Affiliates

This page details the current status of the project to revise the affiliates program.

Background

The Spread Firefox Affiliates program is one of the longest running, most participatory Spread Firefox programs. The program is also a large driver of traffic to Mozilla.com and is directly responsible for a large percentage of Firefox downloads:

• There are about 70k active affiliates (receiving approximately 19 million clicks on their buttons and banners). (As of 9/7/07)
• An estimated 90% of the downloads driven by the Affiliate program are generated by 10% of the affiliates

With the recent launch of version 2.0 of the site, much of the content and context of the program (e.g. the description of the program and how to get started, any mention of reward structure, and many of the affiliate buttons/banners), were removed or did not make the transition from version 1.0 of the site to version 2.0. There is a tremendous opportunity, especially with the launch of Firefox 3.0, to continue to improve the experience for active affiliates and to reach out to new affiliates and grow the program.

Also, data was collected to illustrate the button breakdown ranked by the number of pageviews. Information regarding whether or not the button is updated is also included in this report. Pageview data is available in Urchin.

Proposed Changes

Goals

Short Term

- Relaunch an affiliates program that will engage existing affiliates, encourage participation from new affiliates, and build participation following the successful launch of Firefox 3

- Increase new affiliate participation by X%

Long Term Create a global affiliate program that continues to maintain or improve upon the current proportion of all downloads originating from this program, even as overall Firefox market share increases.

Counting Downloads

The current program awards affiliates with points for each time someone clicks through to GetFirefox.com. To better gauge the performance of the each affiliate, we want to begin counting downloads instead of clicks. Points belonging to existing affiliates will be converted using a conversion rate determined by looking at data for impressions, clicks, and actual downloads.

Survey

We want to reach out to affiliates and get their take on improvements to the program. A short 10 question survey is in development to find out more about who is participating in the program and what their experiences have been like.

Terms of Service

A short terms of service will be implemented for the affiliate program while a more comprehensive one will be provided for all SpreadFirefox services. Participation in the affiliate program will be subject to the terms of service.

Incentive Structure

Existing affiliates earn points for clicks and recognition on the SFX homepage for their status as one of the program’s top affiliates or climbers. We’d like to expand the incentive program to offer drawings from the top affiliates and climbers for prizes every six weeks. Five random top climbers will be chosen to receive special affiliate t-shirts and their SFX profiles featured on SFX. Five random top affiliates will also be chosen and their websites will be featured more in depth in addition to receiving a t-shirt. Instead of just seeing the SFX user names featured in the leader logs, there will be a separate area that highlights the winners.

Organize buttons on website

In order to improve the organization of the current affiliate page we’d like to group buttons into different categories (e.g. Get Firefox, Mozilla Store, Community Projects, Partners, Bundles, etc). There will may be a link to a “Create Your Own” page with instructions for users to create their own buttons and a style guide. Another link on the main page will have specific information about how to add buttons to different sites.

Add promo spot for affiliates program on SFX

The program will be re-launched with a promo on the SFX homepage as well as a tab on the top nav. The promo will feature the new incentive program for a few weeks and then revert to more generic content.

Update Buttons

Some of the buttons being used by affiliates out there are outdated. We’ve identified the top buttons that need to be updated and some of their replacements. The next step will be to replace these older buttons (e.g. get Firefox 2) to new buttons if they are available.

Revisions

We found a flaw in the SQL queries that were being run to measure click counts. Rishi worked with Trevor to reformulate the queries and we came up with the following reports.

-Account and click totals -Active accounts for the week

The reports still need a bit of organization, but the data is correct.

What Needs to be Done

Timeframe - Actions to be taken and updated throughout Q3

In Progress

-Work with IT to consolidate reports above that would show weekly and lifetime totals by affiliate account

-Affiliate buttons by channel (for specific builds of FF)

-Create a build for those led to the download page from an affiliate button/banner. This will assist with tracking and analytics.

-Remedy affiliates that don't display images and take away from our pageview count.

-Replace outdated buttons

-Reorganize buttons on website

-Create a terms of service for affiliates

-Devise a survey to better understand user experience with the affiliate program

-Design SFX Affiliate t-shirt and promo spot

To Do

-Localize buttons

-Provide materials and instructions for users to create their own buttons and banners

-Consider recognizing larger affiliates in a different subset of the program

-Implement system that rewards points for clicks, conversions, participation in all of SFX instead of just downloads for affiliates