A New Affiliate Program For Guys Like You

[Steve @ THM]

Hi all,

A couple of weeks ago I posted a thread up about the company I work for (Hog Ecom Shop/The Hogfather Motorcycles) were considering an affiliate program.

Well, its going to happen.

We have done the tech side of it, we have still got to crunch numbers, we have put together a 'affiliate pack' full of banners, overlays, logo's and video stuff for people to use... basically we near enough have everything in place and I estimate we are less than a week from being 'ready'.

However, what we have not done is talk to the people who we want to work with. Which are you guys.

I've put a lot of effort into researching this, I can't find anyone in the 'motorcycle world' that has as many fans as guys like you who do youtube. I put together a list of 20 channels and looked at their stats last week on social blade, it totalled 15 million views. This is TV numbers!

We want to work with guys like you all, I want to know exactly what we have to do to make our affiliate program appealing to you.

Right now our store is online, its getting a good amount of orders but we want more (who doesn't..).

Here is some information about ourselves:

• We have been a LTD company in the UK for over 10 years, but in essence started 40 years ago in the owners garage. We virtually design, then physically build bespoke motorcycles, trikes and quads.
• Over this time we identified a huge need for a proper, real time online aftermarket parts and accessories facility, so we formed Hog Ecom Shop (HES) Limited - www.HogEcomShop.com, spending the past 3 years with R&D investment of circa. £40k; we’ve developed a bespoke online shopping portal, for all types of motorcycles, working with the top B2B only suppliers, winning rave reviews from motorcycling press pundits and public alike.
• HES offer almost 2 million line items, in which if only one item was procured from each section of HES, this would amount to over £65 million – this is a global operation.
• We soft launched HES last year with some decent success, which gave us valuable feedback for a hard launch - and that’s where we are NOW!

Our store was covered in the American V magazine last year, give it a read here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5hilsgl6n267y7v/American V Coverage.pdf

We have 30 catalogues online right now many more to come, we cover all types of bikes. Cruisers, off road, road/racing, scooters and even snow mobiles.

What I want to know is this...

What do we have to do, to make guys like you want to work with us?

What do we have to provide in return for you putting us in front of your audience?

The basic idea that we have is an affiliate program, we track the traffic you send us and you get a commission on any sales from that traffic.

I would love to speak to anyone interested, drop me a PM or email me on stephen@thehogfathermotorcycles.com if you like. I'm happy with either.

Thanks

 

[dandoolittle]

Approved - Mods don't delete

 

[O8ride]

Can the rockers delete?

Sounds like a good idea - do you have to turn off youtube monetisation? Not that it affects me with my 160 subscribers and piddling view counts, and I doubt that will change much with my new bike

 

[ToastToGo]

Can the rockers delete?

Sounds like a good idea - do you have to turn off youtube monetisation? Not that it affects me with my 160 subscribers and piddling view counts, and I doubt that will change much with my new bike

No because the only time you'll get something from their company is if they give something as a gift or if someone actually purchases a product through your affiliate link.

 

[Steve @ THM]

You absolutely can promote things on YouTube AND claim for monetisation. Unless they have changed things in the last couple of years I know its still allowed (and I still see it all the time anyway...)

When youtube say they don't like affiliates in their TOS, I believe they are talking about people who use the site JUST to make money from affiliate programs, what we will be doing is just adding a link to a description in most cases... well its upto the affiliates anyway.

I understand there is a grey area between it all, but many other companies have got round it and so will we.

 

[dandoolittle]

Can the rockers delete?

Sounds like a good idea - do you have to turn off youtube monetisation? Not that it affects me with my 160 subscribers and piddling view counts, and I doubt that will change much with my new bike

I would personally and feel free to ignore me - Ditch the adsense for a while, that will help you get views and your subscribers up quicker (people hate ads). I doubt you're making anything at the moment anyway right? The use affiliate links (above the fold) in your BIO, you MAY earn a couple more quid. That with any targeted affiliate links, not just this one in this post

 

[lightitup]

if i was a vlogger i would want stuff every now and then for some giveaways just like some gloves or some little things. then i wouldnt have an issue with adding ur logo into my videos and links on my page. people like free stuff

 

[Steve @ THM]

I would personally and feel free to ignore me - Ditch the adsense for a while, that will help you get views and your subscribers up quicker (people hate ads). I doubt you're making anything at the moment anyway right? The use affiliate links (above the fold) in your BIO, you MAY earn a couple more quid. That with any targeted affiliate links, not just this one in this post

This!!!!

I know youtube does not pay its partners for 'mobile' views, which make up 70% of their traffic.

I honestly believe unless you're getting 2 million views a month, working with our affiliate program will make you more.

Either way, do both. Who are you hurting?

 

[Steve @ THM]

if i was a vlogger i would want stuff every now and then for some giveaways just like some gloves or some little things. then i wouldnt have an issue with adding ur logo into my videos and links on my page. people like free stuff

this may be something that is possible, I know we have boxes of t shirts and stuff.

 

[O8ride]

this may be something that is possible, I know we have boxes of t shirts and stuff.

This would be a good way to bring people in. Many motovloggers do competitions that get quite a bit of action.

