Recruiting affiliates can be a challenging task for any Affiliate Manager. Affiliate Managers who want to expand their affiliate base need to evaluate their strategy for recruiting potential affiliates. The Internet is a massive dominion and it is difficult for Affiliate Managers to locate and target potential affiliates. Super Affiliate lists are sold by consultants to Affiliate Managers and the only real way to act on that data is to directly contact these people via phone or snail mail discussing the selling points of their program. Locating other potential affiliates can be done through diligent research of other affiliate programs, affiliate forums and by networking in the affiliate realm.

Locating the affiliates you want to target is the easy part of the recruitment process. Now that you know who you want to talk to, how do you reach out and make a strong first impression on potential affiliates? To this day one of the most popular techniques is sending out mass emails explaining to affiliates their product, superb commission rates and how easy it is to climb their tier system. People receive so many of these offers, especially Super Affiliates, that conversion rates for signing up new affiliates through an email campaign will be very low. You also run the chance of being thought of as spam and the more people that report you as spam it could have an effect on your website and your program. There are two techniques that are used that are more successful than emailing offers. The active approach is to personally call or mail affiliates and attempt to sell your program’s benefits directly. The passive strategy is using the benefits of your affiliate program page to sell people on your ideas and your affiliate program.

Affiliate Manager’s have a limited number of tools for recruiting potential affiliates. One of the strongest tools that is available to Affiliate Managers is their “Affiliate’s Page”. This webpage should be informative, concise and well-written explaining facts and benefits of your company’s program. How are Affiliate Managers to draw people to this sales page? Pay per Click (PPC) advertising is an under-utilized tool for recruiting and attracting new affiliates. PPC is an intelligent strategy if you choose strong keywords with weak-moderate advertising competition. PPC requires keyword research to determine which words and phrases have the most popularity in search engines. Combine keyword research with the lowest bid price and highest advertising position that bid will buy you, and an Affiliate Manager will have a strong advertising weapon to draw affiliates to their program page. Attracting potential affiliates to your program page means nothing if there is weak content, no sales pitch or no thin program details. A well-developed affiliate information page is a must for any affiliate program.

Keeping costs down with PPC advertising is important requirement for most Affiliate Managers, but with proper research PPC keywords can be bid on at a low price with a high advertising position. Here is an example of some keywords with attractive bid prices and advertising placement:

Affiliate Sales and Marketing: $.05 bid . . . 1-3 position

Best Affiliate Marketing Program: $.05 bid . . . 1-3 position

Affiliate Marketing Companies: $.05 bid . . . 1-3 position

These keywords all have moderate traffic, and with an attractive bid price and advertising placement should drive people to your program page. Affiliate Managers would be wise to use all the tools they have in their arsenal to recruit new affiliates. PPC advertising is cost-effective, visible and targeted and is an efficient strategy for attracting new affiliates to your program.