At what level should my cookies be set?

As a general rule the longer the cookie period, the more pleasing to the affiliate and the more likely affiliates are to like and run your event on their site. People may initially tend to view an event, seek permission and funding, and then purchase the event a week later, so it's important that the cookie period covers this. Affiliates will also be aware that sometimes decision making to attend a show can last months in big corporate companies, to get budget sign off. For these reasons we set the cookie period to 60 days.

Should I change commission rates during the event campaign?

Generally no. Lowering your commission rates during a campaign would be a bad mistake and send the wrong message out to your affiliates about your campaign. It could cause affiliates to remove it from their site, and perhaps not work with your shows in the future.

What does an affiliate look for in an event campaign?

An affiliate will look over a variety of influencing factors when deciding whether to add your event onto their web site. These are likely to be:

• Suitability of your event to their readership demographic and geography
• Average costs per ticket generated
• EPC − earnings per click. The average earning per click generated
• Length of cookie period
• Quality information about the event, with good quality event banners
• Good landing pages for the event, and perceived conversion rates
• Reliable payment and tracking for the event
• Good quality event information to market, good speaker line ups
• Easy booking process to book a ticket at your show
• Is it an industry leading event? How many people will attend? Does the show appeal?

Bottom line though, it's always the revenue generated from your event that will make the affiliate decide on working with you in the future.

What way can my event be promoted to affiliates?

There are a number of ways your event can be promoted on affiliate sites. These are banners, links, datafeeds, coupons/event discounts, and Emailers.

Banners:

The number and quality of your banners is an essential criterion for affiliates in the decision making of promoting your show. The look of the banner will determine whether the affiliates are willing to place it on their website. Please find more detailed information on banners in the section "What banners should I produce for my event?".

Text links:

Text links opposed to image links, only have text in the body of the link. Affiliates like to use them, as they usually have a higher conversion than banners. They can be positioned within the content of the website, and are therefore of immediate use to the reader. Text links can be deep links transferring the visitor directly to the event's registration page, resulting in more event ticket sales.

Datafeeds (widget):

The data feed is essentially a file that lists all your event information, such as name, dates, venue and a link to the registration page. The purpose of these datafeeds is to place the event company's offer on the affiliate's website, giving the visitor the chance to browse, search, and view different events on the website itself. The customer is transferred to the events website only once he/she clicks a "Buy now", "More info" or any other similar button. For this reason the widget has powerful potential to enhance the affiliate's website.

Coupons/Event discounts:

Event discounts are often a good way to attract affiliates to promote your event, offering them something unique that the general web browser can't get at your show. These are generally termed coupons, and you can offer these discount vouchers as you choose, making sure the offer is well placed in the banner creative. Coupons could, for example, be created for "Early bird" offers, giving a discount on event tickets purchased four weeks prior to the event. Please find more information on coupons in the section "Offering event discounts via affiliates".

Emailers:

Events can be included in emailers affiliates send to their readers. This could be either in the form of a banner or a featured editorial. If they think the proposition is strong enough, then dedicated emailers about an event are amongst the most powerful methods of promoting a show, and sometimes can yield several tickets sold in one go.

What banners should I produce for my event?

The number of banners you produce for your event, their quality and sizes is an important area. Affiliates may ask you for custom banner sizes, and you should be ready to produce these. This is why graphic design skills are an important area for multiple affiliate campaigns. There are a standard set of banners that most events should produce, and it would also pay to produce a number of different creatives so affiliates can try them out, and see which ones convert best for them.

Standard banner sizes include:

• 468 x 60
• 125 x 125
• 120 x 60
• 88 x 31
• 120 x 240
• 120 x 600
• 234 x 60
• 254 x 331
• 728 x 90
• 720 x 300
• 300 x 250

It's important not to underestimate the smaller banner sizes, as most affiliates have a limited amount of space on their pages, and home pages. Many affiliates will like the smaller sizes for your events as they convert, and are good for creating lists of different events on the home page. Generally it's best to let affiliates decide the sizes of banners that they would like to fit to their web site. Not offering a button they require, or a given event creative at the start may lose you that affiliate that will deliver a lot of event sales.

