It takes more than just getting your affiliates to make money. The competition is stiff for good talent, with more than 80% of brands running an affiliate program.
Being trusted by affiliate marketers is an excellent way to stand out from your competitors and attract top-tier talent. Here are some ways to establish trust and credibility within an affiliate program.
Provide hands-on activation
Auto-approvals are not allowed in your affiliate program. You will be able to review the applications of any potential affiliates.
You should also examine the applicant’s website, its traffic, and whether or not it has established any domain authority. It is crucial to find members who align with your chosen vertical and are a natural fit for your products and services.
It would be best if you were careful who you allow into your affiliate program. Here are some steps you can take to ensure you attract the right people.
- You should add custom fields on your affiliate sign-up form to ask potential new associates for additional information that will help you learn more about the applicants.
- Manually review each affiliate application to make sure they are the right fit for your program.
- If they have worked with other affiliate programs, looking around to find out about their reputation is worth looking around. You might need to do a quick Google search on the affiliate.
- Check out affiliates’ websites and social media channels. You can see how many followers, traffic and engagement they have with previous posts. Also, you can determine if they are an authority in your industry. It will give you an idea of their credibility as an influencer.
Use reliable tracking software
Affiliates should feel confident that your software accurately tracks their promotions. Tracking software is a must-have investment for affiliate management.
- Track and create custom commission rates for each member
- Members can access a portal to keep track of the latest activity.
- It helps affiliates keep track of how much they have earned in commissions.
You can provide reports to affiliates. They will include information about your earnings, sales, and the affiliate commissions you earned from each link. It gives members more confidence in the program and encourages them to stay involved.
Make it easy to get on board.
You should have a streamlined affiliate onboarding process to welcome new members and help them get started. You should send a welcome email to new members who contain everything they need to start promoting.
Make sure members have any necessary affiliate promotional materials and creative content that outline what your brand represents.
You may want to assist new affiliates who are sending traffic but not generating high conversion rates. Fellows can be encouraged to increase their efforts by offering incentives such as a higher percentage of the first month’s sales or a promotional gift.
Talk to members and review affiliate stats.
Stay on top of new members’ progress by viewing their affiliate traffic and activity through your dashboard. Reach out to them if you notice that there is not enough activity.
If they have any questions or need assistance, be available. Provide quick answers to any questions that they may have.
Send newsletters to affiliates with information about upcoming incentives and changes to commission structures. You can send your affiliates a steady stream with educational materials and links to resources that will help them improve their marketing efforts.
Your outreach efforts will generate positive word-of-mouth from your members and increase the appeal of your program to other potential recruits.
Offer transparency everywhere
Provide new affiliates with a written or electronic copy or link to your affiliate policy. Your members will be able to quickly understand the requirements of your program if you use consistent and explicit language.
You can include examples to show how different policies work.
Encourage your affiliates to reach out to you if they have any questions regarding unclear or confusing sections. Your affiliate program should be clear to members.
Make timely payments
Building trust with your members is possible by continuing to pay affiliates according to the terms of your affiliate program agreement. Late payments can lead to tensions and negative word of mouth.
You can stay on top of your affiliate programs by setting aside time to review commissions and finalize income earned by them.
Update your program regularly.
Find ways to update the content of your affiliate program and ensure that you share those changes with affiliates. Consistent messaging is essential for all members of your affiliate program, whether they are creating landing pages or websites.
You might consider hiring a graphic designer service or company to create content for you without much experience. Regularly review your commission structure to see how it benefits your affiliate program and members.
It is generally best practice to leave room for incentives rather than reducing affiliate commissions. Look for ways to improve the reward system to help your affiliates if something isn’t working.
Monitor affiliate activities
Sometimes affiliate members can act in ways that could damage the reputation of your programs. You should monitor your dashboard for unusual activity, such as an unexplained spike or sudden surge in traffic to a particular affiliate link.
Customers may bring up invalid coupon codes, misleading affiliate promotions, or maybe forced to click on affiliate links. Find the root cause of the problem.
An audience should know that affiliates are earning money by clicking on affiliate links. Make sure that members are honest and don’t give the impression of being dishonest.
- Follow the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for disclosing affiliate hyperlinks
- It would help if you used clear, unambiguous language to inform visitors about a member’s use of affiliate links
- To avoid confusion, use the same affiliate language on all member’s websites.
Be aware of violations of affiliate terms like:
- Bidding for trademarks
- Incorrect information regarding discounts
- You can share exclusive coupons in mass quantities
- You can impersonate a trademarked website or brand.
Monitor and enforce affiliate policies you outlined that apply to members who violate their program agreement. You can either give the member a warning or terminate your association.
It would be best if you did not hesitate to close affiliate members who are disruptive to your program. Do not hesitate to remove members who misbehave for your affiliate program.
Credibility should be your top priority.
If you have the trust of your advertisers and affiliates, it’s more likely that you will establish a long-lasting and viable affiliate program. Your program should be transparent and free from fraud. Give your affiliates marketing tips.