As your affiliate program starts to pick up steam, you will need to constantly be in touch with the affiliates in your network.

Most of your affiliate program revenue will come from the top 20% of the affiliates in your program. It is imperative that these affiliates know who you are by name and have a working relationship with you. To accomplish this, it is a good idea to call them and introduce yourself. At the same time you can let them know that you are available if they have any questions and that you are willing to give extra incentives if they perform well.

After the initial introduction, it is a good idea to be in contact with the affiliate marketers so that you stay top of mind. You can send different emails ranging from “How are you and how can I help you help me?” to “I’ve got a special offer for you”.

Bottom Line

Out of sight is out of mind. You want to maintain a personal relationship with your affiliates to get maximum ROI from your affiliate program.

Some affiliate publishers only advertise your brand name to drive traffic to their/your site. This is generally traffic that you would get anyway, because if someone if searching for you, they’ll find you. In most cases, it’s best to create clear guidelines for the affiliates to follow that will excluded this.

Think of it in terms of what this affiliate brings to the table, what are they bringing you that you couldn’t get yourself? If they are just doing click arbitrage where they buy the click for x and sell it for and keep all the money in between, then it’s not worth it. If it is an established website with tons of their own traffic and they promote you on their own site, then they bring something that you can’t create on your own.

Bottom Line

Clearly analyze the bottom line of your affiliate network guidelines and clearly communicate and enforce them.

Image Credit: mary hodder

Affiliate Networks can be a great marketing channel if you work it right. Here are some tips to help you out.

Manual Approval

Most affiliate networks give you the ability to automatically approve anyone who applies to your network. While this may save you loads of time, it is better to be safe than sorry and manually approve/deny each application. This will save you from dealing with fraudulent publishers later on.

Communication

It is your responsibility to sell youself and your program to the affiliates. They get hundreds of emails a day and have no clue who who are. You will want to communicate clearly why they should advertise your brand. Once they join your program, it is a good idea to email them updates about your program on a monthly basis.

Data Feed

If you are an ecommere site and have product to sell it is a good idea to utilize a datafeed. Most affiliate programs offer use of a datafeed, some charge a setup feed, in any case it is generally worth it. This gives your affiliates the ability to use your data how they need.

Clear Policies

It is extremely important to have clear program guidelines so that you don’t run into any issues with your publishers. For example it may or may not be in your best interests to allows publishers to advertise your brand name in Google and traffic directly to your site. Whatever your views on such a scenario should be clearly explained in the policies of your program.

Coupon Codes

Coupon code sites are a big part of affiliate marketing. These sites essentially gather coupon codes from all ecommerce sites and advertise coupon codes in conjunction with your brand. If you have the ability you should create exclusive coupon codes for a lot of these coupon sites.

Bottom Line

Keep your offering fresh and make sure that you are giving the publishers the tools they need to work with. Communication is key to your success and have patience while your program builds up.