How to Find Great Affiliate Marketers

Affiliate marketing has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. Businesses ranging from large e-commerce retailers to SaaS startups have made affiliate marketing a crucial part of their marketing strategy.

Almost any business can set up and run an affiliate marketing program in-house. With a combination of budget-friendly advertising costs and top affiliate tracking software like Tapfiliate, you can start quickly.

But getting your affiliate marketing program set up is just the start. The next step in affiliate marketing involves finding top affiliates to promote your products and services.

Affiliates can be anyone from high-profile influencers with hundreds of followers and high engagement rates to small niche industry websites. You can even create affiliates out of existing customers who can refer your brand to their inner circle.

In this article, you’ll learn how to find top potential affiliates to promote your brand.

The Benefits of Working with Affiliates

Having affiliates promote your brand has more benefits than getting sales for your business though that is one of the many fantastic reasons why brands work with affiliates.

Feedback on Products and Campaigns

As a brand, getting and implementing feedback is an invaluable part of developing products and creating ads that resonate. Working with affiliates can give you feedback in two different ways. The first is getting their feedback on your products including packaging, ease of use, etc. 

The second is the performance of your campaigns. When you work with an affiliate, tracking sales and clicks should be an essential aspect, because you get feedback in real time. 

Want to track affiliate sales and improve your campaigns? Try 👉 Tapfiliate’s 14-day free trial to get started today

With that feedback you can make adjustments to campaigns to try to make them more appealing. Have you tried a campaign for your makeup brand that isn’t hitting the mark? Make adjustments and see how people respond to it.

Improve Your Brand Visibility and SEO

As a brand, there’s nothing better than appearing in search engines as part of an article roundup that is showing in the top 10 results of Google for a search term you’re targeting. People read these articles and the purchase intent is high because they are looking for specific products.

Search engine optimization gives you the brand visibility that is important to ensure that you sell more. The more visibility you have, the more likely you will grow. The great part about working with affiliates is that commissions are paid on performance.

Targeted Ads Created by Skilled Marketers

Any affiliate worth their salt will know exactly what makes their audience tick. This means that when you’re working with them they will be able to create something their audience will love, and when they come to you, they will be primed to buy. Ads this targeted are increasingly harder to come by with privacy laws.

User Generated Content You Can Use to Promote Your Brand

User generated content can help you to sell. A genuine promotion from someone who loves your brand is more likely to perform well and convince others to buy than something coming directly from the brand.

Asking the affiliate if you can promote their content on your social channels beforehand is a good idea – many will appreciate it. If you want to use it indefinitely and for other promotions, it’s good to approach the affiliate beforehand and negotiate it as part of your agreement, especially if you are planning on using it in emails or on your website.

Positive ROI

Affiliate marketing has a positive ROI because you pay for performance, so if no sales are made there is no commission paid. 84% of businesses say that the ROI of affiliate marketing is better than other marketing channels

You Choose Who You Work With

Choosing who you work with is a massive plus when it comes to affiliate marketing. You don’t have to accept every single person who applies to your affiliate program, especially if you don’t think they would be a good fit for your brand or they are types of affiliates you don’t want to work with.

Diversified Revenue Stream

As a business, having a diverse revenue stream is essential because then you are not only relying on one channel to drive all of the sales. Algorithms change, rules around privacy get changed, and so the way to ensure the best results is to have diverse channels generating revenue. An example of this could be a mix of paid search, organic, affiliate, and email sales.

This way if one completely drops off you are not scrambling for sales, and have other channels to fill in the gaps while you sort it out.

Scale More Quickly

Scaling is one of the main goals of any business. To do that, you need people to be talking about your brand, and starting an affiliate program is one of the best ways to make this happen. This is because once you start to recruit affiliates to your program and they start talking about your brand, more people will start to come across your brand.

Essentials Before You Start Recruiting Affiliates

Before you start reaching out to affiliates, it’s essential to have your ducks in a row. Making sure that your affiliate program is attractive to your potential affiliates is key. These are some of the things to ensure you are clear on before you start.

What Makes You Different?

