Starting an Affiliate Program: 7 Things You Need to Know (Updated)
Do you want to know more about starting an affiliate program? This article will show you everything you need to know before starting an affiliate program.
If you are a WordPress blogger who likes to make money online, probably you know about affiliate programs. By promoting a service tool through a unique affiliate link, that link owner can get a commission (when the lead purchases the product).
On the other hand, if you represent a brand and need to increase its reach/viewability, you should start your affiliate program and recruit affiliates.
Here, we will show you what you need to know before starting an affiliate program.
Why and When Do You Need an Affiliate Program
Once you’ve launched a product, you must spend time marketing it. Usually, businesses will use the power of social media, Google Ads, and email newsletters to promote a specific product.
But when it comes to an end, these methods can be limited.
You must start an affiliate program and develop promotion tactics to reach more audiences.
If your product is good, more people will tend to promote it. Instead of linking to the website directly, they prefer joining the affiliate program and promoting the affiliate links. So when a visitor makes a purchase, the website admin will get a commission.
You must start an affiliate program to take your marketing strategy to the next level. People will write dedicated product reviews, list the product in listicles, etc.
The best part is you do not need to spend a single penny on affiliates till they make a sale. Then, when they generate a sale, you can credit the commission to their affiliate account. And, of course, you will have total control over the affiliate commission.
Starting an Affiliate Program: What to Check?
Before launching your affiliate program, you have to do some research. This section will show you some tips you need to know before launching the affiliate program.
1) Get Targeted Affiliates
When you recruit new affiliates, be selective instead of approving every application. Unfortunately, a ton of affiliate program managers are making this mistake. If you enable the auto-approval system in the affiliate program, non-targeted spam applications will be automatically added to your affiliate list.
That’s not good.
Now, let’s see who is targeting affiliates.
Let’s say that you are running a WordPress plugin business. And you have launched an affiliate program and enabled the auto-approval option. Everyone can join your affiliate program through the signup page.
When someone with a fashion blog joins your affiliate program, you have a brand new affiliate partner. But you can’t expect any conversion from him. WordPress niche and fashion niche aren’t even near.
So, accepting someone with a fashion blog as an affiliate won’t be a good option.
You can disable the auto-approval system, review each affiliate application, and filter the potential ones. Of course, it might take some time to filter the best affiliate partners, but this is quite helpful instead of having non-targeted ones.
So, get targeted visitors.
2) Design Creatives
Before launching your affiliate program to the public, you must design some creatives. For example, you can create custom banners using software like Adobe Illustrator. On the other hand, if you are not good enough with design stuff, you can get a graphics designer from any freelancing website like Fiverr.
You need to create banners in different dimensions. Once you are done with it, you are good to go.
Some people would love to promote the affiliate links through banners. For example, banners are preferred to add an affiliate link to any widget area rather than text links.
So, keep that in mind.
3) Decide Commission Structure
You have to decide on the affiliate commission structure before launching it. You can do a percentage-based commission or a flat commission for each sale. You can configure it from the affiliate plugin’s settings.
You can pick one structure according to your preference.
For example, you selected the percentage-based commission and configured 20% as the affiliate commission.
And the price of your product is $100.
When your affiliates make a sale through their unique affiliate link, you will be paying 20% of the total amount. In this case, the affiliate commission would be $20/conversion.
On the other hand, if you choose the flat commission model, you will be depositing a specific amount to the affiliate’s wallet when they make a sale.
4) Invest in Marketing
Once you’ve launched an affiliate program, you’ve to promote it. That’s how you can get affiliate partners. Regarding marketing, you can use social media and newsletters to promote your affiliate program.
You can tell them about your new affiliate program if you’ve already got clients and encourage them to become affiliates. You can also write a dedicated blog post mentioning your affiliate program, commission structure, and why joining is good.
Add the article as a press release, and you are ready.
5) Choose Payment Gateway
How are you going to pay the affiliates?
PayPal and Payoneer are the two best options for processing affiliate payments. However, before starting the affiliate program launch, you must choose the payment method. Each platform comes with a different fee structure and features.
So before choosing a payment gateway, look at the features.
6) Configure Commission Lock Period
Most online tools come with a money-back guarantee. So, you have to mention a commission lock-in period accordingly.
For example, if you have a 14-day money-back guarantee, you can have 15 days commission lock-in period.
This will help your business prevent loss.
7) Choose a Minimum Payment Threshold
Finally, you have to choose the minimum payment threshold.
If you use PayPal to complete affiliate payments, you know that PayPal got fees for processing payments. So, sending the affiliate payment every week is not preferred. Instead, you can mention a minimum affiliate payment threshold.
Most people will use $50 as the minimum threshold.
You can configure the minimum threshold from the settings page of your affiliate plugin.
Requirements to Start an Affiliate Program
If you are ready to start your affiliate program for the first time, let’s see the tool you must use.
You can start an affiliate program with a dedicated WordPress affiliate plugin or a dedicated service like ShareASale, Impact, or CJ.
But check out Solid Affiliate if you need to manage everything from the WordPress dashboard and need a simple solution.
