Articles: Marketing & Sales

Using Affiliate Programs to Supplement your Ad Budget and Generate More Internet Leads

Dave LaLonde is Senior Vice President and Search Engine Optimizer for Auto Credit Express. The ACE Group is a special finance total solutions firm offering their dealership partners entry level and advanced sub prime training, an easy to use online software, and an expert auto sales lead system.

At the conclusion of my last article, I mentioned that next month's article would address how to best determine the correct balance between lead quantity and lead quality. It was only after completing the article and preparing it for publication, that I decided it was much too subjective in nature and probably wouldn't help anyone sell more vehicles. After trying to salvage the article I decided to approach the subject from another angle. I decided to write about increasing the success of your online advertising through Affiliate programs.

As a rule of thumb, no business attracts new customers without some form of advertising. From the yellow pages, to television commercials, to referrals - no customer comes to your business without first noticing you are there. Building a better mousetrap does not cause people to line up at your door, however, advertising the mousetrap does. One way to increase the success of your online advertising efforts is to add an Affiliate component to the mix.

Affiliate programs offer monetary incentives for websites to drive traffic to an advertiser's website. In other words, the advertiser pays a commission to the affiliate website for generating clicks, leads, or sales from banners or text links located on the affiliate's website. The compensation methods are identical to the cost basis for web advertising which was discussed in my previous article.

Supplementing your Ad Budget

By placing a few banner or text links to advertisers on your website, you can generate additional income. Income you can apply to your advertising budget. There are a few web affiliate products that correlate well with a special finance website, for example:

• Insurance Quotes
• Credit Reports
• Secured Credit Cards
• Credit Repair
• Home Equity Loans

When placing third party advertising on your site, you have to make sure that you do not distract the visitor from your primary objective - completing your sub prime loan application That being said, two of the best places for additional advertising are on the application landing page and on a page that displays when they leave your site.

If you choose to place advertising on the landing page it's best to pick products that will not interfere with your attempt at securing the prospect an auto loan. Credit Reports and Auto Insurance Quotes, for example, work well here.

If, on the other hand, they are leaving your site without completing the application, then you could offer them any of the above products.

Generating More Leads

If you reside near a major metro market you could substantially increase your websites' lead volume by targeting larger geographical ranges.

For example, if your store was located in Galveston and you currently advertise the keyword Galveston Used Cars on Yahoo®, you could use an Affiliate Program to broaden the range of your keyword advertising.

The following statistics are from Yahoo® for the month of December 2005:



While online, many people that may live near Galveston that are interested in a used car will search for Houston Used Cars, Texas Used Cars, or simply Used Cars. Rarely will they search for Galveston Used Cars.

In many cases, the average sub prime department in Galveston may not be able to afford to advertise at the local metropolitan area, state, or national level. This is where implementing an Affiliate program may make the most business sense An Affiliate program can help generate more local traffic to your site by monetizing the out-of-area traffic. To accomplish this, you will need a geographical routing page within your site. This page appears prior to the visitor reaching your application or inventory page. In addition, text links can be used to route visitors, for example; Ask the user to select their state and city. If it's your targeted area, point or route them to your application or inventory page, if it is not, point or route them to the Affiliate Website. Also, having the user input their zip code for pointing or routing purposes is more accurate but usually requires a higher level of sophistication and programming. Advertisers may also offer to create a custom co-branded page within their site that has the same look and feel of your site to enable you to point and route your visitors. This approach helps increase conversion rates.

If you want to generate more leads and increase deliveries, consider making an Affiliate program part of your marketing mix. By adding an Affiliate component, you will increase your reach, attract new customers, and have minimal impact on your budget.

There are a few portal services that bring together advertisers and websites. One of the more trustworthy ones is Commission Junction, www.cj.com. Portal sites, however, rarely offer any customization help. If you would like any product specific affiliate recommendations, drop me an email and I'll reply.

Until next month, good luck and good selling.

Published in World of Special Finance Magazine
March Issue 2006