20+ Sure Ways To Promote Your Affiliate Program & Get More Affiliates

Many business owners and companies consider starting an affiliate program an excellent strategy to increase e-commerce sales. But that’s only one part of the truth. Because an affiliate program that’s not actively maintained and promoted will not improve your sales. So, learning how to promote your affiliate program and bring the best affiliates on board would be best.

An #affiliate program that's not actively maintained and promoted will not improve your #sales. Click to tweet

In this complete guide, I will show you how to promote your affiliate program and get active affiliates to do sales.

Have trouble promoting your affiliate program?

Without question, it’s bothering to see your affiliate marketing program overshadowed by many others in your niche.

With so many businesses busily promoting similar affiliate products as yours, it is not entirely surprising to lose footing, especially when your competitors have been longer in business.

But don’t despair because I have some excellent news: promoting your affiliate program and getting the right affiliates can be pretty straightforward. But it would be best to have the courage, will, and a perfect strategy to conquer the market.

I’m pretty sure those successful marketers you have looked up to were as puzzled as you when they started the venture.

Promoting your affiliate program and getting the right affiliates can be quite easy if you have a good strategyClick to tweet

Being a certified affiliate marketing consultant, I have to tell you that, unfortunately, it is almost a general rule to see affiliate programs underpromoted.

For some reason, most business owners consider that their job is done if they launch an affiliate program, and the affiliates will come in crowds. That’s no longer the case, so I will show you 20 proven ways to promote your affiliate program and get the affiliates you want.

Be 101% committed to what you do. Otherwise, you will not only waste greenbacks along the way but also much of your time and effort.

I’m going to show you 20 affiliate program promotion methods that have proven to be successful. We will start with free promotional tools and then advance to some paid ones.

1. Affiliate Program Page

Keep in mind that this is the main page of your website any potential affiliate sees. You may have the best commissions or creatives, but most will not sign up if you don’t appealingly present them to your potential affiliates.

Check below an affiliate program page containing most elements you should include. The affiliate program of Mangools has an appealing affiliate page where they share the average monthly payout, the commission rate

You may also check the affiliate program page of OutreachBuzz, our outreaching SaaS:

2. Consider a 2-tier affiliate program

Most affiliate programs have only one tier, but there are several niches where you can get leverage by having a multiple-tier affiliate program.

In a nutshell, in a 2-tier affiliate program, affiliates also receive commissions for onboarding other affiliates. This will make your program stand up from the crowd and get you a bunch of new affiliates from the promotion efforts of your current affiliates.

There are several niches like digital services, finance, gambling, and digital marketing affiliates where this strategy works great; for others like e-commerce, it doesn’t. That’s because affiliates that promote hosting, software, and digital tools have an audience also interested in affiliate programs.

3. Add links to your affiliate program on your website

You will be amazed how many business owners ignore this advice and don’t promote the affiliate program on their websites.

Affiliates interested in promoting your product first check your main navigation and top and bottom links for the affiliate program link.

I recommend you place links to your affiliate program in the footer of your website, in the top navigation bar, in the top converting pages of your blog, and inside your members’ area if your website has one.

Remember that someone interested in signing up for your affiliate program primarily checks your website. So make sure you guide them to your affiliate program in the places they are looking.

4. Mention it in email marketing and newsletters

While this method works best for referral programs, you should consider email marketing and newsletters to promote your affiliate program.

The good news is that you are contacting your customers through email newsletters, who can be your biggest promoters.

Whichever way you promote your affiliate program via email, include a direct link to your landing page.

5. Find affiliates on social media

Fortunately, many social networks nowadays can be used to promote your affiliate program. To name a few, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Pinterest have millions of users interested in opportunities to earn money through affiliate marketing.

In the picture below, you can see a sponsored ad that invites users to sign up for an affiliate network that targets people involved in affiliate marketing:

Remember that you are not promoting your products but your affiliate program. So make sure that you make the ads appealing to affiliates.

6. Use SEO

Most probably, you are using SEO to drive traffic, leads, and sales to your business. But do you know you can use SEO to get affiliate signups for your affiliate program?

