Getting paid to sign up for an affiliate program

Whatcha think - has anyone tried this?

[rehabguy]

This is similar to the thread "Why won't anyone sign up with my program", but with a different twist.

I have a home grown affiliate program that pays well (5-7% on $110 average ticket) with a 1 year cookie that I am about to launch.

I want to reach out and encourage several specific on-topic web sites to join, and go from 0 to 100 affiliates as quickly as possible.

If I offer $25 to join my program (invitation only) and give away $100/month to a random affiliate, do you think I can sign up affiliates quickly?

They would be required to participate for a minimum of 1 year of course, and link from specific places (I'm flexible though).

I don't like to mess around and beg - I'd rather pay out.

Is this too little of an incentive, or a good idea?

Has anybody ever tried this and failed or succeeded?

[eljefe3]

Just off the top of my head I'd say that $25 is way too low to attract good affiliates unless there is no affiliate program in your industry and this would just be extra income for these related sites by using your program.

[jomaxx]

$25 is not even one hour's consulting time. Don't you think it will take a new affiliate more then an hour of their time to investigate and sign up and add the links?

Offering the money is OK if you think it will lower the resistance level, but turning around and expecting them to stay in your program for at least 1 year is a total deal-breaker. It's only $25.

[ska_demon]

Maybe performance based incentives would be better. I know I go for the progs that have things like '£500 bonus for this months top performing affiliate' or similar.

If you are offering 5 - 7% on an average $110 ticket an aff has to make a lot of sales to make it worthwhile so bonuses could keep them interested. It works for me.

Ska

[rehabguy]

Cool. Good responses - thanks for taking the time to give me your opinions!

Regarding this quote:

Maybe performance based incentives would be better. I know I go for the progs that have things like '£500 bonus for this months top performing affiliate' or similar.

What if I gave away a $200/month bonus to a random affiliate?

Also, I'll be glad to sticky a url to my affiliate page if you want to critique it directly...

[hunderdown]

Why a bonus to a random affiliate? That just provides an incentive for people to sign up and do the specified minimum necessary to belong to your program.

One effective affiliate could easily out-perform 100 random affiliates. You want to encourage people to really push your program, don't you?

[rehabguy]

Yeah, I guess you're right about this:

Why a bonus to a random affiliate? That just provides an incentive for people to sign up and do the specified minimum necessary to belong to your program.

However, my plan is not to allow random affiliate registrations, but seek out and do an INVITATION ONLY affiliate program for web sites in my category.

These folks are most likely to have never joined an affiliate program before. I just want extra incentives to get them to try.

Is it allowable on WebmasterWorld to cut / paste the marketing text I've come up with? (Without my url, biz name, etc)