Affiliate Managers, How do you know if a product/service would not do well in an affiliate program?

Shawn's covered most of the items, but I also think that coverage / appeal factors into the potential success.  A lot of big merchants like Wal-mart and BestBuy have lower commission rates and in some cases, lower EPCs, but the fact that they support so many products and have an existing customer relationship means that affiliates will earn a lot of little commissions. In terms of network selection, you have a lot of options depending on what you're selling.  If you're trying to establish a brand and create relationships with your affiliates, you should pick a platform + network play with lower up front fees, like Shareasale or Inuvo, or you could go with one of the big players like CJ or Linkshare.  If you're just looking to move merchandise, you can go out into the "affiliate network" space, which typically won't require fees up front, but which likely will be very up front with you about your value proposition - they won't run it if it's not good.  Being good there typically requires high margins and mass appeal.

Shawn and Jeremy answers sum up most of it up, let me add a few from experience. Retail product;  will the client work with coupons or rewards companies?  It's like a big secret to many newbie clients that these sites dominate retail sales.  So many retailers I've spoken with complain about coupon sites and won't work with them.   Hard to make a real, long term fit in the retail space without this connect to the Super Affiliates. No brand;  it's definitely possible to do an affiliate program, but if you are building brand at the same time, it's a tough haul.  Affiliate programs tend to have higher customer acquisition costs overall, compared to other channels;   it's good if they have a follow up product, but if its just one time sales, the high CAC and lack of brand will make it tough. Lack of  Internal support within the client's company;  so many affiliate programs begin understaffed (even as an OPM you are doing it, someone has to watch it, manage it, and take accountability for it internally) and unrecognized, often leading to little internal support and high expectations for sales based only on performance.  While this is the standard affiliate pitch, to get to those numbers you really need the company to integrate this channel, not just treat it like another ad buy. Finally, if the client is in a highly competitive market, they need to give the program time to grow, likely longer than the 6 months you outline.  You can get some traction that quickly, but really need at least a year to get a sense of success or failure IMHO.

When I look at signing up with a network one of things I look for the total advertisers in my vertical as compared to the total advertisers in the network. This lets me know if this network has any publishers that would be interested in my product. Then the next thing to do is to verify the number of publishers in that vertical. If there are a good number of publishers and still no one signing to your program then there's something wrong with your offering (either the product or the commissions) which you should fix. It is right to assume that most publishers look at commissions before signing up but we cannot neglect the importance of a well converting product. I believe this point has been mentioned by other as well. Most importantly if the product has a market then there is no reason why an affiliate program for the same wouldn't work. If the product has too much of niche appeal try altering your recruitment strategy a bit. Try unconventional ways of recruiting like, attending industry conferences/events - this should find you good publishers. Also, the end customer behavior itself should have a lot of insights in how to recruit the right publisher.

Most of the items have already been covered yet.   Regarding the 1st question "Affiliate Managers, How do you know if a product/service would not do well in an affiliate program?"  I'd like to add that in the case of new product /service/ or brands without substantial historical datas to be able to determine whether they are selling successfully online or not, if the product/service is noticeable, consistent and brings a real added value to the users with whom you are connected through the platform, the affiliate program will most likely deliver good results.  However, in my experience affiliate programs for B to B products/services are less successful.  To pick the right affiliate network, I'd recommend : An accurate benchmark with a focus on the following criteria :  - Analysis of the client portfolio in order to ensure that the affiliate platform has an expertise in the industry you are interested in   - Analysis of the ratio number of account managers/number of programs  - Are you looking for international/local platform - Analysis of the service level  - Discuss with existing and ex-clients of the platform   Match the output of this benchmark with the importance of those criteria for you and then make your choice.