You need to make sure that you’re clear on what sets your affiliate program apart from your competitors. And we aren’t talking about stuff like having a dedicated affiliate program manager – for many affiliate programs, this is a given. What if you can give them first looks at new products? Or can you custom make creatives or landing pages for your affiliates? What would make an affiliate jump at the chance to work with you?

What Commission Rate Will You Have?

Your commission rate needs to be attractive and worth the time of the affiliate, otherwise they might prefer to promote your competitor. If your competitor is offering 10% commission and you only want to offer 8%, you need to have some great selling points for your affiliate program (see above) to convince them to promote you.

What are the Goals of Your Affiliate Program?

Knowing exactly what you want to achieve with your affiliate program will help you to be more targeted when it comes to selecting your affiliates. 

It’s an excellent idea to be clear with your goals. Increase revenue by 5% is clearer than just increase revenue – that could just mean you make $1 and you’ve completed your sales goals. 

Your goal might be to increase visibility.

If you know your goals, then your strategy might be to target affiliates who have written roundups – for example if you are a suncare brand for sensitive skin when you search for the best sunscreen for sensitive skin, you’ll find listicle articles that you might want to be included in. This will help with your goal to increase visibility, and to increase sales (because people that land on these articles have high purchase intent.)

Once you have all of these things clear, your recruitment efforts will be more successful.

Start with Existing Customers

When it comes to finding affiliate partners for your program, your customer base is a great place to start.

Customers don’t need celebrity status to promote your brand. Word-of-mouth recommendations via social media or even directly to friends and family can be just as impactful. 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising.

Customer-driven promotions are, in themselves, a powerful form of social proof. After all, people won’t promote something they are unhappy with. But if you have a great product and excellent customer service, this won’t be a problem.

Customers can share their personal experience of your brand and how they benefited from using your product or service. They can provide real-life use cases, explanations, or reviews. This is especially true with SaaS. Customers can simplify software in a way that other users can clearly understand and relate to.

Strategy: Directly Invite Your Customers to Become Affiliates

With Tapfiliate’s Affiliate Recruitment feature, you can easily invite customers to become affiliates. Your new customers will automatically receive a referral link that they can use to spread the word about your business. Make this a part of your email marketing strategy with new customers.

Once your customer refers someone who purchases on your site, you will automatically promote them to affiliate status. They will automatically get invited to log in to view their performance and find more of your program’s resources.

Seek Out Niche Bloggers and Websites

Recruiting affiliates from niche blogs and websites is a great way to reach target audiences.

These bloggers and websites will have built-in audiences that are likely to overlap with your brand’s target audience. This means more targeted traffic and high-quality referrals for you. They also are experienced content creators that can come up with new, unique promotions around your product. They are a great marketing tool.

Plus, many of them invest in having high-quality content and optimizing for SEO.

Strategy: Conduct Your Own Search to Find Blogs and Websites to Partner With

Start by researching blogs and websites with content related to your industry and aligned with your brand. Use a variety of search queries and keywords for better prospects.

• Start with the general searches with something simple like “vitamins” or “daily vitamins”
• Switch to questions like “what vitamins do I need daily” or “which vitamins are best for my health”
• Be even more specific, “vitamins for healthy skin” or “vitamin C tablets,” etc.
• Try finding reviews with searches like “best vitamins for young women” or “best vitamin brands”
• Include more general searches too like “how to be healthy” or “nutrition plan” or “nutrition advice”
• Consider adding “blog” or “expert” at the end to these keywords

From here, you’ll be able to find tons and tons of search results for blogs and websites with content. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of your affiliate partner target list. Keep information on contact details, traffic, and social media following, for example.

This will give you a sound basis for finding potential affiliates and promotional opportunities within your niche.
Then, the next step is reaching out directly to the blog or website.

Here’s what Affiliate Manager Taylor Barr recommends:

Consider taking a different approach before thinking about pitching your affiliate program (commission rates, great promotional tools, etc.) on your first outreach email to a potential partner.

