As the creator of an affiliate network platform engine, I regularly communicate with dozens of creators of these businesses. And, to my deep dissatisfaction, I understand that they do not apply even half of the points that will be discussed. I would like to ask you to delve into each point, because there is nothing critically difficult in creating a successful affiliate program if you use the right approach and tick all 7 points on today’s checklist.
Point 1. Fast and cheap launch
Let’s say the most important thing at the beginning. Those who already have a working affiliate program can immediately move on to the second point.
Creating an engine from scratch is the way of the rich and extremely self-confident. A good platform, like AlterCPA Pro, has all the necessary functionality and can be launched in a couple of hundred bucks and a couple of days.
Your own engine means additional flexibility and a feeling of complete control for $50,000 and six months of life. What if your project doesn’t take off? Would it be too painful to write off such a loss of investment? It’s better to set aside this amount as a financial cushion, which will 100% come in handy. And the flexibility of AlterCPA due to hacks is more than enough for any reasonable task.
If along the way you realize that everything is going as it should and you want some goodies from your own engine, you can change your shoes on the go. But with a clear understanding of why and for what exactly such a large amount is being spent. And do you need to abandon a product that is developed by professionals and tested hundreds of projects, in favor of a solution written on the knee of an amateur?
Point 2. Affiliate support
Building the right affiliate support department is relatively simple and inexpensive. But it is precisely this factor that will help you retain the affiliates and extract maximum traffic.
Three levels required:
- Support. These are the guys who do the routine. There is no need to put geniuses or even just pros in the place of support. There are enough guys who are able to think, so that they are always in touch and help the affiliates with primitive tasks. For example, so that they can open an offer. Or look at the current conversion rate. Check if everything is in order with the advertiser’s payments. There’s no need to even talk about the fact that support should be sweethearts in terms of communication style.
- Technicians. You definitely need at least one such person. At a minimum, the affiliate network itself needs it in order to integrate with advertisers if you do not use our service. You can also use him to help the affiliates. In gambling you need to send postbacks and issue applications. In nutra, tovarka and crypt we need to prepare websites and help with API integrations. And the web will have a lot of questions about the sewer. And it’s good if the affiliate network helps solve these issues.
- Affiliate managers. These are the guys who know how to make traffic. They will tell you which accounts to buy, which card to link, what to do with bans, and generally act as a mentor. Everything for the affiliate to launch and the affiliate network to receive traffic. It is with these specialists that most affiliate programs have problems and they do not solve them. And in vain, affiliate managers are damn important employees and they are critically needed.
When an affiliate network has such a support department built, even if the affiliate decides to go elsewhere, he will quickly and loudly return. Even higher rates from competitors will not always be able to beat the excellent service and care.
Point 3. Withdrawals
Of course, the sooner the arbitrator receives payment, the more satisfied he is. But the essence of this point is not extra speed, but stability and regularity. If an affiliate has calculated business processes and it is normal for it to pay money after two weeks, every Friday, this should be the law. Except in cases where there is real suspicion of fraud. By the way, here is the article How to catch a fraudster.
I often encounter that an affiliate network delays payment because:
- The advertiser is delaying the transfer of money.
- It is more convenient to wait until the advertiser pays for all leads.
- Now we need to pay the salary, and then we’ll give the money to the affiliates.
- Let’s check the traffic once again.
It’s very convenient to turn money around at the expense of affiliates at the moment. But there are consequences:
- Arbitrageurs leave an affiliate network that delays payments.
- Affs will never recommend such an affiliate network to friends or in chats, which means that the business is deprived of the best source of attracting partners – word of mouth.
- Affiliates simply run out of working capital. They stop making traffic. The affiliate stops receiving traffic. Everyone loses.
In order for affiliates not to notice cash gaps in an affiliate program, an impressive financial airbag is needed. This is where the money saved on the engine will come in handy.
Point 4. Promos, services and other useful goodies
Almost all happy affiliate networks within the same vertical are about the same. It is quite difficult to compete with this state of affairs. It is not enough just to competently perform your basic functions. Therefore, it is advisable to introduce as many goodies as possible for affiliates that will save them time, effort and money.
Here are some options:
- Free gambling applications (WebView and PWA).
