Affiliate Recruitment - How to go about

[lrbikes]

Wanted some advice on affiliate recruitment. I am trying following methods:

-Posting in affiliate directories/forums
-Running and inhouse affililate program + trying to set-up campaigns across many affiliate networks
-manually contacting top ranking domains for the products

Please advice:
-Should we stop the in-house program and set it up with Linkshare/CJ or any other vendor.
-Is there an affiliate recruitment softare availble.
-Waht other effective methods can be utilized

Thanks

[edited by: eljefe3 at 2:26 am (utc) on Aug. 30, 2006]

[markwelch]

It sounds like you are starting things right, but you need to recognize that launching a new affiliate program is a lot more difficult today than it was in "the early days." (When I operated an affiliate web site in 1997-1999, affiliate managers would tell me that within a day after I listed a new program, they'd receive hundreds of affiliate applications, and they'd see significant new sales in a few weeks. That world has changed.)

I don't know how appropriate it is to launch multiple programs at the same time across several networks as these may simply fill up your time with lots of poor-quality affiliates.

There is really only one effective strategy for effectively recruiting "quality" affiliates, and you mentioned it: "manually contacting top ranking domains for the products."

Many folks will swear that they get fantastic results from paying $50 to post a new-program announcement at one of the other webmaster/affiliate message forums (and I'm planning to do that this week myself).

Now, your questions:
(1) "Should we stop the in-house program and set it up with Linkshare/CJ or any other vendor."

You should absolutely NOT farm our your affiliate recruitment to either CJ or LinkShare. You'll spend more money to generate more garbage affiliates. Yes, most of the major "super-affiliates" do work with some merchants through CJ, and a few work through LinkShare, but I've NEVER heard credible praise about either company's affiliate recruitment or management services.

You might consider hiring one of the independent agencies that provide affiliate management and recruiting services, but be very clear in defining the expectations and duties.

(2) "Is there an affiliate recruitment softare availble."

I'm not aware of any tool that works appropriately, but perhaps others have some good news for you. Affiliate recruiting is a process that requires human thinking: identifying prospective affiliate sites, reviewing sites to find the RIGHT contact information, and contacthing those prospects without spamming.

Perhaps there are some tools to manage the process, but not to short-cut the key thinking or decision-making tasks.

I've been doing this for a decade now, and really the process hasn't changed significantly in that time. You'll certainly find a lot of useful information here and on one of the other webmaster/affiliate message forums, but there really aren't any shortcuts.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 2:25 am (utc) on Aug. 30, 2006]