By this week we have kicked off our Affiliate Marketing campaign, your 20 potential partners have been contacted and now it's time to use the information you have to decide on the five best partners for you to launch the campaign with! Remember to work at your own pace there's no rush as long as we're always moving forward...

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DOWN TO FIVE

Now it's time to get your 20 potential partners down to five that you want to work with, remember we say five but if only one comes back that you want to work with or you have 10 that look promising the decision is yours to make. We suggest putting together a document like a spreadsheet or grid where you can compare the potential partners to help make your decision based on how they score against each other.

Don't be afraid to pull out of working with a partner at any point if you're not happy with the deal or if circumstances change. If you're not confident on the return on investment (ROI) there's nothing stopping you starting again with a different route. Also, let's say all 20 potential partners come back to you, don't feel that you are now obligated to work with all of them. As long as no promises are made there is no reason you can't say "we've decided to go a different way this time however we'd like to speak with you again for future campaigns".

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REWARD SCHEMES

There are plenty of ways we can track reward schemes, the easiest way being through your E-commerce provider, platforms such as Shopify, Big Commerce, Woo Commerce and Magento use plug in apps that will track and monitor all of the activity you need to run a scheme with your customers a good one to look at is Stamped.io. Other platforms have their own built in versions and some website builders don't have the possibility at all such as Wix Commerce or SquareSpace commerce (at the moment anyway). Remember there should be no rush when trialling these things so if your chosen platform is spoilt for choice (as you'll usually find is the case with Shopify) take your time and have a play with their free trials before making a final decision.

What if you provide a service and don't use an E-commerce platform? Well then this is going to be a manual job for you although you may be able to track new customers coming from existing customers using email marketing platforms. We would suggest creating a spreadsheet/database where you can track where jobs have come from.

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COMMISSION AFFILIATES

Much like the reward schemes the easiest way to track these partnerships is through your E-commerce provider platforms such as Shopify, Big Commerce, Woo Commerce and Sqaure Space use plug in apps that will track and monitor all of the activity you need to run a successful affiliate program with your customers. A good one to look at is Affiliatly.com. Other platforms may have their own versions but some won't be able to support this, so make sure you do your research with your provider and again remember there should be no rush when trialling these things. If your chosen platform is spoilt for choice (as you'll usually find is the case with Shopify) take your time and have a play with their free trials before making a final decision.

What if you provide a service and don't use an E-commerce platform? Well then this is going to be a manual job for you although you may be able to track new customers coming from your partners using email marketing platforms. We would suggest creating a spreadsheet/database where you can track where jobs have come from.

If your chosen route has been to work with a coupon company/website they will have a system where they will invoice you for the business they have sent you. It is always a good idea to keep record of this yourself in case of any disputes you may have with their system or if a customer didn't pay/get a refund etc.

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PAID SHOUTOUTS (INFLUENCERS)

We would suggest ensuring you have a final agreement with the account you are working in writing whether it be in an email or through a DM that clearly states what each side has agree'd to including when payment of promotion is to be sent and what criteria might need to be met before payment can go ahead. Remember timing is extremely important when working with influencers so make sure they are not promoting a similar product around the same time and even have them agree to not promote a competitor for a period of time so that it doesn't affect your growth potential.

Also some final things to look out for would be their definitions of terms such as a 'post' you may ask for a post with your product and expect it to be on their grid for the foreseeable future however influencers will sometimes refer to a 'post' in any form including a story post which is only live for 24 hours on their feed. As we also mentioned there 'foreseeable future' you may occasionally come across an influencer that once they have posted the agreed content they take it down a few weeks later so they can approach other brands, this is something to consider. If you created a good relationship with them maybe just ask them to give you a 'heads up' if they plan to take down the content for whatever reason.

Final thoughts on influencer marketing; We have had the pleasure of working with some influencers that are incredibly decent people. As long as you set clear goals and terms of what you'd like from a partnership things will rarely go wrong. The best advice we can give you is give them respect for what they do and appreciate the potential ROI they can bring your business by 'influencing' new potential customers... See what we did there?