5 tips to make your affiliate program a success

Your affiliates help you to get new clients, but what do they expect from your program? How can you convince them?

Here are 5 rules which will allow you to better understand how to implement your affiliate program:

1. An optimized conversion funnel

This is one of the most important criteria for your affiliates, as well as for increasing your conversion rate.

For example, by working on your terms of purchase (free shipping costs, product return warranty, payment facilities, high-quality product information pages, etc.), you will decrease the obstacles to purchasing.

The goal is therefore to eliminate all points where visitors leave, there is only one watchword: test, test and test your conversion funnel again.

Clear competitive advantages and high-quality content which adds value to your brand, and it will also help you to convince affiliates to spread the word about your affiliate program.

2. Attractive commission rates

It’s by highlighting your affiliate’s performance that you will motivate them to work more closely with you, and maybe even exclusively.

You must therefore be aware of the profitability of your affiliates, the partnership must be a win-win, we can’t say it enough!

You could, for example, suggest commission grades based on the volume of sales:

• 10% from the first sale
• 12% < 20 sales per month
• 15% for between 20 and 40 sales per month

Why not also offer them the opportunity to have revenue share if your business is designed that way?

You could also opt for hybrid commission rates, for example:

• 7% CPA + €1 CPL (newsletter subscription and creating an account)
• 7% CPA = €0.10 per click
• €150 fixed fee + 7% CPA

Anything is possible; be open and creative according to your budget, this will help you to avoid closing your doors.

3. Elements of high-quality promotion

Your advertising elements (banners, text, images, template emails, promo codes, etc.) help your affiliates to maximize their conversion rate. Therefore, be aware of the formats they use, but also be proactive (and why not social networks?).

Feel free to give them your product flow, so that they can make deep affiliate links with a product information page.

Also, add your logo!

4. Liven up your program

Livening up your affiliate program is a key focus of this; it is the most important. It will enable you to motivate your affiliates to highlight your products and services.

Here are some ways to liven up your program:

• Regularly add and keep your new advertising elements up-to-date, depending on your commercial offers
• Reward your top affiliates by offering them performance bonuses or gifts
• Create exclusive deals with the most suitable affiliates in order to ensure ongoing communication regarding your products and service
• Create challenges, for example, by boosting commission over a period which is particularly attractive for you. You can also share a calendar of upcoming challenges with your affiliates. Calendar events like Black Friday, Christmas or the sales, are particularly suitable for this type of action.
  • It could involve challenges like: a CPA + CPL per sale, for example, a commission of 7% + €5 per new client over a given period
  • Or a temporary increase in CPA or the correlating payment to a product category (e.g. + 2% on high tech)

5. Quick payment for affiliates

A quick, problem-free invoicing system will help with the management of your affiliate partners.

It is important to have as much transparency and consistency in the affiliate payment process as possible, and this begins by validating leads and sales.

Inform them of your deadlines:

• Sales validation deadline (Generally the beginning of the month, for the previous month’s sales)
• Commission payment deadline (As early as possible would be best)

See our video guide to help you understand our payment interface.

BONUS
Try your program before launching it!
It would be a shame to have spent time creating a partner network and for the sales tracking to not work, therefore jeopardizing the trust which partners have put in you. Some advice: create your own affiliate account for all of your tests.

Ask for feedback from your affiliates and use it!
Don’t forget! A good relationship with your affiliates is like finding a good client, it is much easier to retain them and keep them happy than to build a relationship with a new client.

Go one step further:  10 pieces of advice for recruiting affiliates