So my boss has asked me to build up an affiliate group for our company. While I do have some affiliate experience, I’ve never built a team up and just need general advice on where to find people that are into affiliate marketing etc.
Our payout is $50/buying customer (regardless of price of the items purchased) for the initial purchase from each new customer brought in. I think (while very high for affiliate marketing) it’s a large enough sum to get affiliates on board, is there something else we should look at and do?
There’s two main ways to go about this that have very different implications.
You can join a leading network like Linkshare or Commission Junction for full service support. For a sizable fee their team of account managers will help you build up an affiliate base by reaching out to their existing publishers and optimizing your campaign offering / message. The benefit is of course immediate scale and ease of participation for sites but it comes not just at a dollar cost, you’re also relying on them to deliver.
You can go it alone. This applies both to running your own program [lots of implications around fraud, payments, time management] and using a network self-service. This means identifying qualified sites and reaching out to them to talk about the prospects of getting your program included. It’s pitching in reverse since you need to build enough of a base that others start seeing your name in affiliate discussions. Events and industry publications can help.
In either case your goal is usually the same: court the top 2 or 3% of affiliates who relate to your niche and get them to push for your program. You may chose to let some or all of the remaining population in to find new emerging sources and pick up the order here, order there types but that’s really a matter of what fits the business best.