As you can see in the picture below, 223,000 searches on terms, including the word affiliate. Unfortunately, the competition is not a walk in the park; however, you can overcome it with the right strategy and effort.

So people are searching for affiliate programs and knowledge on Google, and you can tap on these searches. Do your keyword research, create a content plan to cover the keywords you target, and then publish this content and market it properly, and you will start getting quality affiliates to your program.

Further reading(s):

• 10 Most Complete SEO Guides You Can Read For Free
• Complete SEO Checklist [35 Tips]
• Advanced SEO For E-commerce Websites [7 Best Practices]

7. Use PPC

Just like promoting your affiliate program with SEO by optimizing the website for affiliate marketing-related keywords, you can also promote it with PPC. You can launch a PPC campaign and measure the response as soon as you identify the keywords that will drive traffic to your affiliate program.

On top of those keywords, you can also use PPC to bid on your competitors’ affiliate programs and lure affiliates to try your affiliate program. In the picture below, you see how SuperMetrics shows PPC ads when someone searches for the Semrush affiliate program.

Being creative and finding innovative ways to drive affiliates to your affiliate program with PPC will ensure the success of this marketing channel. Fortunately, PPC advertising for affiliate programs is not so crowded, and the prices are better than if you bid on service-related keywords, as the competition is lower.

8. Try Video Marketing on Youtube

Some people consider YouTube to be the second largest search engine after Google. Whether true or not, we can’t ignore the enormous potential of getting our affiliate program in front of such a big audience.

9. Join Affiliate forums

Even if forums have been on a descendant path in the last couple of years as they lost momentum due to social media, some are still doing well, especially those related to affiliate marketing.

It is essential to make sure these forums are related to your niche. Of course, no one will be interested in discussing shoes when the platform is created for those who are into designer clothes. Also, you need to make sure these have high traffic and an excellent reputation from people. Hence, you must browse for reviews before entering into a discussion. Once you have proven their worth, it is time to write highly informational posts – compelling enough to attract others into the thread.

There are many advantages to joining affiliate forums. The most important ones are that you can show your affiliate program and gather new affiliates while keeping an eye on the latest trends in affiliate marketing.

Fortunately, there are several good affiliate marketing forums I could recommend. Some are the Monetize.info forum, TopGoldForum (primarily for financial and digital marketing programs), Afflift, and AffiliateFix.

Join these forums, start building your profile, post your affiliate program, and offer updates and support to your members who have questions or need help.

Read more:

• Best Affiliate Marketing Forums [Free & Paid] [11+]
• Free Effective Way to Get Targeted Traffic from Forums

10. Join Affiliate Marketing Groups on Social media

Once again, we talk about social media, but instead of using ads or organic posts on your page, we talk about communities and groups. There are many affiliate marketing groups on Linkedin and Facebook that you can join and look for affiliates.

If you search for “affiliate marketing” on Facebook and select only group results, you will see plenty of affiliate marketing groups you can join. Some of the largest groups have over 100K members, but some smaller groups are well-administrated, and the community is vital.

As you would do with forums, don’t promote your affiliate program right after you are accepted. Start meeting the other members, engage in conversations, and offer help. Then, you can promote the affiliate program without being labeled as SPAM by the admins and moderators.

Further reading: Best 12 Affiliate Marketing Groups on Facebook, Reddit & LinkedIn

11. Visit Affiliate Marketing Blogs

There are a couple of affiliate marketing blogs where affiliates hang out and get advice and news. While some are reputable legends in the affiliate marketing industry, others focus on other niches like online earning, monetizing,g and affiliate marketing.

You can blog owners and ask them to review your affiliate program and showcase it to their audience. Be warned that most of them will ask for a fee.

12. List the program in Affiliate directories

While affiliate directories have faded in recent years, these are good places to list your program and recruit affiliates.

Here are some we recommend: Affiliate Program Database, High Paying Affiliate Programs, Affiliate Programs, Affiliate Watch, Get Lasso, Monetize.Info

13. Affiliates podcasts

Podcasts have risen in interest in the last couple of years, and there are a couple of them that target affiliate marketers. I recommend you check the best ones for your niche and audience.

Here, you can find some of the best affiliate marketing podcasts.

