Who Is a Super Affiliate and How to Catch This Big Fish

You may have heard the word “super affiliate” being discussed and wondered “what are they, and how do I get them to work with me?”

Simply put, a super affiliate is someone who drives a much higher rate of traffic and sales to your website than an average affiliate. In some cases, these affiliates can earn more than $10,000+ per day in commissions alone.

It’s essential to include this as part of your strategy if you have an affiliate program.

Read along to find out what a super affiliate is and how to find a top-performing affiliate for your brand.

What Is a Super Affiliate?

A super affiliate is an affiliate that can achieve the biggest results for your business, generating 80-95% of your leads or traffic, depending on your goals. Super affiliates are driven, knowledgeable, and successful.

And they’ll bring all these qualities to the table for your brand.
Super affiliates need your company to sell better because that means they’re making a profit too.

Top-performing affiliates are excellent at what they do, and that’s where their competitive edge lies. If you’re hiring a super affiliate, be prepared to offer them:

• Higher commissions
• Unique rewards
• Personalized rates

How Do You Recognize a Super Affiliate?

Their high commissions aren’t the only indicators.

The first sign of a super affiliate is that affiliate marketing is their primary job. Super-affiliates:

• Focus on one or two niches, which are primarily large and competitive
• Focus on quality design and content
• Are trustworthy, expert, and charismatic
• Have a broad, captive audience
• Build strong mailing lists and focus on loyal customers, aka repeat sales
• Have a high engagement rate

Super affiliates work hard to meet their goals. They reinvest all their profit in software and outsourcing, network heavily, and learn from their mistakes.

Besides, these top performers understand affiliate marketing trends and how to leverage them to your advantage.

Super-affiliates are motivated, proactive, and dedicated.

Pro tip: Don’t be easily wooed. Consider all the factors and ensure your super affiliate will genuinely help your business.

Here’s an excellent example of a super affiliate:
Jason Fladlien of Rapid Crush has managed to produce sales of $100+ million for several companies. His strategy is making useful webinars using these platforms so that people understand how these promoted products can benefit them.

How to Attract a Super Affiliate

Do you want someone like that to drive sales to your business? Here’s what super affiliates are looking for in their potential clients:

• Landing page quality: If your landing page is well-designed, creative, and intuitive, you have more chances of hooking a super affiliate. So, optimize your landing pages to make an excellent first impression.
• Reputation: A super affiliate is more likely to work with you if your previous affiliates left you stellar reviews or referred them to you.
• Payment: You need a tempting enough budget for super affiliates and you have to reimburse them on time. Make sure your payment process is on-point.
• Unique selling proposition: You need that competitive edge that differentiates you from your competitors. Customize your offers for each affiliate you’re trying to hook. Some may want exclusive products you’re selling because they love your brand, while high commissions will convince others.
• Excellent communication: A super affiliate is proactive, so they’ll constantly give you feedback. Be prepared to consider their requests and respond quickly. Otherwise, they’ll lose interest in your company.
• Transparency: Super affiliates need to know everything about your brand to concoct the best strategies. Be prepared with an NDA and start leveraging their insights.

All of this means that you need to have an excellent affiliate program to attract super affiliates.

Once you have your affiliate program honed, learn how to harness the power of social media to promote your affiliate program.

How to Find Super Affiliates

The section above taught you how to attract a super affiliate’s interest. Now, let’s see where you can find them. For each super affiliate, you will need to target them directly – there are many different affiliate types out there, and it’s essential that you work with more than one type to ensure your revenue is diversified.

These are some options to find super affiliates:

1. Work with an affiliate recruitment agency or tool

Working with a recruitment agency to find affiliates is an excellent option because:

The agency has experience of working with various affiliates and companies. That means they can find the right partners for your needs.
You ensure you’re partnering with responsible, top-performing affiliates.

Nowadays, these agencies have optimized platforms and specific software to help with this. For example, you can use highly specific keywords to find the right affiliates and check their previous work.

Some tools also allow you to search for keywords so you can find affiliates specific to your niche.

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2. Influencers

Using influencers for affiliate marketing is a worthwhile strategy because these content creators are highly persuasive. Influencers have great connections with their followers, who accept their expertise and popularity in niche areas.

Younger generations are the most likely to make purchase decisions according to influencers’ advice, and studies show that influencers can bring you up to 11x more sales than a traditional advertising campaign.

The bad news is that everyone is an influencer now.
Some people have fake followers, so it’s a good idea to check the engagement on posts.

The good news is that everyone is an influencer now.
As a result, you can find content creators who are experts in your niche. These people know how to leverage their social platforms and followers’ particularities.

For example:
Let’s say you own a local fashion boutique, and your USP is selling beautiful clothes for curvy women. In this case, having someone like The Curvy Fashionista by your side would guarantee increased sales.

3. Niche Blogs

If someone has a passion for guitars, fitness equipment, or gardening tools, they spend hours researching their hobby. They watch YouTube videos, read endless blog posts, and join communities of like-minded people.

Your dream super affiliate could be someone who’s blogging about their passion right now. Of course, you want to check if that blog:

• Respects your brand’s values and personality
• Is up to standard
• Has a high engagement rate because it produces valuable content

Find niche blogs that your audience watches and show them your affiliate program

Here’s an example:
If you’re selling educational toys, for example, shortlist a few bloggers that fit your values and needs, then find their e-mail on the About Me or Contact page.

Pro tip: Chances are famous bloggers receive many affiliate program proposals, so try to stand apart from your competition.

For the example above, underline why promoting your toys would get them more engaged. For example, tired parents want to read about other parents’ plights, so they’ll empathize with the blogger.

Busy work-from-home parents need to find toys to keep their kids entertained for longer than 5 minutes. If the blogger promotes your helpful toys, more parents will return to their blog.

Handy hint: Don’t forget to offer some tangible incentives too!

4. Coupon Websites

Many people still use coupon websites, even though many retailers don’t like them. There are benefits though – they can help you to reach new customers you wouldn’t normally reach, drive more traffic and increase your revenue.

Here’s what to do:

Find a coupon website that fits your needs (for example, RetailMeNot) and ask them to include your deal on their website. If they agree, they’ll put your promotions up on their website, and your conversion will increase dramatically.

In this case, your super affiliate won’t be an influential person but rather a website with a wide reach.

5. Online Communities

Humans are social creatures, and we thrive in communities. This is a great spot to try and find some super affiliates.

Let’s say you’re retailing organic products.

Search for social media groups that promote zero-waste, organic living, or vegan products.

Contact the page owner with your affiliate program.

Alternatively, reach out to the most active members that generate the most engagement. They believe in your values and the lifestyle your brand promotes, so they’re more likely to work hard to get you new customers.

Start attracting super affiliates today

Super affiliates can increase your reach, your reputation, and your sales. As such, you won’t have to waste your time and resources with less interested affiliates. If you focus more on an effective strategy, your company will flourish.

You have to find a top-performing affiliate, though, and that’s not always easy.

You’ll have to create a strong affiliate program, focus on promoting it, and do extensive research to hook those guru affiliates. Use the techniques discussed in this article, and you’ll narrow in on your big fish.

David Morneau

David Morneau is the co-founder and CEO of inBeat, a hybrid micro-influencer marketing SAAS/agency that helps brands scale their marketing efforts. He has helped over 200 DTC brands to date.