How and where to find good affiliates?

[competetowin]

A bit of a newbie questions... I just created an affiliate program for my 8 year old business. It has the highest payout in my industry, which I hope will be enough to satisfy seasoned affiliates. Now I just need the actual affiliates to promote it.

Where do I find experienced and ethical affiliate marketers to work with, and what are some warning signs of bad affiliates?

 

[Graybeard]

Where do I find reputable affiliate programs? LMAO --sword cuts both ways my friend.

Are you going (or are willing to) open your books to me to prove you are not shaving or practicing some form of customer slippage? <<<that's a no starter ...
Do you have references and proof of performance?
Are you known in your industry?

Money in the bank, real estate fixed assets, number of years in business, court records in the business' or affiliate's name. the usual ....

Let's just assume we are all honest until proven otherwise ...
As an affiliate, if someone asks me to *prove myself to them* I usually tell them to fuck off ...
Why should I work for free and invest my money in advertising for your product? <<< is my normal response.

 

[competetowin]

@Graybeard That's fair. But, I"m sure my issue of trust, isn't new. As you just confirmed, since it's a concern on both sides. Surely there are some things that you as an affiliate would want to see, and I in turn would want to look for in my affiliates.

My case: I have a small graphic design business that's been serving other designers and digital marketers that subcontract their graphics work out to me. Recently one of my bigger clients retired, and from others I saw a drop in orders due to covid I guess. So, to offset that, I finally moved forward with my affiliate thing. Besides being generous with my revenue split, I don't really know where/how to attract affiliate marketers that have reach with small business owners, nor what they would want from me besides maybe some selling resources (banners and such).

I've been lucky to have work for the same people for the last few years, and some random word-of-mouth referrers here and there, so I've done no advertising, no meaningful conversion numbers, no real footprint. I'm a subcontractor looking to go b2c again. How do you think I should tackle this?

 

[thelegend]

well do you list your product in affiliate networks ? Like clickbank ,jvzoo etc .You can also pay for banners with ad on forums because there you will find a lot of affiliates

 

[competetowin]

@Graybeard I think you overestimate me good sir. I'm just a guy with a design team doing work for other small businesses. I'm not at a level (I don't think) of buying data and going after corporate clients... I guess in addition to this affiliate thing, I will once again put effort into b2b. That always brings me new customers, but the legwork is a pain. Thanks for the tips!

 

[Graybeard]

I would not invest my time (as an 'affiliate') --I have few connections that would need your business services TBH
What you do is B2B
You need to work the shows and events when this pandemic is over (if ever) and life gets back to normal ...
Meantime;
Business forums
Check out Owler and Purchase Intent Data for Enterprise Tech Sales and Marketing - TechTarget
If you are interested in working leads Or, hire an experienced sales rep and pay him a salary if you are large enough of an operation.

 

[Honeybadger]

What you doing for promotion?
It's true yu get what you give

1. Did you have affiliate signup page on your website?
2. Is your affiliate network profile complete?
3. Are you engaging people on social? (insta, twitter, linkedin, facebook)
4. How many people you contacted this week? (phone, email, in person)
5. Did you make video on youtube?
6. Did you design banners in all sizes for affiliates?
7. What are your offers for Q4? (Hallowee, black friday, cyber monday, xmas, new years)
8. Do you send weekly affiliate newsletter?
9. Do you send out promo codes?
10. Have you paid for ads?
11. Are you in snapchat group for designers?

If you are good graphic designer most of this is easy

 

[competetowin]

Some really nice ideas, and plenty I didn't think about.
This does sound very much like sales, and sales is the thing I wanted to avoid doing by creating this affiliate program in the first place.
Is there not a service that matches affiliate programs with affiliates? How companies are matched with influencers? Surely there must be something like that...?

 

[Graybeard]

No pain --no gain
try this businessofapps.com
maybe you can dig up some start-ups?

 

[competetowin]

I think you are in a VERY narrow niche.
What size job are you looking for $50.00 or $5,000.00+
What is your minimum? $500.00?

Maybe, but I don't think so. My most popular package (90%+ of sales popular) is a $195 logo design service (now with a $97 commission). My public clients have been dog trainers, educators, realtors, personal brands, electricians, and anyway, the list can go on. My private work for resellers (and they have their own rates) has been similarly all over the map. Also a lot of work for veterans for their businesses.

I think it's a matter of finding affiliates with groups/following within some niches that I need. Business coaches, web hosting providers, theme developers, etc. Someone that's in contact with anyone launching a business or a product (anyone selling products on amazon needs packaging designed).

 

[Guy Tal]

Hi @competetowin
Your post is one of the leading reasons why we created the search and recruitment tool of www.findaff.com.
The main obstacle of any affiliate manager is finding affiliates.
Along with spending time on social networks / search engine looking for suitable partners while wasting a lot of time, we save this time - around 70%!
With findaff.com you can save the wasted time looking for partners and invest it in personal attention with each new potential partner.

 

[Jonathon Walker]

A bit of a newbie questions... I just created an affiliate program for my 8 year old business. It has the highest payout in my industry, which I hope will be enough to satisfy seasoned affiliates. Now I just need the actual affiliates to promote it.

Where do I find experienced and ethical affiliate marketers to work with, and what are some warning signs of bad affiliates?

I am in search of the exact same answer. As a company, i have found it hard to find publishers.

 

[Graybeard]

I think you are in a VERY narrow niche.
What size job are you looking for $50.00 or $5,000.00+
What is your minimum? $500.00?

 

[Guy Tal]

@Jonathon Walker Findaff.com will help you to find affiliates.
When you run search you get lots of information in order to engage with relevant partners.

 

[Jonathon Walker]

I'll look into the site now.

 

[Graybeard]

I think it's a matter of finding affiliates with groups/following within some niches that I need. Business coaches, web hosting providers, theme developers, etc. Someone that's in contact with anyone launching a business or a product (anyone selling products on amazon needs packaging designed).

I get a lot of email from people doing the same thing -- logo design --I have many domains
You may want to look into email resources and affiliates doing legal email newsletters; like MMO for example.

 

[Lead Network]

A bit of a newbie questions... I just created an affiliate program for my 8 year old business. It has the highest payout in my industry, which I hope will be enough to satisfy seasoned affiliates. Now I just need the actual affiliates to promote it.

Where do I find experienced and ethical affiliate marketers to work with, and what are some warning signs of bad affiliates?

Simple answer for you.. Try to find affiliates in LinkedIn, create a list of questions about their experience, their plans of promotion and so on

 

[dandelion13]

I'm wondering why has no one mentioned trying to find leads here? you simply need to add your program as a resource and then try to market it in the proper forum thread.

 

[itsdev_io]

Hi, thank you all for very useful answers, it helps a lot!

 

[Graybeard]

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