages for them (co-branded).
- Others have used our links to simply install a 30 day trial on all PCs that leave their store. This ensures that should the customer purchase at the end of the trial, the affiliate will get paid a commission for the sale (cookies last for 90 days).
- Others have used a similar policy but instead of installing trials, they have actually sold the subscription to the customer and ensured that they have clicked the link before processing the sale.
To further assist our supporting affiliates and resellers, we have also launched the Carbonite Desktop Shortcut. This is a simple file that resellers and PC stores can use to install an icon on the customer’s desktop that offers them a free 30 day trial to Carbonite. The icon includes an affiliate ID within it so that when the customer clicks on it to find out what it is, they are sent to a special trial page and the cookie is created. This ensures that if the customer purchases, a commission will be automatically paid to them. The Desktop Shortcut has been particularly popular amongst the reseller community with several hundred now using it.
Although we welcome any affiliate who wishes to display our advertisements on their site, we also recommend that you spend a little time working with the brand to drive the clicks rather than just expecting that they will simply happen.
