Hey Alex,

Checked out the KickStarter for Born to Backpack. Looks like a solid business model. I’ve worked in affiliate marketing for 14 years, so I can answer your questions, but first I have a couple of my own. 🙂

1) Do you know what affiliate network you’re going to be hosting your program with yet? If you go with one of the more established affiliate networks (Commission Junction, ShareASale, Linkshare, Google Affiliate Network) they will help you with recruiting of affiliates, though it will cost you more than running your own program using a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution (e.g. HasOffers, Cake, DirectTrack, etc).

Of the established affiliate networks, I usually recommend Commission Junction (access to the best affiliates, but expensive) or ShareASale (cheapest network, but lower quality affiliates). You can see a breakdown of the costs at:

http://www.amnavigator.com/blog/2009/02/20/compare-north-american-affiliate-networks-side-by-side/

2) Do you have someone in place to manage the affiliate program? If you don’t have someone with affiliate management experience in your company, your best bet is to hire an OPM (Outsourced Program Manager) to manage the program, as they will have the contacts (e.g. travel bloggers) necessary to launch your program. I can put you in contact with some if you’d like an intro.

3) What commission rate are you considering? Standard commission rate for t-shirt merchants is 10-12%. I would recommend you start with at least a 12% commission rate, maybe even higher, as you’ll be competing against more established merchants for quality affiliates.

There are other issues to consider, including whether to work with coupon sites, loyalty affiliates and PPC affiliates, how to activate affiliates (activation bonuses definitly work) and how to ensure your affiliate program isn’t cannibalizing sales from your other promotional channels.

Hope this helps. You can email me at fxmartini (at) gmail if you have any questions.

— FXM

Hi Alex, sorry your question has come in after the chat’s been closed but wanted to give you a quick reply from my perspective. Generally speaking, unless an affiliate program can earn me more than the equivalent ad space sold directly, it’s not worth running (from my point of view though other bloggers make and will likely have differing opinions).

Hi Sherry,

I’m one of the folks who’s piped up about bringing Meet Plan Go to the UK. We took a mini-career break (3 months) earlier this year and it was totally worth it and the right thing for us. While the ‘gap year’ before or after university is pretty well entrenched in British culture, career breaks are less common. I’d say that many of the reasons people choose to take a career break in North America (crappy economy, job dissatisfaction etc) certainly exist in the UK and many people would be open to learning more.

haha, yes, the live chats can cause keyboards to set on fire! I feel the same way after each one – intense but fun 🙂

Thanks again and hopefully our paths cross soon and I can make my NYC plans next week as well!