Affilliate Marketing for local business? UK

[ocelot]

Hi

Just a quick question for expert UK affiliates.

Would it be worthwhile in setting up a affiliate marketing campaign to get leads for windows, doors and conservatories for my small regional home improvement business?

If so what is the best way to approach this, contact the likes of affiliate window?  and would they deal with a small regional firm such as mine, or would they only be interested in national firms such as anglian home or everest home improvements?

Many Thanks

[matbennett]

I definitely wouldn't use one of the networks for something with a regional focus. Despite the sales talk they don't do much to actually help you build the programme, mostly just administer it and allow you to use their existing network of affiliates.

The exception to that would be if you can see that there are lots of national sites with regional pages that you think you could be listed on and getting business from if you were part of an affiliate programme.

However it is quite cheap and easy to provide affiliate/referral tracking without a network.  If you can contact the sites yourself and offer a commission on leads/sales you might do much better with a local market.  Overhead will be lower and you might get better targeted sites and have an excuse to start building relationships with them.

[ocelot]

Hi Mat

How would you implement your last para - regarding the affiliate tracking without a network? What commission rates etc

And what sites would you target and how?

[matbennett]

I've no idea what would be a good commission rate in that sector. It's not an area I've worked. However, if competitors are on networks then that might provide some indication.

Tracking sales is very straightforward. You just need to drop a cookie whenever one of your affiliates sends a visitor and check those cookies when enquiries are made.  Depending on how complex your systems are and what numbers you are working with reporting can get fiddly though.

There are lots of scripts out there that will do this all for you. We're big on custom building stuff, so I don't really know any of the 3rd party solutions well enough to mention by name. However there are a few and some seem to be quite well respected.

What sites would I target?

The regional focus means that I'd definitely start with local sites.  I'd dig out a list of every town and city in my area and see which have local community sites and start finding contact details for them.