But wouldn't suggest you send out too many freebies to all your affiliates at the same time. If everyone offers the same thing at the same time, it will soon become old hat and look like it's just stuff you're trying to offload.

 

[Steve @ THM]

This would be a good way to bring people in. Many motovloggers do competitions that get quite a bit of action.

But wouldn't suggest you send out too many freebies to all your affiliates at the same time. If everyone offers the same thing at the same time, it will soon become old hat and look like it's just stuff you're trying to offload.

That's a good thought, I will have to spend and afternoon in the shop and see what I can do.

If anyone has a channel that would like some goodies send me a PM or Email

 

[ariderslife]

I would personally and feel free to ignore me - Ditch the adsense for a while, that will help you get views and your subscribers up quicker (people hate ads).

Wrong, Having adsense on or OFF won't change the Sub count or growth,Subscriber growth only multiplies when you produce Quality Content...Period

 

[ariderslife]

I know youtube does not pay its partners for 'mobile' views, which make up 70% of their traffic.

I honestly believe unless you're getting 2 million views a month, working with our affiliate program will make you more.

YouTube does pay Partners for Views Via Mobile Phone if the Phone is using the YouTube app and plays a Advertisement at the start of it, More and more phones are now being forced to watch advertisements for 5 seconds or more.2 Million views a month is $3500 USD in revenue easy. Based on my averages of 600,000+ a month. While 1 million views a month is achievable 90% of the vloggers won't even get close to that mark. Once subscribers are told the Vlogger is partnered with a store the winners are the viewers in that country that the store is in as so many countries have Import Duty etc. Because you are in England the Pound to USD/AUD etc is so high that it renders it extremely expensive for any Australian to buy products from your store. im not having a go at you, I'm just saying its the Pound to AUD conversion.

 

[Steve @ THM]

YouTube does pay Partners for Views Via Mobile Phone if the Phone is using the YouTube app and plays a Advertisement at the start of it, More and more phones are now being forced to watch advertisements for 5 seconds or more.2 Million views a month is $3500 USD in revenue easy. Based on my averages of 600,000+ a month. While 1 million views a month is achievable 90% of the vloggers won't even get close to that mark. Once subscribers are told the Vlogger is partnered with a store the winners are the viewers in that country, you would be best to go with Vloggers within the country your store is in.

I could well be out of date, I ran a partneting network called veos in 2011 which I sold to Broadband TV. At the time YouTube did not pay for mobile views and they left the partners feeling a little annoyed as at the time mobile made up 25% of views. Now its like 70%! Maybe they were forced into it or something, who knows. The $3.5k/1 mil sounds about right, but again to get the one million views they had to match criteria to count as a paid view (demographics the advertiser asked for etc), so really it was like $1.5k when we paid out to our partners. Could well have changed since then. Even now if they are paying for mobile views I bet the number of people who run adblock is a big chunk out of your pocket...

Anyway... that was a previous life.

I do get what you mean with working with vloggers in my country, but we have dreams of packing this up and franchising around the world so it might not be a bad idea to start getting on peoples minds while this happens. Also... even if 10% of the vloggers audience is from the UK, thats still 10% of a lot of people. We can live with that if the affiliate can.

We recognise you guys have large audiences, what we aim to do will not replace YouTube monnnaayyy but it will certainly supplement it, in many cases our estimates of what you guys could do will be higher than what I estimate you do from youtube... Could be wrong (like i said, estimates) but its more money either way...

 

[RoninK6]

Ok, I might be stupid (as my wife has told me a few times, so I probably am ...), but what does being an affiliate look like?... what does one have to do while being affiliate ??? Whenever I think of affiliate, I think of a local TV station that's a part of ABC/NBC/CBS... or somewhat of a satellite branch of a business.

Sorry for the not-so-smart question ~_~ .....

 

[Steve @ THM]

Ok, I might be stupid (as my wife has told me a few times, so I probably am ...), but what does being an affiliate look like?... what does one have to do while being affiliate ??? Whenever I think of affiliate, I think of a local TV station that's a part of ABC/NBC/CBS... or somewhat of a satellite branch of a business.

Sorry for the not-so-smart question ~_~ .....

Perfectly good question.

Being an affiliate looks like you linking to a store, something like this:

http://www.HogEcomShop.com/YourUserName

This gives the user a cookie who visit the link, and you get commission on all sales they made during this period.

Now what do you have to do?

Thats upto you, the more you drive traffic the more you make... but you can drive traffic by leaving the link above the fold in your youtube description, or you can shout and jump up and down and tell them to go check us out... We are leaving that upto you.

 

[dandoolittle]

Wrong, Having adsense on or OFF won't change the Sub count or growth,Subscriber growth only multiplies when you produce Quality Content...Period

A lot of evidence backs ups that new or low subbed accounts tend grow quicker without having adsense slapped all over it, once they kick off then adding it once the subs start coming

Ive spent £1x,xxx with clients backing up that theory, if youre not earning from something then trying out new things isnt an issue

Yes, some people pull off one off videos but the everyday person, wont

 

[Temporary Citizen]

It'd be nice to have enough subscribers to make a living out of youtube. Alas :/ However I feel this is a pretty good opportunity for motovloggers to get a bit more back from their investment into youtube, and if people don't want to buy your stuff, then no harm done