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Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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Politics and Affiliate Marketing a Bad Mix?

August 2nd, 2007 · Comments

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The Republican National Committee launched an affiliate program on Commission Junction back in July 2004.

There was a bit of buzz initially, but the affiliate program never really blazed a trail.

Some affiliate marketers were wary of getting a piece of commissions for political contributions at the time - they were concerned about fallout from their visitors. I didn’t think that concern was merited, as political advertising is not free in other venues.

People understand, at least I think they do, that when they respond to direct mail, phone calls, newspaper ads or television commissions that there is a cost to reach them, and part of their donation pays for the marketing.

Anyhow, the RNC affiliate program was paying 30% of each donation (capped at $30) with 45 return days.

But it closed down on July 31, 2007.

I can’t so I’m so surprised. I would check in occasionally, and the EPC was pretty much always low. The creative was stale, and I don’t recall ever hearing from the affiliate manager in the nearly three years I belonged to the program.

Maybe political contributions aren’t a good fit for affiliate marketing, but I think it was more about the execution of this particular affiliate program.

I think an affiliate program for an individual candidate could be a winner, but do any of their teams even know of affiliate marketing?

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Tags: Affiliate Opinions

Viewing 4 Comments

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    I tried it for the sake of the party but my questions went unanswered, the creative unchangeable and the landing pages were HORRIBLE. I think affiliate marketing can work for non-profits and political parties alike but it needs to be managed properly as with any affiliate program.

    LMG
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    It certainly seems like a fit for the group of people Jim Krukal was talking about at ASW in his blogging presentation. So many political blogs out there, and so many readers that might not think to contribute until it's right in front of them.

    But as Lee and Shawn both mentioned above, a poorly managed program is a poorly managed program, regardless of the service or product. So we don't have a good benchmark, considering how poorly managed the GOP program was.
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    From an affiliate and publisher standpoint, I will either a) passively take advertising dollars from a candidate/party or b) actively promote a candidate I like for free.

    They should consider paying for something other than donations (i.e. email addresses.) I recall seeing some sort of charity running an affiliate program a while ago. It seems very distasteful to pay out commissions for donations -- political or charitable.
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    @ Andrew

    The thing you don't realize is that fundraising is multi-billion dollar industry. In politics, it is very typical for a professional fundraising firm to charge 15% or more of collected contriubtions plus a monthly retainer for a candidate. Call it affiliate marketing in the off line world. Everyone has this idealized vision of what politics and non-profits should be like. Trust me, Upton Sinclair was right when he said there are two things in this world people should never witness being made - laws and sausages. I did the later for a handful of years before finding this thing called affiliate marketing... Fancy that a Republican like me paraphrasing a Socaialist like Upton Sinclair.
 

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