How do I find out how many affiliates I have, and whom are my affiliates? I see affiliate sales once and a while...but I want to know who this mystery affiliate is. Do shopkeepers have the right to refuse certain affiliates?
You don't have any affiliates. CafePress has affiliates that may sometimes sell your stuff. Affiliates might sometimes specifically pick your store or your designs but their agreement is with CafePress. CafePress has an agreement with affiliates that they can sell, for an affiliate commission, anything in the marketplace. So you have an all or nothing - you are in the marketplace, and open to all affiliates - or you opt out of the marketplace and handle marketing entirely on your own.
I think we can use the term loosely, we do have affiliates as shop keepers. I have affiliates that I have 1:1 contact with whom exclusively promote my products.
The only way to know who your affiliates are, really, is to establish this personal relationship with them from the outset and to get them to link to your shop rather than the marketplace. That way you can work with them to make your collaboration more effective.
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Do shopkeepers have the right to refuse certain affiliates?
No, you have the right to deny them all by opting out of the affiliate program. That is your only option.
It would be nice for affiliates to tell shopkeepers that they've affiliated their products and/or shops, and provide a link. This would help shopkeepers to have this good relationship!
There have been several good threads lately regarding affiliate relationships. As it stands right now, shopkeepers make their choice regarding who can/cannot affiliate their products by either opting into CafePress's marketplace or not. Beyond that, many affiliates do not specifically pick your shop or your design, they simply pick up the CafePress marketplace feed by using a CafePress banner on their website or blog. Those affiliates don't know who you are, which shop is yours, etc. They are linking to CafePress as a whole, not to you specifically. Or they may simply add a text link to their website that goes to a specific CP portal, like "maternity" or "Dachshunds" or "Democrats". If your designs are in the marketplace and the affiliate drove the traffic to find your design there either through a general banner or a portal link or banner, then the affiliate gets their cut. In other instances, someone may decide to promote your products specifically because they especially like your designs or have a website or blog that has the same theme as your shop does. They have no way to let you know they are affiliating your products (and don't have to tell you), unless you provide an email address or some other contact form for them to contact you. That is not part of the affiliate agreement, and would be totally up to them to contact you if they chose to. They also do not have to provide a link to your shop, as that is considered a "leak" on their website in many cases. Also, affiliate cookies are set for 30 days, and someone who already has a cookie set may come to the marketplace, find one of your designs, and an affiliate sale results. It has nothing to do with anyone linking specifically to your shop, it just means that the shopper visited CafePress in the last 30 days through an affiliate link, picked up a cookie, and is now back to shop again w/ the cookie in place. See This Link As Adam said, if there are specific types of affiliates that you want to form a personal relationship with, you can seek them out and see if they will link to your shop specifically. One way is to post your shop in the "affiliate-ready shops" thread, although there is no obligation for anyone seeing it there to let you know they have decided to affiliate it. Another way is to make an "affiliate me" page inside your shop with links/banners for your specific shop. Affiliates can use those to link directly to your shop and not the marketplace in general. Personally, I often tell shopkeepers if I am affiliating their products simply because I like to let them know I really liked their designs. But that is only if they have posted in the thread, as most SKers don't have email addresses in their shops, and I have no way to let them know I'm affiliating their designs otherwise. As a SKer, I'm just glad to get the extra sales that affiliates bring in for me!
Originally posted by tchatchkes: It would be nice for affiliates to tell shopkeepers that they've affiliated their products and/or shops, and provide a link. This would help shopkeepers to have this good relationship! www.tchatchkes.com
Yes, this is a great idea and works both ways. Its a good idea, as a shopkeeper to help encourage this one on one relationship. offer contact information so affiliates can contact you directly when browsing your shop... offer assistance if affiliates need specific banner sizes or information. It's definitely a "two man job" to make this type of relationship successful and worthwhile to both parties.
~ Inspiring smiles every day ~ JGoodeDesigns.com silly smilies, goode girls, funny food, cute kids, adorable animals... and more.
Well as an affiliate I don't really want shop keepers to get the wrong idea about whether I am affiliating with THEM or just happening to sell a product they produced. There are some shops I affiliate with intentionally. There are also sales that I make as a result of the way I obtain items from the marketplace.
Probably half what I sell are items I selected as ones I liked and chose to promote. The other half come from various means of pulling items from the marketplace. I think at least half of it is crap. If that is what people want fine with me. But I would very much NOT want to hear from the shop keeper as I would not want to feel the need to set them straight on the issue.
