by: AskPat 577 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 577 of Ask Pat. Thank you so much for joining me today.
All right, here's today's question from Janette.
Janette: Hi Pat, this is Janette Kennedy with the Get Social Health Podcast. I'd like to say thank you so much for all the great content that you've been putting out in the past couple of weeks about affiliates, especially from the perspective from being a producer of content in seeking affiliates. That's kind of where I am right now and I had a couple technical questions…I'd love some help with.
For instance, I do get really good emails from people who are producing content that actually have pre-filled out tweets and suggested content to push out with my specific link, my affiliate link. I don't know how that happens and I'd love to know that. Also, do you keep track of your affiliates in a special way? How do you know where leads come from and how pay out to your affiliates? And one more if you don't mind…do you have a special agreement with your affiliates or if they opt in? I don't remember reading an agreement because I obviously love the people I do affiliate work with but should there be a legal agreement? I appreciate any help you could give me on this topic. Thanks for all the great content, Pat. You're a real inspiration.
Pat Flynn: Hey Janette, thank you so much for the question today. When you are selling something and you have an affiliate program, it's smart to understand the answers to these questions so thank you for asking. Janette, I think this going to be really helpful for yourself and a lot of people too. So first of all, let's talk about that swipe copy. Swipe copy is an email that you get or access to a page that you get for a program that you're promoting…that has all that stuff that you could just copy and paste and you use for your own email, marketing campaigns, or your own social media campaigns, and whatnot.
You can also include images and stuff, which you don't necessarily want include in e-mails per say, which is why I think a landing page with this information is a smart solution too. Plus you could always update it on the fly if you wanted and everybody else will get access to it. However, you had mentioned that it also includes your special affiliate link, which is also very smart too. So, having both an email sent to your affiliates with their direct affiliate link in there is a great thing to do but also having swipe copy available on a landing page will work because that…you could include images and if they wanted to include banner ads and stuff on their website for that promotion. That's where they would get access to that.
Okay, so how does this work? How do you actually create the swipe copy and then actually implement it where their own unique affiliated address is put in there? Well, it's done with an automation system such as Infusionsoft, Active Campaign, or Ontraport. Those are ones that would include the capability to integrate the affiliate program and then have…essentially what happens is you create these e-mails and their automated e-mails that get sent out to a particular list or people who are tagged as people affiliates and it's in the sequence that they get after they signed up. And in that e-mail there's going to be a placeholder, or sharp code, and that depends on which system you use. Infusionsoft, or Ontraport, or Active Campaign.
But essentially, where that affiliate link would go, you would place that short code that would send that affiliate link automatically that is unique to that person. So that's how that works. It's a little complicated. And you'd have to get into the systems circuits to figure out how they work but each of them have tutorials on how to do that. If you set up your affiliate campaigns through those systems, Infusionsoft has the affiliate capability I know, because I was in there and that's how you would also track where leads come from too. So you'd be able to see who of your affiliates are actually driving traffic and…because that's where the cookies are being kept track of and whatnot.
Because each of those affiliate links have different cookies. So you'd be able to see where those leads are coming from. Plus on your own if you're promoting it, additionally, on top of the affiliates that are promoting it for you, which is very likely. You'd be able to keep track of where those things are being held to because you'd hopefully have different tracking codes set up for the different places that you are promoting it. For example, on Facebook you get this specific landing page that will then keep track there to hopefully with their targeting cookie so that…or a targeting pixel for example, so if people land on that page but don't buy, they try to see your ads in different places. If they're coming from social media, or a podcast, you'd have a different call to action and that's how you would then understand where those leads are coming from.
And then finally, in terms of special agreements with the affiliates. That is something that should be done but isn't always done. Definitely want that to happen because there's going to be potentially transactions and exchange of money and they way that you promote things. I mean, hopefully the affiliate—you, the affiliate will be smart enough to actually have a legal thing in place or a contract or something that puts in paper or writing and is signed with the percentage affiliate commissions also has terms…in terms of how they're allowed to and not allowed to promote it. I think that's also really important. So I'd recommend getting hooked up with an attorney to help you create those documents.
You might be able to find somebody who could help you with the legal work on some place like Upwork.com. Upwork has actually a lot of people who are providing legal services. Have actually used Upwork.com before I got hooked up with an attorney that's my own attorney now. I used Upwork.com for a lot of legal things before too, related to my business with things just like this. Contracts and whatnot. So that's a good place you could check it out. And probably you'd be able to spend a lot less money than if you were to have find an attorney in the normal fashion.
So Janette, I hope that answers your question. I wish you the best of luck. These are all great technical things that all those who have products and want affiliates on board should be thinking about. And again, a lot of it is driven by the affiliate program that you're using. I will say that there are other ones out there that do have tracking and allow you to see where these are coming from and also give each affiliate their own unique affiliate link but not necessarily in an e-mail to them, like you talked about earlier. But Gumroad, for example. Gumroad has it's own built in affiliate program we use it for the spot podcast player and in that sense, I can see who is promoting it, who is getting clicks, and who I owe money to, and so on and so forth. There's a lot of programs out there that allow you to do that too.
Okay, so Janette. Thank you so much. I'm going to send you an Ask Pat T-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. I appreciate you. For everybody else out there, if you have a question that you'd like to potentially featured here on the show just head on over to AskPat.com, you can ask right there on that page. Thank you so much. And I also want to end with a quote in here, like I always do.
And this quote is from Michael Jordan. He said, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Beautiful. Cheers. Take care. I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.
