Building Affiliate Partnerships

Big brands might have the budget but small businesses can have the heart. I see this every other day. In a market dominated by big players, it can be intimidating if you are a small business owner. But there is one thing that you have, which even bigger budgets cannot achieve - real, human connections. Think about it. When was the last time you walked into a small café or an agency and felt like you belonged? When the owner knew your name, your usual order, and asked about your family? Now, how often would you feel that way in a huge hypermarket? Genuine connections that are built on positive emotions are a small business superpower. Unlike big companies that rely on scripts and algorithms, small businesses can build genuine relationships - and that’s where customer loyalty is born. Yet, many small businesses get caught in the race to compete on price and efficiency, forgetting what their real strength is - personalization and emotional depth. 🤝 Here are FIVE strategies that I advise my clients who are small business owners, to build deeper emotional connection with their customers: 1️⃣ Be Personal, Not Transactional: Greet customers by name. Train your team to do the same. Remember their preferences. Ask how they’re doing. Small gestures create a big emotional impact. 2️⃣ Build Conversations, Not Just Sales: Instead of pushing only promotions, engage with customers on a personal level, whether in-store, on social media, or through direct messages. 3️⃣ Surprise and Delight (Without Breaking the Bank!): A handwritten thank-you note, an unexpected freebie, or even a genuine compliment can turn a one-time buyer into a lifelong fan. 4️⃣ Share Your Story: People buy from people, not faceless brands. Talk about why you started, your challenges, and what makes your business unique. Customers love supporting businesses with a heart. ❤️ 5️⃣ Treat Customers Like Family, Not Numbers: Unlike big brands, you don’t have to deal with millions of customers. Use that to your advantage. Create a community where customers feel valued, heard, and respected. The Bottom Line: You don’t need massive marketing budgets to create customer loyalty. You just need connection. In a world of automated responses and brand detachment, your ability to make customers feel special is your biggest competitive edge. That's your zone. Make it big! What’s the one way that you build an emotional connection with your customers? I’d love to hear your thoughts! #CustomerExperience #CustomerLoyalty #CustomerCentricity #EmotionalConnection #VinayPushpakaran

Are you building client relationships that last? For many, the focus is on delivering software or hardware. But the real difference comes when you go beyond just delivering an offer — when you create an experience that makes clients feel supported and valued over the long term. Here’s where strong relationships start: 1️⃣ Be There Beyond the Project Completing a project doesn’t mean stepping away. Checking in, following up, and supporting clients even after the main deliverables are done shows that you’re committed to their success, not just to a contract. That follow-through is what clients remember. 2️⃣ Share Ideas Freely When you see an opportunity that can benefit a client, share it without adding fees or expecting anything in return. The goal is to add value because you’re invested in their growth as much as your own. 3️⃣ Be a Connector Use your network to introduce clients to other companies or experts that can support their goals. Helping clients build valuable connections shows them you’re a trusted advisor, not just a vendor. Strong client relationships aren’t built on transactions. They’re built on value, trust, and a shared commitment to growth. Companies who take the time to build this way not only deepen their partnerships—they make themselves indispensable. How are you doing on relationship building?

After closing dozens of deals over the years, I can confidently say that trust isn’t built through a pitch. It’s built through presence. I used to think trust came after results. Now I know: trust creates results, and it starts way before the contract is signed. Some of the best client relationships I’ve built didn’t begin with sales calls. They started with conversations about life, not business. Listening actively and showing empathy have opened more doors for me than any cold outreach strategy ever could. Sometimes, deals were closed not because of what I offered, but because someone felt understood. If you’re an early-stage founder or own a business at a scaling stage, here’s something worth building into your daily practice: ..1..  Listen Actively Let people feel heard, not just responded to. Put away assumptions and give your full attention; it changes the energy of the entire conversation. ..2.. Show Empathy Relate to their challenges as a human, not just a service provider. Shared experiences build emotional bridges that no pitch deck can match. ..3.. Offer Value Don’t just deliver, overdeliver. I’ve built trust by underpromising and then exceeding expectations with small surprises that mattered. ..4.. Personalize Communication Generic messages are forgettable. Tailoring your language and approach shows your client they’re more than just another name on your list. ..5.. Be Dependable Trust grows when you do what you say. Be reliable in your words, timelines, and tone; especially when no one’s watching. Trust is slow-earned but long-lasting, and it’s your biggest asset. What’s helped you build trust with potential clients? I’d love to hear your perspective. Remember, if your marketing isn’t building trust, it’s just noise. I help founders turn clarity, empathy, and strategy into real growth. If you’re ready to build trust and scale, let’s connect. #AskQueJay #ClientTrust #EarlyStageFounders #EcommerceGrowth #RelationshipMarketing #MarketingStrategy 

