ClubMom.com reins in affiliate numbers to boost program results

With differing schools of thought about the right membership size for an affiliate program, Amazon.com, currently claiming a whopping 900,000 affiliates, represents one strategy. At the other end is ClubMom.com, an online membership program that offers special deals targeting mothers’ interests, where affiliate manager Shawn Collins says he gets results by limiting the number of site affiliates.

“I’m bigger on quality over quantity,” says Collins, who makes a concerted effort to keep his three and a half year old program to fewer than 1,000 affiliates. Though Collins concentrates on a smaller group within the affiliate pool, he tries to have at least some personal contact with every ClubMom affiliate. To do that, Collins puts in a 50- to 60-hour week at the office with the help of one intern in addition to providing affiliates with contact information for e-mail and instant messaging, which he regularly checks and responds to via wireless on evenings and weekends. The payoff is in affiliates’ loyalty to ClubMom’s program, Collins believes.

“There are those that run programs with better offers out there, but we do offer top service and we help teach affiliates how to succeed. So a lot of affiliates stay and promote our site out of loyalty,” he says. That also personally benefits Collins, who had performance incentives incorporated into his compensation after he’d been with the program for a year. Collins estimates that perhaps only a quarter of affiliate program managers have a program performance element in their compensation structure, but it’s something he encourages companies looking for growth in affiliate programs to consider. “If you achieve the numbers that they’ve set, it makes it a lot more comfortable for the company to pay the extra money,” he says.

ClubMom, currently with more than 3 million registered members, hopes to hit the 10 million mark over the next year with an ongoing online and offline membership push.