- Private applications for proven affiliates and teams with good amounts of traffic.
- Landing pages and pre-landing pages for nutra, merchant and crypto offers. In the form of archives, so that they can be easily downloaded and placed on hosting with a cloaker. You can even charge money for high-quality and unique pages, the main thing is that the offer is profitable.
- High-quality photos and videos for your product and nutra offers.
- Creatives. Even in gambling, where the creo costs under $60, you can figure out how to provide as many affiliates as possible for a minimal budget. For example, adaptations are made for geo. Or you can also take some money, but less than from freelance designers. By creating a convenient and profitable way to receive credit, the affiliate network will look extremely profitable in the eyes of the web.
- Cloak. You can simply enable the AlterCPA One traffic filter already built into your affiliate network and provide users with free, high-quality cloaking, which will save them money and nerves.
- Smartlinks. Creating a ready-made locked smart link inside AlterCPA is not that difficult.
- Tools for analytics inside the affiliate network interface, which can replace the tracker.
Clause 5. Competitions, bonus program and referrals
In the minds of the creators of affiliate networks, bonus and referral programs live somewhere nearby. Although these are completely different ways to attract affiliates. And if bonuses have a right to life, then a referral is bondage and you need to run from it like fire.
As part of the bonus program, the affiliate receives bonuses for the volume of traffic uploaded. He thinks this is extra profit. Although in reality, 90+% of affiliate programs simply slightly reduce the payout amount or include a small shave. But the arbitrator is happy, because with bonuses he can buy something tasty in the affiliate store (iPhone or at least Doshik).
Life hack: the bonus catalog should be created so that the products differ from each other by a small amount and each is better and more attractive than the previous one. So, having saved up for one of the goods, the affiliate will dream of something more and save further, because “there are only three hundred points left until the new iPhone.” And so every time.
Competitions help get things moving. Usually they do not hurt the budget, since they are largely covered by:
- Rate reduction;
- Unnoticeable shave;
- Advertiser. Then the competition is held only for the offers of a specific advertisement.
I am not a supporter of such promotion methods, but they have a right to life. But to tick this box, you need to make sure that you are not using a referral!
In theory, the referral scheme sounds nice. The affiliates themselves bring in the affiliates and the affiliate network gives away literally a couple of percent of the income. In fact, the affiliate will make the vast majority of payments to referral providers. And arbitrators will create accounts in order to receive additional profit from their payments. The referral option can only be given to trusted people who can really bring new partners. We say categorically no to a public referral, but perhaps yes to a private one.
Point 6. Marketing
I wrote in detail about an adequate marketing strategy on my blog, I recommend reading it. Here we will get by with theses:
- Targeting is a source of expensive, low-quality leads that require you to spend thousands of hours on your staff.
- The context ads can work if you are lucky with a specialist.
- Spam is the shit that works. I recommend using it in case of desperation, as it destroys your reputation, but still gives results.
- Content marketing is our everything. And SEO. This is how I develop my projects myself and recommend it to everyone around me. It accelerates extremely slowly, but if you are lucky with a specialist, it will generate quality leads for years. Producing a lot of high-quality content for a long time is a difficult task, which a little less than anyone can do.
I worked with the AFfStudio team for so long that they practically became part of our company. Write, consultations are free, and the quality is top notch!
Point 7. Conferences
It is important to at least go to conferences! If there is at least a little interesting information, the report will not be superfluous, you will gain an audience and recognition.
Another good option is a stand. It will cost a total of $5,000-10,000. But if you put good (and beautiful) sales people on it, your investment will be almost guaranteed to return.
Sponsorship and branding – we forget. It’s better to leave this money for the airbag that was discussed in the last part of the series. Or donate to children in Africa.
And the best win-win option is to take a couple of pretty girls, buy them passes and dress them up in merch. They will be especially useful during the after party. You can teach the girls basic sales skills, or you can simply set the task of leading potential clients by the hand to the one who communicates best with the Internet. This method is almost free, but the most effective. Of course, that’s what I use.
The main thing is never to embarrass yourself or brand yourself! The owner of the project with his logo on the back immediately sinks to the level of those same promotional girls.
Total
How many ticks does your affiliate have on this checklist? I hope all 7!