We are very close to launching a free AI program auditing tool for affiliate programs and I need to write the perfect response to feed the LLM with. Below is what I have so far, what would you add/ take away/ change? As an AI Affiliate Marketing Manager, I have extracted and analysed data from our affiliate network for {advertiser name} for the most recent complete business quarter, Q4 2023, and compared it to the same quarter last year to assess performance. TLDR: - Your program is showing growth in revenue and orders. - There is a notable decline in clicks and a slight decrease in ROI and AOV. - Conversion rate has seen a significant increase. - Publisher diversity could be improved. General Performance Insights: - Revenue: Q4 2023 saw a revenue of $75,000 a 4.78% increase from $70,000 in Q4 2022. - ROI: The Return on Investment (ROI) was 8.36 in Q4 2023, slightly down by 0.36% from 8.39 in the previous year. - Orders: There were 2,150 orders in Q4 2023, up by 5.08% from 2,047 orders in Q4 2022. - Average Order Value (AOV): The AOV was $34.45 in Q4 2023, a minor decrease of 0.29% from $34.55 in Q4 2022. - Commission: The commission paid was $8,867.06 in Q4 2023, up by 5.09% from $8,437.85 in Q4 2022. - Clicks: There was a significant decrease in clicks, from 47,969 in Q4 2022 to 38,358 in Q4 2023, marking a 20.04% decline. - Conversion Rate: The conversion rate improved dramatically by 31.38%, from 4.27% to 5.61%. Publisher Impact Insights: - Topcashback Ltd was the top-performing publisher, contributing to 14.35% of total sales, followed by Blue Light Card LTD with 8.39%. - Honey Science Corporation and RetailMeNot UK Ltd (Vouchercodes.co.uk) also made significant contributions with 6.77% and 5.67% of total sales, respectively. - Several publishers, such as Quidco and Airtime Rewards, showed notable contributions, indicating potential areas for partnership strengthening. Actionable Insights: - Focus on strategies to increase clicks, as the significant drop could impact future sales. - Investigate the slight decrease in ROI and AOV to understand underlying causes and address them. - Enhance relationships with top-performing publishers and explore opportunities with those contributing less to sales. - Consider diversifying the publisher mix to reduce dependency on a few top contributors and mitigate risks. The decrease in clicks is a concern and should be investigated to ensure tracking is accurate and to develop strategies to re-engage the audience. The slight decreases in ROI and AOV, while not alarming, should be monitored to prevent a downward trend. The significant improvement in conversion rate is a positive sign, indicating that users who click are more likely to make a purchase. However, the overall decrease in clicks suggests that fewer potential customers are being reached, which could limit revenue growth in the long term.

The key to profits and sustainability in e-commerce is not landing new customers. It’s getting customers to come back again and again. Repeat purchase rate is the North Star every e-commerce business needs to follow. Those one-and-done customers might give you a short revenue spike. But repeat customers spend more over time, refer friends, and can make up over 40% of revenue. They are the lifeblood that separates temporary fads from lasting success stories. So, how do we turn new customers into lifelong loyalists? It starts with a mindset shift - from chasing endless new sales to creating lasting relationships. ☑️ Build trust by over-delivering on quality and service. ☑️ Seek genuine feedback and keep optimizing the customer experience.  ☑️ Surprise and delight with loyalty perks and early access to new arrivals. The brands that will still be around in 10 years know success isn't a single sale. It's thousands of small moments that make customers feel excited to come back for more.