Solid Affiliate
Solid Affiliate is one of the best affiliate plugins for WordPress. It comes with so many unique features and integrations a typical affiliate marketing manager needs. This section will show you what Solid Affiliate offers and why it is the best in the market.
In a quick summary, the features available inside the plugin are:
- PayPal integration
- Mailchimp integration
- Easy customization
- Refund protection
- Shortcode ready
- Affiliate cookie life
- Manual approval
- Customizable emails
- Automated payout
- Real-time tracking
Now, let’s take a deep look at the features.
1) Shortcode Ready
Once you have modified the affiliate program, you must embed it inside the pages. For example, you can use shortcodes to embed the login page and affiliate registration page.
Using shortcodes in WordPress pages is simple. You can perform copy-paste, and you are good to go. For example, when using the Gutenberg editor, use the shortcode block, paste the shortcode, and update the page.
2) Easy Setup
Setting up an affiliate program with the Solid Affiliate plugin would be a cakewalk. However, you do not need to edit theme files or anything to customize the affiliate program.
The plugin comes with a dedicated panel for modifying the program.
3) Refund Protection
Setting up a refund period in the Solid Affiliate plugin can be very handy.
If you haven’t used this feature, every affiliate payment credited to your partner’s account will be paid automatically on a specific date. If your client just canceled the subscription and asked for a refund, the affiliate payment paid can be untrustworthy.
That’s why we (almost everyone) recommend using the refund protection option.
You can set up a grace period from the plugin’s settings and update the settings. Now, you are good to go.
4) Affiliate Cookie Duration
Setting up a cookie duration period from the plugin’s settings is simple.
This is the duration an affiliate will get a commission after the visitor clicks on his link. So, for example, let’s say that we have configured the cookie duration as 30 days.
When your affiliate partner promotes the link, he gets 30 days to the commission after someone clicks on it.
5) Real-time Tracking
To track the affiliate’s performance, you can use the real-time feature.
Your affiliates will love to get real-time tracking. This way, they do not need to wait a day or so to view the stats.
6) Customizable Emails
You can inform your affiliate partners when they make a sale through email. These emails are 100% customizable. If you need to add unique content regarding the promotion, that’s possible.
And note that editing the email template will reflect site-wide. So, the updated new sale email will be sent to every partner when they convert.
Alright. Now you know what the plugin can do for affiliate marketers and managers. Next, let’s see the plugin’s pricing.
Solid Affiliate Pricing
Using our link, you can get a lifetime license for an affordable price.
This is a limited-time offer, and you must get it soon.
How to Make Affiliates Happy?
Having energetic and loyal affiliate partners can be helpful. Check out this section if you need to make your affiliates happy and stick with you forever. In addition, we will show you some bonus tips to run your affiliate campaigns more efficiently.
Come Up With Custom Coupon Codes
Promoting coupon codes are a good marketing strategy.
When someone needs to purchase a product online, they will probably look for coupon codes/discount codes. So, prompting coupon codes can get affiliates a commission boost and conversion increase.
If you can give them custom coupon codes for promotion, they will happily promote it. For example, you can generate a completely new coupon code instead of providing a default coupon code that matches the affiliates’ website name.
This will boost the affiliate’s performance and trust.
Increase Commission Rates
Offering a higher commission rate can help you get more affiliates. Also, it will keep the old affiliates engaged, and they will never leave you behind.
You can mention a flat commission or a commission percentage.
Both work well. There are so many affiliate programs using flat commissions and percentage-based commissions.
A higher commission rate will get you more conversion rates. On top of that, you can also increase the commission rates of your top-performing affiliates.
Come Up with Bonuses
You have to spread the word when you release a new feature or add-on.
That’s why bonuses can be an excellent option to promote. You can email your top-performing affiliates and tell them about the new feature, what it does, and how it will help the audience. On top of that, you can offer some affiliate funds for the promotion.
You can deposit the money in the affiliate account or through any payment processing gateway like PayPal. You can send this offer to your top-performing affiliates or entire partners. That’s totally up to your budget.
This won’t be a good choice when the budget is your primary concern.
Prepare Promotional Posts for Them
For your top-performing affiliates, you can create dedicated content that will promote your brand in a standard manner. On the other hand, giving your own content to your affiliates might be an excellent option to go deep and promote it.
The top-performing affiliates will be already generating many visitors to their promotional articles. So, once you have created a dedicated piece, give it to them and engage with the affiliates.
Conclusion
Starting an affiliate program will help you get more sales and conversions. Today, many tools and networks are available to host an affiliate program. For example, you can start an affiliate program using the Solid Affiliates plugin with minimal effort.
They have got multiple features and integration with WooCommerce. So, tracking the results would be simple as that.
We hope you have found this article helpful and enjoyed the read. Please consider sharing this post with your friends and fellow bloggers on social media if you do. You can also check out our blog archive for more articles.
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Dev Patel says
Thanks for letting me know this valuable thing before I could start my affiliate program it would be of great help.
BlogHeist says
Hey Dev!
Thanks a lot for appreciating our efforts.
Should you’ve any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch:
https://blogheist.com/contact-us/