R.O.EYE Blog

By Ben Friedman, Recruitment Executive

When recruiting for an affiliate programme there are a number of things to bear in mind. Here’s my overview of advice and tips.

Firstly ask yourself, what does the affiliate need to know?

This will help them decide whether they will join the programme and start to actively promote it. It will also help them prioritise it amongst their many other tasks! The main things to communicate are the commission rates, EPCs and importantly, some information about the merchant – what do they do, what is their USP, what is their online offering? It can also be good to tell the affiliate how the affiliate programme has been performing recently. If the merchant is currently running other online marketing activity – what is it and how is it going? If they the affiliate is interested then send a more detailed overview.

Be honest and open

If there are limitations with the programme then let the affiliate know what they are and how they have been, or are being rectified. It is not a good idea to get an affiliate to sign up to a programme which they are going to have difficulty producing results for. First impressions count a lot! Issues could be something such as tracking, seasonality, an inability to work with cashback sites, poor conversion rates for certain types of affiliate sites or paid search restrictions. Let the affiliate know if and when the problem will be sorted out and that they will be informed when it is resolved. They will respect you for this.

Listen to the affiliate

Ask them what areas they are strong in. Are there any initiatives that we can assist with? Can we give them any advice to develop their site or business? If the affiliate is signing up to a programme why not let them know about other similar programmes which are available? Cross selling is a huge part of recruiting for programmes for us. If someone is advertising loan companies then they could also be interested in credit cards. But will the traffic convert? Enquire about the source; it’s especially important for compliance reasons!

Get your programme out to the masses

Promoting the programme is very essential. This is because the name or the product you are promoting may not be a major brand and will have competitors to deal with. Initiatives such as our ‘Lens’ on Squidoo have proven to be very well received by affiliates. It not only covers information about us, but also shows exactly what we have to offer. This provides the information about where to find the programmes and how they work.

Make it easy for the affiliate

Nobody likes lots of information or a programme that is hard to understand or a complicated sign up procedure. Make sure that affiliates know enough about the programme to be able to run it efficiently. However there is no need to drown them with unnecessary technical information unless they ask for it. If possible, send the affiliate unique copy and their pre-tagged deeplink - the less work the affiliate needs to do to start promoting the merchant, the better.

Offer advice

The affiliate may never have run a programme in your sector before. Offer advice on where it could be placed on the site, or about unique selling points for the customer. Remember, you have the experience of working with a number of other successful affiliates on the programme, how have they done things? The more support that you offer the better the return for everyone.
How you communicate this information is up to you. Every affiliate prefers a different form of communication – some like a chat on the ‘phone, some prefer MSN, others only respond to emails. Some won’t get back to you, but will suddenly start producing sales! Gauge what the affiliate is comfortable with and stick too that – don’t be too pushy! If you are looking to do some mass recruitment, then get yourself on the A4U forum and join in!

Lastly, I know that this is not actually recruitment but, keep in contact with the affiliate. Make sure that once the affiliate is on the programme that they are not having any problems. Recruitment is only the beginning! Having a level of interaction with your live affiliates helps to build a working relationship that will aid any recruitment for future programmes.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.