The Webgains USA team are very fortunate to all be safe and well after Hurricane Sandy. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for some Americans that have lost the lives and millions of others that have been displaced or lost their homes and property. All Webgains US employees still continue to help our friends and neighbors in our local neighborhoods. We see the devastation left from Hurricane Sandy in our home towns every day. So… now that we have regrouped, we can and will do more. We hope you will join us in an initiative to collect donations for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

We have partnered with Red Cross and will be donating 100% Webgains USA profits made on the 28th November to help Hurricane Sandy victims. We are inviting all our clients; affiliates, agencies and merchants to donate a percentage of their earnings made through Webgains USA on this day. All you need to do is contact us and tell us what percentage of your earnings you want us to donate on your behalf. No amount is too little.

You can donate directly to Red Cross here or contact assistance@webgains.com today to pledge your support via Webgains to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Finally, on behalf of the Webgains US team, I would like to thank all of our clients that have been kind and patient with us in the days following the storm.

Yours,
Ryan Gilbert
Director
Webgains USA

It is not only about their great technologies and resources. What’s more important, is their good service! Webgains account managers are of great help to LightInTheBox programs. They are quick to respond, knowledgeable and professional. Not only they are capable of collecting promotion opportunity from publishers and seeking potential market on world wide rang, from time to time, they are also exerting positive influence to our affiliate team with their professional and passionate working spirit.

The value they contribute to the LightInTheBox is impressive based on the sales performance of our affiliate program. Under their constant efforts, our MinInTheBox MINI-US program shows a dramatic sales boost by 431%. A couple of new programs we just started on Webgains are brought up so quickly with their help.

LightInTheBox Affiliate Team”

YesAsia.com receives 2.5 million unique visitors per month. YesStyle.com is the first online retailer in Asia to globally distribute a wide range of fashion and lifestyle products from the region.

YesStyle.com is the first online retailer in Asia to globally distribute a wide range of fashion and lifestyle products from the region. YesStyle.com sources a wide range of high-quality brands and products from Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. Products on sale include women’s apparel, men’s wear, jewelry and accessories, beauty and skin care products, as well as babies and kids’ fashion. YesStyle.com receives 750,000 unique visitors per month.

Stefan Janssens is the internet marketing manager for YesAsia.com and YesStyle.com the joined the company in 2006.

Approach

YesAsia.com began their affiliate program in 2001 running it in-house and signing up affiliates who ran fan or niche websites based on YesAsia.com’s artists. When Stefan joined in 2006 he decided that it was time develop YesAsia.com’s affiliate marketing into more mainstream areas like gaming.

There were two main deciding factors Stefan selected when choosing which international network to go with. ”Firstly, when I was an affiliate, the fact that Webgains paid affiliates weekly made them one of my favorite networks. Secondly, from a merchant’s point of view Webgains demonstrated that they were the most flexible networks.   For example they do not have stringent deadlines on affiliate approvals like other networks and when we told them we needed American Express added on as preferred payment method, they quickly and seamlessly added this functionality onto the platform for us.”

A large part of our affiliate management time and resource is spent on recruiting new affiliates in certain countries e.g. we ‘Googled’ new and popular games to find niche affiliate websites and interact on specialist forums and blogs.

Stefan explains more of the YesAsia.com and Yestyle.com international affiliate launch strategy. ”We started our first international program in the UK, because our site is in English, and we decided that the UK would be our primary external market. We then launched programs in France and Germany, because they are the largest markets outside the UK. We also encourage affiliates outside of these countries to join one of these programs. All our programs are tracked worldwide.

We have noticed some variances in each market, for example in the USA there is a greater uptake of our program and there are more social shopping sites. In the UK the number of voucher and coupon sites is high.  In Europe, there are a lot of content fashion sites and in Australia affiliate marketing is at the very early stages of development.

Additional challenges merchants must take into account when running an international affiliate program are language barriers and translation issues. We don’t have problems selling to customers in other countries with an English language website. However, the main problem is convincing potential international affiliates that customers will buy. Potential partner sites and affiliates in Europe will often think customers won’t buy if the site is not in the local language and is located in Asia, and therefore hesitate to promote us.  It has been an incredible help to us to have a local Webgains account manager, helping us with local, shopping, cultural and language issues.”

Finally Stefan emphasizes the importance of merchants’ capitalizing on social marketing tools to communicate and promote their affiliate program. “Social marketing has worked very well for us. We have over 3,000 twitter followers on YesAsia.com and 1,800 twitter followers on YesStyle.com. We are keen to use video in the future as well.”

Results

In the last year alone (August 2008 –August 2009) the YesAsia.com affiliate program has seen an increase in sales by 86% across the UK, 97% across USA, 65% across France and 58% across Germany.

”Our international affiliate marketing programs with Webgains, have allowed us to penetrate markets we would never have been able to reach without a significant amount of physical investment”, explains Stefan, “We are very pleased to have grown our brand in new markets outside of Asia and the USA.

Another spin-off benefit from our affiliate marketing has been identifying new niche markets e.g. Japanese Cook books, which we sell, are popular to promote amongst international affiliates.”

I could not believe that I was allocated an account manager that has been very helpful. They basically do more than the minimum required and go that extra mile to make sure you set off on the right foot, from recruiting affiliates to recommendations for improving conversion on your website.

Their pro-active approach is something that I have found seriously lacking on other networks who would only contact you when you contact them.

I have been running the Arboreta program on Webgains and my experience so far has been nothing short of positive and very lucrative for my client.

From my experience I would recommend Webgains and it’s certainly worth giving them a call”

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