Start by asking if they would be interested in taking your product or service for a spin via a demo account or live walk-through. Many affiliates will want to test first, and it gives a better understanding of your product or service. And for you, this signals their interest level and if they are ready to promote before you present your program offerings.

With this step, be sure to make it personal. Approach this as a working partnership rather than an indirect, generic sales pitch. Let them know why you are interested, explaining how their content fits your affiliate marketing goals and how it can also be of value to them.

Partner with Influencers

Thanks to social media, influencer marketing is more powerful than ever before. The global influencer marketing market size is valued at 21.1 billion, and it is only growing. Influencer marketing spending is set to surpass $2210.5 million just on instagram in 2024. And social media personalities are social media marketing experts.

That’s why partnering with influencers for your affiliate program helps put your products and services in front of large audiences.

Influencers can be social media personalities, industry experts, thought leaders, trendsetters, niche bloggers who have social influence. They range from large-scale celebrity influencers to niche micro – influencers with somewhere between 1,000 to 100,000 followers.

There are several different types of influencers, so finding someone who fits your brand should be easy.
Seek out influencers that fit with your brand and share the same target audience. You can do this by searching social media hashtags related to your brand. For example, search #travelgram or #wanderlust for anything related to tourism.

As you search, consider the following:

• Which platforms they use
• What type of content they post
• How many followers they have
• How engaged their audience is
• How often they post
• How they fit with your niche

Strategy: Partner with Micro-Influencers and Nano-Influencers

It’s easy to think bigger is better — or in the world of social media, more followers are better. But this isn’t always the case.

Impact found that an increase in followers results in a decrease in engagement rates. Conversely, Impact found that influencers with 1,000 followers had engagement as high as 85%.

High engagement rates can mean increased conversion rates. This makes micro-influencers and nano-influencers ideal affiliates for your influencer marketing program. Plus, you can include them in any influencer marketing campaigns you decide to do.

Micro-influencers have between 10,000 to 100,000 followers. They tend to be more focused on a niche, unlike celebrities.

These influencers have better insights into their niche and can engage with their audience more personally. A celebrity endorsement would not be able to do this. Creating influencer campaigns around your product with them will be more successful.

Nano-influencers have a smaller following than micro-influencers, with around 1,000 followers. Nano-influencers are especially effective for local promotions, as they are usually influential people in their communities.

These groups of influencers are more likely to be happy with the commission offers of your affiliate program. Mega-influencers tend to charge an upfront, and often hefty, rate for their promotions. These influencers will likely be more open to an affiliate commission as a way to monetize their content.

Strategy: Look Beyond the “Influencer” Stereotype

When we think of influencers, we often think of the Kim Kardashians of the world. But influencers can be so much more than this stereotype.

It’s easy to think Instagram influencers are the only option for promoting your brand. You can find influencers on social media platforms. Wherever your potential customers spend their time online is a great place to look

A significant shift came in 2020 when it came to influencer content. Audiences started turning away from highly curated posts and looking for more authentic content that provides value and expertise.

They can be accredited professionals, industry analysts, brand employees, and niche experts and can all be excellent influencers. For example, Cerave partnered with top estheticians like @makeupforwomenofcolor to create educational content around their skincare products. Influencers discuss how to use the product, what skin conditions they target, and why the ingredients work.

Tips for creating this type of content for affiliate promotions include:

• Focusing less on follower count, more on their level of expertise
• Providing influencers with free samples or product previews to review
• Allowing influencers to have more control over their promotions

Industry Groups, Forums, and Communities

Online forums, social media groups, and communities can be another fantastic place to find affiliates.

You can recruit affiliates by sharing your brand and introducing your affiliate program offerings with groups or forum members.

Start with groups or communities focused on your industry. These groups can help you find affiliates that are already familiar with and active in your niche. They can easily share with others in the community.

On the other end, you can try affiliate forums that focus on everything affiliate marketing. This is where to find affiliate marketers who are actively looking for new products to promote. Members of these forums will likely be familiar with affiliate marketing. This means they can easily be on-boarded and start promoting right away.

