What is the most important factor that determines success of your affiliate program?
It's your affiliates. Of course, you need to have good product, converting website, attractive commissions, but these are all prerequisites.
When you have all this, the key is to have quality affiliates; people who are committed to work, have the knowledge, have website or newsletter with good traffic.
So how to recruit such affiliates? There are many ways, some have better results than others.
Put a link 'Become our affiliate' to your own site
This is a must. It requires very little work, and it has good results. However, don't except that you'll recruit the best affiliates this way.
Announce your affiliate program
Again, a must. You should submit your program to places visited by affiliates - to affiliate directories.
These directories are visited by thousands of affiliates every day, searching for new opportunities. The advantage is that affiliates visiting these directories are usually people who are trying to make living selling other's products. They are dedicated, have skills and knowledge, they have websites,
newsletters or blogs with high traffic, etc. You can expect that when they'll join your program, they'll put some reasonable effort in referring you more sales.
There are tens of affiliate directories, both free and paid. You could submit to all directories by hand, but I recommend using professional submission services.
Use 2-tier affiliate program
2-tier programs encourage affiliates to recruit another affiliates. If your program does not have 2-tier system, consider adding one.
The principle of two tiers is that your affiliate will receive small commission from every sale referred by his sub affiliates (affiliates he recruited).
Don't make more than 2-tiers, it's MLM and it looks suspicious.
Use Pay-per-click search engines
Advertise your program on PPC engines. This will cost you good money, but this way you can add lot of affiliates to your program quickly.
Actively recruit existing super affiliates
If you are selling dog collars, who will else be your best affiliate than somebody who is already selling dog collars for somebody else?
You simply have to find these people and make them good offer.
Unfortunately, there is no great technique or secret that will make it for you automatically. This method requires the most work, but it has the best results.
You should look for sites targeting your potential customer's base, with high traffic.
An example are sites selling complementary products to your own. For your "dog collars" site, a site selling e-books about dog care would be a complementary site, and a great affiliate.
The goal is to look for sites targeting your potential customer base and those who can benefit from recommending your products or services to their customers.
Conclusion:
Quality affiliates are the main factor in success of your affiliate program. There are many different methods of recruiting the affiliates, from putting a link to your own website,
submission to affiliate directories, PPC advertisements to actively contacting potential affiliates.