If you don't have creative expertise in house, Event Partner offer a banner creation service for events, that you can use. We have built up a lot of experience on event creatives and can work with your team to produce banners.

Please contact the Event Partner team via Email: info (at) eventpartner (dot) net or Telephone: +44 (0) 117 321 8308

Any tips on how my event banner should look?

There are a multitude of different guidelines on getting different banner creatives to perform. As a top line, avoid having your event url listed in your banner. This will put off many affiliates as they may anticipate users will bypass the banners and type the url directly into their browser. Make sure you have a call to action on the banner - "book now", "click here", "get your conference discount", etc. Never assume that the users realise that they have to click on the banner to book a spot at the event. Excessive animation should generally be avoided, if possible make the event title and subject as clear as possible, and emphasise the selling point of your event, and the event date. As above, if you'd like Event Partner to create your banner creatives, then lets us know.

Offering event discounts via affiliates?

Event discounts are often a good way to get an affiliate on your side, offering them something that the general web browser can't get at your show. These are generally termed coupons, and you can offer these discount vouchers as you choose, making sure the offer is well placed in the banner creative. Affiliates like good event discount offers, as it gives them something to promote to their readership.

A significant portion of event sales will come from money off promotions, and special offers, so you should always consider whether to offer these at the start of a campaign. You don't want to lose a potential market. People like to get a discount, and your affiliates know this. They may be eager to promote your event, if they think it's a good offer that their readership will be compelled to take up.

How do I integrate affiliate marketing into my events business?

This question will depend on how your events company is set up, and how the marketing and web teams are aligned. The question also depends on how many events you run, their size, and your own current capabilities.

Initially we suggest making a designated person in the office your affiliate manager. They should be responsible for organising all your affiliate programs, and can have a number of roles. They should work on identifying new affiliates over your events, finding web sites that will promote your shows, and finding out which web sites promote your competitor's events. They should maintain your relationship with current affiliates, and develop and monitor your current event affiliate offers. They should be looking for ways to enhance the campaign, keep affiliates up to date with new events coming up, and continually motivate affiliates to better sell your event for you. They should also monitor all competitor events activity and the affiliate offers they produce. If you have a large number of shows, you may want to recruit a specific affiliate manager.

I don't want my event appearing on loads of event sites that I don't know about.

You will stay in control as you can decide which affiliates you accept and which ones you allow to promote your show.

If I sell out tickets, can I stop the offer?

The offer can be stopped when all tickets have been sold. Please contact us if this is the case and we will inform all affiliates promoting your show.

If I decide to stop my offer, how much notice do I have to give and who will tell my affiliates?

The standard notice period should be at least one week, so that the affiliates have enough time to take the creatives off their website. We will contact the affiliates and inform them about the campaign stop.

How quickly can my event offer go up on other websites?

This can take a few days, depending on the number of affiliates who will promote your show.

How can I reward good performance for my leading affiliates?

(1) Two Tier Payout

This is used if you wish to credit an existing affiliate for referring new affiliates. You can set a percentage of the new affiliate's commission, which the existing affiliate would receive. If you prefer, you may opt to pay a flat amount on the paid commissions of referral affiliates.

(2) Pay a higher commission to better performing affiliates

This is certainly something that you should do, and you can do this by rewarding affiliates based on the volume of ticket sales they deliver for your show. For example, they sell over £5000 in conference tickets, you take the commission up 5%, they sell over £10,000 in conference tickets, anything above this and the commission is 20%, and so on. Different gradings can be put in place in relation to volume of tickets sold, revenue generated, and the like.

(3) Different commission for specific affiliates

You can also set up deals with your leading affiliates where a specific affiliate gets offered a higher % than other affiliates. This can be done if you realise one site is delivering substantial event ticket sales, and you want to incentivise them to keep promoting your shows, and giving more visibility to them.

How soon will I start seeing sales?

This depends on many factors, including your overall website conversion, your affiliate manager's contacts and recruitment activity as well as your event's popularity. Another factor is the uniqueness of your offer to customers. The time frame is anywhere from one to two months (depending on how the program is managed).