14. Outreach to potential affiliates

Outreaching affiliate marketers is a proven-to-work method to increase the number of your affiliates. Unfortunately, it is pretty labor-intensive. By outreaching affiliates, you search for relevant affiliates (bloggers, website owners, influencers, etc.), and you contact them to persuade them to join your affiliate program.

Below is an example of an affiliate program owner’s email inviting us to join their affiliate program.

There are several ways you can find potential affiliates and reach them.

15. Ask your partners

Most companies today have partners. The good news is that you can convert these partners into affiliate marketers to generate sales. For instance, let’s consider you own a WordPress development agency. In this business, you probably already work with other companies like digital marketing agencies, WordPress plugins & theme creators, and hosting companies.

Get in touch with these partners and invite them to your affiliate program so you can reward them with a commission every time they send you a client. Also, this can work as you sign up for their affiliate program and get a commission when you refer a customer to them through your affiliate link.

16. Guest Posts

Guest posting is undeniably one of the best ways to build quality backlinks to your website and reach new audiences. That’s why it is trendy among SEO experts. However, you can intelligently use guest posts to promote your affiliate program and invite affiliates to join it.

I recommend you target publications in your industry that affiliate marketers visit. These are affiliate marketing blogs like Monetize.info, digital marketing online magazines like Search Engine Journal, and many others. There, you can share your thoughts and experiences about your business.

Besides getting affiliates, you will also get some quality backlinks and digital PR for your primary business.

Before adding information about your affiliate program to your guest post, discuss it with the company you’ll be guest blogging for. Use what you learned at the previous point (Outreach) to pitch these publications.

17. Join an affiliate marketing network

One of the advantages of affiliate networks over independent affiliate programs is that they have many affiliates signed up, ready to start promoting yours. Suppose you created a separate affiliate program on WordPress, for instance, or even on an affiliate network. In that case, you may sign up for a 2nd or even a 3rd to contact a different pool of affiliates.

Here is a list of over 22 affiliate marketing networks I recommend.

18. Attend affiliate marketing conferences

Take part in special affiliate conferences and events (we have an up-to-date list here) that are held all over the world. The most important is the Affiliate Summit, where you can find a lot of essential affiliates. You will be able to confront your potential affiliates and present your program in a friendly way.

But you shouldn’t limit yourself to affiliate marketing conferences only. Conferences and events in your industry are also good spots to find people interested in promoting your products so you can lure them to become your affiliates.

19. Give a chance to free classifieds websites.

I will tell you upfront that classified websites are not the best way to find affiliates and promote your affiliate program. That’s because these are not where affiliate marketers usually hang out. But,  for some niches like e-commerce and NUTRA, you can find persons willing to promote your product in exchange for a commission for their sales.

So consider classified websites like Craiglist.org, Gumtree.com, or OLX for your affiliate product promotion. Here, you can find more classified websites to place your ads.

Write better ads that can mainly attract readers’ attention. Seriously, brood over which ads are effective and which are not helping. Also, check on the right location before posting.

20. Find affiliates of your competitors

I’ve left one of the most lucrative tactics to find affiliate marketers at the end of this article for two main reasons. If it is used right, it is very lucrative, and on the other hand, it needs to know SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs and outreach systems.

In a nutshell, investigate which affiliates are sending the most traffic to your competitors and contact them. The next step is to lure them to join your affiliate program and promote your products.

In the picture above, you can see a couple of backlinks to our friends at Perfmatters. Out of all these backlinks, some are links with the ref parameter, meaning these are affiliate links of people promoting their tool through the affiliate program. Of course, you can go deeper with the research and analyze PPC ads,  look at the websites, rank them by organic traffic, etc., to find the best affiliates and invite them to promote your program.

Conclusion

And that’s it. This is one of the most complete guides you can read online on promoting your affiliate marketing program and getting the best affiliates on board. While some methods will work great for you, others may not. It depends a lot on your niche, budget, and the dedication of your affiliate manager to onboard affiliates.

If you don’t have an affiliate program, you should choose our guide on starting an affiliate marketing program for your business. The last part of our guide is How to manage your affiliate program effectively, which will be available soon.

Need help with getting more affiliates? I can help you with that. Check our affiliate marketing consultancy service.