How do I attract affiliates?

All -
I just set up two new affiliate programs as a merchant. Since I've
always been an affiliate I'm a bit lost on how to attract quality
affiliates to my programs.

Treating affiliates with care and reporting/paying them right is of great
importance to me.

Now that I have everything in place, how do I attract affiliates? How
do I advertise the programs? I signed up with Share a Sale because the setup fees
or CJ and Be Free are so high. However, now I wonder if you aren't paying for their
network.

I welcome your suggestions!

Hi Kim,

Good to see you over here. I think I tried to answer your question over on my other affiliate forum, but also wanted to add. You do get what you pay for. There are alot more strong affiliates at CJ than SAS for sure. But SAS still has some, you just need to find them and it will take a lot longer to build. But you are so committed to doing things right for your partners, I am sure you will do fine in time!

And if you don't use them, you'll get a lot less affiliates to join you, as you've just seen. There high for a reason, they have thousands of sites looking for programs.

I think you are smart to go through ShareaSale - I am an affiliate with them. I don't like their reporting but I do like my high % that I wouldn't get with CJ.

I reason I originally became associated with ShareaSale is because a merchant with them approached me. She was smart. She went to Google and found the top sites for her keywords and emailed them. She offered me more then the posted commission % to join her program. Since my site was already #1 for her main keyword, I instantly became her #1 affiliate.

10% of your affiliates will bring in 90% of your income. You just need the 10%

"attracting" them is one way... but going out recruiting is another.... see who is ranking at the top on the main keywords associated with your products... ask them if they want to promote your stuff... and offer them more than they are getting elsewhere.

I've been contacted several times by merchants and affiliate managers who have seen my rankings.

Gail is right about a small number of affiliates generating most of your sales. If you recruit your affiliates carefully you can avoid the large expense of accounting and writing checks to folks who will sell $39 per year.

I have used EGOL's methods and have found around a hundred quality affiliates for my sites. I feel it is the best and safest method, since you have personal contact with your affiliates.

Hi Kim,
You've asked the Holy Grail question of all affiliate marketing managers. Here's my brief 2 cents on the best ways to promote your program:

1. Make sure your program is listed with as many affiliate program directories as possible, the majority are free so long as you link back to them.

2. Email sites that rank in the top 25 for keywords suitable for your site.

3. Participate on the forums

4. Advertise in affiliate directory newsletters

5. Create a second tier in your program and allow your current affiliates to promote you and give them x amount per lead- We give $0.50 for example.

6. Pay Per Click on the engines, I recommend starting with the smaller ones first as they are less expensive such as www.findwhat.com, www.enhance.com, www.kanoodle.com.

7. Form partnerships with other affiliate program managers who are not competing with you

8. Lastly, run the best program that you can. Your reputation will go much further by word of mouth than you think.

If you have the time to recruit yourself for your program, you'll end up with higher quality affiliates than if you simply let a network do the work for you.

The affiliate market is also quite saturated now, and most of them would prefer to market tried and tested products. So if you can show that you have a high conversion rate, you may be able to convince some affiliates to join your program. Basil.

http://www.bandeeni.com

I think a good way to build your affiliates is to contact the sites
that are top ranked in search engines but don't have anything for
sale

I recommend just create a email database and email them with offer which you are providing.

yes, i haven't seen that idea before of contacting sites that rank high for your keywords but i think it's a great idea. i would think you wouldn't want to contact your competition but only sites that don't sell anything.