Popular forums and social media groups include:

• Facebook Groups
• LinkedIn Groups
• Reddit
• Quora
• Discord

For finding professional affiliate marketers, we recommend doing your research beforehand. Several websites and forums feature these groups & networks, each with varying terms and conditions.

Professionals and Businesses in Related Fields

Professionals and businesses in related fields can effectively bring in new leads for B2B & B2C markets.

Reach out to similar brands with products or services that complement yours or are often bought by similar target audiences. Think of products or services you use together and can easily promote one another.

For example:

• Coffee bean brand and espresso machine makers
• Makeup products and skincare lines
• Luggage stores and travel booking platforms
• Customer relationship management (CRM) systems and email marketing software

Then, they can use their existing platforms and networks to share brand and refer new customers.

Here are a few ways other professionals can promote:

• Write a blog post or product review on their site with affiliate links
• Create a recommendations page on their page featuring products they use with affiliate links
• Refer clients with recommendations (a dentist recommending a toothbrush)
• Use coupon and promo codes exclusively for their customers

This is also a win-win for them. They will be able to bring in additional revenue from referral commissions and provide resources and recommendations to their customers. Keep this in mind when you are doing your marketing planning.

Note that another option is affiliate recruitment agencies who can help you to find affiliates to promote your brand, if you don’t have time to do affiliate recruitment yourself.

Link to Your Affiliate Program on Your Website

Make sure you promote your affiliate program to the visitors that come to your website using an affiliate program landing page. The more people that know about it, the more likely they are to join your program. Detail the benefits, including the commission structure or commission rates (depending on your setup). You might want to offer affiliates a higher commission rate to attract them to your program for the first few months.

How to Evaluate an Affiliate to See if They Are a Good Fit For Your Business

When you are looking at a potential affiliate, it’s important to know whether or not they would be a good fit for your affiliate program. There are a variety of ways to do this:

Content quality: When assessing an affiliate, the first thing to do is check the quality of the content that they are posting. If it’s an influencer, are the images and stories good quality? Do they fit the branding of the influencer? 

If it’s a website, does it look good? What is the content like? Read some of the articles to get a good feel for it. 

This will help you to make a better decision about your chosen affiliate.

Engagement: If your affiliate has good engagement, this is a good sign. Whether they are an influencer or a website, you should be able to see how their engagement is and the type of comments their content gets. 

With influencers because people can buy followers and likes, and use engagement pods to get the algorithm to favour them, checking comments is an essential step.

With content sites, usually they have social media channels – check these and see what the engagement is like. Sometimes on the site they will have social sharing available where you can see how often something has been shared. Check these out too.

Audience: Check that the afflliate has a similar audience to your demographics. You can do this by asking them directly, but there will be other indicators. Look to see if they promote your competitors, and if it seems like the type of content your audience is likely to interact with.

Traffic: Knowing the traffic on an affiliate’s website is a good step. If an affiliate isn’t willing to share those details, you can check on similarweb or semrush for an estimate. This will give you a good indication of how popular a blog or website is.

Some affiliate managers swear by having calls with every affiliate before they are allowed to start promoting your brand because it can help you to weed out the dodgy affiliates.

How Can You Track and Measure the Success of Your affiliates?

Tracking the success of your affiliates and campaigns is essential to grow your revenue. Without knowing the results you have no way of repeating success or making changes to campaigns. Data is king here.

An affiliate tracking software like Tapfiliate is a crucial tool to measure the success of your campaigns. You can get a complete overview of an affiliate program, or zoom in to an individual affiliate’s performance to see what’s working with your affiliates. 

You can also use these numbers to work out the ROI for your campaigns. 

You will get access to your dashboard, and your affiliates will have their own login areas where they can track the results of their campaigns with your brand without you needing to share it with them.

Interested in More?

Finding a wide range of great affiliate marketers is key to your program’s success, and we’re here to help! Ensure that before you give access to affiliate links and promotional materials you are clear on your affiliate program goals and that you have an attractive affiliate program. This way your affiliate marketing strategies will be easier to implement for your online business and drive more growth.

Be sure to check out our blog for more ways to promote and grow your affiliate program.

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