Sure Ways To Promote Your Affiliate Program & Get More Affiliates

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

Daniel S. June 11, 2024 Affiliate marketing, Affiliate Program Owners 1 Comment

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. An affiliate program not actively maintained and promoted will not improve sales. So, it would be best to learn how to promote your affiliate program and bring the best affiliates on board.

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, seeing your affiliate marketing program overshadowed by many others in your niche is bothering you.

With many businesses busily promoting affiliate products like yours, losing footing is not entirely surprising, especially when your competitors have been in business longer.

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

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.

Most business owners consider their job done if they launch an affiliate program, and the affiliates will come in large numbers. 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.

How to attract affiliates to your affiliate program

Now that you have configured and launched the affiliate program, it’s time to attract affiliates who will generate sales for you. Once everything is set, this seems to be the most challenging part for a merchant.

Setting a high commission does not ensure the complete success of the affiliate program. That’s because affiliates these days check many things about the product and the merchant.

The “saleability” of a product includes the merchant’s reputation, previous products and affiliate programs run by the merchant, current sales of the product, the merchant’s individual EPI and EPC, and the reactions of other affiliates to the product. The merchant must consider all these factors to ensure the affiliate is interested in selling the product.

1. Saleability

The product niche and the actual product quality matter for the affiliate. Affiliates generally work in one or two niches. The product chosen should also be sellable, i.e., the current sales figures are essential for the affiliate.

A large number of regular sales would attract many affiliates. You should advertise yourself and your product or service to the affiliate. Displaying sales numbers, product testimonials, product features, etc., is essential to attract affiliates.

Also, once the affiliate program starts, you should display conversion statistics and tips from successful affiliates.

Affiliate Marketing Program Testimonials

As a merchant, you should advertise your affiliate program and the product if you want to attract affiliates.Click to Tweet

2. Merchant Reputation

The affiliates constantly research the merchant before getting started with the program. Generally, they check the product history, the payment cycle, and the merchant’s reliability on various blogs and search engine results. So, it is crucial to maintain a good reputation and be active in social media.

Affiliate Marketing Program - Merchant Reputation — Affiliate Marketing Program – Merchant Reputation

3. Current Sales Figures

Displaying sales figures (of the sales carried out by the merchant itself) is another factor that attracts an affiliate. The affiliate program page should clearly show the merchant’s sales figures. Merchants should also participate in blogs where affiliates are active and must highlight sales figures.

4. Commission Payouts

The commission is an affiliate’s most significant motivation factor to work with a merchant. So, you should ensure the correct and timely payment of all commissions.

Also, you should mention the payment period to the affiliate before it joins the program, and the merchant should follow these timelines meticulously. This is very important for the success of the affiliate program. All terms about customer refunds and credit card failures should be mentioned and adhered to.

5. Keeping the Affiliates Motivated

Ground Rule – The affiliates should always remain interested in selling the merchant’s product.

As a merchant, you should keep thousands of products from which the affiliate can choose a particular one to market.

Six steps to keep your affiliates motivated:

Regular Emails
Promotions (Black Friday, Christmas, New Year Promotions, etc.)
Offers (Discounts, coupons, etc.)
Keeping affiliates informed about their sales data (Last month’s commissions, commissions to date)
Special offers for loyal affiliates
New creatives and promotional methods

Such things keep an affiliate motivated, active, and constantly reminded of the merchant’s product.

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

Affiliate Program Page

Remember that this is the main page any potential affiliate sees on your website. 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.

What you should include on your affiliates page:

An appealing USP (Unique Selling Proposition) that will make your potential affiliates willing to sign;
The affiliate commission rate you are offering + other tech details like cookie duration;
List the benefits for the affiliates that make you stand up from the competition (payment details, payment timeframe, conversion rate, etc.);
An explanation of how your affiliate program works;
Testimonials and top earnings from well-recognized affiliates;
Links to affiliate program terms and conditions and a FAQ page.
An application form that’s easy for affiliates to fill out.

Check below for an affiliate program page containing the 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:

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 out from the crowd and get you a bunch of new affiliates from the promotion efforts of your current affiliates.

The SEO Reseller affiliate program has a 2nd tier.

This strategy works great in several niches, such as digital services, finance, gambling, and digital marketing affiliates; it doesn’t in others, like e-commerce. That’s because affiliates who promote hosting, software, and digital tools have an audience also interested in affiliate programs.

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.

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, who can be your biggest promoters, through email newsletters.

Here are some examples that you can use in your email communication to attract affiliates:

You could send a personalized email inviting your top customers to join your affiliate program. Thank them for being such great customers, highlight how they’ve helped your business, and then explain the win-win structure of your affiliate program (they earn passive income, and you gain more exposure).
Or you could let all your email list subscribers know you have an affiliate program with a dedicated promotional email. (Mentioning your commission rate is an excellent way to pique your customer’s interest.)
Promote your affiliate program in transactional or thank-you emails sent when customers are most engaged with your brand.
Include a section about your affiliate program in your regular email newsletter.
Your email signature is in every message, so why not use it to promote your program quickly?

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

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.

Use SEO

You probably use 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.

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

Further reading(s):

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 when you identify the keywords that will drive traffic to your affiliate program.

In addition to 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, 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.

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.

There are a couple of ways you can promote your affiliate program on YouTube:

Partner with YouTube influencers in your niche, asking them to promote your affiliate program.
Do YouTube ads targeting affiliate marketers in your niche.
Start a YouTube channel if you don’t have one, and create videos on how users can promote and make money with your affiliate program.

Join Affiliate forums

Even if forums have been on a downward 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.

**–> Check the Affiliate Marketing Section of Top Gold Forum**

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:

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

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

Here are several reviews we did for affiliate programs you can get inspired from:

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

Affiliates podcasts

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

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

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 reaching affiliates, you search for relevant affiliates (bloggers, website owners, influencers, etc.) and 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.

Outreac Email to Potential Affiliates — Outreach Emails to Potential Affiliates

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

Here are some strategies to outreach to affiliate marketers:

Check your competitors and use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to find bloggers and website owners who promote them.
Search Google for blogs and websites in your niche and see if they run affiliate marketing campaigns. If they do, you can reach out to them. If they don’t, you can present the benefits of affiliate marketing and invite them to try your affiliate program.
Check social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram, find relevant influencers in your niche who are open to collaboration, and contact them.
Join affiliate marketing networks and look for your niche’s best affiliates.

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, such as digital marketing agencies, WordPress plugin and theme creators, and hosting companies.

Parters Page Example - WordPress Hosting Companies — Partners Page Example – WordPress 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. This can also work as you sign up for their affiliate program and get a commission when you refer a customer to them through your affiliate link.

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 blog for. Use what you learned at the previous point (Outreach) to pitch these publications.

Further reading(s):

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.

Attend affiliate marketing conferences

Take part in special affiliate conferences and events (we have an up-to-date list here) held all over the world. The most important is the Affiliate Summit, where you can meet many 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.

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 affiliate marketers don’t usually hang out on these sites. But for some niches, like e-commerce and NUTRA, you can find people willing to promote your product in exchange for a commission on 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 where you can 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.

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. 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.