Affiliate program EPC can be gamed to look deceptively good or unnaturally depressed by one high volume affiliate. But I still use it as an indicator of the health of an affiliate program before promoting a given company.
While the very recent numbers can be deceiving for various reasons, I think the trends are a lot more telling, as they are not as impacted by temporary variables.
For instance, when I am reviewing affiliate programs on Commission Junction (CJ), I like to checkout the 12 Month Trend (3 Month EPC) to identify any patterns that could be telling about the prospects for that affiliate program.
The chart below, for an unnamed affiliate program, shows how the EPC has steadily (with minor exceptions) descended from $15.00+ in June 2007 to $7.50 currently.
That looks like more than a bad cycle and indicates to me that something bad happened.
Was it a top affiliate that bailed due to declining returns? Maybe they redesigned their landing pages and they are now less effective?
Whatever the reason, this chart says to me that I don’t want to take a risk in promoting the program.
{ 11 comments }
Hi Chris -
Do you see the EPC as a liability? I was always cognizant of it when running programs and felt compelled to prune out the high click and low conversion affiliates.
That said, I found it was relatively rare that a legitimate affiliate was killing the EPC – more often than not, it was a cookie stuffer in my experience.
And certainly, the long and short EPC are just one measure. In the case of the example I cited, it is a brand name, which attracted me, but it has a single bar, too.
I agree with Todd – affiliate managers are many times left with the tough choice of removing an affiliate who may have a ton of clicks and very few conversions or face having their EPC unfairly evaluated. I've talked with several top affiliates who have all told me they look at both short term and long term EPC as well as bar rank and brand recognition before deciding to promote a merchant. EPC's are often skewed and not an accurate representation of how an individual affiliate may perform.
Hi Chris -
Do you see the EPC as a liability? I was always cognizant of it when running programs and felt compelled to prune out the high click and low conversion affiliates.
That said, I found it was relatively rare that a legitimate affiliate was killing the EPC – more often than not, it was a cookie stuffer in my experience.
And certainly, the long and short EPC are just one measure. In the case of the example I cited, it is a brand name, which attracted me, but it has a single bar, too.
I agree with Todd – affiliate managers are many times left with the tough choice of removing an affiliate who may have a ton of clicks and very few conversions or face having their EPC unfairly evaluated. I've talked with several top affiliates who have all told me they look at both short term and long term EPC as well as bar rank and brand recognition before deciding to promote a merchant. EPC's are often skewed and not an accurate representation of how an individual affiliate may perform.
It looks to me like someone has allowed a lot of unproductive affiliates into the program that are driving a lot of clicks but no or few conversions.
Or you could look at a lower EPC as an indicator of an affiliate program that isn't overly saturated and has potential to put cash in your pocket. Keep in mind that EPC is network wide, so as you've pointed out if some “top affiliate” has dropped out, it's less “competition” out there for you.
Given the product/service of this merchant, I don't see how next month will double from this month.
It's not something people typically wait until summer to purchase.
These trends can also mean that they have just lost focus or the product is seasonal.
This is the EPC of one too many affiliate programs.
This wouldn’t happen to be the EPC of the affiliate program run by “Marky Zarc†would it!!!
Very interesting stuff… thanks for sharing!
Comments on this entry are closed.