How can we recruit more strong affiliates? (shareasale)
We've been with shareasale for some time now, we have 140 or so affiliates. Our affiliates can get a few good referrals every now and then.
How can we recruit more strong affiliates?
We have uploaded banners, text links, and products. Sent a newsletter, and email our affiliates every now and then. Can you suggest more ways to pro-actively recruit more affiliates?
Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Program Advertising, Affiliate Recruiting & PR (Publisher Relations) 5 Star Affiliate Programs :: 50+ High Paying, Honest Affiliate Programs 5 Star Affiliate Blogs :: Visit the 5 Star TOP 50 Affiliate Directory
I would also suggest creating a datafeed if you don't already have one. The more linking methods you offer and the more competitive your affiliate program looks compared to the others the more chance the affiliate will work with you and not your competitors.
When I use to have a product price comparison for US products I use to use the merchant datafeeds from affiliate networks like ShareASale and thats about it. All of the other merchants that didn't offer them, I would have not looked at them twice, I would always just bypass them. With some merchants I gave them a good trickle of sales as well for a good few months.
Direct deposit, too -- banks, at least from where I come from, are getting more and more fussy about the checks. I recently brought in a check for deposit and was told the bank is now enacting a 5-day hold policy on checks over a certain amount and I should get direct deposit for immediate access. Well, the merchant, one of my best otherwise, doesn't offer that so after I get those checks, I'm stuck waiting another five days before I can access my hard earned money! Sigh.
Your best friend in recruiting affiliates will be Google.com. Outreach to affiliates is key and maintaining the relationships is a vital aspect in affiliate management. The tools networks offer are a great thing to have, but you also need people to offer them to.
Besides the tools, you will want to check your site for Leaks, Parasites, as well as anything that can take away an affiliate's commissions or overwrite an affiliate's cookie.
BY making yourself affiliate friendly, you will better recruit them and gain their trust.
Three other recruitment options besides search engines are:
1. Buying adspace on forums like this one.
2. Hiring an OPM firm like ones mentioned here like AMWSO to help recruit and build the relationships
3. Directory listing in program directories
Being active in the community and showing you support it with communication will always be the best and cheapest, so that is the number one method. However, outreach and advertising are also very important with any program.
Riverbum, your are also missing out on a ton of the biggest affiliates within the SAS network. You may want to look into outsourcing to a firm that is able to reach them. Especially within the fishing niche. There are some major fishing sites with SAS links but not yours.