At LinkShare, we take a great deal of pride in bringing together the finest merchants with the most effective affiliates.
One of our main responsibilities to you is to help you understand what makes some pay-for-performance relationships in our network perform better than others. To do that, we are always gathering information from both merchants and affiliates about what they seek from each other.
We surveyed hundreds of our top affiliates to find out the characteristics of their best merchant partners. In addition, we asked our Affiliate Advisory Board to help distill that information into specific criteria for identifying the merchants that affiliates most prefer to work with.
Premium Partner Criteria
None of this should be new to you - these are criteria we often talk about as best practices. To affiliates in the LinkShare Network, ideal merchants:
- Offer seven or more return days in their baseline offers (does not apply to merchants with pay per click programs).
- Supply complete and current contact information in their affiliate profile.
- Use LinkShare's affiliate payment service.
- Ensure prompt authorization of affiliate payments so affiliates are paid at the end of the following month.
- Are active and in good standing with LinkShare.
- Respond to all transaction inquiries within 10 business days.
New LinkShare Merchants must have at least three months of timely payment to its affiliates and to LinkShare in order to be considered for Premium Partner status.
Premium Partner Benefits
All merchants who meet these criteria will be identified as a "Premium Partner" in the affiliate interface by a star icon next to their name almost wherever it appears. This is added recognition to merchants whose programs conform to the practices that affiliates overwhelmingly look for when evaluating a merchant partner. Affiliates will now be able to quickly identify Premium Merchants in order to build upon existing relationships, and identify new, desirable Merchants partnerships to pursue.
Furthermore, Premium Partners will benefit from distinction in:
- The Affiliate Newsletter with a red star next to their company name
- Merchants can use a special Premium Partner logo in communications to Affiliates
- Premium Partner Merchant Category listing in the Join Programs section of the Affiliate Interface
We hope every merchant will choose to become a "Premium Partner". Please contact your LinkShare representative if you have any questions about this program or email PremiumPartner@linkshare.com.
