There are several reasons a vendor or brand may be reluctant to add an affiliate marketing arm to their marketing plan. Affiliate marketing, and its history, is oftentimes largely misunderstood. Vendors and brands fear that if they open their products and offers up to affiliates, they will lose control of their reputation and messaging. Or, they fear they will attract affiliates who use less than reputable promoting methods. There’s a whole slew of anxieties when it comes to affiliate marketing. Today, we’re going to do our best to dispel some of those worries and envision a path to attract and qualify ClickBank affiliates that want to promote your product.
Attract and Qualify ClickBank Affiliates
Affiliate Tools Page
One of the best ways to attract affiliates is to provide an affiliate tools page. An affiliate tools page is the first impression you can provide affiliates. Top performing affiliates need information to decide if they want to promote a product or not. So the best way to attract that echelon of promoters is to give them what they need.
So, what should you include on your affiliate tools page? These are the elements you’ll need to make your page pop:
1. Commission rate
Commission rate is one of the first impression elements that affiliates pay attention to most. Make sure you have a competitive commission rate but don’t offer something that isn’t sustainable.
2. Funnel maps
Funnel maps help both affiliates and vendors understand the buying process for the end consumer. It provides a great visual representation of your front end offers, upsells, and downsells.
3. Promotional materials
According to Thomas McMahon, senior business development manager at CLickBank, affiliates are lazy in the best way. If you don’t provide them with the best promotional materials, they will move onto another offer to promote.
“Good affiliates are lazy because they’re so busy,” says McMahon. “Affiliates get hit up all the time to promote if they’re good.”
So the best way to get good affiliates? Make their job easier by providing promotional materials on your affiliate tools page. Promotional tools can include marketing assets, emails swipes, and videos.
4. Test Stats
It’s important to show affiliates what is working for your offer. One way to do this is with test stats. To prove your offer is working and it’s worth an affiliate’s time, give them some insight into what you’ve tested and how it did.
Providing an abundance of quality and relevant material will attract the kind of affiliates who know what they need to be excellent affiliates and help deter many who are only looking for a quick buck.
Determine What Kind of Affiliates You Want
Before you start qualifying affiliates or disqualifying affiliates, it’s important to figure out what kind of affiliates will be best for your brand and product. If you are a vendor and have an offer or product that can’t be advertised on Facebook, then it’s safe to assume you may want to look for affiliates who have experience with native ads.
BONUS: Listen to the full Affiliated podcast episode here. Business Development Managers, Kyle Kostechka and Thomas McMahon, dive into how to determine what kind of affiliates are out there and how to get the ones you want.
Set Your ClickBank Vendor Account to “Affiliate Approval”
Affiliate approval is a ClickBank setting that lets vendors control which affiliates can promote your products. When you enable this feature, your commission settings become exclusive. This means that only affiliates who you approve will be able to promote your product and earn commission on any part of the sale.
This is a great feature for vendors, brands, or companies who may be nervous about extending their marketing plan into affiliate marketing territory. To learn more about how to set your ClickBank account to Affiliate Approval, check out this ClickBank Knowledge Base Article.
Create an Application on your Affiliate Tools Page
An application can disqualify affiliates who wouldn’t be a good fit for your product. This could be because they’re lacking in affiliate marketing experience, or it could be because they use traffic sources that aren’t compatible with your product.
What should be on the application to qualify affiliates?
Here are a few items that you can include on the application to qualify affiliates:
The Basics
- ClickBank affiliate nickname
- Contact details (email address, mobile number, etc.)
More In Depth
- Primary traffic source
- Daily sale projections
- Click averages
- Potential volume
How in depth this application goes depends on where you are on the scale spectrum. If you’re eager to get your product or offer promoted across the web, you may need to be more lenient with the affiliates you allow.
However, if you’ve built a brand and have a product that has been successful, it is likely that you will get a lot of affiliates knocking at your door. If that’s the case, you can be as picky as you like.
If you’re not getting the kind of number you want, it may be because you’ve put too much friction in the affiliate process. Turn down that dial and see what comes up.
What to do with the affiliates who apply?
There are a few paths you can take when it comes to qualifying of disqualifying affiliates on the affiliate tools page.
Allow Everybody
One way to grow your affiliate base is to allow everybody who completes the qualification form. A qualification form provides enough friction between the general population of affiliates and those who have a little bit of affiliate marketing knowhow.
Hand Select
If you have a lot of affiliate leads from your form, you may want to sort through them and figure out who is the best of the best.
You need to consider if it is worth your time to allow the affiliates and if they will bring you the kind of traffic you want or if they seem like a liability from the get-go.
If you’ve designed your form correctly, you’ll get what you need from it to determine an affiliate’s eligibility. If you’re not getting the particular affiliates you want, go back and tweak your form or lessen the friction by reducing the amount of questions on the form.
What are you looking for in an affiliate?
If you’re qualifying and vetting affiliates, you probably have your ideal affiliate in mind. There are many types of affiliates and some promote certain offers better than others. If you want to grow your affiliate marketing channel, loosen the reins on your offer. If you’re concerned about your brand select affiliates who use only the traffic sources you approve of and have a clean track record.
Still have questions on how to vet affiliates?
If you’re a ClickBank Platinum and you’ve set your account to “allowed affiliates only” you’ve probably been collecting contacts from your affiliate tools page. Your account manager can help you vet this list and figure out the ones that are best for you.
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