Let’s say I need to analyze a competitor quickly. I start by looking at its referring domains. How many and which sites. Not only to know how powerful they’re in search. To understand how the product is perceived by the market. If they ran PR campaigns and what’s their angle. Then opinions I can find on user-generated content sites starting with Reddit (I avoid Google because it’s usually affiliate sites). What keywords they’re ranking for. Commercial? Informational? In-depth look at content that’s ranking to evaluate how good it is. Engagement to followers ratio on each platform they’re on. What content does well and why. If it’s B2C - who is tagging them on Instagram. If it’s B2B - who’s mentioning them on X. Check these profiles to understand their ICP and find patterns. Google autocomplete with brand name+modifiers to see what people ask. This alone will give me a decent idea.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Most affiliate managers stop at conversions. But conversions only tell part of the story. The best programs we see go deeper — they look at what drives those conversions and what happens after. Here are the key metrics worth tracking once your program is up and running: 1️⃣ EPC (Earnings Per Click) It tells you which affiliates bring valuable traffic — not just volume. Two affiliates can have the same number of conversions, but one might deliver 3× higher EPC. 2️⃣ ROI per affiliate. Measure what each partner actually brings in versus what you pay out. This helps you identify who deserves higher commissions — and who drains budget. 3️⃣ Time to first conversion. A great way to spot affiliates who can generate early traction. If it takes someone 45 days to deliver their first conversion, you’ll want to understand why — poor setup, offer mismatch, or low-quality traffic. 4️⃣ Refund or chargeback rate. Conversion counts mean little if customers don’t stick. Track post-sale data to see which affiliates bring real long-term customers. 5️⃣ Re-engagement and activity rate. How many of your affiliates were active in the last 30 days? Dormant affiliates = lost potential. Simple monthly follow-ups can reactivate 10–20% of them. The best programs don’t just track what happened — they track why. That’s what separates growth from guesswork. 🦌 If you want help setting up these metrics or scaling your affiliate program, DM me — our team at Trackdesk can walk you through the process.

I've always been amazed by how Southeast Asia's eCommerce landscape isn't what people outside the region expect. It's not dominated by glossy marketplaces, but by the raw energy of social media chats. The importance of being tuned into the reality of stakeholders on the ground is key to building for them. Digging into our merchant profiles at Enstack, over 90% of top performers are social sellers processing orders via DMs on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, manually through tools like Cashier, and skipping web-stores altogether. These business owners are building relationships first, sales second, which mirrors the region's trust-based vibe where personal bonds drive loyalty over impersonal carts. This chat-based economy drives billions, but it's completely informal. Sellers juggle multiple apps for payments and shipping, losing precious time that could fuel growth. Still it thrives: integrated shipping is the go-to for 80% of our top 50, with COD heavy in sectors like pet-care (97% usage), reflecting a broader trend toward mobile-first tools that prioritize efficiency without disruption. It's a landscape where sellers prefer to avoid the hidden & high fees that marketplaces come with, opting for direct control to nurture customer ties, much like how sellers in skincare thrive on platforms like Shopee but continue to emphasise direct chats for authenticity. Building intuitive features that streamline existing workflows without disruption, simplifying verification and fulfilment is something we continue to focus on in our effort to address pain points for millions of sellers. We've seen electronics and fashion sellers streamline nationwide deliveries through such seamless integrations, focusing on what they love: connecting with buyers. For us the opportunity that we're building for is crystal clear - as SEA's digital economy grows, the real winners will be platforms that empower these relational models, reducing fraud risks that plague informal setups. It makes me wonder how this chat dominance could reshape strategies for scaling in the region—curious to hear your take in the comments. After all, SEA SMEs and eCommerce hold super high potential, but unlocking it means recognizing the power of these grassroots, chat-driven ecosystems that are already reshaping billions in value. #eCommerce #SoutheastAsia #SMEInsights #TrustEconomy #Enstack Image Credit: cube.asia

Stop guessing. Start watching. 🕵️♂️ When was the last time you seriously analyzed your competitors? Too many teams focus inward — polishing their product, testing ad creatives, changing CTAs — but forget that the fastest way to level up is by understanding who you’re playing against. Here’s how we at Hetman approach competitive analysis — and how you can turn it into a growth engine 🚀: 🔍 1. Map the market List out direct competitors and note their strengths, weaknesses, messaging, pricing, and customer feedback. No assumptions — only facts. 📊 2. Collect data smartly Use tools like SimilarWeb, Ahrefs, BuiltWith, and their social media to study how they attract and convert customers. Hint: newsletters and job listings = goldmines. ⚖️ 3. Compare brutally Put your offer side by side with theirs. Where are they stronger? Where are you unique? This is where positioning magic starts. 📈 4. Spot the trends Who’s adapting fast to new tech, formats, or audience needs? What are they testing? Stay curious — and stay ahead. 🧠 5. Build strategy from insights Once you have the full picture, use it to refine your marketing, messaging, pricing, or even product roadmap. Competitive analysis isn’t about copying. It’s about understanding the game — so you can play it better. 💬 Do you actively track your competitors? Or just glance once in a while?