Questions are inevitable. Questions about work, questions about food, questions about life, or in this case, questions about Purply. If you’re here, you might just be poking around curiously or you might really have questions. Good thing, cause we’ve got answers.
Questions about Purply
What is Purply?
Purply is an affiliate management suggestion engine—in the form of AI-based automated software—that recommends growth strategies for e-commerce businesses using over 10 million historical data points.
It’s a DIY offering of Advertise Purple’s services for large e-commerce brands wanting global context and small e-commerce brands interested in a budget-friendly solution to assist them in growing their affiliate program.
Among the features it offers, it makes recommendations, monitors campaigns, offers up trends, helps with the affiliate recruitment process, delivers KPI reports, and more.
What is the difference between Purply and a network? What does each do and why do I need both?
You should think of an affiliate network as a tool. It gives you access to potential affiliates, tracks conversions that those affiliates bring in, and provides payment process options. But, thing is, an affiliate network will not do the work for you.
It won’t help you choose the best affiliates for your brand or give suggestions for improving your campaign. Yes, some networks do offer these services at an additional cost. But, speaking generally, a standard network contract does not include them.
Purply, on the other hand, automates the entire process of finding and partnering with affiliates so that you don’t have to. Not only does our SaaS tool find those affiliates for you, but it finds the exact right ones for you, your business, and your vertical. As mentioned in the above answer, it uses comprehensive data to give you tailored suggestions for improving your program. See the below question for more details on what Purply offers.
How do I find affiliates to partner with using Purply?
We provide several tools and strategies to help you recruit and partner with affiliates:
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- Fresh Faces List: Provides tailored recommendations for top affiliates that drive the most revenue across hundreds of similar affiliate programs. It offers options for sorting these affiliates by clicks, actions, revenue, and other metrics. If you recruit a suggested affiliate into your program and they produce a click or sale for you, they’re automatically replaced with a new affiliate.
- Vertical Report: Shows the top affiliates in your vertical with those same options as above for sorting by clicks, actions, revenue, etc. Using this report is a great way to measure the success of your affiliate program using data.
- Purply Knowledge Base: Offers strategies and templates for reaching out to affiliates that you want to partner with.
Using the Fresh Faces list, what should I do once I get contact information for an affiliate?
We provide you with templates for reaching out to affiliates through the Purply knowledge base. After using a template, you can then contact affiliates via email.
What should I do if an affiliate doesn’t respond to me?
Not to worry, it’s a common thing for affiliates not to respond the first time, as they’re often inundated with too many requests for partnerships. It’s crucial to be diligent with following up and, potentially, reaching out to multiple other contacts for partnership. In addition, it’s worth customizing your outreach to convey the benefits of working with your brand.
Questions about setting up programs and affiliate marketing
What is a standard commission?
The answer depends on the vertical, but when we work with SaaS clients, we provide more specific details for their business. Typically, though, you want to leave 5-10% of wiggle room above your base commission to provide commission increases for certain affiliates in exchange for the exposure you receive on their website.
What is the standard cookie duration (or tracking gap), and what is this?
30 to 90 days. The higher the cookie duration, the more incentive for affiliates.
Cookie duration is the amount of time a customer has to complete a purchase for the affiliate to earn a commission. For example, if you were to click on a Buzzfeed link to a kitchen supply store today and there’s a cookie duration of 30 days, you have to purchase from the store within 30 days for Buzzfeed to get a commission.
How do I recruit and contact affiliates?
By using Purply’s Fresh Faces list and knowledge base! See the third Q+A above for details.
How do I know if an affiliate is a good fit for my program?
The key indicators that you should look for when determining if an affiliate is a good fit for your program are the following:
- Site quality: Is the affiliate site well-done or built poorly? You want to stay away from lower-level, low-quality affiliate websites.
- Website traffic: What kind of traffic does the affiliate website get every month? You want to be on the lookout for partners with a minimum of 30K monthly site visitors, minimum. However, you should always pay close attention to engagement on the site as well. There are some smaller sites out there that have high-quality content, solid engagement, and great conversion.
- Competitors: Are your competitors on the affiliate website you’re looking at? If your competitors are active on any affiliate website and you are not, then that leaves you at a competitive disadvantage.
- Branding: Is the affiliate website on brand? Are there similar brands and/or verticals being promoted on the site? Does the content make sense for your brand and your target audience?
We highly recommend that you work with top-of-funnel shopping and cashback or loyalty affiliates in addition to content affiliates, as we have seen the most success with programs that have a healthy mix of the different affiliate types.
What are different types of affiliates and how do I decide if I want to work with them?
The different types of affiliates include:
- Shopping
- Loyalty and cashback
- Technology
- Content (blogs, influencers, YouTubers, media companies)
When deciding to work with affiliates, we recommend you take the advice from the above Q+A into play, but also to ask yourself a few important questions, including:
- Is the website on brand?
- Is the website promoting similar brands and verticals to my own?
- Does the website’s promotional strategy align with my internal promotional strategy?
- Do I want top-of-funnel traffic, bottom-of-funnel, or a mix of both?
- Will this affiliate add value to or complement my current internal efforts?
Questions about affiliate networks
How do I set up coupons and text links?
To upload a Coupon, which is available to all affiliates, follow these actions:
- Navigate from the “Creatives” page to “Deals and Coupons”, then click “Add Coupon”. Once you’re on the “Add Coupon” screen, fill out Title, Coupon Code (if applicable), HTML, Description (we recommend keeping all as the same text). Click “Add Now”.
To upload an Exclusive Coupon, which will be available to one affiliate or a group of affiliates, do the following:
- Navigate from the “Creatives” page to “Deals and Coupons”, then click “Add Coupon”. Once you’re on the “Add Coupon” screen, fill out Title, Coupon Code (if applicable), HTML, Description (we recommend keeping all as the same text). Once filled out, click the drop-down menu called “Public for All Affiliates” next to “Private”, then click “Private”. Under Affiliates”, search for the affiliate you want to extend the offer to and click on their name to add them to the “Allow List” of affiliates. Click “Add Now”.
Text links can include those for sales and discounts, coupons, shipping offers, and more. Here is how you create a Text Link for any one of those:
- From the “Creatives” page, click “Text Links”, and then “Add Text Link”. Add any relevant information in the box on the left (“ENTER LINK TEXT HERE”), the Name, and a corresponding URL.
And here is how you create an Exclusive Text Link:
- Click the drop-down menu titled “Public for All Affiliates” next to “Private”, then click “Private”. Under “Affiliates”, search for the affiliate you want to extend the offer to, then click on their name to add them to the “Allow List” of affiliates. Click “Add Now”.
How do I offer an affiliate a temporary increase in commission?
We’ve got you. Here is what you would do to extend that temporary commission increase:
- From the “Affiliates” page, click “Affiliate List” and search for the desired affiliate. Once you find an affiliate, click on the affiliate’s image, which will then open their profile in a new tab. From there, click “Commission Rules”, click “Add Custom Rule”, select “Set Commission Action” (typically “Set to Percentage), then click “Add Condition” to match the rule you’d like to set up. Once done, click “Save” at the bottom of the screen.
How many coupons should I have uploaded?
We recommend having a minimum of 3 to 5 evergreen offers in the network for affiliates to promote on their websites.
How many banners should I have uploaded?
Banners are not nearly as effective in the affiliate space as text links are. Very few banners are picked up and used by affiliates. Interesting, right? With that said, we do recommend having 2 to 3 banners active in your program at all times just so they’re available for any one-off affiliates who would like to use them. Still, the focus should be on text links to any high converting or prominent pages on your website.