If there were a system that sorted out shop keepers who insisted on contact information from affiliates vs those who did not I would not carry any that insisted on contact information, regardless of product quality.
There are other reasons I would choose not to have my information given to shop keepers, but I'll leave it at that.
Diane Blackman
Experiment! Try things! Then if you can't figure it out - ask. Play with Your Dog
or just happening to sell a product they produced.
See I don't agree here that anyone can offer MY work, that I produced, and I cannot even know who it is.
Do you suppose I'd get mad that anyone found my stuff good enough to sell? AND that I made money off the deal? No way! I'm delighted. BUT it IS MY WORK! There should at least be a link to MY shop attached to it. (Perhaps there is, I never looked into this program.)
See, this can work against people too. If someone puts together a shop that I find distasteful, I should have some rights to say no, I don't want my stuff associated with it at all. Just like if I were selling to stores. If I found a store that lets say just for sake of conversation here, was racist, I would not want anything to do with them at all. I certainly wouldn't want MY work in it.
Does this make sense? Again, I AM delighted to make a few extra bucks from someone else. BUT it should also be a means of sending people to my entire store as well. I always thought that's how it worked.
I'm sure we all understand what you are saying but the simple fact is the affiliate program is CafePress' affiliate program not ours. There's certain things we can't do as users of their service.
I think Adam hit it on the head. There are things that aren't perfect from an affiliate or a shopkeeper standpoint, but this is the system CP uses for the most benefit to them - and ultimately that's their goal. Benefiting SKs and Affiliates can help that, but there are things that aren't mutually beneficial to all three at one time.
So, you have options. One is to run your own affiliate program where you have total control over it. The other is to determine how you want to use the existing system.
To help you get contact from affiliates, make sure you have a nice page about affiliating and ask affiliates to contact you so you can keep them up to date on new designs. I think every shopkeeper should have an affiliate newsletter that can be opted into. That way, if I like your shop, I might sign up for a weekly or monthly newsletter with your latest designs or top sellers!
But like jgoode, I do affiliating in different ways. In a few of my shops, I affiliate EVERYONE. So, I'm one of your affiliates. :P
I do affiliating in different ways. In a few of my shops, I affiliate EVERYONE. So, I'm one of your affiliates. :P
Would you mind telling me which shop you do this? Just so I can see how it's laid out? I tried clicking on one of your sig file links. The last one "now accepting your affiliate cookies..." one. That brings up another post, with this link...
And when you click on that, you get a big old tisk tisk from cafepress.
quote:
Sorry, but affiliate links cannot come via the CafePress.com domain, as it essentially bypasses the CafePress Affiliate TOS. Please return to the referring shop. Thank you!
Sure looks like this is not a perfect world here. This needs work on CPs part! But that's just my two cents. About what my opinion seems to be worth here.
Bottom line is this. I am still delighted to make a sale. I don't care where it came from.
I am still delighted to make a sale. I don't care where it came from.
That's the mantra that will save your sanity.
-------------------------------------------------------------- pfoinkle is pronounced p'foyn-kel, but it isn't easily offended Pfoinkle GarbThe Pink Bow Shoppe Pfoinkle Twitters without knowing why It's not that I have too much time on my hands, it's that I don't sleep enough.
or just happening to sell a product they produced.
See I don't agree here that anyone can offer MY work, that I produced, and I cannot even know who it is.
But (hypothetically speaking) I didn't "offer" your work. I offered a link to the marketplace on a topic that had nothing at all to do with what you are selling. And after the person bought something on the topic I am selling they said "cool - there are other topics here too" so they went exploring and they bought something of yours (again speaking hypothetically). I get the affiliate credit because I got them to the marketplace. But I neither wanted nor intended them to buy something from "you."
I've sold some designs that were from shop keepers I know to be bad people. The money went immediately to a good cause. I DO care where my money comes from. But I'm thrilled that although I could not avoid benefiting that shop at least I was able to avoid the impression that *I* in some way support them - as I do not. If I could avoid selling their stuff I would, but just like you can't avoid affiliates you don't like while still being in the marketplace I can't avoid shops I don't like while still sending my visitors to the marketplace. We each give something and get something from the current system.
Diane Blackman
Experiment! Try things! Then if you can't figure it out - ask. Play with Your Dog
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